connoisseurs, or to determine its value.

There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute
value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility,
that notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to
the idea, yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the
product of mere high-flown fancy, and that we may have misunderstood
the purpose of nature in assigning reason as the governor of our will.
Therefore we will examine this idea from this point of view.

In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being
adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a
fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found
but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now in
a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of nature
were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness, then
nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the
reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the
actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose,
and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed
to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained thereby
much more certainly than it ever can be by reason. Should reason
have been communicated to this favoured creature over and above, it
must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of
its nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to
feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should
subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance and meddle
bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a word, nature would have
taken care that reason should not break forth into practical exercise,
nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for