nsequently beasts are not mere
machines. Beasts, according to your assertion, cannot be animated with a
spiritual soul; you will, therefore, in spite of yourself, be reduced to
this only assertion, viz., that God has endued the organs of beasts, who
are mere matter, with the faculties of sensation and perception, which
you call instinct in them. But why may not God, if He pleases,
communicate to our more delicate organs, that faculty of feeling,
perceiving, and thinking, which we call human reason? To whatever side
you turn, you are forced to acknowledge your own ignorance, and the
boundless power of the Creator. Exclaim therefore no more against the
sage, the modest philosophy of Mr. Locke, which so far from interfering
with religion, would be of use to demonstrate the truth of it, in case
religion wanted any such support. For what philosophy can be of a more
religious nature than that, which affirming nothing but what it conceives
clearly, and conscious of its own weakness, declares that we must always
have recourse to God in our examining of the first principles?

Besides, we must not be apprehensive that any philosophical opinion will
ever prejudice the religion of a country. Though our demonstrations
clash directly with our mysteries, that is nothing to the purpose, for
the latter are not less revered upon that account by our Christian
philosophers, who know very well that the objects of reason and those of
faith are of a very different nature. Philosophers will never form a
religious sect, the reason of which is, their writings are not calculated
for the vulgar, and they themselves are free from enthusiasm. If we
divide mankind into twenty parts, it will be found that nineteen of these
consist of persons employed in manual labour, who will never know that
such a man as Mr. Locke existed. In the remaining twentieth part how few
are readers? And among such as are so, twenty amuse themselves with
romances to one who studies philosophy. The thinking part of mankind is
confined to a very small number, and these will never disturb the peace
and tranquillity of the world.

Neither Montaigne, Locke, Bayle, Spinoza, Hobbes, the Lord Shaftesbury,
Collins, nor Toland lighted up the firebrand of discord in their
countries; this has generally been the work of divines, who being at
first puffed up with the ambition of becoming chiefs of a sect, soon grew
very desirous of being at the head of a party. But what do I s