ANIMALS. 353 



Upon that they subsist, increase with its vegeta- 

 tion, and seem to decay as it declines. They are 

 merely the circumscribed inhabitants of a single 

 vegetable: take them from that, and they in- 

 stantly die ; being entirely assimilated to the 

 plant they feed on, assuming its colour, and 

 even its medicinal properties. For this reason, 

 there are infinite numbers of the meaner animals 

 that we have never an opportunity of seeing in 

 this part of the world ; they are incapable of 

 living separate from their kindred vegetables, 

 which grow only in a certain climate* 



Such animals as are formed more perfect, lead 

 a life of less dependance ; and some kinds are 

 found to subsist in many parts of the world at 

 the same time. But of all the races of animated 

 nature, man is the least affected by the soil where 

 he resides, and least influenced by the variations 

 of vegetable sustenance : Equally unaffected by 

 the luxuriance of the warm climates, or the 

 sterility of the poles, he has spread his habita- 

 tions over the whole earth; and finds subsist- 

 ence as well amidst the ice of the north as the 

 burning deserts under the Line. All creatures 

 of an inferior nature, as has been said, have 

 peculiar propensities to peculiar climates; they 

 are circumscribed to zones, and confined to ter- 

 ritories where their proper food is found in the 

 greatest abundance ; but man may be called the 

 animal of every climate, and suffers but very gra- 

 dual alterations from the nature of any situation. 



As to animals of a meaner rank, whom man 

 compels to attend him in all his migrations, these 



VOL. i. z 



