The Elephant, we grant, is wife;* To know his own fpecies? to talk, In Church, what notions his of schifm; In reasoning, of fyllogifm? the effects are fuch; but while it is granted that the animals possess neither of the three necessary Conflituents of Reason, it must follow, that they cannot have produced their effects, from a principle they have not; but confequently from fome other, and which is called Inftinct; a thing (it is seen) void of all choice, confcioufness, or reflection. Can any one, I fay, refift the force of this fact? Will any one fay after it, that the Birds wonderfully-contrived nefts, the republic of the Bees, and all the rest of the animal-wonders, (wonders themselves know nothing of, and yet perform all alike) proceed from a principle of reafon? It were an affront to any understanding one attributed it to. On the other hand, how far this famous Reason is a principle that actuates man, is another question, and one that cannot be entered upon here, though it will more or lefs be; (nay, in truth, already has, and not a little, by implication at least) confidered hereafter; one only obfervation I will fling out for the reflection of my really confiderate reader ere I conclude: it is, and I mean this as regarding man, not the animals, that the acting with reason, and from reafon, are two diftinct, nay, widely different things, though often confounded. 670 How too does Countenance difplay Which can, as if wrote down, declare Enough; the link quite broke is found, And the chain rattles to the ground: But grant it here, as we are told; How would the other textures hold? "Twixt Lynx* and Mole that scarcely fees; On all fenforiums much alike? You mark th' amazing Southern's smell, And the deficient Lion's yell; 680 * The Lynx's Eye has fomehow got the reputation of the keenest of eyes, as the jaundiced-eye has the imputed disgrace of tinging all its objects with its own unnatural yellow hue; yet the fact is, I think, contrary in both.-This, methinks, is rather remarkable. But But not to fmells* we may rely on, That middle natures never pass Through the mix'd breed of horse and ass; That th' Otter, by divine command, Will water never quit or land; You fay most true: but does this In this our philosophic plan; But angels, in whatever clime, Not much are known-fince Jacob's time: 690 * The want of adjoining link from the sense of smelling in the Southern Hound, and man, or I believe of any other animal, must be great indeed. + POPE's lines are these: с "Vast chain of being! which from GOD began; "Natures æthereal, human, angel, man, "Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee, "No glass can reach; from Infinite to Thee, "From Thee to nothing." H Yet Yet it should seem (if aught can seem, That still some links, Bard, on your plan, Enough, enough:-yet, ftill more strange! Our world, in its aërial range, Leans to, touches, fome other fphere,* (Let the Bard tell us how or where,) * POPE's own account is thus, which let him fix an idca to, who can. "So man who here feems principal alone, 700 What idea POPE had in his head concerning a wheel or goal, it is impoffible for me, or surely any common man, to form a conception of. No common man furely has any notion of connection, ftill lefs of degrees of excellence, in any other sphere or world over ours, or any thing farther of any than their known gravitation in the planetary system, and that the visible planets mutually hold to each other, comets included; I say visible, fince, however little thought of, there may, for aught we know, be numbers of invisible ones; nay, and has not one been lately discovered? They all seem manifeftly to depend on the Sun, and (here we unvifionally may apply to analogy) designed for habitation the fame as the one we know, is;--and is not that every thing that any body (I was going to fay in his fenfes) can fay or think about them all? Sure WARBURTON felt fome damp on his mind in quibbling out his illustration here. + A ftrange word for philofophy and system! Still in his lov'd connection's road, Yes, from the Mite, e'en up to GOD;* * Mark too, inclusively. One circumftance concerning this chain, as I was thinking about it the other day, nay, indeed two, ftruck my imagination, as quite curious or comical, nay, laughable; at least they set me a laughing heartily, though by myself, and I will e'en fet them down, and close my thoughts about this chain with them; and, I trust, for ever:One is this, that fince metaphors are to bear fome analogy and fimilitude to the things they mean to represent, so this of the universal chain is given as an extension of things regularly united one to the other, even as we see a chain to be,-and so far the fimilitude holds. But a chain is formed of links, all exactly similar in strength and size, and indeed could not be formed by things of different sizes, forts, and natures. In that light, what kind of a chain is this with an angel, a man, and what you please befide, down to the mite, or from him to nothingness at one end, and what upwards, do you, reader, say for yourself, fince I cannot. Now this must be a queer fort of chain to the eye, furely, and except in prolongation, like any thing else as much as a chain: the mite one link, the elephant another; in fhort, how does it look to your eye? very wabling, as it hangs, at leaft I dare fay. The metaphor, Plato himself must allow, does not run entirely on all four: but here is my fecond thought, as to these philofophers' plans and fyftem. There is, we are given to understand, a gradation downwards, from GOD himself inclufively, (nay, the blafphemy is not mine!) even to the earthly worm, the mite, the beings "that no glass can reach," and fo on (if it ends not there) to nothingness. At this rate, then, we have the honour of ending the magnificent chain: in proceffions it is the dignatorial being that ends it; it is the poft of honour; but no, nor Plato, nor Pope, nor any of their friends, arrogate any such superiority for themselves and their habitation: no, as in station, fo in honour or dignity, they rank laft of all; their mite and their nothingnefs is to close the scene, and form the finish of creation. But what then becomes of our C fellow |