"LENGTH of time, then proper scope, and opportunities for reason to exert itself, may be absolutely necessary to its prevailing over brute force. Further still, there are many instances of brutes succeeding in attempts which they could not have undertaken, had not their irrational nature rendered them incapable of foreseeing the danger of such attempts, or the fury of passion hindered their attending to it; and there are instances of reason, and real prudence, preventing men's undertaking what it hath appeared afterwards they might have succeeded in by a lucky rashness. And, in certain conjunctures, ignorance and folly, weakness and discord, may have their advantages. So that rational animals have not necessarily the superiority over irrational ones; but, how improbable soever it may be, it is evidently possible that in some globes the latter may be superior. And were the former wholly at variance, and disunited by false self-interest and envy, by treachery and injustice, and consequent rage and malice against each other, whilst the latter were firmly united among themselves by instinct, this might greatly contribute to the introducing such an inverted |