Alummifirous Animals. 69 



jio sense of touch excepting at the points where the moustaches 

 are affixed, has demonstrated, by means of actions artificially 

 provoked, that the extent of intellect is no more proportional to 

 the perfection of the organs in animals than in man. 



All the analogies founded upon the observations of animals in 

 a siate of liberty, made it in general be regarded as a certain 

 fact, that the intelligence of each animal in its development 

 followed the progression which we observe in the development 

 of the human intellect. 



The study of animals in a state of captivity has had the • 

 effect of destroying this prejudice; for it was only necessary to 

 compare them with themselves at different periods of their life, 

 and consequently to follow their development, in order to 

 perceive that the young are incomparably more intelligent than 

 those which have attained the age of maturity. But this obser- 

 vation is not confined to the establishment of a new and 

 important fact; it has, moreover, thrown li^ht upon a question 

 of high interest. In observing that in their early youth the 

 intellectual faculties with which animals have been endowed 

 have acquired all the extent and activity of which they are 

 capable, and that they begin to diminish as soon as the age of 

 vigour arrives, we have acquired a new demonstration of the 

 fundamental difference which distingu : shes them from man. 



It is not merely truths which may be deduced from contingent 

 and fortuitous actions that wc obtain from animals kept in a 

 state of captivity ; these animals also ail'ord us information 

 respecting those which result from their necessary actions. 



So long as beavers had only been observed in their native 

 liberty, it was seen that those 'which live collected into bands 

 in wild countries construct habitations, and that the solitary 

 individuals, such as are sometimes met with, especially in 

 populous countries, made their retreat in the natural excavations 

 of the banks of lakes and rivers; and it was concluded from 

 these facts, " that these animals do not labour and build by a 

 physical power or necessity, like ants and bees ; that ihey do it 

 by choice, and that their industry ceases whenever the presence 

 of man has diffused its terror among them." If, however, 

 liuffon had formed the idea of placing them in suitable 

 circumstances, and of giving them the materials which they 

 commonly employ in building, he would have seen that their 

 solitude, and the presence of man, did not make them intermit 

 their labours, that they still took care to build ; several solitary 

 beavers on the banks of the lser, the Rhone, and the Danube, 

 have shown to us, in the numerous experiments to which wc 

 have subjected them, that they are constantly impelled to 

 build, without however there resulting any other advantage to 



