Animal instincts and anatomy show the Creator's wisdom

The puppy does not yet have teeth, and yet it defends itself with its mouth against whatever hurts it. The calf does not yet have horns, and yet it knows where its weapons will grow in. These things prove that the natures of all creatures are untaught, and that nothing among existing things is disordered or undefined, but all things bear traces of the wisdom of their Maker, showing in themselves that they were brought forth equipped beforehand for the guarding of their own safety. The dog has no share in reason, but nevertheless it has a perception equal in power to reason. For what the wise men of the world, sitting down over the long leisure of their lives, have barely discovered—I mean the tangles of syllogisms—the dog is shown to have been taught by nature. For when it searches out the track of a wild animal and finds it split in many directions, it goes over the turnings that lead each way, and all but lets out the syllogistic voice through what it does: either the animal turned this way, it says, or that way, or toward this other part; but it did not turn this way or that way; therefore it remains that it rushed off that way. And so by the removal of the false things it finds the true thing. What more do those who sit solemnly over their diagrams and scratch in the dust accomplish, when they remove two of three propositions and discover the truth in the one that remains? And as for the memory of gratitude in this animal, which of the ungrateful toward their benefactors does it not put to shame? Many dogs are remembered for having died together with their masters when they were murdered in a deserted place. And some, while their grief was still fresh, even became guides to those searching for the murderers, and caused the criminals to be brought to trial. What will they say—those who not only do not love the Lord who made them and feeds them, but even treat as friends those who speak injustice against God, and share the same table with them, and put up with blasphemies against the One who feeds them right at the very meal? But let us return to the contemplation of creation. The animals that are more easily caught are more prolific. For this reason hares are prolific, and wild goats and wild sheep bear twins, so that the kind may not fail when it is consumed by flesh-eaters. But those that destroy others bear few young. Hence a lioness is barely the mother of one lion. For the lion tears the womb apart with the points of its claws and so comes forth, as they say; and vipers come forth by eating through the womb, paying back fitting wages to the mother that bore them. So nothing among existing things is without providence, nor without the care that belongs to it. And if you study the very limbs of animals, you will find that the Creator neither added anything superfluous nor removed anything necessary. To the flesh-eating animals he fitted sharp teeth; for such teeth were needed for the kind of food they eat. But those that are only half armed with teeth he prepared with many and varied storehouses of food. For because their food is not sufficiently ground up at the first pass, he gave them the ability to bring back up what they have swallowed, so that, after it is ground fine by chewing the cud, it may be assimilated to the one being nourished. Stomachs and omasums, and net-like stomachs, and rennet stomachs are not placed idly in the animals that have them, but each one fulfills the need of necessary functions. The neck of the camel is long, so that it may be equal to its feet and reach the grass on which it lives.