What we cannot Compass by Force, must be brought about by Invention, and
Address, but then on the Other hand, in All Cases of Hazzard, Things
would be well Weigh’d and Examin’d before we Trust. This Fable is the
Fiction of a Case not Altogether Incredible. ’Tis a Common Thing for an
Old Jade to Counterfeit Lame, for fear of Hard Riding: For a Duck to run
Flapping and Fluttering away, as if she were Maim’d, to carry People from
her Young: as there’s a Story of a _Fox_ that was Hard Hunted, and Hung
himself up by the Teeth in a Warren among the Vermin to put the Dogs to
a Loss. Without any more Words, Twenty Instances might be given to shew
how near That which we call Impulse, or Instinct, comes to Reason: For
the _Cats Policy_ was no Other in truth, then That we call _Sleeping
Dog-Sleep_: And there was the very same Fore-thought, and Design in’t
too, which in a Construction of Law and Equity passes for _Malice
Prepense_.