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FROM THE ANIMALS’ POINT OF VIEW . 1 
One of the most curious and unconsciously 
paradoxical claims ever advanced for man in his 
relation to animals is that by which M. Georges 
Leroy, philosopher, encyclopaedist, and lieutenant des 
chasses of the Park of Versailles, the vindicator of 
BufFon and Montesquieu against the criticisms of 
Voltaire, explains in his Lettres sur les Animaux 
the intellectual debt which the carnivorous animals 
owe to human persecution. He pictures with wonder- 
ful cleverness the development of their powers of 
forethought, memory, and reasoning which the inter- 
ference of man, the enemy and “ rival,” forces upon 
them, and the consequent intellectual advance which 
distinguishes the loupjeune et ignorant from the loup 
adulte et instruit. The philosophic lieutenant des 
chasses had before long ample opportunities for com- 
paring the “ affinities ” which he had discovered 
1 The immunity of the keepers at the Zoo from serious injury 
or attack by the animals in their charge is a priori evidence that 
the animals’ point of view is not necessarily hostile. 
