it were in an instant, do our minds, with one
glance, see all the parts of a demonstration, which may very well be
called a long one, if we consider the time it will require to put it
into words, and step by step show it another? Secondly, we shall not be
so much surprised that this is done in us with so little notice, if we
consider how the facility which we get of doing things, by a custom
of doing, makes them often pass in us without our notice. Habits,
especially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions
in us, which often escape our observation. How frequently do we, in a
day, cover our eyes with our eyelids, without perceiving that we are at
all in the dark! Men that, by custom, have got the use of a by-word, do
almost in every sentence pronounce sounds which, though taken notice of
by others, they themselves neither hear nor observe. And therefore it
is not so strange, that our mind should often change the idea of its
sensation into that of its judgment, and make one serve only to excite
the other, without our taking notice of it.

11. Perception puts the difference between Animals and Vegetables.

This faculty of perception seems to me to be, that which puts the
distinction betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature.
For, however vegetables have, many of them, some degrees of motion, and
upon the different application of other bodies to them, do very briskly
alter their figures and motions, and so have obtained the name of
sensitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that
which in animals follows upon sensation: yet I suppose it is all
bare MECHANISM; and no otherwise produced than the turning of a wild
oat-beard, by the insinuation of the particles of moisture, or the
shortening of a rope, by the affusion of water. All which is done
without any sensation in the subject, or the having or receiving any
ideas.

12. Perception in all animals.

Perception, I believe, is, in some degree, in all sorts of animals;
though in some possibly the avenues provided by nature for the reception
of sensations are so few, and the perception they are received with so
obscure and dull, that it comes extremely short of the quickness and
variety of sensation which is in other animals; but yet it is sufficient
for, and wisely adapted to, the state and condition of that sort of
animals who are thus made. So that the wisdom and goodness of the Maker
plainly appear in all the