DEFENSE OF THE WOLF. 
261 
Here then in part are the reasons of that deep enmity which 
until tills day has existed between the wolf and the civilizee. I 
dare flatter myself that M. Buffon has not so much as grazed 
them with the corner of his eye, which by no means astonishes me 
on the part of a learned simplist. 
Thus the wolf has sworn to remain rebellious to man while man 
himself shall remain a rebel to the law of harmony and justice. 
He does not protest against the natural superiority of man, nor 
against his right of legitimate royalty, but only against the abuses 
which man has made of his authority, and of his rights. He is a re- 
volted subject who will keep terms with power only upon certain 
conditions, who exacts his charter, and who will proclaim insurrec- 
tion the most sacred of rights, until justice have been done to his 
claims. 
I have no reasons to disapprove of this conduct. The aversion 
of the wolf for the civilizee rests on the same motives as that of 
tlie onagra, the zebra, and a crowd of other quadrupeds and in- 
telligent bipeds, who seeing the manner in which the civilizees tear 
each otlier, and considering the ill treatment which barbarians in- 
flict upon the poor animals auxiliary to man, keep at a distance 
from him, and regard him as a common enemy. 
With your hand on your conscience, have you the right to re- 
quire that a sensible wolf that has never abandoned its cubs on the 
public road — a wolf that has never tasted the blood of its fellow 
wolf — should confess the superiority of a human society, where 
there are mothers who kill their children, and children who kill 
their mothers ; and where the first men of the state are those 
who have caused the greatest number of men to be slain. If we 
would have the beasts come to us, we must begin by giving them 
the example of justice, and by displaying under their eyes the 
contagious spectacle of our happiness. We must reform our social 
sphere, whose scent and aspect raise disgust in all generous hearts. 
We must do for the wolf of the woods, for the beaver of the 
lakes, for the zebra of the deserts, what we have done for the tur- 
tle doves of the Tuilleries ; in a word, we must fascinate their ima- 
gination and their senses by the permanent spectacle of our sym- 
pathy and happiness. 
