354 HISTORY OF 



being obliged to live in a kind of constraint, and 

 upon vegetable food often different from that of 

 their native soil, they very soon alter their natures 

 with the nature of their nourishment, assimilate 

 to the vegetables upon which they are fed, and 

 thus assume very different habits as well as ap- 

 pearances. Thus man, unaffected himself, alters 

 and directs the nature of other animals at his 

 pleasure ; increases their strength for his delight, 

 or their patience for his necessities. 



This power of altering the appearances of things 

 seems to have been given him for very wise pur- 

 poses. The Deity, when he made the earth, was 

 willing to give his favoured creature many op- 

 ponents, that might at once exercise his virtues, 

 and call forth his latent abilities. Hence we 

 find, in those wide uncultivated wildernesses y 

 where man, in his savage state, owns inferior 

 strength, and the beasts claim divided dominion, 

 that the whole forest swarms with noxious animals 

 and vegetables ; animals as yet undescribed, and 

 vegetables which want a name. In those recesses 

 nature seems rather lavish than magnificent, in 

 bestowing life. The trees are usually of the 

 largest kinds, covered round with parasite plants, 

 and interwoven at the tops with each other. The 

 boughs, both above and below, are peopled with 

 various generations ; some of which have never 

 been upon the ground, and others have never 

 stirred from the branches on which they were 

 produced. In this manner, millions of minute 

 and loathsome creatures pursue a round of un- 

 interrupted existence, and enjoy a life scarcely 



