So far from admitting, continued P/HILO\, that the
operations of a part can afford us any just conclusion concerning
the origin of the whole, I will not allow any one part to form a
rule for another part, if the latter be very remote from the
former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude, that the
inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence,
reason, or any thing similar to these faculties in men? When
nature has so extremely diversified her manner of operation in
this small globe, can we imagine that she incessantly copies
herself throughout so immense a universe? And if thought, as we
may well suppose, be confined merely to this narrow corner, and
has even there so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety
can we assign it for the original cause of all things? The narrow
views of a peasant, who makes his domestic economy the rule for
the government of kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable
sophism.
But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason,
resembling the human, were to be found throughout the whole
universe, and were its activity elsewhere vastly greater and more
commanding than it appears in this globe; yet I cannot see, why
the operations of a world constituted, arranged, adjusted, can
with any propriety be extended to a world which is in its embryo
state, and is advancing towards that constitution and
arrangement. By observation, we know somewhat of the economy,
action, and nourishment of a finished animal; but we must
transfer with great caution that observation to the growth of a
foetus in the womb, and still more to the formation of an
animalcule in the loins of its male parent.
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