as the story goes, and which I readily
allow without examining into it, that a stroke of a pencil thrown in
a pet by a painter might once in many ages happen to express it
well. But, at least, the painter must beforehand have, with design,
chosen the most proper colours to represent that foam, in order to
prepare them at the end of his pencil; and, therefore, it were only
a little chance that had finished what art had begun. Besides, this
work of art and chance together being only a little foam, a confused
object, and so most proper to credit a stroke of chance--an object
without form, that requires only a little whitish colour dropped
from a pencil, without any exact figure or correction of design.
What comparison is there between that foam with a whole design of a
large continued history, in which the most fertile fancy and the
boldest genius, supported by the perfect knowledge of rules, are
scarce sufficient to perform what makes an excellent picture? I
cannot prevail with myself to leave these instances without desiring
the reader to observe that the most rational men are naturally
extreme loath to think that beasts have no manner of understanding,
and are mere machines. Now, whence proceeds such an invincible
averseness to that opinion in so many men of sense? It is because
they suppose, with reason, that motions so exact, and according to
the rules of perfect mechanism, cannot be made without some
industry; and that artless matter alone cannot perform what argues
so much knowledge. Hence it appears that sound reason naturally
concludes that matter alone cannot, either by the simple laws of
motion, or by the capricious strokes of chance, make even animals
that are mere machines. Those philosophers themselves, who will not
allow beasts to have any reasoning faculty, cannot avoid
acknowledging that what they suppose to be blind and artless in
these machines is yet full of wisdom and art in the First Mover, who
made their springs and regulated their movements. Thus the most
opposite philosophers perfectly agree in acknowledging that matter
and chance cannot, without the help of art, produce all we observe
in animals.

SECT. IX. A Particular Examination of Nature.

After these comparisons, about which I only desire the reader to
consult himself, without any argumentation, I think it is high time
to enter into a detail of Nature. I do not pretend to penetrate
through the whole; who is able to do it? N