IN the history of man, and of domestic animals, we have seen Nature under restraint, seldom perfect, often changed and deformed, and perpetually encompassed with fetters, or loaded with foreign ornaments. She is now to appear naked, and adorned with simplicity alone; but her attractions will be heightened by native beauty, by the freedom of her demeanour, the sprightliness of her movements, and other marks of true dignity and independence. We are to see her traversing the surface of the earth, like a sovereign, dividing her empire among the animals, assigning to each his proper element, climate, and subsistence. We shall survey her in the forests, in the waters, and in the plains, dictating her simple but immutable laws, impressing upon every species indelible characters, dispensing her bounty with equity, compensating evil with good, giving to some strength and courage, accompanied with hunger and voracity; to others gentleness, temperance, and agility, attended with restlessness and timidity; and to all, liberty, uniform manners, and ardour in love, which is always easily gratified, and always followed with a happy fecundity. [66]
Love and liberty are the most inestimable gifts which Nature has to bestow. Do these animals we call wild, because they are not subject to our caprice, require more to render them completely happy? But they also enjoy a perfect equality; they are neither the slaves nor the tyrants of each other. The individual ha no occasion, like man, to dread the rest of his species. They have peace among themselves, and war never approaches them, but from strangers, or from man. They have, therefore, great reason to fly from the human race, to conceal themselves from our observation, to take up their abode in solitudes remote from the habitations of men, to provide for their safety by all the resources afforded them by instinct, and to withdraw themselves from the power of man, using, in every manner, that liberty bestowed on them by Nature, at the same time that she has given them the desire of independence.
Some animals, and they are the most gentle, innocent, and tranquil, content themselves with retiring, and passing their lives in our fields. Those which are more fierce and suspicious, hide themselves in the deepest recesses of the forest. Others, as if they knew there was no safety on the surface of the earth, dig subterraneous abodes, take refuge in caverns, or gain the summits of the most inaccessible mountains. Lastly, the most ferocious and formidable kinds, inhabit only deserts, and reign as monarchs in those [67] burning climates, where man, equally savage as themselves, is unable to conquer them.
As all beings, however free, are subjected to physical laws, and as the brute animals, as well as man, feel the influences of the heavens and the earth, it appears, that the same causes which have softened and civilized the human species in our climates, have produced similar effects upon every other species. The wolf, which is perhaps the most ferocious animal in the Temperate Zone, is not nearly so terrible or so cruel as the tiger, the panther, and the lion of the Torrid Zone, or the white bear, the lynx, and the hyaena of the Frozen Zone. This difference, as if Nature, to give more harmony to her productions, had adapted the climate to the species, or the species to the climate, is not only general, but, in each particular species, the climate is formed for the manners, and the manners for the climate.
In America, where the heat, under the same latitudes, is less, and the air and earth softer than in Africa, the tiger, the lion, the panther, have nothing formidable but the name. They are no longer those tyrants of the forest, those bold and intrepid enemies of man, those rapacious monsters which perpetually thirst for blood and carnage. These animals, in America, generally fly from man, but lie in wait to surprise them: They may even be subdued, and almost tamed. Hence, if ferociousness and cruelty were natural [68] to them, they must have degenerated, or rather felt the influence of climate. Under a mild climate, their nature has been softened; every excess of temper has been moderated; and those changes have only rendered them more conformable to the quality of the country they inhabit.
The vegetables which cover the earth, and are more closely connected with it than the animal that feeds upon them, participate also more of the nature of the climate. Every country, every degree of temperature, has its peculiar plants. At the foot of the Alps, we find the vegetables of France and Italy, and, on their summit, those of the northern regions: We even meet with the same plants on the frozen ridges of the African mountains. On the south side of the mountains which divide the Mogul empire from the kingdom of Cashmire, we see all the Indian plants, and we are surprised to find, on the opposite side, nothing but the European kinds. Intemperate climates likewise produce drugs, perfumes, poisons, and all vegetables whose qualities are highly exalted. The productions of temperate climates, on the contrary, are always mild: The softest and most wholesome herbs, the sweetest fruits, the gentlest animals, and the most polished men, are peculiar to those happy climates. Thus, the earth produces plants, the earth and plants make animals, and the earth, plants, and animals, give birth to man; for the qualities of vegetables proceed immediately from the earth [69] and the air; the temperature and other relative qualities of herbivorous animals are derived from the plants upon which they feed; and the physical qualities of man, and other creatures which are nourished partly by flesh and partly by plants, depend, though more remotely, on the same causes, whose influence extends even to dispositions and manners. Figure and size, which appear to be so absolute and determined qualities, depend, however, like the relative qualities, upon the influence of climate, and concur in proving that every thing is moderate in temperate regions. The size of our largest quadrupeds have no proportion to that of the elephant, the rhinoceros, or hyppopotamus [sic]. Our largest birds are small, when compared with the ostrich, the condor, or the cassawary [sic]; and what comparison is there between the fishes, the lizards, and the serpents of our climates, with the whale, the walrus, and manati, which people the northern seas, or the crocodiles, the large lizards, and the enormous serpents which infest the land and waters of the south? And, if we examine each species in different climates, we shall find sensible varieties both in size and in figure.* These changes are produced in a slow and imperceptible manner. Time is the great workman of nature. He moves with regular and uniform steps. He performs no operation suddenly; but, by de- [70] grees, or successive impressions, nothing can resist his power; and those changes which at first are imperceptible, become gradually sensible, and at last are marked by results too conspicuous to be misapprehended.
Wild and free animals, without excepting man, are, of all animated beings, least subject to changes or variations of any kind. As they are at absolute liberty in the choice of their food and their climate, their nature is more permanent than that of domestic animals, which are enslaved, transported, maletreated [sic], and fed, without consulting their inclination or taste. Wild animals live perpetually in the same manner. They never wander from climate to climate. The wood where they are brought forth is a country to which they are faithfully attached, and the never depart from it, unless they perceive that they can no longer live there in safety. They fly not so much from the natural enemies, as from the presence of man. Nature has furnished them with resources against the other animals, and put them on a level; they know their strength, their address, their designs, their haunts, and, if unable to avoid them, oppose force to force: In a word, they are species of the same genus. But how can they defend themselves against a being who can seize without seeing, and kill without approaching them?
It is man, therefore, who disturbs and disperses wild animals, and renders them a thousand times more [71] savage than they would naturally be; for most of them require only tranquility, and a moderate use of the air and earth. Nature even teaches them to live together, to unite into families, and to form societies. In countries not totally engrossed by man, some vestiges of these societies still remain. We there perceive common works carried on, designs that, though not founded on reason, appear to be projected upon rational conventions, the execution of which supposes union at least, and a joint co-operation of labour. It is not by force or physical necessity, like the ants, the bees, &c. that the beavers labour and build houses; for they are neither constrained by space, nor time, nor number, but unite from choice. Those which agree, dwell together; and those which do not agree, remove; and some of them have been remarked which, being constantly repulsed by others, were obliged to betake themselves to a solitary life. It is only in distant and desert countries where they dread not the approach of man, that they incline to render their dwellings more fixed and commodious, by constructing houses, or a kind of villages, which have no small resemblance to the feeble and primitive efforts of a nascent republic. In countries, on the contrary, spread over by men, they carry terror along with them. The society of animals is then at an end. All industry ceases, and every art is stifled. They think no more of building, and neglect every conveniency. Perpetu- [72] ally pressed by fear and necessity, their only desire is the bare preservation of life, and their only occupation is flight and concealment. If the human species, as is reasonable to suppose, shall in the progress of time, people equally the whole surface of the earth, the history of the beaver, in a few ages, will be regarded as a ridiculous fable.
We may, therefore, conclude, that the talents and faculties of animals, instead of augmenting, are perpetually diminishing. Time fights against them. The more the human species multiplies and improves, the more will the wild animals feel the effects of a terrible and absolute tyrant, who, hardly allowing them an individual existence, deprives them of liberty, of every associating principle, and destroys the very rudiments of their intelligence. What advances they have made, or may still make, conveys little information of what they have been, or might acquire. If the human species were annihilated, to which of the animals would the sceptre of the earth belong? [73]
* See the history of the horse, vol. III p. 306; goat, vol. III. p. 406; hog, vol. III. p. 500.; and dog, vol. IV. p. 1 [back to page 70].