ANIMALS. 203 



rted when the load is in such a position as that the column of th 

 bones can be properly applied, which is lengthwise. When, therefore, 

 we are to estimate the comparative strength of a horse, we are not to 

 try what he can carry, but what he can draw ; and, in this case, his 

 amazing superiority over man is easily discerned ; for one horse can 

 draw a load that ten men cannot move. And in some cases it hap- 

 pens that a draught-horse draws the better for being somewhat loaded : 

 for, as the peasants say, the load upon the back keeps him the better 

 to the ground." 



There is still another way of estimating human strength, by the per- 

 severance and agility of our motions. Men who are exercised in 

 running, outstrip horses, or at least hold their speed for a longer con- 

 tinuance. In a journey, also, a man will walk down a horse ; and, 

 after thev have both continued to proceed for several days, the horse 

 will be quite tired, and the man will be fresher than in the beginning. 

 The king's messengers of Ispahan, who are runners by profession, go 

 thirty-six leagues in fourteen hours. Travellers assure us, that the 

 Hottentots outstrip lions in the chace ; and that the savages who hunt 

 the elk, pursue with such speed, that they at last tire down, and take 

 it. We are told many very surprising things of the great swiftness of 

 the savages, and of the long journeys they undertake on foot, through 

 the most craggy mountains, where there are no paths to direct, nor 

 houses to entertain them. They are said to perform a journey of 

 twelve hundred leagues in less than six weeks. " But notwithstand- 

 ing what travellers report of this matter, I have been assured, from 

 many of our officers and soldiers, who compared their own swiftness 

 with that of the native Americans, during the last war, that although 

 the savages held out, and as the phrase is, had better bottoms, yet, for 

 a spurt, the Englishmen were more nimble and speedy." 



Nevertheless, in general, civilized man is ignorant of his own pow- 

 ers : he is ignorant how much he loses by effeminacy, and what might 

 be acquired by habit and exercise. Here and there, indeed, men are 

 found among us of extraordinary strength ; but that strength, for want 

 of opportunity, is seldom called into exertion. " Among the ancients, 

 it was a quality of much greater use than at present ; as in war the 

 same man that had strength sufficient to carry the heaviest armour, had 

 strength sufficient also to strike the most fatal blow. In this case, his 

 strength was at once his protection and his power. We ought not to 

 be surprised, therefore, when we hear of one man terrible to an army, 

 and irresistible in his career, as we find some generals represented in 

 ancient history. But we may be very certain that this prowess was 

 exaggerated by flattery, and exalted by terror. An age of ignorance 

 is ever an age of wonder. At such times, mankind, having no just 

 ideas of the human powers, are willing rather to represent what they 

 wish, than what they know ; and exalt human strength, to fill up the 

 whole sphere of their limited conceptions. Great strength is an ac- 

 cidental thing ; two or three in a country may possess it, and these 

 may have a claim to heroism. But what may lead us to doubt of the 

 veracity of these accounts is, that the heroes of antiquity are repre- 

 sented as the sons of heroes ; their amazing strength is delivered down 

 from father to sun and this we know to be contrary to the course of 



