OF NATURAL HISTORY. 425 



preparing, faftiloning, and traiifporting, the heavy materials 

 for building their winter habitations, as formerly remarked*, 

 are truly aftonifhing ; and, when we read their hiftory, we 

 are apt to think that we are perufing the hiftory of man in 

 a period of fociety not inconfiderably advanced. It is only 

 by the united ftrength, and co-operation of numbers, that the 

 beavers could be enabled to produce fuch wonderful efFe^ls ; 

 for, in a folitary ftate, as they at prefent appear in fome 

 northern parts of Europe, the beavers, like folitary favages, 

 are timid and ftupid animals. They neither afTociate, ncr 

 attempt to conftrudl villages, but content themfelves v;ith 

 digging holes in the earth. Like men under the opprefilon 

 of defpotic governments, the fpirit of the European beavers 

 is deprefTed, and their genius is extingulihed by terror, and 

 by a perpetual and necefiTary attention to individuul fafety. 

 The northern parts of Europe are now To populous, and the 

 animals there are fo perpetually hunted for the fake of their 

 furs, that they have no opportunity of afTociatlng ; of courfe, 

 thofe v\'onderful remarks of their fagacity, which they exhib- 

 it in the remote and uninhabited regions of North America, 

 are no longer to be found. The fociety of beavers is. a fo- 

 ciety of peace and of affecStlon. They never quarrel or in- 

 jure one another, but live together in different numbers, ac- 

 cording to the dimeniions of particular cabins, in the moft 

 perfedt harmony. The principle of their union is neither 

 monarchical nor defpotic. For the inhabitants of the differ- 

 ent cabins, as well as thofe of the whole village, feem to ac- 

 knowledge no chief or leader whatever. Their affociation 

 prefents to our obfervation a model of a pure and perfect re- 

 public, the only bafis of which is mutual and unequivocal at- 

 tachment. They have no law but the law of love and of pa- 

 rental affecftion. Humanity prompts us to wifh that it were 

 poffible to eftablifli republics of this kind among mankind. 



* Sec above, page 31^, &c^ 



