that they prove too much.  Shall we say that animals are more rational than we?  Their instinct has undoubtedly more certainty than our conjectures.  They have learnt neither logic nor geometry, neither have they any course or method of improvement, or any science.  Whatever they do is done of a sudden without study, preparation, or deliberation.  We commit blunders and mistakes every hour of the day after we have a long while argued and consulted together; whereas animals, without any reasoning or premeditation, perform every hour what seems to require most discernment, choice, and exactness.  Their instinct is in many things infallible; but that word instinct is but a fair name void of sense.  For what can an instinct more just, exact, precise, and certain than reason itself mean but a more perfect reason?  We must therefore suppose a wonderful reason and understanding either in the work or in the artificer; either in the machine or in him that made it.  When, for instance, I find that a watch shows the hours with such exactness as surpasses my knowledge, I presently conclude that if the watch itself does not reason, it must have been made by an artificer who, in that particular, reasoned better and had more skill than myself.  In like manner, when I see animals, who every moment perform actions that argue a more certain art and industry than I am master of, I immediately conclude that such marvellous art must necessarily be either in the machine or in the artificer that framed it.  Is it in the animal himself?  But how is it possible he should be so wise and so infallible in some things?  And if this art is not in him, it must of necessity be in the Supreme Artificer that made that piece of work, just as all the art of a watch is in the skill of the watchmaker.

Sect.  XXVII.  Though Beasts commit some Mistakes, yet their Instinct is, in many cases, Infallible.

Do not object to me that the instinct of beasts is in some things defective, and liable to error.  It is no wonder beasts are not infallible in everything, but it is rather a wonder they are so in many cases.  If they were infallible in everything, they should be endowed with a reason infinitely perfect; in short, they should be deities.  In the works of an infinite Power there can be but a finite perfection, otherwise God should make creatures like or equal to Himself, which is impossible.  He therefore cannot place perfection, nor consequently reason, in his works, without some bounds and restrictions.  But those bounds do not prove that the work is void of order or reason.  Because I mistake sometimes, it does not follow that I have no reason at all, and that I do everything by mere chance, but only that my reason is stinted and imperfect.  In like manner, because a beast is not by his instinct infallible in everything, though he be so in many, it does not follow that there is no manner of reason in that machine, but only that such a machine has not a boundless reason.  But, after all, it is a constant truth that in the operations of that machine there is a regular conduct, a marvellous art, and a skill which in many cases amounts to infallibility.  Now, to whom shall we ascribe this infallible skill?  To the work, or its Artificer?