A change in
bulk, situation, arrangement, age, disposition of the air, or
surrounding bodies; any of these particulars may be attended with
the most unexpected consequences: And unless the objects be quite
familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect with
assurance, after any of these changes, an event similar to that
which before fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate
steps of philosophers here, if any where, are distinguished from
the precipitate march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the
smallest similitude, are incapable of all discernment or
consideration.
But can you think, C/LEANTHES\, that your usual phlegm and
philosophy have been preserved in so wide a step as you have
taken, when you compared to the universe houses, ships,
furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in some
circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought,
design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other
animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the
universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a
hundred others, which fall under daily observation. It is an
active cause, by which some particular parts of nature, we find,
produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with
any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not
the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From
observing the growth of a hair, can we learn any thing concerning
the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing,
even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning
the vegetation of a tree?
But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one
part of nature upon another, for the foundation of our judgement
concerning the origin of the whole, (which never can be
admitted,) yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a
principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be
upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little
agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus
make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our
own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound
philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an
illusion.
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