THE NATURAL 



that he is a very complex one. One finds in him most 

 of the aptitudes which are distributed one by one among 

 beasts. There is hardly one of his habits, of his virtues, 

 of his vices (to use the conventional terms) which can 

 not be found either in an insect, a bird or a mammifer: 

 monogamy, adultery, the "consequences"; polygamy, 

 polyandry, lasciviousness, laziness, activity, cruelty, 

 courage, devotion, any of these are common to 

 animals, but each as the quality of an whole species. 

 In the state of differentiation to which superior and 

 cultivated human species have attained, each individual 

 forms surely a separate variety determined by what is 

 called, abstractly, "the character." This individual 

 differentiation, very marked in mankind, is less marked 

 in other animal species. Yet we note quite distinct 

 characters in dogs, in horses and even in birds of the 

 same race. It is quite probable that all bees have not 

 the same character, since, for example, they are not all 

 equally prompt to use their stings in analogous circum- 

 stances. Even there the difference between man and 

 his brothers-in-life and in sensibility is but a difference 

 of degree. 



"Solidarity" is but an empty ideology if one limit it 

 to human species. There is no abyss between man and 

 animal; the two domains are separated by a tiny rivulet 

 which a baby could step over. We are animals, we live 

 on animals, and animals live on us. We both have and 

 are parasites. We are predatory, and we are the living 

 prey of the predatory. And when we follow the love act, 

 it is truly, in the idiom of theologians, more bestiarum. 

 Love is profoundly animal; therein is its beauty. 

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