8. Same man. An animal is a living organized body; and
consequently the same animal, as we have observed, is the same
continued life communicated to different particles of matter, as
they happen successively to be united to that organized living body.
And whatever is talked of other definitions, ingenious observation
puts it past doubt, that the idea in our minds, of which the sound man
in our mouths is the sign, is nothing else but of an animal of such
a certain form. Since I think I may be confident, that, whoever should
see a creature of his own shape or make, though it had no more
reason all its life than a cat or a parrot, would call him still a
man; or whoever should hear a cat or a parrot discourse, reason, and
philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a cat or a parrot;
and say, the one was a dull irrational man, and the other a very
intelligent rational parrot. A relation we have in an author of
great note, is sufficient to countenance the supposition of a rational
parrot.
His words are: "I had a mind to know, from Prince Maurice's own
mouth, the account of a common, but much credited story, that I had
heard so often from many others, of an old parrot he had in Brazil,
during his government there, that spoke, and asked, and answered
common questions, like a reasonable creature: so that those of his
train there generally concluded it to be witchery or possession; and
one of his chaplains, who lived long afterwards in Holland, would
never from that time endure a parrot, but said they all had a devil in
them.
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