AFRICA. tig 
taiiie* Without quoting, in proof of this 
affertion, all the fads recited in hiftory refped- 
ing the gratitude and attachment fometimes 
fhewn by this formidable king, I ihall con- 
tent myfelf with citing the teftimony of citizen 
Desfontaines, demonftrator of botany at the 
national botanic garden. When this naturalift 
refided on the coaft of Barbary, he faw a 
thoufand inftances of children playing and 
toying In the ftreets with a lionj which quietly 
bore with all their tricks in the fame man-^ 
ner as a young dog would have done. 
The confequences refulting from thefe te- 
fledions will, no doubt, be treated as paradoxes 
by a certain dafs of philofophers, who choofe 
rather to decide upon queftions dogmatically, 
than take the trouble of examining them. 
With two or three leading principles of pre- 
tended philofophy, and a few fonofous and 
authoritative phrafes, they prefently do away 
the fads of experience and- adual oWervation. 
They form fyftems in their clofets, mould 
their prejudices into axioms, and utier them 
in circles of flatterers or humble admirers, who 
willing, or at leaft pretending, to bel'eve what 
is told them with fo magifterial an air, tranfmit 
Vol. IL I errors 
