478 CANNIBALISM. 



range through the forests of Guiana. I have killed them, and I have 

 dissected them, and am acquainted with their habits. But neither 

 my own observations, nor information on the part of the Indians, 

 have induced me to entertain the slightest suspicion that these wild 

 animals, or any others, do, under any circumstances, feed upon each 

 other. They seem all to obey the original law of nature already 

 mentioned. I am of firm belief that, when left in their own freedom, 

 pigs will never feed on pigs. 



If this paramount law is not broken by the brute creation, we may 

 well imagine that it is paramount with man, a rational animal. In 

 this light, then, man cannot be considered a cannibal, in the strict 

 sense of the word, although some instances may occur which will 

 occasionally cause him to eat his own species. Were man a real 

 cannibal, he would make use of his superior powers of mind to plot 

 against the lives of his fellow-creatures, in order to gratify his appetite. 

 He would be for ever bent on their destruction, and they on his, 

 until the race of uninstructed men, generally known by the name of 

 savages, became entirely extinct. Moderation would be out of the 

 case. A cannibal could not think of confining himself, once in a 

 way, to a festive dinner on his tender sister, or to a single dish of 

 soup made out of his old grandmother. He would want more of the 

 delicious nutriment, and he would continue to long after human flesh 

 wherever there was an opportunity of obtaining it. 



Contemplating cannibalism in this point of view, I come to the 

 conclusion, that the nature, the habits, and the superior powers of 

 man, forbid him to be a cannibal. 



Let us inquire what it is that instigates a brute animal to prey 

 upon one of its own species ; after which we can extend the investi- 

 gation to man himself, and then see what it is that causes this 

 rational being to forfeit his high position in the creation ; and in 

 fact, to place himself below that of wild beasts themselves. I say 

 below, because man, in his most uncultivated state, possesses reason- 

 ing qualities of sufficient force to keep him at the head of all animals, 

 whilst these latter have nothing more than instinct for their guide. 



If a number of irrational animals, consisting only of one species, 

 were to be deprived of their liberty, and to be shut up in a place 

 from which they could not escape, they would prey upon each other 



