Man changes the natural state of animals by forcing them to obey, and
render him service: a domestic animal is a slave to our amusements or
operations. The frequent abuses he suffers, and the forcing him from
his natural mode of living, make great alterations in his manners and
temper, while the wild animal, subject to nature alone, knows no other
laws than those of appetite and liberty. The history of a wild animal
is confined to a few facts drawn from simple nature; but the history
of a domestic animal is complicated with all the artful means used to
tame and subdue his native wildness: and not knowing how far example,
constraint, or custom, may influence animals, and change their motions,
determinations, and inclinations, the design of the naturalist ought
to be to distinguish those facts which depend on instinct, from
those which are owing to their mode of education; to ascertain what
appertains to them from what they have acquired; to separate what is
natural for them from what they are made to do; and never to confound
the animal with the slave, the beast of burden with the creature of God.
The empire which man has over animals is an empire which revolution
cannot overthrow; it is the empire of the spirit over matter; a right
of nature, a power founded on unalterable laws, a gift of God, by
which man may at all times discern the excellence of his being, for he
does not rule them, because he is the most perfect, strongest, or the
most dexterous of animals. If he was only the first rank of the same
order, the others would unite to dispute the empire with him, but it
is from the superiority of his nature that man reigns and commands: he
thinks, and for this reason is master over beings that are incapable
of thinking. He reigns over material bodies because they can only
oppose to his will a sullen resistance, or an inflexible stupidity,
which he can always overcome, by making them act against each other.
He is master of the vegetable creation, which by his industry he
can augment, diminish, renew, multiply, or destroy. He maintains a
superiority over brutes, because like them he not only has motion and
sensation, but possesses also the light of reason; governs his actions,
concerts his operations, and overcomes force by cunning, and swiftness
by perseverance. Nevertheless, among animals some appear familiar,
others savage and ferocious. If we compare the docility and submission
of the dog with the cruelty and ferocity of the tiger, the one will
appear to be the friend of man, the other his enemy: his empire, then,
over animals is not absolute. Many species can escape his power by the
rapidity of their flight, by the obscurity of their retreats, and by
the elements they inhabit. Others escape him from their minuteness,
while others, who, far from respecting their sovereign, openly attack
him. Besides these, he is insulted by the stings of insects, poisonous
bites of serpents, and teased with many other unclean, troublesome, and
useless creatures, that seem only to exist to form a shade between good
and evil, and to make man comprehend how little respectable his fall
has made him.
But we must distinguish the empire of God from the domain of man: God,
the Creator of all beings, is the sole master of nature. Man has no
influence on the universe, the motions of the heavenly bodies, nor the
revolutions of the globe which he inhabits; over animals, vegetables,
or minerals, he has no general dominion; he can do nothing with
species, his power only extends to individuals; for species in general,
and matter in the gross, belong to, or rather constitute nature.
All things pass away, follow, succeed, decay, or are renewed, by an
irresistible power. Man, dragged on by the torrent of time, cannot
prolong his existence; his body being linked to matter, he is forced
to submit to the universal law; he obeys the same power, and, like the
rest, comes into the world, grows to maturity, and dies.
But the divine ray with which man is animated ennobles and raises him
above all other material beings. This spiritual substance, far from
being subject to matter, has the power of making it obey; and though
it cannot command all Nature, it presides over particular beings; God,
the sole source of all light and understanding, rules the universe and
the species with infinite power; man, who possesses only a ray of this
spiritual substance, has a power limited to small portions of matter
and individuals.
It is by the talent of the mind, then, and not by force, and the other
qualities of matter, that man has been enabled to subdue animals. In
the first ages they were all equally independent; man, after he became
guilty and ferocious, was very unfit to deprive them of liberty.
Before he could approach, know, make choice of, and tame them, it was
necessary that he should be civilized himself, to know how to instruct
and command; and the empire over animals, like every other empire, was
not founded till after society was instituted.
It is from society that man derives his power: from that he perfects
his reason, exercises his genius, and unites his strength. Previous to
the union of society man was perhaps the most savage, and the least
formidable of all creatures; naked, defenceless and without shelter,
the earth to him was only a vast desert peopled with monsters, of which
he frequently became the prey; and even long after, history informs us,
that the first heroes were only the destroyers of wild beasts.
_Engraved for Barr's Buffon_
[Illustration: FIG. 18. _Horse_]
[Illustration: FIG. 19. _Ass_]
But when the human race multiplied, and spread over the earth, and
when, by the aid of the arts and society, man was able to conquer the
universe, he by degrees lessened the number of ferocious beasts, he
purged the earth of those gigantic animals of which we sometimes still
find the enormous bones; he destroyed, or reduced to a small number,
every hurtful and voracious species; he opposed one animal to another,
and conquered some by fraud, others by force; and attacking them by
every rational method he arrived at the means of safety, and has
established an empire which is only bounded by inaccessible solitudes,
burning sands, frozen mountains, and obscure caverns, which now serve
as retreats for the small number of species of ferocious animals that
remains.