120 PLINY'S NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book YII. 



an immoderate desire of life/^ to superstition/'^ — he is the only 

 one that troubles himself about his burial, and even what is to 

 become of him after death. ^® Ey none is life held on a tenure 

 more frail ;^' none are more influenced by unbridled desires for 

 all things ; none are sensible of fears more bewildering ; none 

 are actuated by rage more frantic and violent. Other animals, 

 in fine, live at peace with those of their own kind ; we only 

 see them unite to make a stand against those of a different 

 species. The fierceness of the lion is not expended in fight- 

 ing with its own kind ; the sting of the serpent is not aimed 

 at the serpent ;"° and the monsters of the sea even, and the 

 fishes, vent their rage only'on those of a different species. But 

 with man, — by Hercules! most of his misfortunes are occasioned 

 by man."^ 



(1.) We have already given ^- a general description of the 

 human race in our account of the different nations. iN'or, in- 

 deed, do I now propose to treat of their manners and customs, 

 which areof infinite variety and almost as numerous as the various 

 groups themselves, into which mankind is divided ; but yet 

 there are some things, which, I think, ought not to be omitted ; 



1^ This is said hj'perbolically by Pliny. The brutes of the field have as 

 strong a love of life as man, although they may not be in fear of death, not 

 knoAving what it is. That they know what pain is, is evident from 

 their instinctive attempts to avoid it. 



1' Under this name he evidently intends to include all systems of re- 

 ligion, which he held in equal contempt. 



^^ Ajasson seems to think that he alludes to man's craving desire for 

 posthumous fame ; but it is pretty clear that he has in view the then pre- 

 valent notions of the life of the soul after the death of the body. 



'9 Pascal has a similar thought ; he says that " Man is a reed, and the 

 weakest reed of nature." The machinery of his body is minute and com- 

 plex in the extreme, but it can hardly be said that his life is exposed to as 

 many dangers dependent on the volition of, or on accidents arising from, 

 other animated beings, as that of minute insects. 



20 Ajasson refers to various classical authors for a similar statement. 

 It is scarcely necessary to remark, that it is contrary to many well-known 

 facts. — B. The cravings of hunger and of the sexual appetite, are quite 

 sufficient to prf'clude the possibility of such a happy state of things among 

 the brutes as Pliny here describes. 

 _ 21 It was this feeling that prompted the common saying among the an- 

 cients, "Homo homini lupus" — " Man to man is a wolf ;" and most true 

 it is, that 



"Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." 



2- He alludes to the description already given in his geographical 

 Books, of man taken in the aggregate, and grouped into nations. 



