ANIMALS. 



121 



similitude to the vegetable productions on 

 which they are ultimately fed; while, on the 

 contrary, the meaner the animal, the more 

 local it is found to be, and the more it is influ- 

 enced by the varieties of the soil where it 

 resides. Many of the more humble reptile 

 kinds are not only confined to one country, 

 but also to a plant ; nay, even to a leaf. 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 instantly die ; being entirely assimilat- 

 ed to the plant they feed on, assuming its co- 

 lour, and even its medicinal properties. For 

 this reason, there are infinite numbers of the 

 meaner animals that we have never an op- 

 portunity 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 vegeta- 

 ble sustenance : equally unaffected by the 

 luxuriance of the warm climates, or the steri- 

 lity of the poles, he has spread his habitations 

 over the whole earth ; and finds subsistence 

 as well amidst the ice of the north as the 

 burning deserts under the Line. All crea- 

 tures of an inferior nature, as has been said, 

 have peculiar propensities to peculiar cli- 

 mates ; they are circumscribed to zones, and 

 confined to territories, where their proper 

 food is found in the greatest abundance; but 

 man may be called the animal of every cli- 

 mate, and suffers but very gradual alterations 

 from the nature of any situation. 



As to animals of a meaner rank, whom 

 man compels to attend him in his migrations, 

 these being obliged to live in a kind of con- 

 straint, and upon vegetable food, often differ- 

 ent from that of their native soil, they very 

 soon alter their natures with the nature of 

 their nourishment, assimilate to the vegeta- 

 bles upon which they are fed, and thus as- 

 sume very different habits as well as appear- 

 ances. Thus man, unaffected himself, alters 



and directs the nature of other animals at his 

 pleasure ; increases their strength for his de- 

 light, or their patience for his necessities. 



This power of altering the appearances of 

 things, seems to have been given him for very 

 wise purposes. The Deity, when he made 

 the earth, was willing to give his favoured 

 creature many opponents, that might at once 

 exercise his virtues, and call forth his latent 

 abilities. Hence we find, in those wide un- 

 cultivated wildernesses, 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 undescri- 

 bed, 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 peo- 

 pled with various generations ; some of which 

 have never been upon the ground, and others 

 have neK.er stirred from the branches on 

 which they were produced. In this manner 

 millions of minute and loathsome creatures 

 pursue a round of uninterrupted existence,and 

 enjoy a life scarcely superior to vegetation. 

 At the same time, the vegetables in those 

 places are of the larger kinds, while the 

 animal race is of the smaller : but man has al- 

 tered this disposition of nature ; having, in a 

 great measure, levelled the extensive forests, 

 cultivated the softer and finer vegetables, de- 

 stroyed the numberless tribes of minute and 

 noxious animals, and taken every method to 

 increase a numerous breed of the larger 

 kinds. He thus has exercised a severe con- 

 trol ; unpeopled nature, to embellish it ; and 

 diminished the size of the vegetable, in or- 

 der to improve that of the animal kingdom. 



To subdue the earth to his own use was, 

 and ought to be, the aim of man ; which was 

 only to be done by increasing the number of 

 plants, and diminishing that of animals : to 

 multiply existence, alone was that of the 

 Deity. For this reason, we find, in a state of 

 nature, that animal life is increased to the 

 greatest quantity possible; and, we can 

 scarcely form a system that could add to its 

 numbers. First, plants or trees are pro- 



