i)f Mammiferous Animals. 305 



have been made, with the full possession of all their faculties ; 

 they alone allow us to trace without error the true origin of all 

 their determinations. 



The origin of these ideas is easily discovered. They proceed 

 from the same source as most of the errors which have been en- 

 tertained with respect to the nature of animals ; the ideas to 

 which the study of man gave rise were applied to these beings. 

 But if slavery, if absolute submission to the will of another is 

 the situation the most repugnant to the moral and intellectual 

 developement of the human species, one essential character 

 of which consists in liberty, what reason would there be for 

 animals, which are deprived of all liberty, properly so called, 

 experiencing the same effects from slavery as ourselves ? And 

 further, the errors into which men have fallen regarding this 

 imaginary state of nature, the only state, it has been said, in 

 which man can shew himself in all his grandeur, and in all his 

 beauty, must have influenced the ideas which have been formed 

 of animals, the wildest state of which has always been consider- 

 ed as the true state of nature, and must have still more strong- 

 ly convinced us of the hopeless attempt to acquire a knowledge 

 of them in any other than their state of perfect independence. 



Most of these errors might have been avoided by the consi- 

 deration that, in establishing, as a principle, that these animals 

 unveil their nature to us only in a state of absolute independ- 

 ence, and in yet admitting that they may act in a state of do- 

 mestication, and even of slavery, was the same thing as saying 

 that they have the faculty of not acting according to their na- 

 ture ; that they are susceptible of obeying desires which have 

 not been imparted to them ; that they manifest other dispositions 

 than those which they have received ; in a word, that they may 

 be something else than what they ought to be in virtue of the 

 laws of the universe, and that man may have the power of 

 changing their nature, and of destroying the laws of creation. 



To examine therefore this idea, and trace its consequences, 

 is all that is necessary to shew at least its weakness ; and some 

 further considerations will serve to refute any arguments that 

 might still be urged in its support. 



Were liberty necessary in order to animals manifesting 

 themselves to us such as they originally came from the hands 



JULY — SEPTEMBER 1827- U 



