[L] This division is according to the last Paris edition of Buffon. We
apprize the reader of this, because he will find included under the
denomination of carnivorous animals, some, which he may probably have
been accustomed to refer to a different species.
Hitherto we have only treated of useful animals. Those which seem
injurious are a far greater number; and though it universally appears
that what is hurtful exists in greater plenty than what is serviceable,
yet, as in the physical world, evil is subservient to good, for there
can in fact, be no evil, since nothing, in effect, injures Nature. If
to destroy animated beings is hurtful, is not man who is considered
as forming a part of the general system of those beings, the most
injurious and pernicious of them? He alone sacrifices and annihilates
more living individuals than all the carnivorous tribes. No further,
then, are they injurious than because they are the rivals of man,
because they have the same appetites, the same fondness for animal
food; and because to satisfy a want of the most urgent necessity, they
occasionally dispute with him that prey which he had reserved for his
own excesses; for we sacrifice more to our intemperance than to our
real wants. Born to destroy those beings which are subordinate, we
should exhaust Nature if she were not exhaustless, and by a fertility
superior to our depredations, renovates the destruction we continually
make. But it is so ordained that death should contribute to life,
and that reproduction should spring from destruction. However great,
therefore, may be the waste made by man and carnivorous animals, the
total quantity of living matter is never diminished, and if they hasten
deaths they are also the cause of new births being produced.
Large animals form but the smallest part of animated nature. The earth
swarms with the smaller kinds. Each plant, each grain, each particle
of organic matter, contains millions of living atoms. Vegetables
appear to be the first fund for subsisting Nature; but this fund,
however abundant and inexhaustible, would hardly be sufficient for
the still more abundant tribes of insects. Their increase, altogether
as numerous, and often more quick, than the reproduction of plants,
is a sufficient indication of their superior numbers. Plants are only
reproduced once a year, whereas in insects, especially among the
smaller species, one season gives birth to several generations. They
would multiply, then, more than plants, if they were not devoured
by other animals. Among insects there are numbers who live upon
other insects; there are some, as the spiders, which devour with
indifference their own as well as other species; they serve for food
to the birds; and fowls, both wild and tame, are destined for the
nourishment of man, or the prey of carnivorous animals. Thus violent
deaths seem to be equally as necessary as natural ones; they are
both modes of destruction and renovation; the one serves to preserve
nature in a perpetual spring, and the other maintains the order of
her productions, and limits the number of each species. They are both
effects dependent upon general causes; every individual falls of
itself at the end of a certain period, or if prematurely destroyed
it is from being superabundant. How many are there whose existence
is, as it were, anticipated? How many flowers are cut down in the
spring? How many seeds are annihilated before their development?
Man and carnivorous animals feed upon individuals which are either
wholly formed, or nearly so; flesh, eggs, grain, and seeds of every
species, form their usual nourishment, by which alone the exuberance
of Nature might be restrained. Let us consider any of the inferior
species which serve as food to others; herrings, for example, present
themselves in millions to our fishermen, and after having fed all the
monsters of the northern seas, they contribute to the subsistence of
all the nations in Europe for a certain part of the year. If prodigious
numbers of them were not destroyed, what would be the effects of their
prodigious multiplication? By them alone would the whole surface of
the sea be covered. But their numbers would soon prove a nuisance;
they would corrupt and destroy each other. For want of sufficient
nourishment their fecundity would diminish; by contagion and famine
they would be equally destroyed; the number of their own species would
not be increased, but the number of those that feed upon them would be
diminished. As this remark is alike applicable to any other species,
so it is necessary they should prey upon each other; the killing of
animals, therefore, is both a lawful and innocent custom, since it is
founded in nature, and it is upon that seemingly hard condition they
are brought into existence.
The motives, however, which incline us to doubt of this truth do honour
to humanity. Animals, those at least which have senses, and are
composed of flesh and blood, are, like us, capable of pleasure, and
subject to pain; it is, therefore, a cruel insensibility to sacrifice,
without necessity, those who approach or live with us, and whose
feelings are reflected by the signs of pain; for by those, whose nature
is very different to ours, we can be but little affected. Natural pity
is grounded on the relations we have with the object that suffers,
and it is more or less lively as the resemblance and conformity of
the structure is more or less great. The word _compassion_ indicates
that we suffer, that we are acted upon. The mind partakes less of
this pity than the body; and animals are susceptible of it as well
as man; the voice of pain moves them, they run to the assistance of
each other, and they shrink from the dead carcass of one of their
own species. Thus horror and pity are less passions of the mind than
natural affections, which depend on the sensibility of the body, and
on the similitude of its conformation; therefore this sentiment must
diminish in proportion as the nature of one animal differs from that of
another. When we strike a dog, or kill a lamb, it excites some pity;
but none do we feel in cutting down a tree, or swallowing an oyster.
In fact, can it be doubted that those animals, whose organization
is similar to ours, must experience similar sensations? And those
sensations must be proportioned to the activity and perfection of
their senses; those whose senses are obtuse can they have exquisite
feelings? and those who are defective in any organ of sense, must they
not also be defective in all the sensations which have any affinity
thereto? Motion is a necessary effect of the exercise of sentiment. We
have already evinced, (in treating of the nature of animals) that in
whatever manner a being is organized, if it has sentiment, it cannot
fail to express its feelings by outward motions. Thus plants, though
rightly organized, are insensible beings, as well as all animals which
have no apparent motion; those animals also which, like the sensitive
plant, move only their bodies and are denied progressive motion, have a
very small degree of sentiment; and, in fine, those which are capable
of progressive motion, but whose actions are, like so many automatons,
very few and always the same, have but a small portion of sentiment,
and that limited to a few objects. There are numerous automatons in
the human species: education and the respective communication of ideas
augment the quantity as well as the vivacity of our sentiments. In
this respect how great is the difference between the civilized man and
the savage? In the like manner it is with animals; those that live in
a domestic state, by their intercourse with man have their feelings
improved; while those who remain wild possess only the sensibility they
inherit from Nature, which is often more certain, but always less in
quantity than that which is acquired.
Besides, if we consider sentiment as a natural faculty, independent of
the movements which it necessarily produces, we may still be able to
estimate and determine its different degrees by physical relations, to
which sufficient attention does not seem to have been hitherto paid.
Before the highest degree of sentiment can exist in an animated body
it is necessary that this body should form a whole, not only sensible
in all its parts, but so composed that all these parts should have
an intimate correspondence with each other, insomuch that one cannot
be agitated without communicating a portion of that agitation to all
the rest. It is also necessary there should be one common centre in
which the agitations may terminate, and on which the reaction of every
movement may be performed. Thus man, and those animals which resemble
him most in organization, will be the most sensible beings. Those, on
the contrary, who do not form so complete a whole, whose parts have
a less intimate correspondence, who have several centres of feeling,
and under one cover seem less to comprise a perfect animal, than to
contain several centres of existence separate from each other, will
be beings far less sensible. The pieces of a polypus, which has been
cut, live separately; the head of a wasp, which is divided from the
body, lives, moves, and even eats as before; a lizard, when cut in
two, is neither deprived of motion nor feeling; the amputated limbs of
a lobster are renewed; the heart of a turtle vibrates for a long time
after it is taken out of the body; all those insects, in which the
principal viscera, as the heart and lungs, do not unite in the centre,
extend throughout the body, and form, as it were, a series of hearts,
and other viscera; all fishes, whose organs of circulation have but
little action; in short, all animals, whose organization is more or
less remote from ours, have more or less sentiment.
In man, and in the animals which resemble him, the diaphragm appears
to be the centre of sentiment; it is on this nervous part that the
impressions of pain and pleasure are directed; it is on this that all
the movements of the sensitive system are exercised. The diaphragm, in
a transverse form, divides the body into two equal parts, of which the
superior contains the heart and lungs, and the inferior the stomach and
the intestines. This membrane is possessed of the utmost sensibility;
it is also so necessary for the propagation and communication of
feeling, that the slightest injury of it is always accompanied with
convulsions, and often with death. The brain, which is considered as
the seat of sensation, is not, therefore, the centre of sentiment,
since it may be wounded, and even parts of it removed without causing
the death of the animal. Let us then distinguish sensation from
sentiment. Sensation is nothing more than an agitation or impression on
the sense, whereas sentiment is this very sensation rendered agreeable
or disagreeable by the propagation of the agitation through the
sensitive system, for the essence of sentiment, its sole characteristic
is pleasure or pain, and all other movements, notwithstanding they pass
within us, are totally indifferent, nor do they affect us. It is on
sentiment that the whole exterior movements, and the exercise of animal
force depend; it acts only in proportion as it feels, and the very part
which we consider as the centre of sentiment is also the centre of
force.
A slight examination will shew us that all lively emotions, whether
of pain or pleasure, in a word, all sensations, whether agreeable or
disagreeable, are felt internally in the region of the diaphragm. On
the contrary, there is no token of sentiment in the brain; in the head
there are none but pure sensations; we only recollect that this or that
sensation has been agreeable or disagreeable; and if this operation in
the head is followed by a lively and real sentiment, then we feel the
impression of it within the region of the diaphragm. Thus the foetus,
where this membrane is without exercise, is without sentiment, and the
little motions of the foetus may therefore rather be considered as
mechanical, than dependent either on sensation or on the will.
Whatever may be the substance which serves as the vehicle of sentiment,
and produces muscular motion, it is certainly propagated by the nerves,
and is communicated in an indivisible instant from one extremity to
the other. In whatever manner this motion may be effected, (whether by
vibrations, as in elastic fibres, or by a subtile fire, similar to that
of electricity, which not only resides in animated, and in all other
bodies, but is constantly regenerated in the former by the motion
of the heart and lungs, by the action of the blood in the arteries,
and also by that of exterior causes on the organs of sense) certain
it is that the nerves and membranes are the only sensible part of the
animal body. The blood, the lymph, the fat, the bones, the flesh, and
all other solids and fluids, are of themselves insensible; the brain
is a soft and unelastic substance, and on that account incapable of
producing or propagating the vibrations of sentiment.
What may have given rise to the opinion that the brain was the seat
of sensation, and the centre of sensibility, is the circumstance
that the nerves, which are the organs of sensation, terminate in the
brain; for which reason it was considered as the only part that could
receive every agitation or impression. This supposition appeared so
simple, and so natural, that no attention was paid to the physical
impossibility that attends it, though abundantly evident; for how is it
possible that a soft and insensible substance should not only receive
impressions, but retain them for a length of time, and propagate all
their agitations over the solid and sensible parts? Perhaps it will be
answered after Descartes and Peyronie, that it is not in the brain,
but in the pineal gland that this principle of sensation resides; but
it is very easily distinguished that the pineal gland, the callous
substance in which they would enclose the seat of the sensations, have
no connection with the nerves, but are surrounded with the insensible
substance of the brain, and so separated from the nerves that they
cannot receive the motions of them, and therefore these suppositions,
like the former, must fall to the ground. But what, in this case, is
the use and functions of this very noble and principal part of the
body? Is not the brain to be found in every animal? Do we not find it
larger in man, quadrupeds, and birds, which have all much sentiment,
than in fishes, insects, and other animals which have but little? When
compressed, is not all motion suspended? Does not every action cease?
If this part is not the principal of motion, why is it so essentially
necessary to it? Why is it proportioned, in every species of animals,
to the quantity of sentiment with which they are endowed?
However difficult these questions may appear, I think it is easy to
answer them satisfactorily. By an attentive and deliberate examination,
the brain, as well as the spinal marrow (which is nothing more than
a prolongation of it) is a kind of mucilage, hardly organized. We
distinguish in it only the extremities of the little arteries, which
terminate there in great numbers, and carry no blood but a white
and nutritive lymph; these small arteries, or lymphatic vessels,
when disunited from the brain by maceration, appear in the form of
very slender fibres. The nerves, on the contrary, never penetrate
the substance of the brain, but only reach the surface of it, but
previously to which they lose their solidity and elasticity, and their
extremities next the brain are soft, and almost mucilaginous. Whence it
appears that the brain, which is nourished by the lymphatic arteries,
furnishes in its turn nourishment to the nerves, which we ought to
consider as a kind of vegetable substance, that shoots forth from the
brain, and is divided into an infinity of branches. The brain is to the
nerves what the soil is to plants; the extremities of the nerves are
the roots, which, as in every vegetable, are more soft, and tender than
the trunk or branches; they contain a ductile matter proper for the
growth and nourishment of the tree; and this ductile matter they derive
from the substance of the brain, to which the arteries continually
direct the lymph necessary for its supply. The brain, therefore,
instead of being the seat of sensation, the principle of sentiment, is
only an organ of secretion and nutrition, but it is an organ which is
highly essential, and without which the nerves could neither grow nor
be preserved.
The brain is also larger in man, quadrupeds, and birds, because in
them the quantity of nerves is greater than in fishes and insects,
which on this very account have very little sentiment; they have but
a small brain, in proportion to the small number of nerves which it
nourishes. And here I cannot help remarking, that man has not, as has
been said, a proportionably larger brain than any other animal. There
are species of apes, and of cetaceous animals, which, proportioned
to the size of their bodies, have more brains than man; another fact
which proves that the brain is neither the seat of sensation, nor the
principle of sentiment, since were it so those animals would have more
sensations, and more sentiment, than man. By observing the nutrition
of plants we shall perceive that they do not absorb the gross parts
of earth or water, and that these must first be reduced by heat into
tenuous vapours. In like manner the nerves are nourished by the subtle
moisture of the brain, which is received by their extremities or roots,
and thence carried into all the branches of the sensitive system. This
system, as we have already remarked, forms an individual whole, of
which the parts have so close a connection that we cannot wound one
without injuring all the rest. The slightest irritation of the smallest
nerve is sufficient to throw the whole body into a convulsion, nor is
it possible to cure the pain, or remove the convulsion, but by cutting
away the nerve above the injured part, and then all the parts to which
this nerve joined become at once motionless and insensible. The brain
ought not to be considered as an organic part of the nervous system,
because it differs both in properties and substance, and is neither
solid, elastic, nor sensible. I own that, when compressed, a stop is
put to sensation; but this proves it a body foreign to the system,
which, from acting with a weight on the nerves, benumbs them in the
same manner, as a heavy weight applied to the arm or leg, deadens the
feeling; and this is evident, because the moment the compression is
removed sentiment revives, and the motion is re-established. I own
likewise that, by injuring the brain, convulsions, and even death, will
ensue, but these effects are produced from the nerves being injured in
their very source. To these reasons I might add particular facts, which
would also prove that the brain is neither the centre of sentiment nor
the seat of sensation. There have been animals, and even children,
born without either head or brain, yet endowed with sentiment, motion,
and life. In insects and worms the brain is not perceptible, having
only a part which corresponds with the spinal marrow, and therefore the
spinal marrow might more reasonably be supposed the seat of sensation,
being common to all animals, which the brain is not.
The greatest obstacle to the advancement of human knowledge, lies not
so much in the things themselves, as in our manner of considering them.
However complicated the body of man may be, his ideas are more so.
It is less difficult to understand Nature as she is, than comprehend
her as she is represented. She has only a veil, but we give her a
mask, and conceal her with prejudices; and we suppose she acts and
operates as we act and think; but her actions however are clear, and
our thoughts are obscure; her designs and operations are always uniform
and certain, which we seem to confound with the variable illusions
of our own imaginations. I speak not merely of arbitrary systems and
imaginary hypotheses, but of the methods by which we generally study
Nature. Even experiment, although the most certain method, has been
productive of more error than truth; as the smallest deviation leads
to barren wilds, or exhibits a glimpse of obscure objects; to which
affinities and properties are ascribed, and those steps being followed
by the whole world, the consequences derived from them are admitted
as fixed principles. Of this I might give a proof by exposing what
are called principles in all the sciences, both abstract and real. In
the former the general basis of principle is abstraction, or one or
more suppositions; in the latter, principles are nothing more than
consequences, whether true or false, of the methods which we have
adopted. Let us take anatomy for an example: must not the first man
who surmounted natural repugnance, and ventured to open a human body,
suppose that by dissecting and examining all its parts, he should
obtain a knowledge of its structure, mechanism and functions? but
finding the subject more complicated than he had imagined, he was
obliged to renounce those pretensions, and to adopt a method, not by
which he might know and judge, but by which he might view the parts
in a certain order. This method, however, was not to be acquired by
one man; it was to occupy the attention of ages, and even of our
ablest anatomists to the present day, and even when acquired it is
not science, but the road which leads to it; and which might have
done so, if instead of keeping within the narrow and beaten track,
anatomists had extended the path, by comparing the human body with that
of other animals; for does not the foundation of all science consist
in a comparison of similar and different objects, of their analogous
and opposite properties, and of all their relative qualities? And
hence it is, that although human bodies have been dissected for three
thousand years, anatomy still remains nothing more than a nomenclature,
and hardly any advances have been made towards the real object, the
knowledge of the animal economy; in which Nature certainly appears very
mysterious, not only because the subject is complicated, but because,
having neglected those modes of comparison, which alone could have
afforded us any light, we have been immersed in the obscurity of doubt,
or bewildered in the labyrinth of vague hypotheses. We have millions of
volumes descriptive of the human body, while the structure of animals
has been almost entirely neglected. The most minute parts of man have
been named and described, and yet we know not whether those parts are
to be found in other animals. Certain functions have been ascribed to
certain organs, without knowing whether those functions cannot be
exercised by other beings though deprived of those organs; insomuch
that in all the explications relative to the animal economy, we labour
under the double disadvantage of first engaging in a complicated
subject, and then reasoning on it without the assistance of analogy.
Through the whole course of this work we have followed a different
method; constantly comparing Nature with herself, we have considered
her relatively and in her most distant extremes; and it will be easily
perceived that, after all our labour to remove false ideas, destroy
prejudices, and to separate realities from arbitrary opinions, the
only art we have employed is comparison. If we have been enabled to
throw any light upon these subjects, less is to be attributed to genius
than method, and which we have endeavoured to render as general as our
knowledge would permit.
Having hitherto avoided giving general ideas, until we had presented
the results of particular operations, we shall now content ourselves
with collecting certain facts, which will suffice to prove that man,
in a state of nature, was not calculated to live upon herbage, grain,
or fruits; but that at all times with the greatest part of other
animals, he sought to feed on flesh. The Pythagorean diet so highly
extolled by some ancient and modern philosophers, and even recommended
by certain physicians, was assuredly not prescribed by Nature. In the
golden age, man, as innocent as the dove, sought for no nourishment but
acorns of the forest, and pure water of the stream. Surrounded with
subsistence, he was free from inquietude, lived independently, and at
peace with himself and other animals; but losing sight of his dignity,
he sacrificed his liberty to the union of society, and exchanged a
life of repose for tumultuous warfare. Of his nature thus depraved,
the first fruits were cruelty and an appetite for flesh and blood; and
this depravity the invention of arts and manners served to complete.
Thus have philosophers austere, and by sentiment savage, in all ages,
reproached the civilized part of mankind. Flattering their own pride
at the expence of their species, they have presented a picture which
has no value but from the contrast it exhibits. Did this state of ideal
innocence, of perfect temperance, of entire abstinence from flesh,
of profound peace and tranquillity ever exist? Is it not a fable in
which man, like an animal, has been employed to convey moral lessons?
Can virtue have subsisted before society? Can the loss of our savage
nature merit regret? or can man, in a wild state, be considered as
a more worthy being than the civilized citizen? Yes, for all misery
arises from society; and what signifies the virtue he possessed in a
state of nature, if he was more happy than he is now. Are not liberty,
health, and strength, preferable to effeminacy, sensuality, and
voluptuousness, accompanied with slavery? The absence of pain is at
least equal to the enjoyment of pleasure, and to be completely happy,
is to have nothing to desire. If these observations were just, why do
they not tell us it is better to vegetate than to live, to have no
appetites than to gratify them, to sleep through life in a perfect
apathy, than to open our eyes to see and feel? that, in short, it is
better to be so many inanimate masses attached to the earth, than be
capable of enjoying those benefits Nature so bountifully bestows?
But, instead of discussing, let us advert to facts: Is the savage
inhabitant of the desart a tranquil animal? Is he a happy man? For
we cannot suppose with a certain philosopher, (Rousseau) one of the
fiercest censors of civilization, that there is a greater distance
between a savage and a man in a pure state of nature, than between
a savage and ourselves; that the ages before man acquired the use
of speech were more than those in which languages were brought to
perfection. In reasoning upon facts all suppositions ought to be thrown
aside, until every thing presented by Nature is examined. In doing
this we shall descend from the most enlightened to a people which are
less so; from those to others yet more rude, but still subject to
kings and laws; from these to savages, among whom there are as many
shades as in the civilized nations; some of them we shall find forming
nations subject to chiefs; others, in smaller bodies, governed by
certain customs; and others, the most solitary and independent, united
in families, and submitting to their fathers. Thus an empire and a
monarchy, a family and a father, are the two extremes of society; and
these extremes are likewise the limits of Nature; for if they extended
further in traversing the different solitudes of the earth, we must
have found these human creatures void of speech, the males separated
from the females, the children abandoned, &c. In contradiction to
this, I however assert, that it is impossible to maintain that man
ever existed without forming families, because the children must
inevitably have perished had they not been attended for several years.
This physical necessity alone is a sufficient demonstration that the
human species could neither multiply nor exist without society, and
that the attachment of parents to their children is natural because it
is necessary; this attachment was also sufficient to habituate them
to certain signs and sounds, and to accustom them to the expressions
of sentiment and desire; of this we are convinced by the facts that
the most solitary savages have, like other men, the use of signs and
speech. Thus we know that the pure state of nature is that of a savage
living in a desart but living with his family, knowing his children,
and being known by them, using words, and making himself understood.
Neither do the savage girl, found in the woods of Champagne, nor the
wild man, in the forests of Hanover, prove any thing to the contrary.
They had lived in absolute solitude, and therefore could have no idea
of society or of words; but had they met, Nature would have prompted
an attachment, which attachment would soon have taught them to make
themselves understood; they would first have learned the language of
love, and then that of tenderness for their offspring. Besides, these
must have sprung from parents living in society, and left by them at
the age of four or five years, when they had sufficient strength to
procure subsistence, though too feeble to retain the ideas, which
might have been communicated to them.
Let us, then, examine this man in a pure state of nature, that is, this
savage living as the head of a family; if the family prospers he soon
becomes chief of a numerous body, all observing the same customs, and
speaking the same language; at the third or fourth generation, they
will become a small nation, which, increasing by time, will either
be formed into a civilized people, or remain in a savage state, as
circumstances may concur. If they reside in a mild climate, and a
fertile soil, where they meet with nothing but desarts, or people like
themselves, they will remain in their pristine state, and, according
to circumstances, become the friends or enemies of their neighbours.
But if under a severe climate, and pinched for want of sustenance, or
room, they will make irruptions, form colonies, and blend themselves
with other nations, of which they will either become the conquerors or
slaves. Thus man, in every situation, and in every region, still aims
at society; it is, indeed, an uniform effect, of a necessary cause,
since without it the propagation, and, of course, the existence of
mankind would cease.
Thus we plainly see society is founded in Nature; and upon examining,
in the same manner, the appetites of savages, we shall find that none
of them live solely on fruits, herbs, or grain; that they all prefer
flesh and fish to other food, and that instead of preferring pure
water, they endeavour to make for themselves, or procure from others, a
beverage less insipid. The savages of the south drink the juice of the
palm-tree; those of the north take large draughts of disgusting whale
oil; others make fermented liquors, and they all possess a passionate
fondness for strong liquors. Their industry dictated by necessity,
and excited by natural appetite, amounts to nothing more than forming
a few instruments for hunting and fishing. A bow and arrows, a net,
a club, and a canoe, are the sole produce of their arts, and are all
for the purpose of procuring food suitable to their palates. And what
is suitable to their palate must correspond with Nature; for, as we
have already remarked, in the history of the ox, man, having but one
stomach, is not formed to live on herbage alone; nor would he be much
better supplied from grain, notwithstanding it has been highly improved
by art, and contains more nutritive particles than when possessed only
of their relative qualities; yet if man received no other food he
would with difficulty drag on a feeble and languishing existence.
Behold the enthusiastic recluse, who abstains, from every thing that
has had life, who, from religious motives, renounces the gifts of the
Creator, shuns society, and shuts himself up in those consecrated
walls, at the very idea of which Nature recoils. Confined in these
tombs set apart for the living, he draws on for a very few years, a
feeble and useless existence, and when the hour of dissolution comes,
it may be said to be that in which he ceased to die. If man were
reduced to abstain from flesh, at least in these climates, he could
neither subsist nor multiply. Perhaps this diet might be possible in
southern countries, where the fruits arrive at greater maturity, where
the plants are more substantial, and the roots more succulent. The
Brahmans, nevertheless, form rather a sect than a people, and their
religion, though very ancient, has never extended beyond one climate.
This religion, founded upon metaphysics, is a striking example of the
fate of human opinions. From the scattered remains we may plainly
perceive that the sciences have been cultivated from great antiquity,
and carried perhaps to a greater degree of perfection than they are at
this day. It was well known in ancient times that all animated beings
contained living and unperishable particles, which passed from one
body to another. This truth, which was adopted by a few philosophers,
and afterwards generally received, could only retain its purity during
the enlightened ages, and a revolution of darkness succeeding, nothing
more of them was remembered but just enough to countenance the opinion,
that the living principle of the animal was an unperishable whole,
which separated from the body after death. To this visionary whole
they gave the name of soul, which was soon supposed to exist in all
animals; and they afterwards maintained, that after death, what they
thus termed soul, perpetually transmigrated from one body to another.
Man was not excepted from the tenets of this doctrine; and blending
morals with metaphysics, they asserted that this surviving being
retained in its transmigrations all its former sentiments, affections,
and desires. Credulity trembled, and they contemplated with horror
the idea that on quitting its present agreeable abode the soul would
become the inhabitant of a noisome animal. Fear being the fore-runner
of superstition they began to entertain fresh alarms, and dreaded, lest
in killing an animal, they should destroy the mistress they had loved,
or the parent which had given them being; every beast they began to
regard as a relation or neighbour, till at last, from motives of love
and duty, they were obliged to abstain from every thing that had life.
Such is the origin and progress of the most ancient religion in India.
But to return to our subject. An entire abstinence from flesh can only
serve to enfeeble Nature. Man, to enjoy health, ought not only to
use this solid nourishment, but even to vary it; to acquire complete
vigour he must chuse that which agrees with him best; and, as he cannot
continue in an active state without procuring new sensations, so he
must indulge himself with a variety of eatables to prevent the disgust
that would follow an uniformity of nourishment, being careful, however,
to avoid excess, which is still more injurious than abstinence. Animals
which have but one stomach, and whose intestines are short, are forced,
like man, to feed on flesh, and, therefore, by an examination of the
various animals, it will appear, that their difference in food arises
from their conformation, and that their nourishment is more or less
solid as their stomachs are more or less capacious. But it must not
from this be concluded, that animals, which feed on herbs are under
a physical necessity of feeding on them alone, although carnivorous
animals cannot exist without flesh: we only mean it to be understood,
that those which have several stomachs can be supported without such
solid food; not but they might make use of it if Nature had furnished
them with talons to seize on prey, since we find sheep, calves, goats,
and horses, greedily eat milk and eggs, and do not refuse even meat
which has been seasoned with salt; it may, therefore, be said, that a
taste for flesh is a predominant appetite in all animals, and that it
is more or less vehement, or moderate, according to their particular
conformation, since we find it not only in man and quadrupeds, but in
fishes, insects, and worms; for the latter of which, indeed, all flesh
seems to be ultimately destined.
In all animals nutrition is performed by organic particles, which,
separated from the gross mass of food by digestion, mingle with the
blood, and assimilate with all parts of the body. But, independently of
this principal effect arising from the quality, there is another which
depends on the quantity of the food. The stomach and intestines of
supple membranes, which occupy a considerable space in the body, and
which, to preserve their tense state, and to counter-balance the force
of the adjoining parts, require to be always in some filled measure.
If for want of nourishment this space happens to be entirely empty,
then the membranes, having no longer an inward support, bear down upon
and adhere to each other, and these give rise to all the oppressions
and weakness of extreme want. Food, therefore, as well as contributing
to the nourishment of the body, serves as a kind of ballast to it.
Its presence and quantity are equally necessary to preserve an
equilibrium; and when a man dies for hunger, it is not more for want
of nourishment than from not having a proper poise to the body. Thus
animals, especially the most voracious, are so eager to fill up the
vacancy within them, that they will swallow even earth and stones. Clay
has been found in the stomach of a wolf; I have seen hogs eat it very
greedily, and most birds swallow pebbles, &c. Nor is this from taste
but necessity, for the most craving want is not to refresh the blood by
a new chyle, but to maintain an equilibrium of the forces in the grand
parts of the animal machine.