S52 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
now, incredulous gentlemen — what think you of this passional an- 
alogy, of this inadmissible dream of a few cracked brains ? 
The play of the passions constitutes passional mechanics. It is 
very true, but it has cost the honorable M. Cauchy forty or fifty 
years of persevering efforts, of labors misunderstood, perhaps ridi- 
culed, to arrive at this confession of the law of passional mechanics. 
And here is a young girl, a child of sixteen, who has no more made 
X s and y s her favorite companions than I have, who has learned 
quite as much about it as the man of science, while she was pick- 
ing roses to pieces, and listening all the week for the song of her 
favorite birds. 
That is to say, that science, in proportion as it rises, proclaims 
the sovereignty of Passion^ law of God, universal lever of move- 
ment. Quod erat demonstrandum. 
Passion, passion, passion, passion is all ! 
THE RABBIT.^ 
I do not esteem this creature for its flesh nor for its morals, 
which have the least bit of the cannibal in them ; but I thank it 
for its fecundity, for its rapid growth, and for many other merits, 
especially its low price, which permits it to form relations with the 
stomach of poor people deprived of butcher’s meat by the ex- 
cessive tax on cattle. The cabbage-rabbit, not content with bring- 
ing to poor artisans the tribute of its flesh, furnishes them from its 
spoils with fur, mittens, shawls, or caps. The French furriery 
consumes each year hundreds of thousands of francs’ worth of 
rabbit fur. 
With this the common hats are prepared, the false beavers. The 
real beaver is made with the fur of the hare, the skin of the back. 
Poor beast ! beast of the poor ! God, who had destined it to 
serve as a prey and as a victim to all devourers, had happily en- 
dowed it with a resignation — proof to all trials ! 
The rabbit chase may have its utility ; for example ; to re- 
create children, and to take the place of another chase, and 
* This article, omitted in the body of the work, here serves to fill a 
blank page. 
