THE STORY OF AUTO NOUS. 281 



that he had been alarmed by his 'own Image and Eesemblance.' From 

 this, he makes a sudden leap into theories concerning himself and the 

 manner in which he and the dog had got to be where they are; and 

 recalling what he had already noted of the 'usual method by which all 

 other living creatures propagated their likes/ he sapiently infers that 

 their own coming into the world must have been after the same fashion. 

 All this must have happened, he believed, when he was about ten years 

 of age. 



The notion that he must have had a beginning somewhere, and 

 that, though he was now living entirely alone, he was really in some 

 inscrutable way linked to his kind, is now confirmed by an exami- 

 nation of his cottage, which up to the present he has accepted unin- 

 quiringly and as a mere matter of course. Comparing it with the 

 dwellings of the beavers on the lake-shore, he guessed that it must have 

 been built by predecessors of his own and arranged for their comfort 

 and protection. The remains of one of the ship's boats, decaying on 

 the strand, are, moreover, caught up in his speculation, suggesting 

 transportation, and hinting, if at first rather vaguely, at a great human 

 world out of which he has been cast. "But what," exclaims Autonous, 

 "is the Beginning of Eeason but the Beginning of Sorrow to creatures 

 whose Eeason can only serve to discover their Wants and Imperfections 

 to them?" His tranquillity — the tranquillity of mere animal existence — 

 is at an end. His mind broods continually over the 'Thoughts of 

 Human Society,' without which he feels there can be no happiness for 

 him, or even peace. He watches the birds and beasts, and envies their 

 social lot. Had the boat been in sufficient repair, he feels that he 

 might even have started off in the wild hope of finding somebody some- 

 where. "So strong an Inclination has Nature implanted in us for the 

 Conversation of our Fellow-Creatures, in order to communicate our 

 joys and griefs and sympathize under one another's sufferings." 



Despite this heart -hunger, Autonous now enters on the high-road of 

 intellectual progress. He begins to observe with close attention the 

 growth of trees, grass and flowers, and the dependence of all animal 

 life upon the fertility of the soil. Thus far we can without much 

 difficulty keep up with him. But from this point he goes forward with 

 such leaps and bounds that we are left almost breathless in our efforts 

 to follow. For now he notes how the 'successive Renewals of Nature' 

 exactly correspond with 'the Motions of the Sun,' and the agreement 

 between the phases of the moon and the tides. The revolutions of 

 'the lesser heavenly luminaries' also become the subject of his 'noc- 

 turnal Contemplations'; moreover, he studies the rainbow, and discovers 

 the 'necessity of Eain and the solar Heat' to 'ripen the Fruits of the 

 Earth/ 



Nor are these the only, or the most astonishing, results of his 



