Sheep live in society very mildly and agreeably; their character passes
for being a very gentle one, because we do not see the prodigious
quantity of animals devoured by them. We may, however, conceive that
they eat them very innocently and without knowing it, just as we do when
we eat Sassenage cheese. The republic of sheep is a faithful image of
the age of gold.
A hen-roost exhibits the most perfect representation of monarchy. There
is no king comparable to a cock. If he marches haughtily and fiercely in
the midst of his people, it is not out of vanity. If the enemy is
advancing, he does not content himself with issuing an order to his
subjects to go and be killed for him, in virtue of his unfailing
knowledge and resistless power; he goes in person himself, ranges his
young troops behind him, and fights to the last gasp. If he conquers, it
is himself who sings the "_Te Deum._" In his civil or domestic life,
there is nothing so gallant, so respectable, and so disinterested.
Whether he has in his royal beak a grain of corn or a grub-worm, he
bestows it on the first of his female subjects that comes within his
presence. In short, Solomon in his harem was not to be compared to a
cock in a farm-yard.
If it be true that bees are governed by a queen to whom all her subjects
make love, that is a more perfect government still.
Ants are considered as constituting an excellent democracy. This is
superior to every other state, as all are, in consequence of such a
constitution, on terms of equality, and every individual is employed for
the happiness of all. The republic of beavers is superior even to that
of ants; at least, if we may judge by their performances in masonry.
Monkeys are more like merry-andrews than a regularly governed people;
they do not appear associated under fixed and fundamental laws, like the
species previously noticed.
We resemble monkeys more than any other animals in the talent of
imitation, in the levity of our ideas, and in that inconstancy which has
always prevented our having uniform and durable laws.
When nature formed our species, and imparted to us a certain portion of
instinct, self-love for our own preservation, benevolence for the safety
and comfort of others, love which is common to every class of animal
being, and the inexplicable gift of combining more ideas than all the
inferior animals together--after bestowing on us this outfit she said to
us: "Go, and do the best you can."
There is not a good code of laws in any single country. The reason is
obvious: laws have been made for particular purposes, according to time,
place, exigencies, and not with general and systematic views.
When the exigencies upon which laws were founded are changed or removed,
the laws themselves become ridiculous. Thus the law which forbade eating
pork and drinking wine was perfectly reasonable in Arabia, where pork
and wine are injurious; but at Constantinople it is absurd.
The law which confers the whole fief or landed property on the eldest
son, is a very good one in a time of general anarchy and pillage. The
eldest is then the commander of the castle, which sooner or later will
be attacked by brigands; the younger brothers will be his chief
officers, and the laborers his soldiers. All that is to be apprehended
is that the younger brother may assassinate or poison the elder, his
liege lord, in order to become himself the master of the premises; but
such instances are uncommon, because nature has so combined our
instincts and passions, that we feel a stronger horror against
assassinating our elder brother, than we feel a desire to succeed to his
authority and estate. But this law, which was suitable enough to the
owners of the gloomy, secluded, and turreted mansions, in the days of
Chilperic, is detestable when the case relates wholly to the division of
family property in a civilized and well-governed city.
To the disgrace of mankind, the laws of play or gaming are, it is well
known, the only ones that are throughout just, clear, inviolable, and
carried into impartial and perfect execution. Why is the Indian who laid
down the laws of a game of chess willingly and promptly obeyed all over
the world, while the decretals of the popes, for example, are at present
an object of horror and contempt? The reason is, that the inventor of
chess combined everything with caution and exactness for the
satisfaction of the players, and that the popes in their decretals
looked solely to their own advantage. The Indian was desirous at once of
exercising the minds of men and furnishing them with amusement; the
popes were desirous of debasing and brutifying them. Accordingly, the
game of chess has remained substantially the same for upwards of five
thousand years, and is common to all the inhabitants of the earth; while
the decretals are known only at Spoleto, Orvieto, and Loretto, and are
there secretly despised even by the most shallow and contemptible of the
practitioners.