Mammiferous Animals. 67 



afford us tlie means of deducing its faculties as accurately as 

 we should deduce ihem irom facts presented by the others. 



It is not the ordinary conditions of animal existence, those 

 which first present themselves in all the circumstances where 

 human industry does not interfere, that are the best calculated 

 to make animals act in a manner favorable to the unfoldiug 

 of their faculties. The equilibrium which is constantly tending 

 to establish itself among all the powers which simultaneously 

 act here below, gives to the most energetic a preponderance 

 over the more feeble, which never leaves the latter the liberty 

 of acting; and it is only by mastering' these predominating 

 powers, by attenuating them, that we come to discover the 

 others, that we render them sensible, and vary their effects. 



In their natural independence, that is to say, such as it may 

 be in all the circumstances in which it naturally occurs, animals 

 arc under the yoke of these predominating- powers : and they 

 m:iy then inform us of the place which they occupy among the 

 other beings submitted to the same powers, of the relations in 

 which they stand to them, and of the influence which they 

 exercise in the general economy ; but, in this state, they can 

 only, in common, afford us very confined and always doubtfnl 

 ideas, regarding their general faculties ; for, in this case, it 

 does not depend upon us to submit them to experiment, in 

 order to confirm our conjectures. Buffon tells us what every 

 body has repeated after him, " that to fierceness, courage, and 

 ? tren^th, «the lion joins nobility, clemency, and magnanimity ; 

 that he often forgets he is king, that is to say the strongest of 

 all animals ; that, walking with a tranquil pace, be never 

 attacks man, unless when provoked ; that he does not accelerate 

 his steps, or run, or pursue, utdess when pressed by hunger ; 

 that the tiger, on the other hand, while meanly ferocious, cruel 

 without justice, that is to say, without necessity, seems always 

 thirsty of blood, although satiated with flesh; that his fury has 

 no other interval than that of the time necessary for preparing 

 new ambushes ; t.;at he seizes and tears a new prey with the 

 same rage which he has just exercised, but not assuaged, in 

 devouring the first," &c. 



Now these differences between the lion and the tiger can 

 only be relative to the circumstances in which the individuals so 

 described had lived, for these animals have nearly the same 

 dispositions. Placed in the same circumstances, they have 

 constantly presented the same phenomena to us; they have 

 shown us that the one is a3 easily tamed as the other : that 

 they become equally attached to their keepers, experience the 

 same feelings for the benefits which they receive, and that their 

 hatred or their rage is provoked by the same causes ; that their 



