OF NATURAL HISTORY. 419 



But they muft be cherifhed, expanded, and brought gradually to per- 

 fedion. It is by numerous and regularly eftablifhed focieties alone 

 that fuch glorious exhibitions of human intelleil can be produced. 

 What is the hut of a favag« when compared to the palace of a prince r 

 or what his canoe when compared to a firft rate fhip of war f 



Next to the intelligence exhibited in human fociety, that of the 

 beavers is the moft confpicuous. Their operations in preparing, 

 falhioning, and tranfporting, the heavy materials for building their 

 winter habitations, as formerly remarked *, are truly aftonifliing ; 

 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 wonder- 

 ful effeds ; for, in a folitary ftate, as they at prefent appear in feme 

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

 and ftupid animals. They neither aflbciate, nor attempt to conftrud 

 villages, but content themfelves with digging holes in the earth. 

 Like men under the oppreffion of defpotic governments, the fpirit 

 of the European beavers is depreffed, and their genius is extinguifti- 

 ed by terror, and by a perpetual and neceflary attention to individual 

 fafety. The northern parts of Europe are now fo populous, and 

 the animals there are fo perpetually hunted for the fake of their furs, 

 that they have no opportunity of aflbciating ; of courfe, thofe won- 

 derful marks of their fagacity, which they exhibit in the remote and 

 uninhabited regions of North America, are no longer to be found, 

 The fociety of beavers is a fociety of peace and of affedion. They 

 never quarrel or injure one another, but live together in different 

 numbers, according to the dimenfions of particular cabins, in the 

 raoft perfed harmony. The principle of their union is neither mo- 



3^2 narchica! 



* See above, page 313, &c. 



