120 
PLINY'S NATTJKAL HISTORY. 
[Book VII. 
an immoderate desire of life,^^ to superstition/"^ — he is the only- 
one that troubles himself about his burial, and even what is to 
become of him after death. Ey none is life held on a tenure 
more frail none are more influenced by unbridled desires for 
all things ; none are sensible of fears more bewildering ; none 
are actuated by rage more frantic and violent. Other animals, 
in fine, live at peace with those of their own kind ; we only 
see them unite to make a stand against those of a different 
species. The fierceness of the lion is not expended in fight- 
ing with its own kind ; the sting of the serpent is not aimed 
at the serpent and the monsters of the sea even, and the 
fishes, vent their rage only on those of a different species. But 
with man, — by Hercules ! most of his misfortunes are occasioned 
by man.-^ 
(1.) We have already given a general description of the 
human race in our account of the different nations. !N"or, in- 
deed, do I now propose to treat of their manners and customs, 
which are of infinite variety and almost as numerous as the various 
groups themselves, into which mankind is divided ; but yet 
there are some things, which, I think, ought not to be omitted ; 
1^ This is said hyperbolically by Pliny. The brutes of the field have as 
strong a love of Ufe as man, although they may not be in fear of death, not 
knowing what it is. That they know what pain is, is evident from 
their instinctive attempts to avoid it. 
Under this name he evidently intends to include all systems of re- 
ligion, which he held in equal contempt. 
^8 Ajasson seems to think that he alludes to man's craving desire for 
posthumous fame ; but it is pretty clear that he has in view the then pre- 
valent notions of the life of the soul after the death of the body, 
^9 Pascal has a similar thought ; he says that " Man is a reed, and the 
weakest reed of nature." The machinery of his body is minute and com- 
plex in the extreme, hut it can hardly be said that his life is exposed to as 
many dangers dependent on the volition of, or on accidents arising from, 
other animated beings, as that of minute insects. 
20 Ajasson refers to various classical authors for a similar statement. 
It is scarcely necessary to remark, that it is contrary to many well-known 
facts. — B. The cravings of hunger and of the sexual appetite, are quite 
sufficient to preclude the possibility of such a happy state of things among 
the brutes as Pliny here describes. 
21 It was this feeling that prompted the common saying among the an- 
cients, " Homo homini lupus" — " Man to man is a wolf and most true 
it is, that 
"Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." 
22 He alludes to the description already given in his geographical 
Books, of man taken in the aggregate, and grouped into nations. 
