parts of this stupendous fabric, and all the
several degrees and ranks of creatures in it.

13. According to their condition.

We may, I think, from the make of an oyster or cockle, reasonably
conclude that it has not so many, nor so quick senses as a man, or
several other animals; nor if it had, would it, in that state and
incapacity of transferring itself from one place to another, be bettered
by them. What good would sight and hearing do to a creature that cannot
move itself to or from the objects wherein at a distance it perceives
good or evil? And would not quickness of sensation be an inconvenience
to an animal that must lie still where chance has once placed it, and
there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul water, as it
happens to come to it?

14. Decay of perception in old age.

But yet I cannot but think there is some small dull perception, whereby
they are distinguished from perfect insensibility. And that this may be
so, we have plain instances, even in mankind itself. Take one in whom
decrepit old age has blotted out the memory of his past knowledge, and
clearly wiped out the ideas his mind was formerly stored with, and has,
by destroying his sight, hearing, and smell quite, and his taste to a
great degree, stopped up almost all the passages for new ones to enter;
or if there be some of the inlets yet half open, the impressions made
are scarcely perceived, or not at all retained. How far such an one
(notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate principles) is in his
knowledge and intellectual faculties above the condition of a cockle or
an oyster, I leave to be considered. And if a man had passed sixty years
in such a state, as it is possible he might, as well as three days, I
wonder what difference there would be, in any intellectual perfections,
between him and the lowest degree of animals.

15. Perception the Inlet of all materials of Knowledge.

Perception then being the FIRST step and degree towards knowledge, and
the inlet of all the materials of it; the fewer senses any man, as well
as any other creature, hath; and the fewer and duller the impressions
are that are made by them; and the duller the faculties are that are
employed about them,--the more remote are they from that knowledge which
is to be found in some men. But this being in great variety of degrees
(as may be perceived amongst men) cannot certainly be discovered in the
several species of animals, much less in