1. AUTOBULUS. Leonidas, being asked the question what he thought
of Tyrtaeus, made answer, that he was a good poet to whet minds of
young men; as a person who, by the vigor and spirit of his poetical
raptures, kindled that wrathful indignation and ambition of honor,
which emboldened them in combat to the contempt of death and danger.
Which makes me afraid, my dearest friends, lest the encomium of hunting
yesterday recited may have inflamed our young gentlemen beyond the
bounds of moderation, so as to deem all other things fruitless and of
little worth, while they rendezvous from all parts to this exercise.
So much the rather, because I myself, when I was but very young,
even beyond the strength of my age, seemed to be more than became
me addicted to this sport, and to be over desirous with Phaedra in
Euripides,
With hounds and horn and merry hollow,
The spotted hart and hind to follow
So did that discourse affect me, fortified with many and probable
arguments.
SOCLARUS. You say very truly, Autobulus. For that same poet seems to
me to have awakened the force of rhetoric, for a long time lulled
asleep, to gratify the inclinations of the youthful gentry, and to
make himself their spring companion. But I am most pleased with him
for introducing the example of single combatants, from whence he takes
occasion to praise the sport of hunting, as being that which for the
most part draws to itself whatever is natural in us, or what we have by
use acquired, of that delight which men take in fighting with single
weapons one against another, thus affording an evident prospect of
artifice and daring courage, endued with understanding, encountering
brutish force and strength, and applauding that of Euripides:
Small is the nerveless strength of feeble man,
Yet through the cunning of his reaching brain,
By various slights and sundry stratagems,
Whatever land or th’ Ocean breeds he tames.[77]
2. AUTOBULUS. And hence it was, as they say, my dearest Soclarus, that
men at first became insensible and inhuman, having once tasted of
murder, and being all accustomed, by hunting and following the chase,
not only to behold without remorse the wounds and blood of wild beasts,
but to rejoice at their being killed and slaughtered. Afterwards, as at
Athens, some sycophant was by the Thirty Tyrants set apart for death,
as a proper object of capital punishment, then a second, and a third;
till, proceeding by degrees, they seized upon good men, and at length
spared not the best and most worthy citizens. In like manner the first
that slew a bear or a wolf obtained applause, then the ox and hog were
appointed to be killed, under pretence of having tasted the sacred
things that lay before them. Next to them deer, hares, and goats were
made use of for food, and in some places the flesh of sheep, dogs, and
horses grew familiar to human taste. The tame goose also and pigeon,
man’s familiar domestic, according to Sophocles,—not for nourishment or
to assuage hunger, as cats and weasels do, but to indulge voluptuous
appetites,—they dressed and mangled to pieces. This gave strength and
vigor to whatever was in nature bloodthirsty and savage, and rendering
the disposition of man inflexible to pity, had almost erased out of
his breast whatever was inclinable to humanity and mildness. Whereas,
on the other side, the Pythagoreans, that they might accustom men to
the love of humanity and compassion, still inculcated into their minds
a particular care of being mild and gentle towards beasts. For there
is nothing more powerful than custom to win upon all the affections
of man, and to draw them from moderation to extremity. But I know not
how it comes to pass, that being entered into this discourse, we have
forgot not only the subject we were yesterday upon, but what we had
also this day agreed to make the theme of our colloquy. For yesterday,
as you well know, having thrown out a proposition, that all creatures
were in some manner partakers of understanding and reason, we gave an
occasion to you, young huntsmen, for a fair dispute, which of the two
excelled in craft and cunning, the land animals, or the creatures that
breed in the sea? Which, if you please, we will determine this day, if
Aristotimus and Phaedimus will stand to their agreement; of which two
gentlemen, the one has offered himself to his friends to be the patron
of the land animals, the other reserves the honor of being more crafty
to those of the sea.
SOCLARUS. They will be as good as their words, I assure you, Autobulus,
and will be here presently; for I saw them both early this morning
preparing for the combat. In the mean time, if you please, before they
begin, let us resume something of what was yesterday not so fully
discoursed of for want of time, or not so carefully argued in our
wine, as it ought to have been. For there seemed a dispute to resound
in my ears from the Stoics’ portico, that, as immortal is opposite to
mortal, incorruptible to corruptible, incorporeal to corporeal, in like
manner things void of reason ought to be opposed to those beings that
are endued with reason, lest among so many pairs of contraries this
alone should be found maimed and imperfect.
3. AUTOBULUS. Good now, friend Soclarus, who was he that maintained
that, because there are certain beings endued with reason, therefore
there is nothing void of reason? For we abound with examples in
all things that are destitute of a soul; nor do we want any other
antithesis to irrational, but only to oppose whatever is deprived of
a soul—as being void of reason and understanding—to that which is
endued with reason and understanding together with a soul. But if any
one will assert, that Nature is not defective, and that therefore
animated Nature is partly rational, partly without reason; another
may at the same time allege, that animated Nature is partly endued
with imagination, partly deprived of it; partly sensible, partly
insensible; to the end that Nature may not want these opposite habits
and privations, as it were, equally balanced in the same kind. For, as
it would be absurd to expect to find some living creatures sensible
and others without sense, and equally ridiculous to grant imagination
to some living creatures and not allow it to others,—since there is
no living creature that comes into the world but what is presently
endued with sense and imagination,—thus would he be as much out of the
way, who should require one living creature to be rational and another
void of reason, and that too when he is disputing with men who hold
that nothing whatever can partake of sense which does not also partake
of understanding, and that there is no animal not endued by Nature
with opinion and ratiocination, as well as with sense and instinct.
For Nature, which, as they truly say, made all things for the sake
of something and to some end, did not make a sensible creature to be
merely sensible of barely suffering something; but since there are
many things familiar and agreeable, and other things as baneful and
pernicious, no one of them could survive for a moment, did they not
learn to avoid some things and covet the use and benefit of others.
Sense it is, therefore, that affords to every creature the knowledge
both of useful and hurtful; but the discretion which accompanies the
said sense, choosing and seizing upon things profitable, and discerning
and avoiding things pernicious or troublesome, can never be thought to
reside in any creature not capable to reason, to judge, remember, and
consider. Therefore, if you will deprive the creatures of expectation,
memory, design, preparation, hope, fear, desire, and grief, you must at
the same time deny them the use either of eyes or ears, and indeed of
all sense and imagination; which it is better for them to be without,
since they cannot make use of them, than to labor under grief and pain,
with no means present of averting them.
There is an oration of Strato the philosopher, demonstrating that
without sense there can be no understanding. For many times letters
cursorily glanced upon by the eye, and speeches little regarded by the
ear, escape our knowledge, our minds being intent on other matters.
Afterwards by recollection the same things return into our mind, for us
to run through and pursue them in our thoughts as we please. Whence we
say proverbially, “The mind sees, the mind hears; all other things are
deaf and blind,” in regard there can be no sense in the eyes and ears,
if understanding be wanting. Therefore King Cleomenes, after great
commendations given to a copy of verses recited at a banquet where he
was present, being asked whether it were not an admirable piece, bid
them that heard it give their judgment, for that his mind was in the
Peloponnesus. Therefore of necessity, whatever creatures are capable of
sense must also be capable of understanding, if we can no otherwise be
sensible than by the force of understanding.
But suppose we should grant that sense has no need of the understanding
for the performance of the duty incumbent upon it; nevertheless, when
that same sense which has shown an animal the difference between what
is grateful and what is averse to Nature has departed, where is that
faculty which retains this difference in the memory,—dreading things
that are abominable, and longing after things that are useful, and if
they are wanting, seeking means to compass them,—which provides animals
receptacles and places of refuge, that they may look out after their
prey, and avoid the snares and gins of the hunters? And yet those very
authors inculcate these things in their introductions, even to the
teasing our ears: defining purpose to be an indication that something
is to be brought to completion; design to be an impulse before an
impulse; preparation to be an action before an action; memory to be
the comprehension of some certain past impression, which at first was
apprehended by sense. In all which things there is nothing which may
not rightly be said to partake of reason, and yet all these things
are common to all creatures; as indeed are certainly all cogitations;
which, while they lie concealed in the brain, we call thoughts, but
when they come to be in motion, we name conceptions. In the mean time
they acknowledge all passions and perturbations of the mind to be
false judgments and erroneous opinions; so that it is a wonder to me,
that the same men should oversee so many operations and motions, some
of desire, others of fear, nay, by Jupiter, many times of envy and
emulation itself. And many times they themselves punish their dogs
and horses when they commit a fault, and this not to no purpose, but
to chastise them by causing in them through pain that trouble of mind
which we call repentance. Now the tickling the ear by pleasing sounds
is called enchantment, but the bewitching the eye is called bewitching;
both which we make use of in the domesticating of wild beasts. Harts
and horses are allured by the sounds of pipes and flutes. And there
are a sort of crabs which are charmed out of their holes by fifes; and
it is reported that the shadfish are drawn to show themselves above
water by singing and clapping of hands. The otus also, which is a bird
not much unlike a night-raven, is taken by allurement of the sight;
for that while he stands staring upon the fowlers dancing before him
in measure and figure, and out of affection will be striving to act
his part by aping their motions with his wings and shoulders, he is
frequently surprised and taken.
But as for those that more foolishly affirm that beasts are not
affected with joy or anger or fear, that the swallow does not build,
that the bee does not remember, that the lion is not angry, that the
hart is not timorous, but that they do all these things only as it were
and apparently; I would fain know what answer they will make to those
who say, that beasts neither see nor hear, but as it were see and as it
were hear; that they neither neigh nor bleat, but as it were send forth
a certain sound; lastly, that they do not absolutely live, but live
as it were? For, in my opinion, to aver this is as contrary to plain
demonstration as the rest.
4. SOCLARUS. Well then, Autobulus, suppose me to be one of those that
affirm these things. For it is great folly for men to compare the
actions of beasts with the customs, actions, and manner of living men,
and above all, to deny that beasts have the least inclination or aim at
any progress towards virtue, to which we bent our discourse. Indeed, I
doubt whether Nature gave them a beginning or no, since they are so
incapable to attain the end.
AUTOBULUS. Why truly, Soclarus, this is not a thing that seems so
absurd to those men. For that while they assert the extreme love of
parents towards their children to be the principle of society and
justice, and find at the same time this virtue apparent and surpassing
in brute animals, yet they will not allow them in the least to partake
of justice; like mules, which, though they are furnished with genital
parts, as wanting neither privities nor wombs, and mixing with delight
and pleasure, yet cannot attain the end of generation. But then again
I would have you consider, whether they be not ridiculous, that affirm
Socrates or Plato to be no less vicious than the meanest of slaves,—nay
more, that they were fools, intemperate, and unjust,—and then find
fault with the nature of beasts, as being impure and no way accurately
framed for the reception of virtue; as if this were proof of utter
want of reason, and not of depravedness and imbecility of reason.
And all the while, they acknowledge that there are vices of reason,
of which all brute beasts are guilty; many of which we plainly find
to be intemperate, fearful, malicious, and unjust. Therefore he that
denies that reason exists by Nature in a creature, because it is not
framed by Nature to attain to the perfection of reason, little differs
from one that should deny a monkey to partake of deformity by Nature,
or a tortoise of slowness, as being neither susceptible of beauty or
swiftness. Nor do they observe the distinction that lies before their
eyes. For reason is in the creature by Nature, but right and perfect
reason is attained by industry and education; so that naturally all
creatures may be said to be rational. But if they look for perfection
of reason and true wisdom, they will hardly find those perfections
in any man whatever. For as there is a difference between sight and
sight, and between flight and flight,—for hawks and grasshoppers
do not see alike, neither do eagles and partridges fly with equal
swiftness,—so neither in all rational creatures is there to be found
the same perfection of cunning and acuteness. For as there are many
examples to be produced of several brute creatures, excelling in the
observance of society, fortitude, and foresight as to their particular
economy and making provision for themselves; so on the other side,
there may be found among them as many of injustice, cowardice, and
folly. Which is evident from the present contest wherein these young
gentlemen have engaged themselves, while the one has undertaken to
maintain that land-animals, the other that creatures bred in the
sea, are most inclined to virtue. Which is plainly demonstrated by
comparing river-horses with storks. For the one support and cherish
their fathers, the others kill them that they may enjoy their dams. So
likewise, if you compare doves with partridges. For the cock partridge
will not suffer the hen to sit, but breaks her eggs and throws them
out of the nest if she refuses to be trod. But the cock pigeon takes
upon him part of the female’s duty, in brooding over the eggs and
feeding the young ones; and if the hen happens to be too long absent,
he corrects her with his bill, till he forces her to return to her
nest. So that, while Antipater found fault with sheep and asses for
their nastiness, I wonder how he came to pass by lynxes and swallows,
of which the one are so cleanly that they always remove and hide their
excrements, the others teach their young ones to turn their tails out
of their nest, before they let fall their defilement. And indeed, why
may we not say that one tree is more docible than another, as dogs are
more docible than sheep; or one pot-herb more timorous than another,
as harts are more fearful than lions? Or otherwise, as among things
immovable, there is not one thing slower in motion than another; nor
among things that are mute, one thing more vocal than another; so
neither, among things to which Nature has not afforded a faculty of
understanding, is there one thing more timorous, more slothful, or more
intemperate than another. But as to those creatures where that faculty
is present, the difference is manifest in the degrees of more or less.
5. SOCLARUS. However, it is a wonderful thing to observe, how much man
differs from all other creatures in probity of manners, in industry,
and in all those things that relate to justice and common society.
AUTOBULUS. Nevertheless, my dear friend, this cannot be denied,
that there are many brute beasts that surpass men both in bulk and
swiftness, others that far surpass him in strength of sight and
exactness of hearing; and yet for all this we are not to say that man
is blind, without strength, or wants ears. For Nature has not deprived
us either of hands or eyes or strength or bulk, though we must not
compare with camels or elephants. In like manner we must not say that
brute beasts are altogether deprived of reason and understanding,
because they are more dull of understanding, and not so quick at
ratiocination as we are, as only enjoying a weak and muddy sort of
reason, like a dim and clouded eye. And did I not presently expect
these young gentlemen, being persons both studious and learned, to
bring together an infinite number of examples in reference to both land
and sea-animals, I could produce a thousand examples of docility and a
thousand more of good nature in beasts, which the famous city of Rome
has given us an opportunity to fetch from her imperial theatres; but we
will leave these things fresh and untouched, for them to embellish with
their eloquent discourse.
In the mean time I have something to offer by the by, which is this,
that I am of opinion that there is a mutilation, disease, and defect
peculiar to every part and faculty,—as blindness of the eye, lameness
of the leg, and stuttering of the tongue,—which defects cannot be
appropriated to any other members. For that blindness can never be
attributed to that which was never created to see, nor lameness to that
which never could go, nor can any thing be said to stammer that wants
a tongue, or to lisp or stutter that has not a vocal utterance. And
nothing can be said to be a changeling or beside his wits or mad, to
which Nature never gave the use of thought, reason, and understanding;
for it is impossible to be so without some faculty that can suffer
either privation or mutilation or some other defect. But you have seen
dogs that were mad, and I have seen horses under the same predicament;
and some there are who say that bulls and foxes will be mad. But the
example of dogs is sufficient, which is unquestionable. This makes it
evident, that those creatures have a sort of reason and understanding
not to be despised, which being once confused and troubled, the
affection arises which is called madness. For we do not find either
their sight or their hearing diminished. Now, as when a man is affected
with hypochondriac melancholy, or in a delirium, it would be absurd
to say that he was not beside himself, or that his sense, reason, and
memory were not disturbed,—for custom tells that they who are in a
raving condition are not in their right senses, but are fallen from
their reason,—so whoever believes that there is any other cause why
dogs run mad, but only that their natural senses, reason, and memories
are disturbed, while they cease to know faces the most familiar to them
before, and abandon their most usual food, and overlook what is just
before their eyes, such a man, I say, seems to me either to overlook
what is just before his eyes, or else, seeing the conclusions that
follow, to fight against the truth itself.
6. SOCLARUS. You seem to me to be very much in the right, for the
Stoics and Peripatetics are led to affirm the contrary upon this
supposition, that justice could have no certain original, but would
be altogether incomprehensible and inexistent if all brute creatures
should partake of reason. For either of necessity we must do a very
great piece of injustice when we devour and feed upon them; or if we
forbear the use of them, it will be impossible for us to live, or
rather we shall in some measure live the lives of beasts, rejecting the
use of brute creatures. I pass by those innumerable myriads of nomades
and Troglodytes that know no other food but flesh. But as for us that
seem to live lovingly and in friendship together, what necessity would
there be of laboring on the earth, toiling upon the sea, or mining in
the mountains, what ornament would there be in our life, if it were so
that we must be bound to live, as it would then become us, not only
without injury but rather with all civility and humanity toward all
the sorts of beasts, as being our fellow rational creatures? We have
no cure, no remedy for an unquestionable necessity that deprives us
either of life or justice, unless we observe that ancient bound and
dispensation which, according to Hesiod, distinguishing natures and
separating every kind by themselves, commands
The fish, wild beasts, and all the winged fowl,
To prey upon their kinds without control,
For among them no law nor justice reigns;
Only by justice man from man abstains.[78]
And therefore, as brutes can extend no act of justice to us, so neither
can we commit any act of injustice against them. Which argument they
who reject have left us no benefit of life, nor any the smallest
entrance for justice into the world.
7. AUTOBULUS. These things, dear friend, you utter as the opinion
of those people. But we are not to allow philosophers a remedy to
procure easy delivery, as they do to women that are subject to hard
labors, merely that they may bring us forth justice without any pain
or trouble. For the same persons, even in the greatest matters, will
not allow to Epicurus so small and pitiful a thing as the slightest
inclination of one only atom, for to make way for the stars and
living creatures and Fortune to come into the world, and that thereby
our free will might be saved. For we ought either to prove what is
doubtful or to assume what of itself is manifest; so we ought not to
take for granted this doctrine touching beasts as regards justice,
unless it is either confessed or otherwise proved by demonstration. For
justice has another way to establish itself, neither so steep nor so
slippery, nor leading to the subversion of evident truths; but which,
according to Plato’s instruction, my son and thy friend, Soclarus,
has showed to such as are not captiously contentious but willing to
learn. For certain it is, that both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it
for a truth, that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice
in dealing with beasts as he now does; often bewailing and exclaiming
against Nature, as if she were nothing else but necessity and war,
having neither any thing unmixed nor any thing truly pure, but still
arriving at her end by many, and those unjust and unlawful passions.
Whence they affirm that generation itself originally proceeded from
injustice by the conjunction of immortal with mortal, and that the
thing engendered is still contrary to Nature delighted with the parts
of that which engenders, dismembered from the whole. But this seems to
be too luxuriant and severe an accusation of Nature. For there is yet a
more moderate excuse, which does not altogether deprive the beasts of
reason, yet justifies the necessary and convenient use of them; which
when the ancients introduced, they detested and utterly discountenanced
voracious and voluptuous gluttony. Pythagoras also resumed the
argument, teaching how we might reap the benefit of the creatures
without doing injustice. For they do no injustice, that chastise and
kill such savage beasts that are both hurtful to man and never will be
tame. But taming such as are gentle and loving to men, they thereby
make them assistant in the several uses to which they were ordained,—
The horse and ass, that backs to load resign,
And race of bulls,
which, as Prometheus in Aeschylus[79] observes,
Kind Heaven vouchsafed to men by toil distrest,
With servile limbs his labors to assist.
Thus we make use of dogs to guard our goats and sheep, while they are
milked and shorn. For life does not presently forsake a man unless
he have his platters of fish or livers of geese, or unless he may
kill whole oxen or kids to supply his banquets, or unless—that he may
disport himself in the theatre or take his pleasure in hunting—he may
compel some beasts to be daring and to fight against their wills, and
kill others whom Nature has not armed to defend themselves. For, in my
opinion, he that is for sport and pastime ought to seek out for such
as will sport and be merry with him. And as it was the saying of Bion,
that, though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not
die in sport but in earnest; so in hunting and fishing, the fault is
in the men delighting in the torments and cruel deaths of beasts, and
tearing them without compassion from their whelps and their young ones.
For it is not in the making use of beasts that men do them wrong, but
in the wastefully and cruelly destroying them.
8. SOCLARUS. Contain yourself, my dearest Autobulus, and forbear these
accusations; for here are several gentlemen coming, all great huntsmen,
whom it will be very difficult to bring over to your opinion; neither
is it convenient to offend them.
AUTOBULUS. You give me good advice. However, I know Eubiotus very
well, and my kinsman Ariston; nor am I less acquainted with Aeacides
and Aristotimus, the sons of Dionysius the Delphian, as also with
Nicander the son of Euthydamus, all expert in the chase by land, as
Homer expresses it; and therefore likely to take part with Aristotimus.
On the other side, yonder comes Phaedimus too, bringing along with
him the islanders and neighbors to the sea, Heracleon of Megara, and
Philostratus of Euboea,
Whose whole delight is all the day
The toilsome pastime of the sea.[80]