In the History of Man, and of Domestic Animals, we have seen Nature
solely as she is constrained; we have rarely seen her perfect, often
altered and deformed, and always either surrounded with shackles or
loaded with extraneous ornaments. We shall now behold her decked out
by simplicity alone, but more attractive by her artless beauty, by
her free air, by the sprightliness of her movements, and by all the
other attributes of true dignity and independence. We shall behold her
traversing the surface of the earth with sovereign sway, portioning
her domain among the other animals, and dividing to each species
its element, climate, and subsistence; we shall survey her in the
forests, in the waters, and in the plains, dictating her simple but
immutable laws; imprinting upon every species her indelible characters;
dispensing her gifts with equity, and counter-balancing evil with good;
we shall observe her giving to some strength and courage accompanied
with hunger and voracity; to others mildness, temperance, and agility,
attended with fear, inquietude, and timidity; and to all liberty,
with uniformity of manners, and ardour in love, which they can easily
satisfy, and is always followed by a happy fecundity.
Love and liberty, what blessings! Have those animals which we call
_savage_, because they are not subjected to our will, need of aught
more to make them happy? If so, they enjoy another blessing, that of
living in a state of equality; they are neither the slaves nor tyrants
of each other; the individual has not, like man, to dread the rest
of his species; they enjoy peace among themselves, and are strangers
to war, but when brought on them by other animals or men. No wonder
then that they should shun the human race, steal from our view, live
in solitudes remote from our habitations, employ all the resources of
their instinct to provide for their safety; and in order to exempt
themselves from the power of man, that they should exert every
expedient of that liberty which Nature has bestowed on them, together
with the desire of independence.
Some animals, and they are the most mild, innocent, and tranquil, are
contented with remaining at a certain distance from us, and living in
our fields; others more fierce and distrustful, conceal themselves in
the recesses of woods; others, as if they knew there was no safety on
the surface of the earth, dig themselves subterraneous abodes, take
shelter in caverns, or gain the summits of most inaccessible mountains;
and others, the most ferocious and most powerful, inhabit deserts only,
and reign like sovereigns in those burning climates, where man, as
savage as themselves, is unable to dispute the empire with them.
As all beings, even the most independent, are subjected and governed
by physical laws, and as brute animals, as well as man, experience the
influences of the air and soil, so it appears, that the same causes
which have softened and civilized the human species in our climates,
have produced similar effects upon all other species. The wolf, which
is perhaps the most ferocious animal in the temperate zone, is by no
means so terrible or cruel as the tiger, the panther, and the lion of
the torrid zone; or as the white bear, the lynx, and the hyæna of the
frozen zone. And this difference is not only general, as if Nature, to
give a degree of harmony to her productions, had calculated the climate
for the species, or the species for the climate, but in each particular
species the climate is calculated for the manner, and the manners
for the climate. In America, where the heat is less violent, and the
air and soil more benign than in Africa, though under the same line,
the lion, tiger, and panther, have nothing terrible in them but the
name. They are no longer tyrants of the forests, intrepid enemies of
mankind, monsters which delight in blood and carnage: but they usually
run from before man, and instead of waging open war even against other
animals, employ stratagem and artifice to take them by surprise; in a
word, they may be rendered subservient and almost domestic; therefore
were ferocity and cruelty the characteristic of their natures, they
must have degenerated, or rather felt the influence of the climate;
under a milder sky their dispositions have become milder; every excess
in them has been tempered, and by these changes they have become more
conformable to the nature of the country which they inhabit.
The vegetables which cover this earth and are more connected with it
than the animal that feeds upon them, partake in a superior degree of
the nature of the climate. Every country, every degree of temperature,
has its particular plants. At the foot of the Alps we find those of
France and Italy, and on their summit those of the northern regions,
which very plants we also meet with on the frozen pinnacles of the
African mountains. On the south side of the mountains which separate
the Mogul empire from the kingdom of Cashmire, we see all the plants
of the Indies, and on the other side we are surprised to find none
but those of Europe. It is from intemperate climates that we also
derive drugs, perfumes, poisons and all the plants whose qualities are
excessive. The productions of temperate climates, on the contrary are
always mild. Of such happy spots, herbs and roots the most wholesome,
the sweetest fruits, the gentlest animals and the most polished men,
are the delightful appurtenances. Thus the earth produces plants, the
earth and plants make animals, and of the earth, plants, and animals,
are formed men; for the qualities of vegetables, proceed immediately
from the soil and air; the temperament and other relative qualities of
animals which feed on herbs, have a close affinity to the particular
kinds they use, and the physical qualities of men, and other animals
which subsist on flesh, as well as on vegetables, depend, though
more remotely, on the same causes, whose influence extends even to
disposition and manners. Size and form, which appear to be absolute and
determined qualities, depend, nevertheless, like the relative qualities
upon the influence of the climate. The size of our largest animals are
greatly inferior to that of the elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus;
our largest birds are but small if we compare them with the ostrich,
condor, or the cassowary; and what comparison can be made between
the fishes, lizards, and serpents of our regions, and the whale, the
walrus, and manati, which inhabit the northern seas; or the crocodiles,
large lizards, and enormous adders which infest the southern climes,
both by land and water? And if we consider each species in different
climates, we shall find sensible varieties both in size and figure,
as we have already evinced in the history of the horse, goat, hog, and
dog. These changes are, however, produced but slowly and imperceptibly;
the grand workman of nature is Time, and his operations are equal,
uniform, and regular; he performs nothing by starts; nothing but by
degrees, by shades, and by succession; and what he does, however
imperceptible at first, becomes gradually sensible, and is, at length,
marked by effects which it is impossible to mistake.
Wild and independent animals are, of all living beings, man not
excepted, the least subject to changes and variations of any kind.
Possessed of absolute liberty in the choice of their food and climate,
their nature varies less than that of domestic animals, which we
enslave, transport, mal-treat, and feed without consulting their taste.
Wild animals live uniformly in the same manner; they wander not from
climate to climate; their native wood is a country to which they are
faithfully attached, and from which they never remove but when they
feel they can no longer live in it with security. When they fly it is
less to avoid their natural enemies than the presence of man. Nature
has supplied them with resources against other animals; with them
they are on a level; they know their strength, their cunning, their
designs, their haunts, and if they cannot avoid, they oppose them with
force to force. But how can they guard against beings who can seize
without seeing, and can destroy without approaching them? It is man,
therefore, who disturbs, and who disperses these wild animals, and
renders them a thousand times more savage than they would otherwise be,
for the greater part require nothing but tranquillity, nothing but a
moderate and innocent use of the air and earth.
By Nature they are prompted to reside together, to unite in families,
and to form a kind of social intercourse. Of this intercourse we
still find vestiges in countries not totally engrossed by man; we
there find works achieved in common, designs which, without being
founded on reason, seem, nevertheless to be projected for rational
convenience, and the execution of which supposes at least an union and
concurrence of individuals occupied in it. Nor is it by physical force
or necessity, like the ants, the bees, &c. that the beavers labour and
build; unconstrained either by space, time, or number, they assemble
from choice. Those that agree dwell together; and those that disagree
live apart; and some, from being perpetually repulsed by the body,
are obliged to lead a solitary life. It is only in remote and desert
countries, where there is little dread of the approach of man, that
they endeavour to establish themselves, and render their habitations
more fixed and commodious, by constructing dwellings, or, as it were,
small hamlets, which not unaptly represent the first efforts and feeble
labours of an infant commonwealth. In countries, on the contrary, over
which man is diffused, terror seems to dwell, all society is lost
among animals, all industry ceases, and every art is suppressed; they
relinquish the occupation of building, and neglect every accommodation;
always pressed by fear and necessity, their only study is to live, and
their only employment flight and concealment; and if, as may reasonably
be supposed, the whole surface of the earth should, in process of time,
be equally inhabited by the human species, in a few centuries the
history of a beaver would be considered as a fable. The faculties and
talents of animals, therefore, instead of increasing are constantly
diminishing, for time may be said to oppose them. The more the human
species are multiplied and improved the more they become subjected
to the dominion of an absolute tyrant, who will hardly permit their
individual existence, deprives them of liberty, of every avenue to
society, and destroys the very root of their intelligence. What they
are become, or what they may become, is an inadequate indication of
what they have been or might be. Who can say, if the human species were
annihilated, to which of the animals would the sceptre of the earth
belong?