truth of all these wonderful instances of rationality; for all
nature is full of such prodigies. But what must we infer from them?
In good earnest, if we carefully examine the matter, we shall find
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