But though animals learn many parts of their knowlege from obfervation, there are alfo many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they poffefs on ordinary occafions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate INSTINCTS, and are fo apt to admire, as fomething very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the difquifitions of human understanding. may very much furpass another in attention and memory and observation, this will make a very great difference in their reasoning.

2. Where there is a complication of caufes to produce any effect, one mind may be much larger than another, and better able to comprehend the whole fyftem of objects, and to infer justly their confequences.

3. One man is able to carry on a chain of consequences to a greater length than another.

4. Few men can think long without running into a confufion of ideas, and mistaking one for another; and there are various degrees of this infirmity.

5. The circumftance, on which the effect depends, is frequently involved in other circumftances, which are foreign and extrinfic. The feparation of it often requires. great attention, accuracy, and fubtilty.

6. The forming general maxims from particular obfervation is a very nice operation; and nothing is more usual, from haste or a narrowness of mind, which fees not on all fides, than to commit mistakes in this particular.

7.

When we reafon from analogies, the man, who has the greater experience or the greater promptitude of fuggefting analogies, will be the better reafoner.

8. Byaffes from prejudice, education, paffion, party, &. hang more upon one mind than another.

After we have acquired a confidence in human teftimony, books and converfation enlarge much more the fphere of one man's experience and thought than those of another.

It would be easy to discover many other circumftances that make a difference in the understandings of men.

8

But

But our wonder will, perhaps, ceafe or diminish; when we confider, that the experimental reasoning itself, which we poffefs in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a fpecies of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves; and in its chief operations, is not directed by any fuch relations or comparisons of ideas, as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire; as much as that, which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery.

SECTION X.

OF MIRACLE S.

T

PART I.

HERE is in Dr. TILLOTSON's writings an argument against the real prefence, which is as concise, and elegant, and strong as any argument can poffibly be supposed against a doctrine, that is fo little worthy of a serious refutation. "Tis acknowleged on all hands, fays that learned prelate, that the authority, either of the fcripture or of tradition, is founded merely in the testimony of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our Saviour, by which he proved his divine miffion. Our evidence, then, for the truth of the Chriftian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses; because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and 'tis evident it must diminish in paffing from them to their difciples; nor can any one be fo certain of the truth of their teftimony, as of the immediate object of his fenfes. But a weaker evidence can never deftroy a ftronger; and therefore, were the doctrine of a real presence ever so clearly revealed in fcripture, it were directly contrary to the rules of juft reafoning to give our affent to it. It contradicts fense, though both the scripture and tradition, on which it is supposed to be built,

carry not fuch evidence with them as fenfe; when they are confidered merely as external evidences, and are not brought home to every one's breast, by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit.

Nothing is fo convenient as a decisive argument of this kind, which must at least filence the most arrogant bigotry and fuperftition, and free us from their impertinent folicitations. I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument of a like nature, which, if juft, will, with the wife and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of fuperftitious delufion, and confequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. For fo long, I prefume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all history, facred and profane.

Though experience be our only guide in reafoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowleged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in fome cafes is apt to lead us into errors and mistakes. One, who, in our climate, should expect better weather in any week of JUNE than in one of DECEMBER, would reafon justly, and conformably to experience; but 'tis certain, that he may happen, in the event, to find himself mistaken. However, we may observe, that, in fuch a cafe, he would have no caufe to complain of experience; because it commonly informs us beforehand of the uncertainty, by that contrariety of events, which we may learn from a diligent observation. All effects follow not with like certainty, from their fuppofed causes. Some events are found, in all countries and all ages, to have been conftantly conjoined together: Others are found to have been more variable, and fometimes to difappoint our expectations; so that

in

in our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of affurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence.

A wife man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. In fuch conclufions as are founded on an infallible experience, he expects the event with the last degree of affurance, and regards his paft experience as a full proof of the future exiftence of that event. In other cafes, he proceeds with more caution: He weighs the oppofite experiments: He confiders which fide is fupported by the greatest number of experiments: To that fide he inclines, with doubt and hesitation; and when at laft he fixes his judgment, the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability. All probability, then, fuppofes an oppofition of experiments and obfervations; where the one fide is found to over-balance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence, proportioned to the fuperiority. An hundred instances or experiments on one fide, and fifty on another, afford a very doubtful expectation of any event; though an hundred uniform experiments, with only one that is contradictory, reasonably beget a pretty strong degree of affurance. In all cafes, we must balance the oppofite experiments, where they are oppofite, and deduct the smaller number from the greater, in order to know the exact force of the fuperior evidence.

To apply these principles to a particular inftance; we may obferve, that there is no fpecies of reafoning more common, more useful, and even neceffary to human life, than that derived from the teftimony of men, and the reports of eyewitneffes and fpectators. This fpecies of reafoning, perhaps, one may deny to be founded on the relation of cause and effect.

VOL. II.

S

I fhall