STtTDY I. 63 



The dog, much more intelligent than the mon- 

 key, a witnefs every hour of the effeds of fire ; 

 accuftomed, in our kitchens, to live only on meat 

 that is dreffed, if you give him raw fiefli, will never 

 dream of going to roaft it on the coals. This barrier, 

 which feparates Man from the brute, weak as it may 

 appear, is infurmountable to animals. And this is 

 one of the great bleflings of Providence, beftowed 

 for the general fecurity ; for how many unforefeen, 

 and irreparable conflagrations would take place, 

 were Fire at their difpofal ? God has intruded the firfl 

 agent in Nature, to that being alone who, by his 

 reafon, is qualified to make a right ufe of it. 



While fome Hiftorians beftow this faculty on 

 the brutes, others deny it to Man. They allege, 

 that many Nations were entirely deftitute of it, 

 till the arrival of the Europeans among them. 

 To prove this, they quote the inhabitants of the 

 Marianne Iflands, otherwife called the Ifie of 

 Thieves, by a calumnious imputation fo common 

 among failors ; but this afiertion is grounded on 

 bare fuppofition ; namely, on the very natural 

 aftonifliment expreffed by thefe Iflanders, on fee- 

 ing their villages fet on fire by the Spaniards *, 



* See the Hillory of their Difcoveries, by Magellan; the 

 Hiftory of the Marianne Ifles, by Father Gobien, vol. ii. page 

 44; and that of the Weft-Indies, by Herrera, vol. iii. page 10 

 and 712. 



whom 



