234 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
1. To the similitude of the^ interior dispositions of the body of 
this animal with that of the human body — a likeness recognized 
by Galen. 
2. Tine complete identity of taste between the hesh of the liog 
and that of man, proved, as Conrad Gessner reports, by numerous 
experiments. See history of the pies of human flesh made by a 
barber of Tournus. 
3. Finally, to that singular propensity evinced by demons chas-. 
ed from the body of man to choose - their domicile in the belly of 
hogs, a propensity often mentioned in the sacred writings, which 
ought to reveal an ancient tradition. 
In the gospel according to St. Matthew, the devils themselves, 
eager to leave the body of the possessed, asked of Christ the lib- 
erty to enter a drove of swine that was passing that way. It is 
there, I think also mentioned, that the inhabitants of a town, the 
Gadarenes, besought Christ to retire from their territory on ac- 
count of the mischief to their herds of swine. 
Here a historical question presents itself that has puzzled me all 
my life, and that I beg leave to address to those members of the 
academy who are strongest on inscriptions and belles-lettres, at the 
risk of plunging them into a painful perplexity. 
Since the hog is only good after his death, and only fit to be eat- 
en, how could a people that eat no poi k and regarded this animal 
as unclean, have gi\ en itself up to the education of this species ? 
I have always thought there must be some confusion in these 
texts. The hogs of which the Sci ipture speaks were wild boars, 
and what gives an immense weight to my opinion, is that we may 
still see in Arabia, in Judea, in Egypt, and in Algiers, in all coun- 
tries in short, where the Mussulman and the Israelite are met 
with, numberless herds of wild boars that are not ferocious, and that 
multiply with the more ease as the natives have not made war on 
them. 
However it may be with these different methods of investigating 
the subject — it is a fact that the hog enjoys a poor reputation in 
the religious opinion of nations. The Lutheran preachers among 
others have abused the comparison of fattening hogs, in favor of 
the ministers of the Catholic worship. The hog is however a pre- 
