PLEASURES OF SAVAGE MAN. 503 



the world, and to whom, moreover, they are attached by close ties of 

 consanguinity. 



Widely different is the man of the Prairies and the Forests, the 

 Savage, who even to our own days has remained plunged in the 

 lowest depths of social, intellectual, and moral development. Differing 

 the one from the other, according to the country which they inhabit, 

 the colour of the skin, the features of the countenance, and sometimes 

 the forms and outlines of the body, savages everywhere approximate 

 very closely in the general character of their instincts, sentiments, and 

 ideas, and represent to us that early condition of humanity from which 

 it has only been elevated by the Divine impulse and for the Divine 

 purposes. 



Assuredly it is not these whom Bonald has in view when he 

 defines Man as "an intelligence served by organs;" for with them the 

 respective parts of the mind and the body are inverted, and the first 

 is the very humble servant of the second; its sphere of activity, 

 accordingly, is very much restricted. War, the chase, the coarse 

 pleasures of the banquet, the dance and what a wild, barbarous, 

 sensual dance it is ! the recital and glorification of the deeds of their 

 ancestors, their nation, and themselves, mingled with marvellous im- 

 probabilities which he readily accepts for authentic histories, _ and 

 finally, gambling these are the only pleasures of the savage. 



The chase is almost his sole means of existence ; for he is no 

 shepherd, and still less is he a tiller of the ground. He contents 

 himself with gathering those alimentary substances which Nature 

 spontaneously pours out at his feet ; and as, among these, the flesh 

 of animals is that which he prefers, he exerts all his physical faculties, 

 and all the resources of his intelligence, to procure it. He fashions 

 for himself arms ; he learns to handle them skilfully, as well as to 

 follow up the scent of the game, to contend with the wild beast in 

 agility or cunning ; and he displays in this exercise a courage, a 

 patience, and an ardour augmented by the stimulus of vanity, which 

 prompts every tribe and every individual to claim the crown of 

 superior bravery and the prize of sm-passing skill. 



