102 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



acquired by experience. It is, nevertheless, a great error 

 to deduce, from the same cause, the harmony which usually 

 reigns among these animals ; the sacrifice, if we may so ex- 

 press it, which we behold them make of private interest to 

 public good, and their entire forgetfulness of that indivi- 

 vidual strength which would enable them to hurt one ano- 

 ther. If they renounce the right of the strongest, and 

 submit themselves to moral laws, and a kind of conscious- 

 ness of duty, it proceeds alone from the influence which 

 they exercise over each other, from the education which 

 the young receive from the adult, at an age when they are 

 forced to obey, and perpetually constrained to confine 

 themselves to that circle which circumstances have pre- 

 sented to their association ; — thus, themselves, their 

 actions, and their wants, are finally placed under the in- 

 flexible control of habit. 



An incontestable proof of this fact is, that these animals 

 Jose all their social qualities, from the moment that some 

 powerful cause has isolated them from their fellows, and 

 condemned them to live in a state of solitude. The dog 

 himself, an animal both organized for society, and im- 

 pelled to it by the powerful influence of domestication, is 

 but a ferocious animal, averse from all submission, when 

 educated merely under the influence of inanimate nature, 

 and exposed to no resistance but that which it can escape 

 or overcome. The Beaver, in the same circumstances, 

 exhibits similar phenomena ; its instinct remains, but its 

 individual wants being alone developed, place it in a state 

 of open war with its fellows, and destroy all harmony be- 

 tween them. — Brought up together, these animals would 

 have lived in perfect harmony, and laboured in concert ; 

 but remove them from such society, and each can live no 

 longer but for himself alone. Many of the Canadian Bea- 

 vers, shut up in menageries, strongly illustrate this ob- 

 servation, according to the remark of M, F. Cuvier. These 



