Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/190

180 subtilities of the school, in order to apply oneself to observations and to experiences, and by indicating the true method of ascending to the general causes of phenomena, this great philosopher contributed to the immense strides which the human mind made in the grand century in which he terminated his career.

Analogy is based upon the probability, that similar things have causes of the same kind and produce the same effects. This probability increases as the similitude becomes more perfect. Thus we judge without doubt that beings provided with the same organs, doing the same things, experience the same sensations, and are moved by the same desires. The probability that the animals which resemble us have sensations analogous to ours, although a little inferior to that which is relative to individuals of our species, is still exceedingly great; and it has required all the influence of religious prejudices to make us think with some philosophers that animals are mere automatons. The probability of the existence of feeling decreases in the same proportion as the similitude of the organs with ours diminishes, but it is always very great, even with insects. In seeing those of the same species execute very complicated things exactly in the same manner from generation to generation, and without having learned them, one is led to believe that they act by a kind of affinity analogous to that which brings together the molecules of crystals, but which, together with the sensation attached to all animal organization, produces, with the regularity of chemical combinations, combinations that are much more singular; one might, perhaps, name this mingling of elective affinities and sensations