IN MEMORIAM 
 
 JESSICA PEIXOTTO 
 1864 -194 1 
 
i 
 
 i 
 


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 .'///', 
 
 
J.Jo 
 
 I MM I .A I)K 1,1- IMA 
 
ST. PIERRE'S 
 
 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 HENRY HUNTER, D. D. 
 
 OME VOLUMtt. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J C 8 K P H J. WOODWARDt 
 18S6. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE present American edition of ST. PIERRE'S 
 STUDIES OF NATURE cannot be better introduced to 
 the World, than in the nervous and elegant language 
 of DR. HUNTER'S Preface to the London edition. 
 
 6 I have read,' says he, c few performances with 
 more complete satisfaction, and with greater improve- 
 ment, than the STUDIES OF NATURE : in no one have 
 I found the useful and the agreeable more happily 
 blended. What work of science displays a more 
 sublime theology, inculcates a purer morality, or 
 breathes a more ardent and more expansive philan- 
 thropy? ST. PIERRE has enabled me to contemplate 
 the Universe with other eyes, has furnished new 
 arguments to combat Atheism, has established be- 
 yond the power of contradiction the doctrine of a 
 universal Providence, has excited a warmer interest 
 in favour of suffering humanity, and has disclosed 
 sources unknown of intellectual enjoyment. Unfet- 
 tered by system, unawed by authority, he looks im- 
 mediately into Nature: he observes, he thinks, he 
 reasons for himself; and teaches his Reader thus 
 to observe, think, and reason.' 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 STUDY I. 
 
 Page 
 IMMENSITY of Nature. Plan of my Work . 9 
 
 STUDY II. 
 Beneficence of Nature 41 
 
 STUDY III. 
 Objections against Providence 44 
 
 STUDY IV. 
 
 Replies to the Objections against Providence 48 
 
 Replies to the Objections founded on the Disorders of the Globe 49 
 
 STUDY Y. 
 
 Replies to the Objections against Providence, founded on the Dis- 
 orders of the Vegetable Kingdom 82 
 
 STUDY VI. 
 
 Replies to the Objections against Providence, founded on the Dis- 
 orders of the Animal Kingdom 89 
 
 STUDY VII. 
 
 Replies to the Objections against Providence, founded on the Calam- 
 ities of the Human Race 101 
 
 STUDY VIII. 
 
 Replies to the Objections against a Divine Providence, and the 
 Hopes of a Life to come, founded on the incomprehensible Nature 
 of GOD, and the Miseries of a Present State 130 
 
 STUDY IX. 
 
 Objections against the Methods of our Reason and the Principles of 
 our Sciences . , , . . . 147 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 STUDY X. 
 
 Page 
 
 Of some General Laws of Nature, and, first, of Physical Laws . . 166 
 
 Of Conformity 166 
 
 OfOrder 168 
 
 OfHarmony ........* * . . 169 
 
 OfColoufs 171 
 
 OfForms ; 178 
 
 OfMovements 181 
 
 Of Consonances 186 
 
 Of Progression 195 
 
 OfContrascs 196 
 
 Of the Human Figure 205 
 
 Of Concerts . . 215 
 
 Of some other Laws of Nature hitherto imperfectly known . . 220 
 
 STUDY XI. 
 
 Applications of some General Laws of Nature to Plants . s . 228 
 
 Elementary Harmonies of Plants i . 23-2 
 
 Elementary Harmonies of Plants with the Sun, by the Flowers 232 
 Elementary Harmonies of Plants with the Water and the Air, by 
 
 Means of their Leaves and their Fruits .* 236 
 
 Vegetable Harmonies of Plants 248 
 
 Animal Harmonies of Plants 251 
 
 Human Harmonies of Plants 259 
 
 Elementary Harmcr'es of Plants relatively to Man .... 259 
 
 Vegetable Harmonies of Plants with Man 264 
 
 Animal Harmonies of Plants with Man 265 
 
 Human or Elementary Harmonies of Plants 267 
 
 STUDY XII. 
 
 Of some Moral Laws of Nature . 279 
 
 Weakness of Reason, of Feeling; proofs of the Divinity and of the 
 Immortality of the Soul from Feeling ....*... 279 
 
 Of Physical Sensations / 289 
 
 Of the Sense of Tasting 290 
 
 Of the Sense of Smelling 291 
 
 Of the Sense of Seeing 291 
 
 Of the Sense of Hearing 294 
 
 Of the Sense of Touching 296 
 
 Of the Sentiments of the Soul; and, first, of Mental Affection . 298 
 
 Of the Sentiment of Innocence 300 
 
 OfPity 300 
 
 Of the Love of Country 301 
 
 Of the Sentiment of Admiration . ; 302 
 
 Of the Marvellous 803 
 
 The Pleasure of Mystery 304 
 
 The Pleasure of Ignorance 304 
 
 Of the Sentiment of Melancholy 307 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 The Pleasure of Ruin 308 
 
 The Pleasure of Tombs 309 
 
 Ruins of Nature ; . . 312 
 
 Of the Sentiment of Love 313 
 
 Of some other Sentiments of Deity, and, among others, of that of 
 
 Virtue 318 
 
 STUDY XIII. 
 
 Application of the Laws of Nature to the Disorders of Society . 324 
 
 OfParis 338 
 
 Of Nobility 356 
 
 Of an Elysium 359 
 
 Of the Clergy 369 
 
 STUDY XIV. 
 
 OfEducation 872 
 
 RECAPITULATION , . , . . 393 
 
 
 

 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 STUDY FIRST. 
 
 IMMENSITY OF NATURE : PLAN OP MY WORK. 
 
 SOME years have elapsed, since I formed the design of 
 composing a general History of Nature, in imitation of 
 Aristotle, Pliny, Chancellor Bacon, and several illustrious 
 modern authors. The field appeared to me so vast, that I 
 could not believe the possibility of its being entirely preoc- 
 cupied. Nature invites to the cultivation of herself, per- 
 sons of every age and country ; especially those who, like 
 myself, pause at every step they advance, transported at the 
 beauty of her divine productions. 
 
 In Nature herself alone, we must expect to find the laws 
 of Nature ; and we plunge into difficulty and distress, only 
 in proportion as we deviate from those laws. I proposed, 
 therefore, to begin my Work, when I had ceased from ob- 
 serving, and collected all the materials necessary to a His- 
 tory of Nature ; but I found myself in the condition of the 
 child, who, with a shell, had dug a hole in the sand, to 
 hold the water of the ocean. 
 
 Nature is of unbounded extent, and I am a human being, 
 limited on every side. Not only her general history, but 
 that of the smallest plant, far transcends my highest powers. 
 Permit me to relate, on what account I became sensible of 
 this. 
 
 One day, in summer, while busied in the arrangement of 
 some observations which I had made, respecting the harmo- 
 nies discoverable in this globe of ours, I perceived, on a 
 strawberry plant, accidentally placed in my window, some 
 small winged insects, so very beautiful that I took a fancy 
 to describe them. Next day a different sort appeared, which 
 I proceeded likewise to describe. In the course of three 
 weeks, no less than thirty-seven species, totally distinct, had 
 i isited my strawberry plant ; at length they came in such 
 B 
 
10 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 crowds, and presented such variety, that I was constrained 
 to relinquish the amusement for want of leisure, and, to say 
 the truth, for want of expression. 
 
 However minute these objects may be, they surely merited 
 my attention, as Nature deemed them not unworthy of hers. 
 Could I refuse them a place in my general history, when she 
 had given them one in the system of the Universe ] For a 
 still stronger reason, had I written the history of my straw- 
 berry plant, I must have given some account of the insects 
 attached to it. Plants are the habitation of insects ; and it 
 is impossible to give the history of a city, without saying 
 something of its inhabitants. Besides, my strawberry plant 
 was not in its natural situation, in the open country, on the 
 border of a wood, or by the brink of a rivulet, where it could 
 have been frequented by many other species of living crea- 
 tures. It was confined to an earthen pot, amidst the smoke 
 of Paris, and I observed it only at vacant moments. I knew 
 nothing of the insects which visited it during the course of 
 the day ; still less of those which might come only in the 
 night, attracted by simple emanations, or perhaps, by a phos- 
 phoric light, which escapes our senses. I was totally igno- 
 rant of the various species which might frequent it, at other 
 seasons of the year, and of the endless other relations 
 which it might have with reptiles, with amphibious animals, 
 fishes, birds, quadrupeds, and, above all, with man, who un- 
 dervalues every thing which he cannot convert to his own 
 use. 
 
 But it was not sufficient to observe it, from the heights ot 
 my greatness, if I may use the expression ; for in this case, 
 my knowledge would have been greatly inferior to that of 
 one of the insects, who made it their habitation. Not one 
 of them, on examining it with his little spherical eyes, but 
 must have distinguished an infinite variety of objects, which 
 I could not perceive without the assistance of a microscope, 
 and after much laborious research. Nay, their eyes are in- 
 conceivably superior even to this instrument ; for it shews us 
 objects only which are in its focus, that is at the distance of 
 a few lines ; whereas they perceive, by a mechanism of which 
 we have no conception, those which are near and those which 
 are far off. Their eyes, therefore, are at once microscopes 
 and telescopes. Besides, by their circular disposition round 
 the head, they have the advantage of viewing the whole 
 
STUDY I. 11 
 
 circuit of the heavens at the same instant, while those of the 
 astronomer can take in, at most, but the half. My winged 
 insects, accordingly, must discern in the strawberry plant, at 
 a single glance, an arrangement and combination of parts, 
 which, assisted by the microscope, I can observe only separate 
 from each other, and in succession. 
 
 On examining the leaves of this vegetable, with the aid 
 of a lens which had but a small magnifying power, I found 
 them divided into compartments, hedged round with bristles, 
 separated by canals, and strewed with glands. These com- 
 partmenis appeared similar to large verdant enclosures, their 
 bristles to vegetables of a particular order ; of which some 
 were upright, some inclined, some forked, some hollowed into 
 tubes, from the extremity of which a fluid distilled ; and 
 their canals, as well as their glands, seemed full of a brilliant 
 liquor. In plants of a different species, these bristles, and 
 these canals, exhibit forms, colours, and fluids, entirely dif- 
 ferent. There are even glands, which resemble basons, 
 round, square, or radiated. 
 
 Now, Nature has made nothing in vain. Wherever 
 she has prepared a habitation, she immediately peoples it. 
 She is never straitened for want of room. She has placed 
 animals, furnished with fins, in a single drop of water, and 
 in such multitudes, that Leewenhoek, the natural philoso- 
 pher, reckoned up to thousands of them. Many others 
 after him, and among the rest Robert Hook, have seen, in 
 one drop of water, as small as a grain of millet, some 10, 
 others 20, and some as far as 45 thousand. Those who know 
 not how far the patience and sagacity of an observer can go, 
 might, perhaps, call in question the accuracy of these obser- 
 vations, if Lyonnet, who relates them in Lesser's Theology 
 of Insects, book ii. chap. 3, had not demonstrated the possi- 
 bility of it, by a piece of mechanism abundantly simple. 
 We are certain, at least, of the existence of those beings 
 whose different figures have actually been drawn. Others 
 are found, whose feet are armed with claws, on the body of 
 the fly, and even on that of the flea. 
 
 It is credible, then, from analogy, that there are animals 
 feeding on the leaves of plants, like the cattle in our mea- 
 dows, and on our mountains ; which repose under the shade 
 of a down imperceptible to the naked eye, and which, from 
 goblets formed like so many suns, quaff nectar of the colour 
 
12 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of gold and silver. Each part of the flower must present to 
 them a spectacle of which we can form no idea. The yel- 
 low anthers of flowers, suspended by fillets of white, exhibit 
 to their eyes double rafters of gold in equilibrio, on pillars 
 fairer than ivory ; the corolla, an arch of unbounded magni- 
 tude, embellished with the ruby and the topaz ; rivers of nec- 
 tar and honey ; the other parts of the flowret, cups, urns, 
 pavilions, domes, which the human architect and goldsmith 
 have not yet learned to imitate. 
 
 I do not speak thus from conjecture ; for having examined 
 one day, by the microscope, the flowers of thyme, I distin- 
 guished in them, with equal surprise and delight, superb 
 flagons, with a long neck, of a substance resembling ame- 
 thyst, from the gullets of which seemed to flow ingots of 
 liquid gold. I have never made observation of the corolla 
 simply, of the smallest flower, without finding it composed 
 of an admirable substance, half transparent, studded with 
 brilliants, and shining in the most lively colours. 
 
 The beings which live under a reflex thus enriched, must 
 have ideas very different from ours, of light, and of the other 
 phenomena of Nature. A drop of dew, filtering in the capil- 
 lary and transparent tubes of a plant, presents to them thou- 
 sands of cascades ; the same drop, fixed as a wave on the ex- 
 tremity of one of its prickles, an ocean without a shore ; eva- 
 porating into air, a vast aerial sea. In these ephemerous 
 beings, we must find the youth of a single morning, and 
 the decrepitude of one day. If they possess historical monu- 
 ments, they must have their months, years, ages, epochs, 
 proportioned to the duration of a flower. Thus, in propor- 
 tion as man brings the elements of Nature near him, the 
 principles of science disappear. 
 
 Such, therefore, must have been my strawberry plant, and 
 its natural inhabitants, in the eyes of the winged insects, 
 which had alighted to visit it ; but supposing I had been 
 able to acquire, with them, an intimate knowledge of this 
 new world, I should still have arrived no farther than at the 
 history of the genus, and not that of the species. The varieties 
 would still have remained unknown, which have each its 
 particular character, according as they have flowers single, 
 in pairs, or disposed in clusters ; according to the colour, the 
 smell, and the taste of the fruit ; according to the size, the 
 figure, the edging, the smoothness, or the downy clothing of 
 
STUDY I. 13 
 
 their leaves. One of our most celebrated botanists, Sebas- 
 tian le Vaillant, author of Botanicon Parisiense, has found, 
 in the environs of Paris alone, five distinct species, three 
 which bear flowers, without producing fruit. In our gardens, 
 we cultivate at least twelve different sorts of foreign straw- 
 berries ; but how many varieties are there, to us totally un- 
 known ! Has not every degree of latitude a species peculiar 
 to itself 1 Bearing in mind, therefore, that all species, va- 
 rieties, analogies, affinities, have, in every particular latitude, 
 necessary relations with a multitude of animals, and that 
 these relations are altogether unknown to us, we shall find, 
 that a complete history of the strawberry-plant would be 
 ample employment for all the naturalists in the world. 
 
 What a task then, would it be, to write the history, in like 
 manner, of all the species of vegetables which are scattered 
 over the whole earth ? The celebrated Linnaeus reckoned 
 up from seven to eight thousand of them ; but he had not 
 travelled. The famous Sherard, it is said, was acquainted 
 with sixteen thousand. Another botanist swells his cata- 
 logue up to twenty thousand. Finally, one still more mo- 
 dem, boasts of having himself made a collection of twenty- 
 five thousand ; and he estimates the number of those which 
 he has not seen, at four or five times as many. But all these 
 enumerations must be extremely defective, if it is considered, 
 as has been remarked by this last observei himself, that we 
 know little or nothing of the interior of Africa ; of that of 
 the three Arabias, and even of the two Americas ; very little 
 of New Guinea, New Holland, and New Zealand, and of the 
 innumerable islands of the South Sea, the greatest part of 
 which are themselves still undiscovered. We know hardly 
 any thing of the isle of Ceylon, except a little of the coast ; 
 and of the great island of Madagascar ; of the immense ar- 
 chipelagoes of the Philippines and Moluccas, and of almost all 
 the Asiatic islands. As to that vast Continent, with the ex- 
 ception of some great roads in the interior, and some part of 
 the coast resorted to by the traffic of Europe, we may affirm 
 that it is wholly unknown to us. 
 
 How many immense districts are there in Tartary, in Si- 
 beria, and even in many of the kingdoms of Europe, where 
 the foot of botanist never trod ! Some, indeed, have given 
 us a herbal of Malabar, Japan, China, &c. but if we reflect, 
 that, in these countries, their researches never penetrated be- 
 
 2 
 
 
14 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 yond the sea-coast, and were generally confined to one season 
 of the year, when a part only of the plants, peculiar to each 
 climate, appear ; that they have visited only the narrow 
 regions adjoining to our European factories ; that they have 
 never dared to plunge into deserts, where they could have 
 found neither subsistence nor guide ; nor ventured themselves 
 among the numerous tribes of barbarous nations, whose lan- 
 guage they could not understand ; we shall find reason to 
 conclude, that their boasted collections, however valuable, are 
 still extremely defective. 
 
 In order to be convinced of this, we have only to compare 
 the time employed by them, in making their collections of 
 plants in foreign countries, with that which it cost Le Vail- 
 lant to collect those of the vicinity of Paris only. The 
 learned Tournefort made botany a particular study ; and, 
 after a master so indefatigable, Le Vaillant had the courage 
 to retrace the same ground, and discovered so many distinct 
 species, overlooked by Tournefort, that he doubled, at least, 
 the catalogue of our plants. He made it amount to fif- 
 teen or sixteen hundred ; not including in this enumeration 
 those which differ only in the colour of the flowers, and the 
 spots of the leaves, though Nature frequently employs such 
 signs as these in the vegetable world, to distinguish the spe- 
 cies, and to form their true characters. 
 
 Sebastian le Vaillant, accordingly, employed no less than 
 twenty-six whole years, in his own country, and with the as- 
 sistance of his pupils, in completing his botanical description 
 of the plants of a few square leagues ; whereas the persons 
 who pretend to give us the botany of many foreign countries, 
 were alone and unassisted, and despatched the business in a 
 few months. But, though his sagacity and perseverance 
 seem to have left us nothing more to wish for, I have my 
 doubts, whether he has made a complete collection of all the 
 gifts which Flora scatters over our plains ; and whether he 
 has seen, if I may use the expression, to the bottom of the 
 basket. 
 
 For my own part, if I might be permitted to hazard a con- 
 jecture, respecting the number of distinct species of plants, 
 spread over the earth, such is my idea of the immensity of 
 Nature, and of her subdivisions, that I am disposed to believe, 
 there is not a square league of earth but what presents some 
 one plant peculiar to itself, or, at the least, which thrives there 
 
STUDY I. 15 
 
 better, and appears more beautiful, than in any other part of the 
 world. This makes the number of the primordial species of 
 vegetables amount to several millions, diffused over as many 
 millions of square leagues, of which the surface of our globe 
 consists. The farther south we advance, the more their va- 
 riety increases within spaces of the same dimension. The 
 isle of Otaheite, in the South Sea, was found to have a bo- 
 tany peculiar to itself, and which had nothing in common 
 with that of the places in Africa and America, situated in 
 the same latitude ; nay, totally different from that of the ad- 
 jacent islands. And if we reflect, that each plant has seve- 
 ral different names, in its own country ; that every nation 
 imposes particular denominations, and that all these names, at 
 least the greater part, are varying every age, what difficulties 
 does not the vocabulary alone oppose to the study of botany. 
 
 All these preliminary notions, however, would still form 
 only an useless science, did we even know, in the most com- 
 plete detail, all the parts of which plants are composed. It 
 is the combination of these parts, the attitude of the plants, 
 their port, their elegance, the harmonies which they form, 
 when grouped, or in contrast with each other, which it would 
 be interesting to determine. I do not know that any thing 
 has been so much as attempted on this subject. 
 
 As to their virtues, it may be affirmed, that they are for the 
 most part unknown, neglected, or abused. Their qualities 
 are frequently perverted, in making cruel experiments on in- 
 nocent animals, while they might be usefully employed as 
 miraculous remedies, to counteract the ills of human life. 
 We have preserved, for example, in the Royal Cabinet at 
 Paris, arrows more formidable than those of Hercules, though 
 dipped in the blood of the snake of Lerna. Their points are 
 impregnated with the juice of a plant so venomous, that, 
 though exposed to the air for many years, they can, with the 
 slightest puncture, destroy the most robust of animals in a 
 few minutes. The blood of the creature, be the wound ever 
 so trifling, instantly congeals. But if the patient, at the same 
 instant, is made to swallow a small quantity of sugar, the 
 circulation is immediately restored. Both the poison and 
 the antidote have been discovered by the savages who in- 
 habit the banks of the Amazon ; and it is of importance to 
 observe, that they never employ in war, but only in the chase, 
 this murderous method of destroying life. 
 
16 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Wherefore do not we, who pretend to so much humanity 
 and illumination, endeavour to ascertain by experiment, whe- 
 ther this poison might not be rendered medicinal, in cases of 
 a sudden dissolution of the blood ; and sugar, in cases of 
 sudden coagulation ] Alas ! how is it to be expected that 
 we should apply to the preservation of mankind the malig- 
 nant and destructive qualities of a foreign vegetable, we who 
 are continually abusing, for mutual destruction, the precious 
 gifts which Nature has bestowed, 'in the view of rendering 
 human life innocent and happy 1 The elm and the beech, 
 under the shade of which our shepherds and their mates de- 
 light to dance, are hewn down into carriages, for mounting 
 the thundering artillery. We intoxicate our soldiers into mad- 
 ness, that they may kill each other, without hatred, with that 
 very juice of the vine which Providence has given to be the 
 means of reconciliation among enemies. The lofty fir-trees, 
 planted by the benignant hand of Nature, amidst the snows 
 of the north, to shelter and warm the inhabitants, are con- 
 verted into masts, for the vessels of Europe, to carry the 
 flames of devouring fire against the peaceful inhabitants of 
 the southern hemisphere ; and the canvass, designed for the 
 humble clothing of the village maid, becomes a sail for the 
 plundering corsair, to extend his ravages to remotest India. 
 Our crops and our forests are wafted over the ocean, to spread 
 desolation over both the Old and New Worlds. 
 
 But let us drop the history of Man, and resume that of 
 Nature. If, from the vegetable, we make a transition to the 
 animal kingdom, a field of incomparably greater extent pre- 
 sents itself. An intelligent naturalist, at Paris, some years 
 ago announced, that he was in possession of more than thirty 
 thousand distinct species of animals. I know not whether 
 the King's magnificent Cabinet may not contain more ; but 
 I know well, that his herbals contain only eighteen thousand 
 plants, and that about six thousand are in a state of cultiva- 
 tion in the Royal Botanic Garden. This number of animals, 
 however, so superior to that of vegetables, is a mere nothing, 
 in comparison with what exists on the globe. 
 
 When we recollect, that every species of plant is a point of 
 union for different genera of insects, and that there is not, 
 perhaps, a single one, but which has, peculiar to itself, a spe- 
 cies of fly, butterfly, gnat, beetle, lady-bird, snail, and the 
 like ; that these insects serve for food to other species, and 
 
STUDY I. 17 
 
 these too exceedingly numerous, such as the spider, the dra- 
 gon-fly, the ant, the formicalea ; and to the immense families 
 of small birds, of which many classes, such as the woodpecker, 
 and the swallow, have no other kind of nourishment ; that 
 these birds are, in their turn, devoured by birds of prey, such 
 as kites, falcons, buzzards, rooks, crows, hawks, vultures, and 
 others ; that the general spoil of these animals, swept off 
 by the rains, into the rivers, and thence to the sea, becomes 
 the aliment, of almost innumerable tribes of fishes, to the 
 greatest part of which the naturalists of Europe have not 
 hitherto given a name ; that numberless legions of river and 
 sea-fowls prey upon these fishes ; we shall have good ground 
 for believing, that every species of the vegetable kingdom 
 serves as a basis to many species of the animal kingdom, 
 which multiply around it, as the rays of a circle round its 
 centre. 
 
 At the same time, I have not included in this superficial re- 
 presentation, either quadrupeds, with which all the intervals 
 of magnitude are filled, from the mouse, which lives under 
 the grass, up to the camelopard, who can feed on the foliage 
 of trees, at the height of fifteen feet ; or reptiles ; or polypuses, 
 of which we have a knowledge so slender ; or sea insects, 
 some families of which, such as the crab-fish, shrimp, and 
 the like, would be alone sufficient to fill the greatest cabinets, 
 were you to introduce! but a single individual of every species. 
 I do not include the madrepore, with which the bottom of the 
 sea is paved between the tropics, and which present so many 
 different species, that I have seen, in the Isle of France, 
 two great halls filled with those which were produced in the 
 immediate vicinity of that isle, though there was but a single 
 specimen of each sort. 
 
 I have made no mention of insects of many kinds, as the 
 louse and the maggot, of which every animal species has its 
 particular varieties, proper to itself, and which triple, at least, 
 the kingdom of creatures existing by respiration. Neither 
 have I taken into the account, that infinite number of living 
 things, visible and invisible, known or unknown, which have 
 no fixed determination, and which Nature has scattered 
 about, through the air, over the earth, and along the depths 
 of the ocean. 
 
 What an undertaking, then, would it be, to describe each 
 of these beings, with the sagacity of a Reaumur 1 The life 
 C 2* 
 
18 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of one man of genius would be scarcely sufficient to compose 
 the history of a few insects. However curious may be the 
 memoirs transmitted to us, respecting the manners, and the 
 anatomy, of the animals most familiarly known, in vain do 
 we still flatter ourselves with having acquired a complete ac- 
 quaintance. The principal requisite, in my opinion, is yet 
 wanting ; I mean, the origin of their friendships and of their 
 feuds. In this consists, if I am not mistaken, the essence of 
 their history, to which must be referred their instincts, their 
 loves, their wars ; the attire, the arms, and the very form 
 which Nature gives them. I know not of any naturalist 
 who has engaged in a research of this sort. The poets have 
 endeavoured to explain these wonderful and innate instincts, 
 by their ingenious fictions. The swallow Progne flies the 
 forest ; her sister Philomela delights to sing in solitary places. 
 Progne thus, one day, addresses her : 
 
 Why waste such sweetness on the desert air ? 
 
 Come, charm the city with thy tuneful note ; 
 Think too, in solitude, that form so fair 
 
 Felt violation : flee the horrid thought. 
 
 Ah ! sister dear, sad Philomel replies, 
 
 'T is this that makes me shun the haunte of men : 
 
 Tereus and Courts the anguish'd heart allies, 
 And hastes, for shelter, to the woods again. 
 
 I never hear the enchantingly melancholy song of a night- 
 ingale, shrouded in shrubbery, and the lengthened pioupiou, 
 which interrupt, like sighs, the music of that solitary warbler, 
 without believing, that Nature had revealed her adventure 
 to the sublime La Fontaine, at the time she inspired him to 
 compose these verses. Philosophers of name, unfaithful to 
 the testimony of their reason and conscience, have dared to 
 represent them as mere machines. They ascribe to them blind 
 instincts, which regulate all their actions, without passion, 
 without will, without choice, and even without any degree of 
 sensibility. I expressed my astonishment one day to J. J. 
 Rousseau, that men of genius should maintain a position so 
 extravagant. He very sagely replied, " The solution is this, 
 When man begins to reason, he ceases to feel." 
 
 In order to confute the opinions of such philosophers, I 
 shall have recourse, not to those animals whose sagacity atid 
 industry excite our admiration, such as the beaver, the bee, 
 
STUDY I. 19 
 
 the ant, and such like. I shall produce only one example, 
 taken from the class of those which are most indocile, namely 
 fishes, and shall select it from among a species, governed by 
 an instinct the most impetuous and the most stupid, that of 
 gluttony. 
 
 The shark is so voracious, that he will not only devour his 
 own species, when pressed by hunger, but swallows, without 
 distinction, every thing that drops from a ship into the sea, 
 cordage, cloth, pitch, wood, iron, nay, even knives. Never- 
 theless, I have witnessed his abstinence, in two remarkable 
 circumstances ; the one is, however urged by famine, he never 
 touches a kind of small fish, speckled with yellow and black, 
 called the pilot-fish, which swims just before his snout, to 
 guide him to his prey, which he cannot see till he is close to 
 it ; for Nature, as a counterbalance to the ferocity of this fish, 
 has rendered him almost blind. The other case is this, when 
 you throw into the sea a dead fowl, the noise brings him to 
 the spot, but on discovering it to be a fowl, he immediately 
 retires, without devouring it : this has furnished sailors with 
 a proverb, ' The shark flies from the feather.' It is impossi- 
 ble, in the first case, not to ascribe to him some portion of 
 understanding, which represses his voracity, in favour of his 
 guide ; and not to attribute, in the second, his aversion to 
 feathered flesh, to that universal reason, which, destining him 
 to live along the shallows, where cadaverous substances, of 
 creatures perishing in the sea, fall and are deposited, inspires 
 him with an aversion for feathered animals, that he may not 
 destroy the sea-fowls, which resort thither in great numbers, 
 employed, like himself, in looking out for a livelihood, and in 
 cleansing the shores from impurities. 
 
 Other philosophers, on the contrary, have ascribed the 
 manners of animals, as those of men, to education ; and their 
 natural affections, as well as their animosities, to resemblance 
 or dissimilitude of form. But if friendship is founded in si- 
 militude of form, how comes it that the hen, who walks in 
 security at the head of her brood, among the horses and oxen 
 of a farm-yard, though part of her family is sometimes acci- 
 dentally crushed by the feet of those animals, collects her 
 jroung, with anxious inquietude, at the sight of the hawk, a 
 feathered animal like herself, who appears in the air but as a 
 black point, and whom, perhaps, she hardly, if ever, saw be- 
 fore ? Why does the dog in the yard fall a barking in the 
 
20 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 night time, at the smell only of the fox, an animal which has 
 a strong resemblance to himself 1 If habits of long standing 
 could influence animals, as they do men, how has it been pos- 
 sible to render the ostrich of the desert familiar to such a de- 
 gree, that he has been made to carry children on his plume- 
 less crupper ; whereas no skill has, hitherto, been able to 
 tame the swallow, a bird which has, from time immemorial, 
 built her nest in our houses 1 
 
 Where can we find, among the historians of Nature, a Ta- 
 citus, who shall unveil to us these mysteries of the cabinet 
 of Heaven, without an explanation of which, it is impossible 
 to write the history of a single animal on the earth 1 We 
 find no one species deviating, like the human, from the laws 
 imposed upon it by Nature. Bees, universally, live in re- 
 publics, as they did in the time of Esop. The common fly 
 has always been a vagabond, one of a herd without any po- 
 lice or restraint. How comes it that, among these, no Ly- 
 curgus has ever yet arisen, to reduce them into order, for the 
 general good ; and to prescribe to them, as philosophers tell 
 us the first legislators among men did, laws dictated by their 
 weakness, and by the necessity of uniting in society ? 
 
 To the difficulties opposed to us by Nature, let us add those 
 which we ourselves throw in the way. First, methods and 
 systems of all sorts prepare, in every man, his manner of 
 viewing objects. Let us examine notions the most univer- 
 sally admitted, and supported by the highest authority. 
 
 To begin with geographers. They represent the earth as 
 divided into four principal parts, whereas, in reality, there are 
 only two. Instead of the rivers which water it, the rocks 
 which form its barriers, the chains of mountains which 
 divide it into climates, and other natural subdivisions, they 
 exhibit it, speckled all over with party-coloured lines, which 
 divide and subdivide it into empires, principalities, &c. They 
 have disfigured the originals, or substituted names without 
 a meaning, in place of those the native inhabitants of every 
 country had given them, and which so well expressed their 
 nature. They call, for example, a city, near to that of 
 Mexico, where the Spaniards shed such oceans of blood, the 
 City of Angels, but to which the Mexicans give the name 
 of Ceut-lax-coupan, that is, The snake in the water, because 
 that of two fountains, which issue from thence, one is poison- 
 ous ; they call the Mississippi, that great river of North 
 
STUDY I. 21 
 
 America, which the natives denominate/Jfec/iamp, the father 
 of waters ; and so of an infinite number of other proper names. 
 They have stripped the works of Nature of their distinctive 
 characters, and nations of their monuments. 
 
 On reading these ancient names, with their explanations, 
 in Garcillaso de la Vega, in Thomas Gage, and the earliest 
 navigators, you have impressed on the mind, by a few simple 
 words, the landscape of every country, and something of its 
 natural history, without taking into the account the respect 
 attached to their antiquity. Those only of the Chinese, who 
 traffic with the Europeans, know that their country is called 
 China. The name given by the inhabitants is Chium-hoa, the 
 middle kingdom. They change the name of it, when the fam- 
 ilies of their sovereigns become extinct. Europeans have de- 
 stroyed all these correspondencies ; for, obstinately persevering 
 to give what names they please to the countries which they 
 seize, or in which they settle, it comes to pass that, when you see 
 the same countries on maps, or in Dutch, English, Portuguese, 
 Spanish, or French books of travels, you are utterly incapable 
 of distinguishing anything. Their very longitude is changed, 
 for every nation now makes its own capital the first meridian. 
 
 Botanists mislead us still more. I have spoken of the per- 
 petual variations of their dictionaries ; but their method is no 
 less faulty. They must have magnifying glasses and scales, 
 in order to class the trees of a forest. It is not sufficient to 
 see them standing and covered with leaves, the botanist must 
 examine the flower, and frequently the fruit too. The clown 
 knows them all perfectly, in the boughs which compose his 
 fagot. To show me the character of a flower, it is pre- 
 sented to me dry, discoloured, and spread out on the leaf of a 
 herbary. Who can discover the queen of flowers in a dried rose 1 
 In order to its being an object at once of love and of philoso- 
 phy, it must be viewed when, issuing from the cleft of a hu- 
 mid rock, it shines on its native verdure, when the zephyr 
 balances it, on a stem armed with thorns ; when Aurora has 
 bedewed it with her tears ; when, by its lustre and its fra- 
 grance, it invites the hands of lovers. A cantharide, some- 
 times, lurking in its corolla, heightens the glowing carmine, 
 by presenting the contrast of his emerald-coloured robe ; it 
 is then this flower seems to say, that, symbol of pleasure, 
 from her charms, and the rapidity of her decay, like pleasure too 
 she carries danger around her, and repentance in her bosom. 
 
22 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Naturalists betray us into still wider deviations from Na- 
 ture, in attempting to explain, by uniform laws, arid by the 
 mere action of air, water, and heat, the expansion of so 
 many plants, growing on the same dunghill, of colours, forms, 
 savours, and perfumes, so different. Do they try to decom- 
 pound the principles of them ] Poison and food present, in 
 their stoves, the same results. Thus Nature sports herself 
 with their art, as with their theory. The corn-plant alone, 
 gathered in handfuls only by the vulgar, answers a thousand 
 valuable purposes, while a multitude of vegetables have re- 
 mained entirely useless, in the laboratories of the learned. 
 
 I remember having read, many years ago, several grave 
 dissertations on the manner of employing the horse-chesnut 
 as food for cattle. Every academy in Europe has, at least, 
 proposed its own ; and the result of all their learned disquisi- 
 tions was, that the horse-chesnut was useless, unless prepared 
 by a very expensive process, and that, even then, it was good 
 only in the manufacture of tapers and hair-powder. I was 
 astonished at this : not that naturalists should be ignorant of 
 its use, and that they had studied it merely as an article of 
 luxury, but that Nature should have produced a fruit of no 
 use even to the brute creation : I was at last cured of my ig- 
 norance, by the brutes themselves. I happened to take my 
 walk one day to the Bois de Boulogne,* with a branch of the 
 horse-chesnut in my hand, when I perceived a goat feeding. 
 I went up, and amused myself with stroking her. As soon 
 as she perceived the horse-chesnut bough, instantly she 
 seized and snapped it up. The lad who tended her told me, 
 that the goats were all very fond of this plant, and that it 
 contributed greatly to the increase of their milk. I perceived, 
 at some distance, in the chesnut alley, which leads to the 
 Chateau de Madrid, a herd of cows eagerly looking for 
 horse-chesnuts, which they greedily devoured, without sauce 
 or pickle. Thus, our learned and ingenious systems conceal 
 from us natural truths, with which every peasant is ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 What a spectacle do our cabinets of preserved animals 
 present 1 To no purpose has the art of a Daubenton en- 
 deavoured to keep up the appearance of life. Let industry 
 do its utmost to preserve the form, their stiff and motionless 
 
 * The Bois de Boulogne, and Chateau de Madrid, are a wood and castle, not 
 many miles from Paris. 
 
STUDY I. 23 
 
 attitude, their fixed and staring eyes, their bristly hair, all de- 
 clare that they have been smitten with the stroke of death. 
 In such a state, even beauty itself inspires horror ; whereas 
 objects the most homely are agreeable, when placed in the 
 situation which Nature has assigned them. Our books of 
 natural history are merely the romance of Nature, and our 
 cabinets her tomb. 
 
 The history of man has been disfigured in a very different 
 manner. If we except the interest which religion, or hu- 
 manity, has prompted some good men to take, in favour of 
 their fellow-creatures, historians have written under the im- 
 pulse of a thousand different passions. The politician repre- 
 sents man, as divided into nobility and commonalty, into 
 papists and huguenots, into soldiers and slaves ; the moralist, 
 into the avaricious, the hypocritical, the debauched, the proud ; 
 the tragic poet, into tyrants and their victims ; the comic, 
 into drolls and buffoons ; the physicia'n, into the pituitous, the 
 bilious, the phlegmatic. They are universally exhibited as 
 subjects of aversion, of hatred, of contempt ; Man has been 
 universally dissected, and now nothing is shown of him but 
 the carcass. Thus the master-piece of Creation, like every 
 thing else in Nature, has been degraded by our learning. 
 
 I do not mean to affirm, however, that from such partial 
 means, no useful discovery has proceeded ; but all these cir- 
 cles, within which we circumscribe the Supreme Power, far 
 from determining its bounds, only mark the limits of human 
 genius. We accustom ourselves to crowd all our own ideas 
 into that narrow space, and dishonestly to reject all that does 
 not accord with them. We act the part of the tyrant of 
 Sicily, who fitted the unhappy traveller to his bed of iron ; he 
 violently stretched, to the length of the bed, the limbs of 
 those who were shorter, and cut short the limbs of those who 
 were longer. It is thus we apply all the operations of Nature 
 to our pitiful methods, in order to reduce the whole to one 
 common standard. 
 
 Fiction embellishes the history of man only, it degrades 
 that of Nature. Nature is herself the source of all that is 
 ingenious, amiable, and beautiful. By applying to her the 
 violence of our imaginary laws, or by extending to all her 
 operations those with which we are acquainted, we con- 
 ceal others, worthy of the highest admiration, with which we 
 are totally unacquainted. We add, to the cloud with which 
 
24 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 she veils her divinity, that of our own errors ; and carry with 
 us, in our search after truth, the passions of the college and of 
 the world, intolerance and envy. 
 
 Those who enter first on the career, oblige those who come 
 after them to walk in their footsteps, or to give it up ; as if 
 Nature were their patrimony, or, as if the study of Nature 
 were an exclusive trade, that did not admit of participation. 
 What trouble did it cost to eradicate, in France, the metaphy- 
 sics of Aristotle, which had become a species of religion 1 
 The philosophy of Descartes, which supplanted it, might have 
 subsisted to this day, had its revenues been ample. That of 
 Newton, with its attractions, is not more solidly established. 
 I have an unbounded respect for the memory of those great 
 men, whose very deviations have assisted us, in opening great 
 highways through the vast empire of Nature ; but, on more 
 occasions than one, I shall combat their principles, and, es- 
 pecially, the general applications which have been made of 
 them. 
 
 The earth is covered over with vegetables and animals, the 
 simple vocabulary of which no scholar, no academy, no one 
 nation, will ever be able perfectly to acquire ; but it is to be 
 presumed, that the human race is acquainted with all their 
 properties. In vain do enlightened nations boast, that they 
 are the great repositories of all the arts and sciences. It is 
 to savages, to men utterly unknown, that we are indebted for 
 the first observations, which are the source of all science. It 
 is neither to the polished Greeks nor Romans, but to nations 
 which we denominate barbarous, that we owe the use of sim- 
 ples, of bread, of wine, of domestic animals, of cloths, of dye- 
 stuffs, of metals, and of every thing most useful, and most 
 agreeable, for human life. 
 
 Modern Europe glories in her discoveries ; but the inven- 
 tion of the art of printing, one of the fairest titles to immor- 
 tality, is to be ascribed to a person so obscure, that several 
 cities of Holland, of Germany, nay, of China, have claimed 
 the discovery as their own. Galileo would never have calcu- 
 lated the gravity of air, but for the observation of a fountain- 
 player, who remarked that water could rise only up to thirty- 
 two feet in the tubes of a forcing engine. Newton had never 
 read the starry heavens, unless a spectacle-maker's children, 
 in Zealand, had, at play with the lenses in their father's shop, 
 suggested the first idea of the telescopic cylinder. Our artii- 
 
STUDY I. 25 
 
 lery would never have subjugated the New World, but for 
 the accidental discovery of gunpowder by a lazy monk ; and 
 whatever glory Spain may pretend to derive from the disco- 
 very of that vast continent, the savages of Asia had planted 
 empires there, long before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. ><->x X 
 
 Advancing no higher claim, I presume to contribute my 
 humble offering. It is the fruit of many years of application, 
 which, amidst storms long and severe, stole away in these 
 calm researches, like a single day of serenity. I earnestly 
 wished, if it should not be permitted me to reach a boundary 
 at which to stop, to communicate to others, at least the plea- 
 sure which I had enjoyed on my way. 
 
 I have conveyed my observations in the best style of which 
 I am capable ; and have adopted the most simple method, 
 without which, the confusion of the matter must have still 
 more increased the insufficiency of the Author. 
 
 In the FIRST PART I will display the blessings bestowed by 
 Nature, on the age in which we live ; and the objections 
 which have been started in it, against the providence of its 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 In the SECOND PART, I shall apply the laws of Nature to 
 the globe ; examine its form, extent, the division of its hemi- 
 spheres ; and as it is composed of parts similar, and of parts 
 contrary, I shall consider its different elements, and the man- 
 ner of their adaptation to each other. I shall point out the 
 effect of the sun's heat and light ; shall speak of heaven, the 
 moon, and stars ; of fire, air, and water ; the earth, seas, 
 rivers, and mountains ; and examine for what reason Nature 
 has divided the globe into two hemispheres ; what has rendered 
 the communication of all its parts easy to a being so small 
 and so feeble as man, and possible only to him ; demonstra- 
 ting that the same Intelligence, whose productions we so 
 justly admire in plants and animals, presides equally in the 
 edifice which we inhabit. 
 
 In the THIRD PART, I will show how the different parts of 
 plants correspond with the elements, so that, far from being 
 a necessary production of theirs, as some philosophers pretend, 
 they are almost always in opposition to .their action. I shall 
 adhere, however, to the exterior characters by which Nature 
 seems to divide them into different genera. Their principal 
 character is very difficult to determine, not only because the 
 simplest plant unites a very great variety of relations to all 
 D 3 
 
26 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the elements, but because Nature does not place the character 
 of her works in any one of the parts, but in their combination. 
 
 In the FOURTH PART, which treats of animals, I shall pre- 
 sent their relations to the elements ; and we shall observe, as 
 in the case of plants, that so man)' different configurations, 
 far from being, in animals, mechanical effects of the action 
 of the elements in which they live, are, on the contrary, 
 almost always in the inverse ratio of these very causes. In 
 the nests of animals, we shall look for their character ; and 
 from these determine the element in which they must live, 
 the aliment best adapted to their constitution, and the first 
 lessons of industry, of love, or of ferocity, which they receive 
 from their parents. However strange these indications may 
 appear, they are those of Nature, who seems to tell us, that 
 we may distinguish the characters of her children, like her 
 own, in the fruits of love, and in the care which they take 
 of their posterity. Attempts have frequently been made to 
 propagate the breed of foreign animals in our parks ; but 
 they all languish and die, because no care was taken to 
 transplant with them their proper vegetable. You see them 
 always restless, with the head hanging down, scratching up 
 the ground, as if demanding from it the nourishment they 
 had lost. A single herb would have been sufficient to quiet 
 them, by recalling the tastes of their early life, the breezes 
 which used to fan them, the cool fountains and refreshing 
 shades of their native country ; less unhappy, however, than 
 man, who can be cured of regret only by total loss of me- 
 mory. 
 
 In the FIFTH PART, I shall speak of MAN. Every work 
 of Nature has presented to us, hitherto, only partial relations ; 
 man will furnish such as are universal. Examining those in 
 which he stands to the elements, we shall observe, that his 
 eyes are turned, not towards heaven, but to the horizon ; so 
 that he may view, at once, the heaven which illuminates, 
 and the earth which supports him. His visual rays take in 
 near half of the celestial hemisphere, and of the plane on 
 which he treads, and their reach extends from the grain of 
 sand, which he tramples under foot, to the star which shines 
 over his head, at immeasurable distance. 
 
 He alone, of animals, can enjoy equally day and night ; 
 can bear to live within the torrid, and upon the ices of the 
 frigid zone. If certain animals partake with him these ad- 
 
STUDY I. 27 
 
 vantages, it is only by means of his instructions, and under 
 his protection. For all this he is indebted to the element of 
 fire, of which he alone is the sovereign lord. Some authors 
 pretend, that certain of the brute creation understand the 
 management of it, and that the monkeys in America keep 
 up the fires kindled by travellers in the forests. No one 
 denies that they love its heat, and resort to it for warmth, 
 when man retires. But as they have perceived its utility, 
 why have they not preserved the use of it 1 However simple 
 the manner of keeping up fire may be, by supplying it with 
 fuel, not one of them will ever attain to that degree of sagacity. 
 
 The dog, much more intelligent than the monkey, a wit- 
 ness every hour of the effects of fire, accustomed, in our 
 kitchens, to live only on meat that is dressed, if you give 
 him raw flesh, will never dream of roasting it on the coals. 
 This barrier, which separates man from the brute, weak as 
 it may appear, is insurmountable to animals. And this is 
 one of the great blessings of Providence, bestowed for the 
 general security; for how many unforeseen and irreparable 
 conflagrations would take place, were fire at their disposal ? 
 God has intrusted the first agent in Nature, to that being 
 alone whom reason has qualified to make a right use of it. 
 
 While some historians bestow this faculty on the brutes, 
 others deny it to man. They allege that many nations were 
 destitute of it, till the arrival of Europeans among them. 
 To prove this, they quote the inhabitants of the Marianne 
 Islands, otherwise called the Isle of Thieves, by a calumnious 
 imputation so common among sailors. But this assertion is 
 grounded on bare supposition : namely, on the very natural 
 astonishment expressed by these islanders, on seeing (heir 
 villages set on fire by the Spaniards,* whom they had re- 
 ceived with kindness. They contradict themselves, by rela* 
 ting, that these very people used canoes, daubed over with 
 bitumen, which necessarily supposes, in the case of savages 
 unacquainted with iron, that fire had been employed in 
 hollowing their canoes, or, at least, in careening them. 
 Finally, we are told, that they fed on rice, the preparation 
 of which, however simple, requires, of necessity, the appli- 
 cation of fire. 
 
 * See the History of their Discoveries, by Magellan ; the History of the 
 Marianne Isles, by Father Gobien, vol. ii. page 44 ; and that of the West 
 Indies, by Herrera, vol. iii. pages 10 and 712. 
 
28 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 This element is universally necessary to human existence, 
 even in the hottest climates. By means of fire alone, man 
 guards his habitation, by night, from ravenous beasts of prey ; 
 drives away the insects which thirst for his blood ; clears the 
 ground of the trees and plants which cover it ; in a word, in 
 every country, with fire he prepares his food, dissolves metals, 
 vitrifies rocks, hardens clay, softens iron, and gives, to all the 
 productions of the earth, the forms and combinations which 
 his necessities require. 
 
 The benefits which he derives from the air are no less 
 extensive. Few animals are, like him, capable of respiring, 
 with equal ease, at the level of the sea, and on the summit 
 of the loftiest mountains. Man is the only being who gives 
 it all the modulations of which it is susceptible. With his 
 voice alone, he imitates the hissing, the cries, the singing of 
 all animals ; while he enjoys the gift of speech, denied to 
 every other. Sometimes he communicates sensibility to the 
 air ; he makes it sigh in the pipe, complain in the flute, 
 threaten in the trumpet, and to animate to the tone of his 
 passions the brass, the box-tree, and the reed. Sometimes 
 he makes it his slave ; forces it to grind, bruise, and move, 
 to his advantage, an endless variety of machinery. In a 
 word, he yokes it to his car, and constrains it to waft him 
 even over the billows of the ocean. 
 
 That element, in which few of the inhabitants of earth are 
 able to live, presents to man alone the easiest of communica- 
 tions. He swims, he dives in it, he pursues the sea-monster 
 to the abysses of the deep ; he hunts and stabs the whale 
 even under mountains of ice ; alights on every island in the 
 bosom of the sea, and asserts his empire over it. 
 
 Whatever irregularity may appear on the surface of the 
 earth, man is the only being formed with the capacity of 
 pervading all its parts. There is established, among all his 
 limbs, an equilibrium so perfect, so difficult to be preserved, 
 so contrary to the laws of our mechanism, that there is no 
 sculptor capable of forming a statue resembling man, broader 
 and heavier above than below, which shall be able to main- 
 tain an erect position, and remain immoveable, on a basis so 
 small as his feet. It would be quickly overset by the slightest 
 breath of wind. How much more, then, would be requisite 
 to make it walk like him ? There is no animal whose body 
 is susceptible of so many different movements ; who unites 
 
STUDY I. 29 
 
 in himself all the possible varieties of animal motion ; who 
 is equally adapted to clamber to the summit of the rock, to 
 walk on the surface of the snow, to traverse the river and the 
 forest, to pick the moss of the fountain, and the fruit of the 
 palm-tree ; to feed the bee, and to tame the elephant. 
 
 In man Nature has collected every thing that is lovely in 
 colour and in form, whether from harmony or contrast. To 
 these she has added movements the most majestic and the 
 most graceful. Indeed, so wonderful are these combinations, 
 that all animals, in their natural state, are struck, at sight of 
 him, with terror, or with love ; and as he is the only being 
 who has the disposal of fire, the principle of life, so he alone 
 practises agriculture, which is its support. The ox never 
 thinks of resowing the grain which he treads out on the 
 barn-floor, nor the monkey, the maize of the field which he 
 plunders. Man alone raises his intelligence up to that of 
 Nature. He not only pursues her plans, but recedes from 
 them. He covers regions destined for forests, with corn and 
 wine. He says to the pine of Virginia, and to the chesnut 
 of India, " You shall grow in Europe." Nature seconds his 
 efforts, and seems, by her complaisance, to invite him to 
 prescribe laws to her. 
 
 For man Nature has covered the earth with plants, and 
 though their species be infinite, not a single one but may be 
 converted to his use. She has selected some out of every 
 class, to minister to his pleasure or support, wherever he 
 pleases to fix his habitation. She permits the plants most 
 useful to him to grow in all climates ; but the domestic ones, 
 from the cabbage up to the corn, alone, like man himself, are 
 citizens of the world. The others serve for his bed, for his 
 roof, for his clothing, for medicine, at least for fuel. 
 
 The animals are wonderfully formed, at once to live in 
 situations the most rugged, and, animated by an instinct the 
 most tractable, to associate with man. Every region is sup- 
 porting a race of servants for him ; but those animals, in 
 which are united the greatest number of utilities, live with 
 him over the whole face of the earth. Delighting to pasture, 
 each according to its nature, there is no corner of the earth 
 where the whole vegetable crop may not be reaped ; and in 
 the evening all return to the habitation of man, with mur- 
 murs, with bleatings, with cries of joy, bringing back to him 
 the delicious tribute of innumerable plants, transformed, by a 
 
 3* 
 
30 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 process the most inconceivable, into honey, milk, butter, eggs, 
 and cream. 
 
 While some philosophers assign to every species of dog a 
 common origin, others ascribe a difference of origin to man. 
 Their system is founded on the variety of size and colour in 
 the human species ; but neither colour, nor stature, are dis- 
 tinctive characters, in the judgment of all naturalists. Ac- 
 cording to them, colour is merely accidental ; superior stature 
 only a greater expansion of forms. Difference of species 
 arises from the difference of proportions : now this charac- 
 terizes that of dogs. The proportions of the human body 
 no where vary; the black colour, within the tropics, is simply 
 the effect of the heat of the sun, which tinges man in propor- 
 tion as he approaches the line ; and it is one of the blessings 
 of Nature. His size is invariably the same in every age, and 
 in all places, notwithstanding the influence of food and cli- 
 mate, by which other animals are so powerfully affected ; but 
 from the tallest to the shortest of the human race, there is not, 
 at most, the difference of a foot. Their stature is the same, 
 at this day, as in the time of the Egyptians ; at Archangel 
 as in Africa, as is evident from the length of mummies, and 
 that of the tombs of the ancient Indians, found in Siberia, 
 along the banks of the river Petzora. 
 
 The somewhat contracted stature of the Laplanders is to 
 be imputed, I presume, to their sedentary mode of living ; 
 for I have observed, among ourselves, a similar contraction 
 of size in persons of occupations requiring little exercise. 
 That of the Patagonians, on the contrary, is more expanded 
 than that of the Laplanders, though they inhabit a latitude 
 as cold, from their greater disposition to be moving about. 
 The Laplander passes the greater part of the year shut up 
 amidst, his herds of reindeer ; whereas the Patagonian is per- 
 petually a stroller, for he lives entirely by hunting and fishing. 
 Besides, the first travellers to whom we are indebted for our 
 knowledge of these two nations, have greatly exaggerated 
 the smallness of the one, and the magnitude of the other. 
 Man, over the whole globe, is at the centre of all magnitudes, 
 of all movements, and of all harmonies. His stature, his 
 limbs, his organs, have proportions so adjusted to all the 
 works of Nature, that she has rendered them invariable as 
 their combination. He constitutes, himself alone, a genus 
 which has neither class nor species, dignified, by way of 
 
STUDY I. 31 
 
 excellence, with the title of MANKIND. In every age, man 
 has been the friend of man, not merely from the interests of 
 commerce, but by the more sacred, the more indissoluble 
 bands of humanity. We are all bondsmen for each other. 
 The happiness of every individual is attached to the happi- 
 ness of mankind. He is under obligation to exert himself 
 for the general good, because his own depends upon it. 
 Instinct discovers to the animal its necessities only ; but man 
 alone has raised himself from the dark womb of profound 
 ignorance, to the knowledge and belief of a GOD : and on 
 this knowledge are founded all the associations of the human 
 race, without a single exception. 
 
 As man has formed his intellect on that of Nature, he has 
 been obliged to regulate his moral sense by that of her AUTHOR. 
 He felt that, in order to please Him who is the principle of 
 all good, it was necessary to contribute to the general good ; 
 hence the efforts made by man, in every age, to raise himself 
 to GOD, by the practice of virtue. Thither he directs, without 
 perceiving it, his hopes, his feat's, his pleasures, his pains, his 
 loves ; and passes his life in pursuing, or in combating, these 
 fugitive impressions of DEITY. 
 
 We shall have frequent occasion to remark, that the works 
 of Nature exhibit contrasts, harmonies, and transitions, which 
 wonderfully unite their different empires to each other. We 
 shall examine by what magic it is, that the contrasts are pro- 
 ductive at once of pleasure and pain, of friendship and hatred, 
 of existence and destruction. From them proceeds that great 
 principle of LOVE, which divides all the individuals into two 
 great classes, objects loving and beloved. It opposes indi- 
 vidual to individual by difference of sex, and genus to genus 
 by that of forms, in order to extract from them harmonies 
 innumerable. 
 
 In the elements, light is opposed to darkness, heat to cold, 
 earth to water, and their accords produce lights, temperatures, 
 views, the most agreeable. In vegetables, in the forests of 
 the north, the thick and gloomy foliage, the tranquil attitude 
 and the pyramidical form of the fir, contrast with the tender 
 verdure and moveable foliage of the birch, which presents 
 the appearance of a pyramid inverted. 
 
 The same oppositions reign in the animal kingdom ; from 
 the bee and the butterfly, up to the elephant and the canielo- 
 pard, there is not a single animal on the earth but what has 
 
32 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 its contrast, man only excepted. The contrasts of man are 
 all within himself. Two opposite passions, love and ambition, 
 balance all his actions. To love, are referable all the plea- 
 sures of the senses ; to ambition, all those of the soul. These 
 two passions are in perpetual counterpoise in the same sub- 
 ject; and while the first is accumulating on man every kind 
 of corporeal enjoyment, and insensibly sinking him below 
 the level of the beasts ; the second prompts him to aim at 
 universal dominion, and to exalt himself, at length, up to 
 the DEITY. 
 
 Nature, however, has bestowed these two passions on man 
 as a source of happiness. She produces an equal number of 
 each sex, to direct the love of every man to a single object, 
 and in that object she has united all the harmonies which 
 are scattered over her most beautiful productions. There is 
 between man and woman a wonderful analogy of forms, 
 inclinations, and tastes ; but there is a difference still greater, 
 of these very qualities. Love results only from contrasts, and 
 the greater they are, the more powerful is its energy ; which 
 might easily be demonstrated by the evidence of a thousand 
 historical facts. 
 
 The influence of contrasts in love is so certain, that on 
 seeing the lover, it would be easily possible to draw the por- 
 trait of the beloved object, without having seen it, provided 
 only it were known that the passion was extremely violent. 
 Of this I myself have made proof, on various occasions ; 
 among others, in a city where I was entirely a stranger. 
 A gentleman of the place, one of my friends, carried me to 
 visit his sister, a very virtuous young lady, and he informed 
 me, as we were going, that she was violently in love. Being 
 arrived at her apartments, and love happening to become the 
 subject of conversation, it came into my head to say to her, 
 that I knew the laws which determined our choice in love, 
 and that, if she would permit me, I could draw her lover's 
 picture, though he was utterly unkown to me. She bid me 
 defiance : upon this, taking the opposite to her tall and 
 buxom figure, to her temperament and character, which her 
 brother had been describing to me, I painted her favourite as 
 a little man, not overloaded with flesh, with blue eyes, and 
 fair hair, somewhat fickle, eager after information. Every 
 word I uttered made her blush up to the eyes, and she became 
 seriously angry with her brother, accusing him of having be- 
 
STUDY I. 33 
 
 trayed her secret. This, however, was not the case, and he 
 was fully as much astonished as herself. 
 
 The government of a good king has been compared to that 
 of a father ; but the empire of a virtuous father can be com- 
 pared only to that of GOD himself. Virtue is, to man, the 
 true law of Nature. It is the harmony of all harmonies. 
 Virtue alone can render love sublime, and ambition benefi- 
 cent. It can derive the purest gratification even from priva- 
 tions the most severe. Rob it of love, friendship, honour, 
 the sun, the elements, it feels that, under the administration 
 of a Being just and good, abundant compensation is reserved 
 for it, and it acquires an increase of confidence in GOD, even 
 from the cruelty and injustice of man. 
 
 The spheres of all beings have a communication, by means 
 of rays, which seem to unite their extremities ; and we shall 
 find perhaps in our common gardens, appearances of Nature 
 still more surprising. We shall see the pea, for example, 
 pushing out its tendrils, precisely at the height where they 
 begin to stand in need of support, and curling them round 
 the boughs, with an address which can hardly be ascribed to 
 chance. This seems to suppose intelligence ; but is a de- 
 monstration of goodness, not in the vegetable, but in the 
 hand which formed it. 
 
 The sphere of animals extends still farther these wonder- 
 ful harmonies. From the motionless shelly race, which pave 
 and strengthen the capacious bed of the sea, to the fly who 
 wings his way by night, over the plains of the torrid zone, 
 glittering with rays of light like a star, you will find in them 
 the configuration of rocks, of vegetables, of stars. Some of 
 them compose noisy republics, others live in profound solitude. 
 The whole life of some is employed in waging war, that of 
 others in making love, not less varied than their animosities. 
 One must have his seraglio ; another is satisfied with a tran- 
 sient mistress ; a third unites himself to a faithful companion, 
 whom he never abandons till death makes the separation. 
 Man unites, in his enjoyments, their pleasures and their 
 transports ; and, satiated, sighs, and demands of Heaven 
 felicity of a different kind. 
 
 We shall examine, simply by the light which reason sup- 
 plies, whether man, subjected, by his body, to the condition of 
 the animal creation, all whose necessities he unites in him- 
 self, is not, by his soul, allied to creatures of a superior order ; 
 
 
34 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and whether Nature has not reserved to herself some extra- 
 ordinary means of interposing for the relief, even of the human 
 race, undoubtedly as being the most wretched species of all. 
 
 That order which pervades the general combination of the 
 spheres, subsists in the parts of each of the individuals which 
 compose them. There is not a single one which has, in its 
 organs, either deficiency or redundancy. Their mutual adap- 
 tation is so perceptible, and they possess characters so very 
 striking, that if you were to show to a naturalist of ability 
 any representation of a plant, or of an animal, which he had 
 never seen, he could tell, from the harmony of its parts, whether 
 it were a creature of the imagination, or a copy after Nature. 
 
 Even the instincts of animals appear to be less adapted to 
 their own personal utility, than to that of man ; and are 
 sometimes in harmony with the nature of the soil they in- 
 habit, sometimes in opposition to it. The gluttonous hog de- 
 lights to live in the mire, from which he is intended to purify 
 the habitation of man ; and the sober camel, to force his 
 way through the burning sands of Africa, impervious, but 
 for him, to every effort of the traveller. The appetites of 
 these animals do not grow out of the places which they in- 
 habit; for the ostrich, who is a fellow-tenant of the same 
 deserts with the camel, is still more voracious than the hog. 
 
 No one law of magnetism, of gravity, of attraction, of 
 electricity, of heat, or of cold, governs the world. These 
 pretended general laws, are nothing more than particular 
 means. Our sciences mislead us, by ascribing to Nature a 
 false providence. They are not afraid of excluding from the 
 heart of man that sentiment of the divine qualities, which 
 communicates to him so much force ; and of accumulating 
 on his mind the weights and movements which oppress him. 
 We can know that only which she makes us feel ; and we 
 can form no judgment of her works but in the place, and at 
 the time, she is pleased to display them. All that we ima- 
 gine, beyond this, presents only contradiction, doubt, error, 
 or absurdity. Pain and death are among the proofs of her 
 goodness. But for pain, we should be bruising ourselves 
 every step we took, without perceiving it. But for death, 
 new beings could not be raised into existence ; and supposing 
 those which already are in the world could be rendered 
 eternal, that eternity would involve in it the ruin of the 
 whole system of actual happiness. 
 
STUDY I. 35 
 
 In vain do we search, in our cradles, for the archives which 
 our tombs deny us ; the past, like the future, covers our mys- 
 terious destiny with an impenetrable veil. In vain do we 
 apply to it the light which illumines us, and seek, in the origin 
 of things, the weights, the times, and the measures, which 
 we find in their enjoyment ; but the order which produced 
 them has, with relation to GOD, neither time, weight, nor 
 measure. The divisions of matter and time were made only 
 for circumscribed, feeble, transient man. The universe, said 
 Newton, was produced at a single cast. We are seeking for 
 youth in what was always old, for old age in what is always 
 young ; for germs in species, births in generations, epochs in 
 nature ; but when the sphere, in which we live, issued from 
 the hand of its divine AUTHOR, all times, all ages, all pro- 
 portions, manifested themselves in it at once. 
 
 To glance only on those general harmonies of the globe 
 best known to us, behold how the sun constantly encircles 
 with his rays one half of the earth, while night covers the 
 other with her shade. How many contrasts and concords 
 result from their ever-changing oppositions 1 There is not 
 a single point in the two hemispheres, in which there does 
 not appear, by turns, a dawn, a twilight, an aurora, a noon, 
 a setting of burnished gold, and a night sometimes studded 
 with stars, sometimes clothed in a sable mantle. 
 
 The seasons walk hand in hand under his eye, like the 
 hours of the day. Spring, crowned with flowers, precedes 
 his flaming car ; Summer surrounds it with her golden 
 sheaves ; and Autumn follows it, bearing her cornucopia 
 running over with glossy fruit. In vain would Winter and 
 night, retiring to the poles of the world, attempt to set bounds 
 to his majestic career ; in vain do they raise out of the bosom 
 of the polar seas of the north and of the south, new conti- 
 nents, with their valleys, their mountains, and their icy 
 coruscations ; the father of day, with his fiery shafts, over- 
 turns the fantastic fabric ; and without descending from his 
 throne, resumes the empire of the universe. Nothing can 
 screen itself from his prolific heat. From the bosom of the 
 ocean, he raises into the air the rivers which are afterwards 
 to flow through the Old and New Worlds. He gives com- 
 mandment to the winds to distribute them over islands and 
 continents. These invisible children of the air transport 
 them from place to place, pouring them out on the moun- 
 
36 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tains in dews, in rains, in hail, in snow, in impetuous torrents ; 
 so that every part of the earth annually receives from them 
 neither more nor less than its accustomed portion of water. 
 
 Every place possesses and presents in rotation, harmonies 
 peculiar to itself. Run over, at pleasure, a meridian, or a 
 parallel, you will find on it mountains of ice, and of fire ; 
 plains of every level, hills of every curve; islands of all forms, 
 and rivers of all currents ; some spouting up, as if they issued 
 from the centre of the earth, others precipitating themselves 
 down in cataracts, as if descending from the clouds. Never- 
 theless, this globe, agitated with such a variety of convulsive 
 movements, advances in a steady and unalterable course 
 through the immensity of the heavens. 
 
 Beauties of a different order decorate its architecture, and 
 render it habitable to sensible beings. A girdle of palm trees, 
 to which are suspended the date and the cocoa, surrounds it 
 between the burning tropics ; and forests of mossy firs begird 
 it under the polar circles. The banana advances from the 
 line to the southern shore of the Mediterranean. The orange> 
 crosses that sea, and embellishes, with its golden fruit, the 
 southern extremities of Europe. The most necessary plants, 
 such as corn and the gramineous tribes, penetrate the far- 
 thest, and, strong from their weakness, stretch, in the shelter 
 of the valleys, from the banks of the Ganges to the shores of 
 the Frozen Ocean. Others advancing from the rude climates 
 of the north, make their way, under favour of the snows, into 
 the very bosom of the torrid zone. The fir and cedar clothe 
 the mountains of Arabia and Cachemire, and view at their 
 feet the scorched plains of Aden and Lahore, where the date 
 and the sugar-cane are reaped. 
 
 But every soil has its Flora and its Pomona. The rocks, 
 morasses, mire, and sand, have each vegetables peculiar to 
 itself. The very shallows of the sea are fertile. The cocoa- 
 tree thrives only on the strand, and suspends its milky fruit 
 over the billows of the briny deep. Other plants are adapted 
 to the winds, to the seasons, to the hours of the day, with 
 such exact precision, that, by means of them, Linnaeus 
 constructed botanical almanacs and timepieces. Who is 
 capable of describing the infinite variety of their figure 1 
 What cradles, arches, avenues, pyramids of verdure, loaded 
 with fruits, present the most enchanting habitations ! What 
 happy republics lodge under their tranquil shade ! What 
 
STUDY I. 37 
 
 delicious banquets are there prepared ! Nothing of them is 
 lost. The quadrupeds eat the tender foliage, the feathered 
 race the seeds, other animals the roots and rind, and insects 
 feed on the offal. 
 
 Other tribes hold vegetables in contempt, and are adapted 
 to the elements, to day, to night, to tempests, and to different 
 parts of the globe. The eagle trusts her nest to the rock 
 which loses itself in the clouds ; the ostrich, to the parched 
 sands of the desert ; the rose-coloured flamingo, to the mires 
 of the Southern Ocean. The white bird of the tropic, and 
 the black frigate, take pleasure to sweep along, in company, 
 over the vast extent of the seas, to view, from the highest 
 regions of the atmosphere, the fleets of India toiling after them 
 in vain, and to circumscribe the globe from east to west, dis- 
 puting rapidity of flight with the sun himself. 
 
 In the same latitudes, the turtle-dove and the parroquet, 
 less daring, travel only from isle to isle, having their young 
 ones in their train, and picking up, in the forests, the grains 
 of spicery which they brush off as they hop from branch to 
 branch. While fowls of this description preserve an equal 
 temperature, under the same parallels, others find it in the 
 track of the same meridian. Long triangles of wild-geese 
 and of swans go and come every year from south to north, 
 stop only at the hoary limits of winter, hurry, without desire 
 or astonishment, over the populous cities of Europe, and look 
 down with disdain on their fertile plains, which present the 
 furrows of green corn in the midst of snow ; to such a degree 
 does liberty appear preferable to abundance, even in the 
 eyes of the animal creation ! 
 
 On the other hand, legions of heavy quails cross the sea, 
 and go to the south, in quest of the summer's heat. Toward 
 the end of September, they avail themselves of a northerly 
 wind to take their departure from Europe, and flapping one 
 wing, while they present the other to the gale, half sail, half 
 oar, they graze the billows of the Mediterranean, with their 
 fattened rump, and bury themselves in the sands of Africa, 
 that they may serve as food to the famished inhabitants of 
 Zara. 
 
 There are animals which travel only by night. Millions 
 of crabs, in the Antilles, descend from the mountains by the 
 light of the moon, clashing their claws ; and present to the 
 Caraibs, on the steril strand of their isles, innumerable shells 
 
 4 
 
38 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 replenished with excellent marrow. At other seasons, on the 
 contrary, the tortoise quits the sea, and lands on the same 
 shores, to accumulate layers of eggs in their barren sands. 
 
 The very ices of the pole are inhabited. We find in their 
 seas, and under their floating promontories of crystal, the 
 black enormous whale, with more oil on his back than a 
 whole plantation of olives could produce. Foxes clothed in 
 precious furs, find the means of living on shores abandoned 
 by the sun ; herds of reindeer there scratch up the snow in 
 search of moss, and advance, braying, into those desolate 
 regions of night, by the glimmering light of the aurora 
 borealis. Through a providence, worthy of the highest 
 admiration, places the most unprolific present to man, in the 
 greatest abundance, provisions, clothing, lamps, and firing, 
 not of his own production. 
 
 How delightful would it be to behold the human race 
 collecting all these various blessings, and communicating 
 them to each other, in peace, from climate to climate ! We 
 look with expectation, every winter, to the period when the 
 swallow and nightingale shall announce to us the return of 
 serenity. How much more affecting would it be, to behold 
 the people of distant lands arrive with the spring, on our 
 shores, not with the dreadful noise of artillery, like modern 
 Europeans, but with the sound of the flute and of the haut- 
 boy, as the ancient navigators, in the earlier ages of the world ! 
 Winter itself would be no interruption to the communication 
 of mankind. The Laplander, covered with warm fur, would 
 arrive, under favour of the snow, in his sledge drawn by the 
 reindeer, and expose for sale, in our markets, the sable skins 
 of Siberia. Did men live in peace, every sea would be navi- 
 gated, every region would be explored, all their productions 
 would be collected. What a gratification of curiosity would 
 it be to listen to the adventures of these foreign travellers, 
 attracted to us by the gentleness of our manners ! They 
 would not be slow in communicating to our hospitality the 
 secrets of their plants, of their industry, and of their tradi- 
 tions, which they will for ever conceal from our ambitious 
 commerce. 
 
 Among the members of the vast family of mankind are 
 the fragments of their history scattered. How interesting to 
 learn that of our ancient separation, why each tribe chose 
 a separate habitation, on an unknown globe ; and traversed, 
 
STUDY I. 39 
 
 as chance directed, mountains which presented no path ; and 
 rivers without a name ! 
 
 What pictures would be presented to us in the descriptions 
 of those countries, decorated with a pompous magnificence, 
 as they proceeded from the hands of Nature, but wild, and 
 unadapted to the necessities of man destitute of experience ! 
 They would paint to us the astonishment of their forefathers 
 at sight of the new plants which every new climate exhibited 
 to their view, and the trials which they made of them as the 
 means of subsistence ; how they were aided, no doubt, in 
 their necessitous circumstances, and in their industry, by 
 some celestial Intelligence, who commiserated their distress ; 
 how they gradually formed an establishment ; what was the 
 origin of their laws, of their customs, and of their religions. 
 
 What acts of virtue, what instances of generous love, have 
 ennobled the deserts, and are unknown to our pride ! We 
 flatter ourselves we have got a clear insight into the history 
 of foreign nations, because we have collected a few anecdotes 
 picked up at random by travellers. But this is much the 
 same as if they were to compose ours from the tales of a 
 mariner, or the artificial representations of a courtier, amidst 
 the jealousies of war, or the corruptions of commerce. The 
 knowledge and sentiments of a nation are not deposited in 
 books. They repose in the heads, and in the hearts, of its 
 sages ; if there be on earth such a thing as a secure asylum 
 for truth. 
 
 If it be delightful to acquire knowledge, it is much more so 
 to diffuse it. The noblest reward of science is the pleasure 
 of the ignorant man instructed. What a sublime satisfaction 
 should it be to us, to enjoy their joy, to behold their dances 
 in our public squares, and to hear the drums of the Tartar, 
 and the ivory cornet of the Negro re-echo round the statues 
 of our kings ! Ah, if we were good, I figure them to myself 
 struck with astonishment and sorrow at the excessive and 
 unhappy populousness of our cities, inviting us to spread 
 ourselves over their solitudes, to contract marriages with 
 them, and by new alliances to reunite the branches of the 
 human race which are unhappily separating farther and far- 
 ther, and which national prejudices disunite still more than 
 ages and climates ! 
 
 Alas ! blessings have been given us in common, and we 
 communicate to each other only the ills of life. Man is 
 
40 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 every where complaining of the want of land, and the globe 
 is covered with deserts. Man alone is exposed to famine, 
 while the animal creation, down to insects, are wallowing in 
 plenty. Almost every where he is the slave of his equal, 
 while the feeblest of animals maintain their liberty against 
 the strongest. Nature, who designed him for love, denied 
 him arms, and he has forged them for himself, to combat his 
 fellow. She presents to all her children asylums and festi- 
 vals ; and the avenues of our cities announce our approach 
 to them only by the sad spectacle of wheels and gibbets. 
 The history of Nature exhibits blessings only, that of man 
 nothing but robbery and madness. His heroes are the per- 
 sons who have rendered themselves the most tremendous. 
 Every where he despises the hand which spins the garment 
 that clothes him, and which cultivates for him the fertile 
 bosom of the earth. Every where he esteems his deceiver, 
 and reveres his oppressor. Always dissatisfied with the pre- 
 sent, he alone of beings regrets the past, and trembles at the 
 thought of futurity. Nature has granted to him alone the 
 knowledge of a DEITY, and swarms of inhuman religions 
 have sprung up out of a sentiment so simple and so con- 
 solatory. 
 
 To the investigation of the divine harmonies of Nature I 
 have devoted my life, and this work. If I have gone astray, 
 at least my errors shall not be fatal to religion, the natural 
 bond of mankind, and the hope of our sublime passions. 
 Happy if I have been able sometimes to prop, with my feeble 
 support, that sacred edifice, assailed, in these times, on every 
 side ! However bold some of my speculations may be, they 
 have nothing to do with bad people ; and I shall have the 
 full recompense of my labour, if so much as one unfortunate 
 wretch, ready to sink at the melancholy spectacle which the 
 world presents, shall revive, on beholding in Nature a father, 
 a friend, a rewarder. 
 
 The rich and the great imagine that every one is miserable, 
 and out of the world, who does not live as they do ; but they, 
 living far from Nature, live out of the world. They would 
 find thee, O eternal Beauty ! always ancient, and always 
 new ;* O life, pure arid blissful, of all those who truly live, 
 if they sought thee only within themselves ! But, thou being 
 
 * St. Augustin's City of God. 
 
STUDY II. 41 
 
 so much within themselves, where they never choose to look, 
 and too magnificent externally, diffusing thyself through infi- 
 nite space, thou remainest to them an unknown GOD.* In 
 losing themselves, they have lost thee. The order, nay, the 
 beauty, with which thou hast invested all thy creatures, to 
 serve as so many steps by which man may raise himself to 
 thee, are transformed into a veil, which conceals thee from 
 his sickly eyes. Men have no sight but for vain shadows. 
 The light dazzles them. Mere nothings are to them every 
 thing ; and all-perfection passes for nothing. Nevertheless, 
 'he who never saw thee, has never seen any thing ; he who 
 has no relish for thee, is an utter stranger to true pleasure ; 
 he is as if he were not, and his whole life is only a miserable 
 dream. 
 
 O my God ! give to these labours of a man, not the dura- 
 tion, or the spirit of life, but the freshness of the least of thy 
 works ! Let their divine graces be transfused into my writings, 
 and bring back a corrupted age to Thee ! Opposed to Thee, 
 all power is weakness ; supported by Thee, weakness becomes 
 irresistible strength. When the rude northern blasts have 
 ravaged the earth, thou callest for the feeblest of winds ; at 
 the sound of thy voice, the zephyr breathes, the verdure 
 revives, the gentle primrose, and the humble violet, cover 
 the bosom of the bleak rock with a mantle of gold and purple. 
 
 STUDY SECOND. 
 
 BENEFICENCE OP NATURE. 
 
 MOST men, in policed nations, look on Nature with indif- 
 ference. They are in the midst of her works, and admire 
 only human grandeur. What charm can render the history 
 of man so interesting ! It has to boast of vain objects of glory 
 alone, of uncertain opinions, of bloody victories, or, at most, 
 of useless labours. If Nature sometimes finds a place in it, 
 we alre called upon to observe only the ravages she has com- 
 mitted, and to hear her charged with a thousand calamities, 
 which may be all traced up to our own imprudence. 
 
 * Fenelon, on the Existence of God. 
 F 
 
42 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 With what unremitting attention, on the contrary, is this 
 common mother providing for us the means of happiness ! 
 She has diffused her benefits from pole to pole, in the view 
 of engaging us to unite in a mutual communication of them. 
 She recalls us from the prejudices which unhappily separate 
 mankind, to the universal laws of justice and humanity, by 
 frequently putting our ills in the hands of the so highly 
 vaunted conquerors, and our pleasures in those of the op- 
 pressed, whom we hardly deign to favour with our pity. 
 
 When the princes of Europe issued forth with the Gospels 
 in their hand, to ravage Asia, they brought back with them* 
 the pestilence, the leprosy, and small-pox; but Nature pointed 
 out to a dervise the coffee plant, and produced our plagues 
 from our Croisades, and our delicious beverage from the cup 
 of a Mahometan monk. The successors of these princes 
 subjugated the American continent, and transmitted to us a 
 succession of wars and venereal diseases. While they were 
 exterminating its inoffensive inhabitants, a Caraib, in token 
 of peace, set the sailors a smoking his calumet ; the perfume 
 of tobacco dissipated their chagrin, and the use of it is dis- 
 . seminated over the universe. 
 
 To whom are we indebted for the use of sugar, of choco- 
 late, of so many agreeable means of subsistence, and so many 
 salutary medicines ? To naked Indians, to poor peasants, 
 to wretched negroes. The spade of slaves has done more 
 good than the sword of conquerors has done mischief. But 
 in which of our great squares are we to look for the statues 
 of our obscure benefactors ! Our histories have not vouch- 
 safed to name them. 
 
 Where is now the time, when our forefathers wandered 
 up and down, living on the precarious supplies of hunt- 
 ing, and not daring to trust to Nature ? Her simplest pheno- 
 mena filled them with terror, and they trembled at sight of 
 an eclipse. I will suppose, that a philosopher, such as Newton, 
 were then to have treated them with the spectacle of some 
 of our natural sciences, and shown them, with the micro- 
 scope, forests in moss, mountains in grains of sand, thousands 
 of animals in drops of water ; that afterwards, discovering to 
 them, in the heavens, a progression of greatness equally 
 infinite, he had shown them, in the planets, hardly percepti- 
 ble to the naked eye, worlds much greater than ours, Saturn, 
 three hundred millions of leagues distant ; in the fixed stars, 
 
STUDY II. 43 
 
 infinitely more remote, suns which probably illuminate other 
 worlds ; in the whiteness of the milky way, stars, that is 
 suns, innumerable, scattered about in the heavens, as grains 
 of dust on the earth, without man's knowing whether all this 
 may not be more than the threshold of Creation merely ; 
 with what transports would they have viewed a spectacle 
 which we, at this day, behold without emotion 1 
 
 But I would rather suppose, that, unprovided with the 
 magic of science, a man like Fenelon had presented himself 
 to them, in all the majesty of virtue, and thus addressed the 
 Druids : 'You frighten yourselves, my friends, with the ground- 
 less terrors which you instil into the people. God is righteous. 
 He conveys to the wicked terrible apprehensions, which recoil 
 on those w r ho communicate them. But He speaks to all 
 men in the blessings which He bestows. Your religion would 
 govern men by fear ; mine draws them with cords of love, 
 and imitates his sun in the firmament, whom He causes to 
 shine on the evil and on the good.' After this, that he had 
 distributed among them the simple presents of Nature, till 
 then unknown, sheaves of corn, slips of the vine, sheep 
 clothed with the woolly fleece : Oh ! what would have been 
 the gratitude of our grandfathers ! They would, perhaps, 
 have fled with terror from the inventor of the telescope, 
 mistaking him for a spirit ; but, undoubtedly, they would 
 have fallen down, and worshipped the author of Telema- 
 chus. 
 
 These are only the smallest part of the blessings for which 
 their opulent descendants stand indebted to Nature. An infi- 
 nite number of arts are employed at home, to diffuse know- 
 ledge and delight ; and there is not a spot of the earth, or 
 sea, but what furnishes them with some article of enjoyment. 
 Even the sands of Africa, where they have no game-keeper, 
 send them in clouds, quails, and other birds of passage, which 
 cross the sea in spring, to load their table in Autumn ; and 
 the northern pole, where they have no cruiser, pours on their 
 shores, every summer, legions of mackarel, fresh cod, and 
 turbots, fattened in the long nights of winter. 
 
 Not only the fowls and the fishes change for them their 
 climate, but the very trees themselves. They have no longer 
 occasion for suns : they can dispose of latitudes. They can 
 convey, in their hot-houses, the heats of Syria to exotic plants, 
 at the very season their hinds are perishing with the cold of 
 
44 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the Alps, in their hovels. Not only every thing that actually 
 exists, but ages past, all contribute to their felicity. 
 
 The sublime geniuses, of all ages and countries, celebrat- 
 ing, without concert, the undecaying lustre of virtue, and the 
 providence of Heaven, in the punishment of vice, add the 
 authority of their reason to the universal instinct of mankind, 
 and multiply, in their favour, the hopes of another life, of long 
 duration, and more exalted felicity. But it is from the very 
 lap of plenteousness and pleasure, that the voice of murmur- 
 ing against Providence now arises. From libraries, stored 
 with so many sources of knowledge, issue forth the black 
 clouds which have obscured the hopes and virtues of Europe. 
 
 STUDY THIRD. 
 
 OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE. 
 
 " THERE is no God," say these self-constituted sages. 
 " From the work form your judgment of the workman.* 
 Observe, first of all, this globe of ours, so destitute of propor- 
 tion and symmetry. Here it is deluged by vast seas ; there 
 it is parched with thirst, and presents only wildernesses of 
 barren sand. A centrifugal force, occasioned by its diurnal 
 rotation, has heaved out its equator into enormous mountains, 
 while it flattened the poles ; for the globe was originally in 
 a state of softness ; whether it was a mud recovered from the 
 empire of the waters, or, what is more probable, a scum 
 detached from the sun. The volcanoes, which are scattered 
 over the whole earth, demonstrate that the fire which formed 
 it is still under our feet. Over this scoria, so wretchedly 
 levelled, the rivers run as chance directs. Some of them 
 inundate the plains ; others are swallowed up, or precipitate 
 themselves in cataracts, and no one of them presents any 
 thing like a regular current. The islands are merely frag- 
 ments of the continent, violently separated from it by the 
 ocean ; and what is the continent itself, but a mass of hardened 
 clay 1 Here, the unbridled deep devours its shores ; there, 
 it deserts them, and exhibits new mountains, which had 
 
 * See replies to this objection in Study IV. 
 
STUDY III. 45 
 
 been formed in Its womb. Amidst this conflict of contend- 
 ing elements, this baked lump grows harder and harder, 
 colder and colder, every day. The ices of the poles, and of 
 the lofty mountains, advance into the plains, and insensibly 
 extend the uniformity of an eternal winter over this mass of 
 confusion, ravaged by the winds, the fire, and the water. 
 
 ' In the vegetable world the disorder increases upon us.* 
 Plants are a fortuitous production, of humid and dry, of hot 
 and cold, the mould of the earth merely. The heat of the 
 sun makes them spring up, the cold of the poles kills them. 
 Their sap obeys the same mechanical laws with the liquid in 
 the thermometer, and in capillary tubes. Dilated by heat, 
 it ascends through the wood, and re-descends through the 
 rind, following in its direction the vertical column of the air 
 which impresses that direction. Hence it is that all vege- 
 tables rise perpendicularly, and that the inclined plane of a 
 mountain can contain no more than the horizontal plane of 
 its base, as may be demonstrated by geometry. Besides, the 
 earth is an ill-assorted garden, which presents, almost every 
 where, useless weeds, or mortal poisons. 
 
 ' As to the animals, which we know better, because they 
 are brought nearer to us, by similar affections, and similar 
 wants, they present still greater absurdities, f They proceeded 
 at first from the expansive force of the earth, in the first ages 
 of the world, and were formed out of the fermented mire of the 
 ocean and of the Nile, as certain historians assure us ; among 
 others Herodotus, who had his information from the priests 
 of Egypt. Most of them are out of all proportion. Some 
 have enormous heads and bills, such as the toucan ; others 
 long necks and long legs, like the crane : these have no feet 
 at all, those have them by hundreds ; others have theirs dis- 
 figured by superfluous excrescences, such as the meaningless 
 spurs of the hog, which, appended at the distance of some 
 inches from his feet, can be of no service to him in walking. 
 
 ' There are animals scarcely capable of motion, and which 
 come into the world in a paralytic state, such as the sloth or 
 sluggard, who cannot make out fifty paces a day, and screams 
 out lamentably as he goes. 
 
 ' Our cabinets of natural history are filled with monsters ; 
 bodies with two heads ; heads with three eyes, sheep with 
 
 * The reply is in Study V. f The reply is in Study VI. 
 
46 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 six feet, &c. ; which demonstrate that Nature acts at ran- 
 dom, and proposes to herself no determinate end, unless it be 
 that of combining all possible forms : and, after all, this plan 
 would denote an intention which its monotony disavows. 
 Our painters will always imagine many more beings than 
 can possibly be created. Add to all this the rage and fury 
 which desolate every thing that breathes : the hawk devours 
 the harmless dove in the face of heaven. 
 
 ' But the discord which rages among animals is nothing, 
 compared to that which consumes the human race.* First, 
 several different species of men, scattered over the earth, 
 demonstrate that they do not all proceed from the same ori- 
 ginal. There are some black, others white, red, copper- 
 coloured, lead-coloured. There are some who have wool 
 instead of hair ; others who have no beard. There are dwarfs 
 and giants. Such are, in part, the varieties of the human 
 species, every where equally odious to Nature. No where 
 does she nourish him with perfect good will. He is the only 
 sensible being laid under the necessity of cultivating the 
 earth, in order to subsist : and, as if this unnatural mother 
 were determined to persecute, with unrelenting severity, the 
 child whom she has brought forth, insects devour the seed as 
 he sows it, hurricanes sweep away his harvests, ferocious 
 animals prey on his cattle, volcanoes and earthquakes destroy 
 his cities ; and the pestilence which, from time to time, makes 
 the circuit of the globe, threatens at length his utter exter- 
 mination. 
 
 6 He is indebted to his own hands for his intelligence, his 
 morality is the creature of climate, his governments are 
 founded in force, and his religion in fear. Cold gives him 
 energy ; heat relaxes him. Warlike and free in the north, 
 he is a coward and a slave between the tropics. His only 
 natural laws are his passions. And what other laws should 
 he look for ] If they sometimes lead him astray, is not 
 Nature, who bestowed them upon him, an accomplice at 
 least, in his criminality 1 But he is made sensible of their 
 impulse, only as a warning never to gratify them. 
 
 ' The difficulty of finding subsistence, wars, imposts, pre- 
 judices, calumnies, implacable enemies, perfidious friends, 
 treacherous females, four hundred sorts of bodily distempers, 
 
 * The reply is in Study VII. 
 
STUDY HI. 47 
 
 those of the mind, both more cruel and more numerous, render 
 him the most wretched of creatures that ever saw the light. 
 It were much better that he had never been born. He is 
 every where the victim of some tyrant. Other animals are 
 furnished with the means of fighting, or at least of flying ; 
 but man has been tossed on the earth by chance, without an 
 asylum, without claws, without fangs, without velocity, with- 
 out instinct, and almost without a skin ; and as if it were 
 not enough for him to be persecuted by all nature, he is in a 
 state of perpetual war with his own species. In vain would 
 he try to defend himself from it. Virtue steps in, and binds 
 his hands, that Vice, in safety, may cut his throat. He has 
 no choice but to suffer, and to be silent. 
 
 ( What, after all, is this virtue, about which such parade 
 is made ] A combination of his imbecility ; a result of his 
 temperament. With what illusions is she fed ] Absurd opi- 
 nions, founded merely on the sophisms of designing men, 
 who have acquired a supreme power by recommending humi- 
 lity, and immense riches by preaching up poverty. Every 
 thing expires with us. From experience of the past, let us 
 form a judgment of the future ; we were nothing before our 
 birth ; we shall be nothing after death. The hope of our 
 virtues is a mere human invention, and the instinct of our 
 passions is of divine institution. 
 
 6 But there is no GOD.* If there were, He would be 
 unjust. What being, of unlimited power and goodness, 
 would have exposed to so many ills the existence of his 
 creatures; and laid it down as a law, that the life of some 
 could be supported only by the death of others ? So much 
 disorder is a proof that there is no GOD. It is fear that formed 
 him. How must the world have been astonished at such a 
 metaphysical idea, when man first, under the influence of 
 terror, thought proper to cry out that there was a GOD ! 
 What could have made him GOD ? Why should he be GOD? 
 What pleasure could he take in that perpetual circle of woes, 
 of regenerations, and of death V f 
 
 * The reply is in Study VIII. 
 
 1 The refutation of these objections, all of them resolved directly or indirectly, 
 will be found by the numeral characters, which correspond to each particular 
 Study. 
 
48 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 STUDY FOURTH. 
 
 REPLIES TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE. 
 
 SUCH are the principal objections raised against a Provi- 
 dence, which no one will accuse me of having stated too 
 feebly. Did these murmurings proceed from some wretched 
 mariner, or some oppressed peasant, my astonishment would 
 be less : but it is amidst the luxury of Greece and Rome, in 
 the bosom of the wealth of Indostan, of the pomp of Persia, 
 of the voluptuousness of China, of the overflowing abundance 
 of European capitals, that men first started up who dared to 
 deny the existence of a DEITY. On the contrary, the house- 
 less Tartars ; the savages of America, continually pressed 
 with famine ; the Negroes, without foresight, and without a 
 police ; the inhabitants of the rude climates of the north, 
 such as the Laplanders, the Greenlanders, the Esquimaux, 
 see gods every where, even in a flint, in a pebble. 
 
 In all countries the poor rise early, labour the ground, live 
 in the open air, and in the fields. They believe, from a 
 sentiment natural to weak minds, that the objects of their 
 religious worship will be at their disposal in proportion as 
 they are within their reach. Hence it is that the devotions 
 of the common people, in every country, are presented in the 
 fields, and have natural objects for their centre. It always 
 attracts the religion of the peasantry. A hermitage on the 
 side of a mountain, a chapel at the source of a stream, an 
 image of the Virgin in wood, niched in the trunk of an oak, 
 have, to them, a much more powerful attraction than the 
 gilded altars of our cathedrals. 
 
 The principal religious acts of the people in Turkey, Persia, 
 the Indies, and China, are pilgrimages in the fields. The 
 rich, on the contrary, prevented in all their wants and wishes 
 by men, no longer look up to GOD for any thing. Their 
 whole life is passed within doors, where they see only the 
 productions of human industry, and insensibly lose sight of 
 those of Nature. They fail not to interpret her sublime opera- 
 tions by the mechanism of the arts most familiar to them. 
 Hence so many systems, which enable you to guess at the 
 occupation of their authors. Epicurus framed his world arid 
 
STUDY IV. 49 
 
 his atomg, with which Providence has nothing to do, out of 
 his own apathy; the geometrician forms it with his com- 
 passes ; the chymist compounds it of salts ; the mineralist 
 extracts it from the fire ; and they who apply themselves to 
 nothing, suppose it, like themselves, in a state of chaos, and 
 moving at random. Thus, the corruption of the heart is the 
 original source of our errors. 
 
 Replies to the Objections against Providence, founded on the 
 Disorders of the Globe. 
 
 Though ignorant of the means employed by Nature in the 
 government of the world, it is sufficient to glance on a geo- 
 graphical chart, and to have read a little, to be enabled to 
 demonstrate that those by which her operations are pre- 
 tendediy explained to us, have no foundation in truth. From 
 human insufficiency spring the objections levelled at the 
 Divine Providence. 
 
 It appears to me no more natural to compose the uniform 
 motion of the earth through the heavens, of the two motions 
 of projection and attraction, than to attribute to similar causes 
 that of a man walking on the earth. The centrifugal and 
 centripetal forces seem no more to exist in the heavens, than 
 the two circles denominated the equator and the zodiac. 
 However ingenious these hypotheses may be, they are only 
 scaffoldings imagined by men of genius for rearing the fabric 
 of science, but which no more assist us in penetrating into 
 the sanctuary of Nature, than those employed in the con- 
 struction of our churches can introduce us into the sanctuary 
 of religion. If a centrifugal force had swelled the mountains 
 of the globe, in a state of fusion, there must have been moun- 
 tains much more elevated than the Andes of Peru and Chili. 
 That of Chimborazo, the highest of them, is only 3220 or 
 3350 fathoms. This elevation, nearly the greatest known 
 on earth, is less perceptible on it than the third part of a line 
 would be on a globe of six feet diameter. Now, a mass of 
 melted metal presents, in proportion to its size, scoriae much 
 more considerable. Look at the anfractuosities of a simple 
 morsel of iron-dross. What frightful swellings, then, must 
 have been formed on a globe of heterogeneous and fermenting 
 materials, more than 3000 leagues thick 1 The moon, whose 
 G 5 
 
50 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 diameter is much less considerable, contains, according to 
 Cassini, mountains three leagues high. But what would be 
 the case if, with the action of the heterogeneousness of our 
 terrestrial materials, all in fusion, we should besides suppose 
 that of a centrifugal force, produced by the earth's rotatory 
 motion round its axis ? I imagine that this force must have 
 been necessarily exerted in the direction of its equator, and 
 instead of forming it into a globe, must have flattened it out 
 in the heavens, like those large plates of glass which glass- 
 blowers expand with their breath. 
 
 Not only the diameter of the earth, at the equator, is no 
 greater than under its meridians, but the mountains there are 
 not more elevated than elsewhere. The noted Andes of 
 Peru commence several degrees southward of the equator, arid 
 coasting along Peru, Chili, and Magellan's Land, stop at the 
 55th degree of southern latitude, in the Terra del Fuego, 
 where they present to the ocean a promontory of ice, of a 
 prodigious height. Through the whole extent of this im- 
 mense track, they never open but at the Straits of Magellan, 
 forming throughout a rampart fortified with pyramids of ice, 
 inaccessible to men, to quadrupeds, and even to birds. 
 
 The mountains on the isthmus of Panama, on the con- 
 trary, placed nearly under the line, have but a trifling eleva- 
 tion, compared with the Andes. The highest mountains of 
 Asia are without the tropic. The chain of Taurus and Imaus, 
 commences in Africa, at Mount Atlas, toward the 30th degree 
 of northern latitude. It runs across Africa and Asia, between 
 the 38th and 40th degrees of northern latitude, having its 
 summit mostly covered with snows that never melt ; a proof 
 of considerable elevation. Mount Ararat, a part of this chain, 
 -s perhaps, more elevated than any mountain of the New 
 "World : and the Peak of Teneriffe is visible 40 leagues off. 
 The Felices of Norway, called also the Alps of the North, are 
 visible at sea 50 leagues distant ; and are said to be 3000 fath- 
 oms high. 
 
 But if the pretended centrifugal force once had the power 
 of heaving up mountains, why does it not possess, at this day, 
 the power of tossing up a straw into the air ? It ought not 
 to leave a single detached body on the surface of the earth. 
 They are affixed to it, I shall be told, by the centripetal force, 
 or gravity. But if this last power, in fact, forces every body 
 toward it, why have not the mountains too submitted to this 
 
STUDY IV. 51 
 
 universal law, when they were in a state of fusion ? I cannot 
 conceive what reply can be made to this twofold objection. 
 
 The sea appears not more adapted to the formation of 
 mountains, than the centrifugal force is. How is it possible 
 to imagine the possibility of its having thrown them out of 
 its womb ? In vain would we ascribe to it revolutions from 
 west to east ; never will it have the power of raising any 
 thing above its level. If certain ports of the Mediterranean 
 are produced as instances, which the sea has actually left dry, 
 it is no less certain, that there is a much greater number, 
 on the same coasts, which the water has not deserted. The 
 ports of Marseilles, Carthage, Malta, Rhodes, Cadiz, and 
 many others, are still frequented by navigators, as they were 
 in the remotest antiquity. The Mediterranean could not 
 have sunk at any one point of its shores, without sinking at 
 every other, for water in the bason always comes to its level. 
 This reasoning may be extended to all the coasts of the 
 ocean. If there are found any where tracks of land aban- 
 doned, it is not because the sea retires, but because the earth 
 is gaining ground. This is the effect of alluvions occasioned 
 frequently by the overflowing of rivers, and sometimes by 
 the ill-advised labours of man. The encroachments of the 
 sea on the land are equally local, and are the effects of earth- 
 quakes, which can be extended to no great distance. As 
 these reciprocal invasions of the two elements are particular, 
 and frequently in opposition on the same coasts, which have, 
 in other respects, constantly preserved their ancient level, it 
 is impossible to deduce from them any general law for the 
 movements of the ocean. 
 
 To account for the origin of marine fossils extracted from 
 the bed of the sea, naturalists suppose a primitive earth whose 
 height equalled that of the present elevation of the highest 
 peaks of the Andes, &c. which remain so many evidences of 
 the existence of that primeval soil : after this, they employ 
 snows, rains, winds, and I know not what besides, to lower 
 this original continent to the brink of the sea ; so that we 
 inhabit only the bottom of this enormous quagmire. This 
 idea has an imposing air ; first, because it terrifies ; and then, 
 because it is conformable to that picture of apparent ruin 
 which the globe presents ; but it vanishes away before this 
 simple question. What has become of the* earth and the 
 rocks of this tremendous riddance 1 If it is said, They have 
 
52 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 been thrown into the sea ; we must suppose, prior to all de- 
 gradation, the existence of the bed of the sea, and its exca- 
 vation would then present a great many other difficulties. 
 But let us admit it. How comes it that those ruins have not, 
 in part, accumulated ? Why has not the sea overflowed 1 
 How can it have happened, on the contrary, that it should 
 have deserted such immense tracts of land, as are sufficient 
 to form the greatest part of two vast continents ! Our sys- 
 tems, therefore, cannot account for the steepy elevation of 
 mountains of granite, by any kind of degradation, because 
 they know not how to dispose of the fragments ; nor for the 
 formation of calcareous mountains, by the movements of the 
 ocean, because in its actual state it is incapable of covering 
 them. 
 
 Bays, gulfs, and mediterranean seas, are no more the effects 
 of irruptions of the ocean into the land, than mountains are 
 productions of the centrifugal motion. These pretended dis- 
 orders are necessary to the harmony of all parts of the earth. 
 Let us suppose, for example, that the Straits of Gibraltar were 
 closed, as it has been said was formerly the case, and that 
 the Mediterranean existed no longer. What would become 
 of so many rivers of Europe, Asia, and Africa, which are kept 
 flowing by the vapours which ascend out of that sea, and bring 
 back their waters to it, in a wonderful exactness of proportion, 
 as the calculations of many ingenious men have demon- 
 strated ? The north winds, which refresh Egypt in summer, 
 and convey the emanations of the Mediterranean to supply the 
 sources of the Nile, blowing, in this case, over a space desti- 
 tute of water, would carry drought and barrenness over all 
 the northern regions of Africa, and even into the interior of 
 that continent. 
 
 The southern parts of Europe would fare still worse ; for 
 the hot and parching winds of Africa, loaded with rainy 
 clouds as they cross the Mediterranean, now blowing over 
 the dry bed of that sea, without tempering the heat by hu- 
 midity, would blast all that vast region of Europe, extending 
 from Gibraltar to the Euxine Sea, and utterly dry up all the 
 countries through which, at present, flow a multitude of rivers, 
 such as the Rhone, the Po, the Danube, and the rest. It is 
 not sufficient to suppose, that the ocean forced a passage into 
 the bed of the JVfediterranean ; it must be imagined the tract 
 of land inundated was lower than the ocean, a phenomenon 
 
STUDY IV. 53 
 
 no where to be met with, those parts excepted which have 
 been wrested from the deep by human industry, as in Hol- 
 land. A lateral sinking of the earth must also have taken 
 place all round the bason of the Mediterranean, to regulate 
 the circuits, declivities, canals, and windings of so many 
 rivers, which come from such a distance to empty themselves 
 into it, and this sinking must have been effected with admi- 
 rable proportions. 
 
 It is not, then, to an irruption of the ocean that we are to 
 ascribe the Mediterranean, but to an excavation of the globe, 
 executed with dispositions so happy and so favourable to the 
 circulation of so many lateral rivers, that were I to trace the 
 course of any single one, it would be evident how destitute 
 of all foundation the supposition is which I am combating. 
 Indeed, if these interior waters did not exist, not a fountain 
 would remain in the greatest part of the habitable globe. 
 
 Nature, in forming basons to receive the seas, neither 
 rounded the borders, nor applied the line to them ; but con- 
 trived deep bays, sheltered from the general currents of the 
 ocean, that, daring stormy weather, the rivers might dis- 
 charge themselves into it in security, and that the finny 
 legions might resort thither, for refuge, at all seasons. She 
 has employed similar dispositions in forming the beds of rivers; 
 making their currents flow, not in a straight line, agreeably to 
 the laws of hydraulics, but to wind about for a long time 
 through the bosom of the land, before they pour themselves 
 into the sea. 
 
 In order to regulate the course of those rivers, and to accel- 
 erate or retard it, conformably to the level of the countries 
 through which they flow, she pours into them lateral rivers, 
 which accelerate it in a flat country, when they form an 
 acute angle with the source of the main river ; or retard it in 
 a mountainous country, by forming a right, and sometimes 
 an obtuse angle, with the source of the principal stream. 
 Rivers also, on throwing themselves into the sea, produce, in 
 their turn, by the direction of their mouths, acceleration or 
 retardation in the course of the tides ; and these facts will 
 doubtless convince the candid reader, that the bed of the 
 seas was scooped out expressly for the purpose of receiving 
 them. 
 
 To remove every possibility of doubt on the subject, it 
 must be observed, that by a sinking down of the solid parts 
 
 6* 
 
54 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of the globe, the shores of the sea, under water, would have 
 the same declivities with the adjoining continent ; but this 
 is not found to be the case on any coast whatever. The 
 declivity of the bason of the sea is much steeper than that of 
 the bounding lands, and by no means a prolongation of it. 
 Paris, for example, is raised above the level of the sea about 
 26 fathoms, reckoning from the base of the bridge of Notre- 
 Dame. The Seine, accordingly, from this point to where it 
 empties itself into the sea, has a declivity of little more than 
 130 feet, in a distance of 40 leagues ; whereas, measuring 
 from the mouth of the river, out into the sea, only a league 
 and a half, you find, at once, an inclination of from 60 to 80 
 fathoms, the depth at which vessels anchor, in the road of 
 Havre-de-Grace. 
 
 The declivity of the excavations of the bed of the sea has 
 been regulated by laws infinitely wise : for were it the same 
 with that of the adjacent lands, the billows of the sea, when- 
 ever the wind blew toward the shore, would considerably 
 encroach on the land. This actually happens in the case of 
 storms and extraordinary tides, when the waves overflow their 
 usual bounds. Holland is exposed to inundations, because it 
 has encroached on the bed of the sea. 
 
 It is principally on the shores of the ocean that the invi- 
 sible boundary is fixed, which the AUTHOR of Nature has 
 prescribed to its waves. It is there you are at the intersec- 
 tion of two different planes, the one of which terminates the 
 declivity of the land, and the other commences that of the sea. 
 
 It cannot be alleged, that it was by currents of the sea the 
 bed was hollowed out ; for where could the earth that filled 
 it before be deposited 1 They could raise nothing above their 
 own level. It cannot even be alleged that the channels of 
 rivers have been excavated by the current of their own streams, 
 for several have found a subterraneous passage through masses 
 of solid rock. Besides, on the supposition which we are ex- 
 amining, these rivers must have formed, at the place of their 
 falling into the ocean, banks of sand, accumulations of earthy 
 substances, proportional to the quantity of ground cleared 
 away in forming their channels. Most of them, on the con- 
 trary, empty themselves at the bottom of bays, hollowed out 
 expressly for receiving them. 
 
 How is it that they have not completely filled up those 
 bays, as they are incessantly hurling down into them sub- 
 
STUDY IV. 55 
 
 stances separated from the land 1 Why is not the very bed 
 of the ocean choked up, from the constant accumulation of 
 the spoils of vegetables, sands, rocks, and the wreck of earth, 
 which, on every shower that falls, tinge with yellow the 
 rivers which fall into it ? The waters of the ocean have not 
 risen a single inch since man began to make observations, 
 as might easily be demonstrated from the state of the most 
 ancient sea-ports of the globe, which are still, for the most 
 part, at the same level. 
 
 The means employed by Nature for the construction, sup- 
 port, and purification, of this immense bason, would suggest 
 fresh subject of admiration : but enough has been said to 
 prove, that what in nature may appear the effect of ruin, or 
 chance, is, in many cases, the result of intelligence the most 
 profound. Nbt only no hair falls from our head, and no 
 sparrow from heaven to the ground, but not a pebble rolls on 
 the shore of the ocean, without the permission of GOD. 
 
 Independent of geographical proofs without number, which 
 demonstrate that the ocean, by its irruptions, has not hol- 
 lowed out one single bay on the globe, nor detached any one 
 part of the continent from the rest, many may be deduced 
 from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and from man. 
 I shall just quote an observation from the vegetable world, 
 which proves that Britain never was united to the European 
 continent, but from the beginning separated by the channel. 
 Caesar, in his Commentaries, says, that during his stay in 
 that island, he had never seen either the beech tree or the 
 fir ; though they were very common in Gaul, along the banks 
 of the Seine and Rhine. If, therefore, these rivers had ever 
 flowed through any part of Britain, they must have carried 
 with them the seeds of the vegetables which grew at their 
 sources, or upon their banks. The beech and the fir, which 
 at this day thrive exceedingly well in Britain, must, of neces- 
 sity, have been found growing there in the time of Julius 
 Ceesar. Besides, from whence could the Seine, the Rhine, 
 the Thames, and so many other rivers, whose currents are 
 supplied from the Channel, have been fed with water 1 The 
 Thames, then, must have flowed through France, or the 
 Seine through England ; or, to speak more conformably to 
 truth and nature, the countries now watered by these rivers 
 would have been completely dry. 
 
 By our geographical charts, as by most other instruments 
 
 
56 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of science, we are misled. Observing in these so many 
 retreatings and projections along the coasts of the continent, 
 we imagine these irregularities must have been occasioned 
 by violent currents of the sea. It has just been demonstrated 
 that this effect was not thus produced ; I now proceed to show 
 that it could not possibly have been the case. 
 
 The English navigator Dampier says : ' Bays scarcely 
 have any currents, or if there be such a thing, they are only 
 counter-currents running from one point to another.'* He 
 quotes many observations in proof of this, and many others, 
 of a similar nature, may be found in the journals of naviga- 
 tors. Though he has treated only of the currents between 
 the tropics, we shall generalize this principle, and apply it to 
 the principal bays of continents. 
 
 I reduce to two general currents those of the ocean. Both 
 proceed from the poles, and are produced, in my opinion, by 
 the alternate fusion of the ices. This appears so natural, so 
 new, and of such curious investigation, that the reader, I 
 flatter myself, will not be angry with me if I give him an 
 idea of it. 
 
 The poles are the sources of the sea, as the icy mountains 
 are those of the principal rivers. The snow and the ice 
 which cover our pole, annually renovate the waters of the 
 sea, comprehended between our continent and that of Ame- 
 rica, the projecting and retreating parts of which have, besides, 
 a mutual correspondence, like the banks of a river. 
 
 It may be remarked, at first sight, on a map of the world, 
 that the bed of the Atlantic Ocean becomes narrower toward 
 the north, and widens toward the south ; and that the promi- 
 nent part of Africa corresponds to that great retreating part 
 of America, at the bottom of which is the Gulf of Mexico ; 
 as the prominent part of South America corresponds to the 
 vast Gulf of Guinea ; so that this bason has, in its configura- 
 tion, the proportions, the sinuosities, the source, and the 
 mouth, of a vast fluviatic channel. 
 
 Let us now observe, that the ices and snows form, in the 
 month of January, on our hemisphere, a cupola, the arch of 
 which extends more than 2000 leagues over the two conti- 
 nents, with a thickness of some lines in Spain, some inches 
 in France, several feet in Germany, several fathoms in Russia, 
 and of some hundreds of feet beyond the 60th degree of lati- 
 * Treatise on Winds and Tides, vol. ii. page 385. 
 
STUDY IV. 57 
 
 tilde, such as the ices which Henry Ellis,* and other naviga- 
 tors of the north, encountered there at sea, even in the midst 
 of summer, some of which were from 15 to 1800 feet above 
 its level ; for their elevation must probably go on increasing, 
 up to the very pole, in conformity to the proportions observa- 
 ble in those which cover the summits of our icy mountains ; 
 and this must give them, under the pole itself, a- height which 
 there is no possibility of determining. 
 
 From this simple outline is perceptible what an enormous 
 aggregation of water is fixed by the cold of winter, in our 
 hemisphere, above the level of the ocean. I think myself 
 warranted to ascribe to the periodical fusion of this ice, the 
 general movement of our ocean, and that of the tides. We 
 may apply, in like manner, the effects of the fusion of the 
 ices of the south pole, which are there still more enormous, 
 to the movements of its ocean. 
 
 No conclusion has, hitherto, been drawn, relative to the 
 movements of the sea, from the two masses of ice so consider- 
 able, alternately accumulated and dissolved at the two poles 
 of the world. They must, however, occasion a very percepti- 
 ble augmentation of its waters, on their return to it, by the 
 action of the sun, which partly melts them once every year ; 
 and a great diminution, on being withdrawn, by the efTect of 
 the evaporations, which reduce them to ice at the poles, 
 when the sun retires. I shall now deduce, from the alter- 
 nate dissolution of the polar ices, the general movements of 
 the seas, hitherto ascribed to gravitation, or to the attraction 
 of the sun and moon on the equator. 
 
 It is impossible to deny that the currents and the tides 
 come from the pole, in the vicinity of the polar circle. 
 
 Frederick Martens, who, in his Voyage to Spitzbergen, in 
 167i, advanced to the 81st degree of northern latitude, posi- 
 tively asserts, that the currents, amidst the ices, set in toward 
 the south. He adds, farther, that he can affirm nothing with 
 certainty respecting the flux and the reflux of the tides. Let 
 this be carefully remarked. 
 
 Henry Ellis observed with astonishment, in his voyage to 
 Hudson's Bay, in 1746 and 1747, that the tides there came 
 from the north, and were accelerated, as the latitude increased. 
 He assures us that these effects, so contrary to their effects 
 
 * Ellis's Voyage to Hudson's Bay. 
 H 
 
58 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 on our coasts, where they come from the south, demonstrate 
 that the tides, in those high latitudes, do not come from the 
 line, nor from the Atlantic Ocean. He ascribes them to a 
 pretended communication between Hudson's Bay, and the 
 South Sea ; a communication he with much ardour sought 
 for, and indeed was the object of his voyage ; but now we 
 have complete assurance that it does not exist, from the fruit- 
 less attempts lately made by Captain Cook to find it by the 
 South Sea, to the north of California. Ellis further observed, 
 that the course of these northern tides of America was so 
 violent at Wager's Strait, about 65 37' north latitude, that 
 it ran at the rate of from eight to ten leagues an hour. He 
 compares it to the sluice of a mill. He remarked that the 
 surface of the water was there very fresh, which puzzled him 
 exceedingly, by damping his hope of a communication be- 
 tween this bay and the South Seas. John Huguez de 
 Linschoten, a Dutchman, corroborates these remarks on the 
 c.urrents of the northern tides of Europe,* and his compatriot, 
 the unfortunate William Barents, f who ended his days on 
 the northern coasts of Nova Zembla, found, north and south 
 of that island, a perpetual current of ice, setting in from the 
 east, with a rapidity, which he compares, as Ellis does, to a 
 sluice. He found there some Russian fishermen from Pet- 
 zorah, who made presents of fat geese to the Dutch mariners, 
 with strong demonstrations of friendship ; for calamity has, 
 in all climates, a powerful tendency to conciliate affection 
 between man and man. 
 
 These effects, then, can proceed only from the effusions of 
 the ices which surround the pole. The ices, flowing with 
 such rapidity to the north of America and of Europe, towards 
 July and August, greatly contribute to our high equinoctial 
 tides, in September ; and when their effusions are stopped in 
 October, then our tides begin to diminish. 
 
 I shall now proceed to demonstrate, that there is no one 
 tide, on any coast whatever, but what owes its origin to polar 
 effusions. An observation of Dampier's^: will serve as a basis 
 to my reasonings. That careful and ingenious observer dis- 
 
 * See the first and second Voyages to Waigats, by H. J. Linschoten, Voyages 
 to the North, vol. iv. page 204. 
 
 f Consult the second and third Voyages of the Dutch by the north, in the first 
 volume of the Voyages of the East India Company. 
 
 J Dampier on Winds and Tides. 
 
STUDY IV. 59 
 
 linguistics between currents and tides. He lays it down as 
 a principle, that currents are scarcely ever felt but at sea, and 
 tides upon the coasts. This being admitted, the polar effusions, 
 which are the tides of the north and east to those who are in 
 the vicinity of the poles or bays having a communication with 
 it, take their general course to the middle of the Atlantic 
 channel, attracted toward the line by the diminution of the 
 waters, which the sun is there incessantly evaporating. They 
 produce, by their general current, two contrary currents, or 
 collateral whirlpools, similar to those which rivers produce on 
 their banks. 
 
 I am not taking for granted, without any foundation, the 
 existence of the counter-currents, or vortices. These vortices 
 are hydraulic reactions, the laws of which geometry explains, 
 and the reality of which is completely ascertained by expe- 
 rience. If you look at a small running book, you will fre- 
 quently see straws floating along the brink, and carried up- 
 ward in a direction opposite to the general current of the 
 stream ; on arriving at the points, where the counter-currents 
 cross the general, you observe them agitated by these two 
 opposed powers, turning and spinning round a considerable 
 time, till they are at last carried down the general current. 
 
 These counter-currents are still more perceptible, when 
 such a rivulet flows through a bason which has itself no flux ; 
 for the reaction is, in that case, so considerable round the 
 whole circumference of the bason, that the counter-currents 
 carry about all bodies floating in it, to the very place where 
 the river disengages itself. 
 
 These lateral counter-currents are so perceptible on the 
 banks of rivers, that the watermen frequently take the advan- 
 tage of them, to make their way in the direction opposite to 
 the general course. They are still more decidedly remarka- 
 ble on the banks of lakes. Father Charlevoix supposes, and 
 with good reason, that the rivers which throw themselves into 
 Lake Michigan, produce, in the middle of its waters, strong 
 contrary currents : ' But these strong currents,' says he,* 
 ' are perceptible only in the middle of the channel, and pro- 
 duce on the banks vortices, or counter-currents, of which 
 those avail themselves who have to coast along the shore, as 
 is the case with persons who are obliged to take the water iu 
 canoes make of bark.' 
 
 * Charlevoix, History of New France, vol. vi. page 2. 
 
60 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Dampier's work is filled with observations on counter-cur- 
 rents of the ocean ; but as I believe he did not even suspect 
 the existence of its general current, though he has thoroughly 
 investigated the two currents, or monsoons of the Indian 
 Ocean, I shall proceed to adduce certain facts, which esta- 
 blish the most perfect conformity between the Atlantic cur- 
 rent and those which he observed in the Indian Ocean and 
 South Seas. 
 
 These facts will further prove to a demonstration, the ex- 
 istence of those polar effusions : for, wherever those effusions 
 meet, in their progress southward, their own counter-currents 
 setting in toward the north, they produce, by their collision, 
 tremendous tides, whose direction is diametrically opposite. 
 
 Let us consider them only at their point of departure toward 
 the north of Europe, where they begin to leave our coasts, 
 and stretch out into the open sea. Pont Oppidan says, in his 
 History of Norway, that there is above Bergen a place called 
 Maelstrom, where the sea forms a prodigious vortex, in which 
 many vessels have been swallowed up. James Beverell* 
 says positively, that in the Orkney islands are two opposite 
 tides, one running from the north-west, the other from the 
 south-east ; that they dash their roaring billows up to the 
 clouds, and convert the separating strait into an enormous 
 mass of foam. The Orkneys lie a little under the latitude 
 of Bergen, that is, at the confluence of the polar effusions 
 and of their counter-currents. 
 
 Other islands of the sea are in similar positions. The 
 channel of Bahama, for example, which runs so rapidly north, 
 between the continent of America and the Lucayo islands, 
 produces, by its encountering the general current of that sea, 
 tides similar to those of the Orkneys. These counter-currents 
 to the course of the Atlantic Ocean, produce, then, our Euro- 
 pean and American tides, which set in to the north on the 
 coast, while its general current runs southward, at least in 
 the summer time. 
 
 I shall adduce another instance, which from its importance 
 and authenticity will be sufficient for my purpose. Christo- 
 pher Columbus sailed from the Canaries about the beginning 
 of September, and steered west. He found, at first, the cur- 
 rents carried him north-east. When he had advanced two 
 
 * See James Beverell, Beauties of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 1405. 
 
STUDY IV. 61 
 
 or three hundred leagues from land, he perceived their direc- 
 tion was southward. This terrified his companions, who 
 believed that the sea was there driving to a precipice. Finally, 
 as he approached the Lucayo islands, he again found the 
 currents setting in northward. The journal of this important 
 voyage may be found in Herrera. 
 
 My opinion is, that this general current which flows from 
 our pole, in summer, with so much rapidity, and is so violent 
 towards its source, according to the experience of Ellis and 
 Linschoten, crosses the equinoctial line, as its flux is not 
 stemmed by the effusions of the south pole, which, at that 
 season, are consolidated into ice. I presume, for the same 
 reason, that it extends beyond the Cape of Good Hope, thence 
 directed to the torrid zone, from which it is attracted by the 
 diminution of the waters, which the sun is there incessantly 
 pumping up ; that being directed eastward, by the position 
 of Africa and Asia, it forces the Indian Ocean into the same 
 direction, contrary to its usual motion. I consider it, there- 
 fore, as the prime mover of the westerly monsoon, which 
 takes place in the seas of India, in April, and continues till 
 September. 
 
 I am likewise of opinion, that the general current which 
 issues, during our winter, from the south pole, then heated 
 by the rays of the sun, restores the Indian Ocean to its natu- 
 ral motion westward, which is besides determined, on this 
 side, by the easterly winds of the torrid zone, when nothing 
 deranges their course. I farther presume, that this current, 
 in its motion northward, by the position of America, produces 
 various other changes in our tides. 
 
 It now appears possible to explain the principal phenomena 
 of our tides, from these polar effusions. It will be evident 
 why those of the evening should be stronger, in summer, 
 than those of the morning; because the sun acts more power- 
 fully by day than night, on the ices of the pole, on the same 
 meridian with ourselves. It will farther be evident, how our 
 morning tides, in winter, rise higher than those of the even- 
 ing ; and why the order of our tides changes every six months, 
 as Bouguer* has well remarked ; because the sun being alter- 
 nately toward both poles, the effects of the tides must neces- 
 sarily be opposite, like the causes which produce them. 
 
 * Bouguer, Treatise of Navigation, page 153. 
 
62 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 But I beg leave to suggest harmonies between the ocean 
 and the poles still more extensive and striking. At the 
 solstices the tides are lower than at any other season of the 
 year ; and these, likewise, are the seasons when there is most 
 ice on the two poles, consequently least water in the sea. 
 The reason is obvious. The winter solstice is, with respect 
 to us, the season of the greatest cold ; there is, accordingly, 
 at that time, on our pole and hemisphere, the greatest pos- 
 sible accumulation of ice. It is, indeed, at the south pole, 
 the summer solstice ; but there is little ice melted on this 
 pole, because the greatest heat is not felt there, as with us, 
 but when the earth has an acquired heat, superadded to the 
 actual heat of the sun, which takes place only in the six 
 weeks that follow the summer solstice ; and these give us, 
 likewise, in our summer, the hottest season of the year, which 
 we call the dog-days. 
 
 At the equinoxes, on the contrary, we have the highest 
 tides. And these are precisely the seasons when there is 
 least ice at the two poles, of course the greatest mass of 
 water in the ocean. At our autumnal equinox, in Septem- 
 ber, the greatest part of the ices of the north pole, which has 
 undergone all the heats of summer, is melted, and those of 
 the south pole begin to dissolve. It is farther remarkable, 
 that the tides at our vernal equinox, in March, rise higher 
 than those of September, because it is the end of summer to 
 the south pole, which contains much more ice than ours, and 
 consequently sends to the ocean a much greater mass of water. 
 And it contains more ice, because the sun is six days less in 
 that hemisphere than in ours. If I am asked, Why the sun 
 does not communicate his light and heat, in exactly equal 
 proportions, to both poles ] I shall leave it to the learned to 
 assign the cause, but shall ascribe the reason of it to the 
 Divine Goodness, which has bestowed the larger share of 
 these blessings on that half of the globe containing the 
 greatest quantity of dry land, and the greatest number of 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Admitting, therefore, these alternate effusions of the polar 
 ices, which it is impossible to call in question, and with the 
 greatest facility all the phenomena of the tides and currents 
 of the ocean will be explained. These phenomena present, 
 in the journals of the most enlightened navigators, a perpetual 
 obscurity, and a multitude of contradictions, as often as they 
 
 
STUDY IV. 63 
 
 persist in ascribing the causes of them to the constant pres- 
 sure of the moon and sun on the equator, without paying 
 attention to the alternate currents from the poles, which direct 
 their course to the equator ; to their counter-currents, which, 
 returning 1 toward the poles, produce tides ; and to the revolu- 
 tions which winter and summer effect on these two move- 
 ments. 
 
 It has been supposed indeed in modern times, that the sea 
 must be clear of ice under the poles, and this is founded on 
 the groundless assertion, that the sea freezes only along the 
 shore ; but this supposition is the creature of men in their 
 closets, in contradiction to the experience of the most cele- 
 brated navigators. The efforts of Captain Cook, toward the 
 south, demonstrate its erroneousness. That intrepid mariner, 
 in the month of February, the dog-days of the southern hemi- 
 sphere, never could approach nearer to that pole, where there 
 is no land, than the 70th degree of latitude, that is, than 500 
 leagues, though he had coasted round its cupola of ice for a 
 whole summer ; besides, this distance did not compass half 
 the magnitude of the cupola, for he was permitted to advance 
 so far only under favour of a bay, opened in a part of its cir- 
 cumference, every where else of much greater extent. 
 
 These bays, or openings, are formed in the ice, merely by 
 the influence of the nearest adjacent lands, where Nature has 
 distributed sandy zones, to assist in accelerating the fusion 
 of the polar ices, at the proper season. The winds, in sum- 
 mer, convey the igneous particles of those zones toward the 
 poles, where they accelerate the action of the sun upon the 
 ices ; it being easy to conceive, independent of experience, 
 that the sands multiply the heat of the sun, by the reflection 
 of their specular and brilliant parts, and preserve it a long 
 time in their interstices. 
 
 There can remain, therefore, no doubt that the poles are 
 covered with a cupola of ice, conformably to the experience 
 of navigators, and the dictates of natural reason. We have 
 taken a glance of the icy dome of our own pole, which covers 
 it, in winter, to an extent of more than 2000 leagues over the 
 continents. It is not so easy to determine its elevation at 
 the centre, and under the very pole ; but the height must be 
 immense. 
 
 The detached masses, half melted, torn every year from 
 the circumference of this cupola, and met with at sea, pro- 
 
64 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 digiously distant from the pole, about the 55th degree of 
 latitude, are of such an elevation, that Ellis, Cook, Martens, 
 and other navigators, the most accurate in their details, re- 
 present them at least as lofty as a ship under sail ; nay, Ellis 
 assigns to them an elevation of from 1500 to 1800 feet. They 
 are unanimous in affirming, that these vast fragments emit 
 coruscations, which render them perceptible before they come 
 to the horizon. I shall remark, that the aurora borealis, or 
 northern light, may probably owe its origin to similar reflec- 
 tions from the polar ices, the elevation of which may one day 
 be determined by the extent of those very lights. 
 
 The ices in question are more than half melted before they 
 reach the banks of Newfoundland ; for they scarcely go any 
 farther. It is the summer's heat which detaches them from 
 the north, and they are carried toward the line by the cur- 
 rent, where they arrive in a state of dissolution, to replace 
 the waters which the sun evaporates in the torrid zone. 
 These polar ices, of which our mariners see only the borders 
 and the crumbs, must have, at their centre, an elevation pro- 
 portioned to their extent. 1 1 therefore consider the two hemi- 
 spheres of the earth as two mountains with their bases applied 
 to each other at the line, the poles as their icy summits, and 
 the seas as rivers flowing from those summits. 
 
 If, then, we consider the proportions which the glaciers of 
 Switzerland have to their mountains, and the rivers which 
 flow from them, we shall be able to form some faint idea of 
 those proportions which the glaciers of the poles bear to the 
 globe, and the ocean. The Cordilleras of Peru, only mole- 
 hills compared to the two hemispheres, and their rivers only 
 rills of water compared to the sea, have selvages of ice, from 
 20 to 30 leagues broad, bristled, at their centre, with pyramids 
 of snow from 12 to 1500 fathoms high. What then must be 
 the elevation of these two domes of polar ice, which have, in 
 winter, bases of 2000 leagues in diameter ! I can have no 
 doubt, that their thickness at the poles must have represented 
 the earth as oval, in central eclipses of the moon, conformably 
 to the observations of Kepler and Tycho Brahe. 
 
 From this configuration I deduce another consequence. 
 If the elevation of the polar ices is capable of changing in 
 the heavens the apparent form of the globe, their weight 
 must be sufficiently considerable to produce some influence on 
 its motion in the ecliptic. There is, in fact, a very singular 
 
STUDY IV. 65 
 
 correspondence between the movement, by which the earth 
 alternately presents its two poles to the sun, in one year, 
 and the alternate effusions of the polar ices, which take place 
 in the course of the same year. Let me endeavour to ex- 
 plain my conception of the way in which this motion of the 
 earth is the effect of these effusions. 
 
 Admitting-, with astronomers, the laws of attraction among 
 the heavenly bodies, the earth must certainly present to the 
 sun, which attracts it, the weightiest part of its globe. Now 
 this weightiest part must be one of its poles, surcharged with 
 a cupola of ice, of an extent of 2000 leagues, and of an. ele- 
 vation superior to that of the continents. But as the ice of 
 this pole, which its gravity inclines toward the sun, melts in 
 proportion to its vertical approximation to the source of heat, 
 and as the ice of the opposite pole increases in proportion to 
 its removal, consequently the first pole becoming lighter, and 
 the second heavier, the centre of gravity passes alternately 
 from the one to the other, and from this reciprocal prepon- 
 derancy must ensue that motion of the globe in the ecliptic 
 which produces our summer and winter. 
 
 From this alternate preponderancy, our hemisphere, con- 
 taining more land than the southern, and consequently 
 heavier, must incline longer toward the sun ; this too cor- 
 responds to the matter of fact, for our summer is five or six 
 days longer than our winter. A farther consequence is, that 
 our pole cannot lose its centre of gravity, till the opposite 
 pole becomes loaded with a weight of ice superior to the gra- 
 vity of our continent, and of the ices of our hemisphere ; this, 
 likewise, is agreeable to fact, the ices of the south pole being 
 more elevated and extensive than those of the northern ; for 
 mariners have not been able to penetrate farther than to the 
 70th degree of south latitude, whereas they have advanced 
 no less than to 82 degrees north. 
 
 Here we have a glimpse of the reasons that determined 
 Nature to divide this globe into two hemispheres, the one to 
 contain the most dry land, the other the greatest quantity of 
 water; so that this movement of the globe should possess con- 
 sistency and versatility. It is farther evident why the south 
 pole is placed immediately in the midst of the seas, far from 
 any land; that it might load itself with a greater mass of marine 
 evaporations, and that these, accumulated into ice around it, 
 might balance the weight of the continents of our hemisphere. 
 I 6* 
 
66 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Here I lay my account with being opposed by this very 
 formidable objection. If the polar effusions occasion the earth's 
 motion in the ecliptic, the moment would come in which, its 
 two poles being in equilibrio, it could present to the sun the 
 equator. 
 
 To this difficulty I reply, that we must have recourse to 
 an immediate will of the AUTHOR of Nature, who is pleased 
 to destroy the instant of this equilibrium, and who re-esta- 
 blishes the balancing of the earth on its poles, by laws to us 
 unknown. This concession, however, no more weakens the 
 probability of the hydraulic cause, which I apply to it, than 
 that of the principle of the attraction of the heavenly bodies, 
 which attempts to explain it, I am bold to say, with much 
 less clearness. This very attraction would soon deprive the 
 earth of motion, if it acted on the stars only. If we would 
 be sincere, it is in the acknowledgment of an intelligence, 
 superior to our own, that all the mechanical causes of our 
 most ingenious systems must issue. The will of GOD is the 
 ultimatum of all human knowledge. 
 
 Prom this objection I shall deduce consequences, diffusing 
 new light on the ancient effects of polar effusions, and the 
 manner in which they might have produced the deluge. 
 
 On the supposition then of the re-establishment of the equi- 
 librium between the poles, and the earth's constantly present- 
 ing its equator to the sun, it is extremely probable that it 
 would be set on fire. In fact, on this hypothesis, the waters 
 under the equator being evaporated by the sun, would be- 
 come irrevocably fixed in ice at the poles, receiving without 
 effect the influence of that luminary, to them constantly in 
 the horizon. The continents being thus dried up, under the 
 torrid zone, and inflamed by an increasing heat, would quickly 
 catch fire. Now, if it be probable that the earth would perish 
 by fire, were the sun's motion confined to the equator, it is 
 no less probable, that it must be deluged with water, if the 
 course of the sun were in the direction of the meridian. 
 Opposite means produce contrary effects. 
 
 We have just seen, that the alternate effusions of part 
 of the polar ices only are sufficient for renewing the waters 
 of the ocean, for producing the phenomena of the tides, and 
 effecting the balancing of the earth in the ecliptic. We be- 
 lieve them capable of entirely inundating the globe, were the 
 fusion to take place all at once. Let it but be remarked, that 
 

 STUDY IV. 67 
 
 the effusion of only a part of the ices of the Cordilleras in Peru, 
 produces an annual overflow of the Amazon, the Oronoco, 
 and several other great rivers of the New World, and inun- 
 dates a great part of Brazil, Guiana, and the Terra Firma of 
 America ; that the melting of part of the snows on the Moun- 
 tains of the Moon in Africa, occasions every year the inun- 
 dations of Senegal, contributes to those of the Nile, and over- 
 flows vast tracks of country in Guinea, and all Lower Egypt ; 
 and that similar effects are annually reproduced in a part of 
 southern Asia, in the kingdoms of Bengal, Siam, Pegu, and 
 Cochin-China, and in the districts watered by the Tigris, the 
 Euphrates, and many other rivers of Asia, which have their 
 sources in chains of mountains perpetually covered with ice, 
 namely, Taurus and Imaus : and who can doubt, that the 
 total fusion of the ices of both poles, would swell the ocean 
 above every barrier, and completely inundate the two con- 
 tinents ] 
 
 For my own part, if I may venture to declare my opinion, 
 I ascribe the general deluge to a total effusion of the polar 
 ices, the ices of the Cordilleras and of Mount Taurus, and the 
 waters diffused over the atmosphere, in clouds, and imper- 
 ceptible vapours. 
 
 My supposition then is, that, at the epocha of this tremen- 
 dous catastrophe, the sun, deviating from the ecliptic, ad- 
 vanced from south to north, and pursued the direction of one 
 of the meridians which passes through the middle of the At- 
 lantic Ocean and South Sea.* In this course he heated only 
 a zone of water, frozen as well as fluid, which, through the 
 greatest part of the circumference has a breadth of 4500 
 leagues. He extracted long belts of land and sea-fogs, which 
 accompany the melting of all ices exposed to his direct in- 
 fluence. 
 
 He quickly set on fire, with his vertical flame, the constel- 
 lation of the bear, and of the cross of the south ; when vast 
 cupolas of ice, on both poles, smoked on every side. All these 
 vapours, united to those of the ocean, covered the earth with 
 
 * I find an historical testimony in support of this hypothesis, in the History 
 of China by Father Martini, book i. ' During the reign of Yaus, the seventh 
 emperor, the annals of the country relate, that for six days together the sun never 
 eet, so that a general conflagration was apprehended.' The result, on the con- 
 trary, was a deluge which inundated the whole of China. The epoch of this 
 Chinese deluge, and that of the universal deluge, are in the same century. 
 
68 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 a universal rain. The action of the sun's heat was farther 
 augmented by that of the burning winds of the sandy zones 
 of Africa and Asia, which blowing, as all winds do, toward 
 the parts of the earth where the air is most rarified, precipi- 
 tated themselves, like battering rams of fire, toward the poles 
 of the world, where the sun was then acting with all his 
 energy. 
 
 Innumerable torrents immediately burst from the north 
 pole, then the most loaded with ice, as the deluge commenced 
 on the 17th of February, the season when winter has exerted 
 its full power over our hemisphere. These torrents issued at 
 once from every flood-gate of the north ; their roaring cur- 
 rents rushed furiously down, partly through the channel of 
 the Atlantic Ocean, hurled it up from the abysses of its pro- 
 found bason, drove impetuously beyond the line, and their 
 collateral counter-tides forced back upon them, and increased 
 by the currents from the south pole, flowing at the same time, 
 poured upon our coasts the most formidable of tides. They 
 rolled along, in their surges, a part of the spoils of the ocean, 
 situated between the ancient and new continent. They 
 spread vast beds of shells, which pave the bottom of the seas 
 at the Antilles and Cape-de-Verd Islands, over the plains of 
 Normandy ; and carried even those of the rocks of Magellan's 
 Straits, to the plains watered by the Saone. Encountered by 
 the general current of the pole, they formed at their con- 
 fluences horrible counter-tides, conglomerating, in their vast 
 funnels, sands, flints, and marine bodies, into masses of indi- 
 gested granite, into irregular hills, and pyramidical rocks, 
 whose protuberances variegate the soil of France and Ger- 
 many. These two general currents of the poles meeting 
 between the tropics, tore up from the bed of the seas huge 
 banks of madrepores, and tossed them unseparated on the 
 shores of the adjacent islands, where they subsist to this 
 day. 
 
 In other places, their waters spread themselves over the 
 ground in vast sheets, and deposited, by repeated undulations, 
 in horizontal layers, the wreck and viscidities of an infinite 
 number of fishes, sea-urchins, sea-weeds, shells, corals, and 
 formed them into strata of gravel, pastes of marble, of marie, 
 of plaster and calcareous stones, which constitute to this day 
 the soil of a considerable part of Europe. Every layer of our 
 fossils was the effect of a universal tide, which deposited on the 
 
STUDY IV. 69 
 
 soil of China, strata of vegetable earth, from three to four 
 hundred feet deep. 
 
 Then all the plans of Nature were reversed. Islands of 
 floating ice, loaded with white bears, ran aground among the 
 palm-trees of the torrid zone, and the elephants of Africa were 
 tossed amidst the fir-groves of Siberia, where their large bones 
 are still found to this day. The vast plains of the land no 
 longer presented a career to the nimble courser, and those of 
 the sea, roused into fury, ceased to be navigable. In vain did 
 man fly for safety to the lofty mountains : thousands of torrents 
 rushed down their sides, and mingled the confused noise of 
 their waters with the howling of the winds, and the roaring 
 of thunder. Black tempests gathered round their summits, 
 and diffused a night of horror in the very midst of day. In 
 vain did he turn an eager eye to that quarter of the heavens 
 where Aurora was to have appeared : he perceived nothing in 
 the horizon but piles of dark clouds heaped upon each other ; 
 a pale glare here and there furrows their gloomy and endless 
 battalions ; and the orb of day, veiled by their lurid corusca- 
 tions, emits scarcely light sufficient to afford a glimpse of his 
 bloody disk, wading through new constellations. 
 
 To the disorder reigning in the heavens, man, in despair, 
 yields up the safety of the earth. Unable to find in himself 
 the last consolation of virtue, that of perishing free from the 
 remorse of a guilty conscience, he seeks, at least, to conclude 
 his last moments in the bosom of love, or of friendship. But 
 in that age of criminality, when all the sentiments of nature 
 were stifled, friend repelled friend, the mother her child, the 
 husband the wife of his bosom. Every thing was swallowed 
 up of the waters : there remained on the earth no trace of the 
 glory and felicity of the human race, in those days of ven- 
 geance, when Nature involved in one ruin all the monuments 
 of her greatness. 
 
 Such convulsions, of which traces without number still re- 
 main on the surface, and in the bowels of the earth, could not 
 possibly have been produced simply by the action of a univer- 
 sal rain. 
 
 I am aware that the letter of Scripture is express in respect 
 to this ; but the circumstances which the sacred historian com- 
 bines, seem to admit the means which, on my hypothesis, 
 effected that tremendous revolution. 
 
 In the book of Genesis it is said, that it rained over the 
 whole earth for forty days and forty nights. That rain was 
 
70 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the result of vapours produced by the melting of the ices, both 
 of the land and sea, and by the zone of water which the sun 
 passed over, in the direction of the meridian. As to the period 
 of forty days, that time appears abundantly sufficient to the 
 vertical action of the sun on the polar ices, to reduce them to 
 the level of the seas, as scarcely more than three weeks are 
 necessary, of the proximity of the sun to the Tropic of Cancer, 
 to melt a considerable part of those on our pole. Nay, at that 
 season, there seems to be wanting but a few puffs of southerly 
 or south-west wind, to disengage from the ice the southern 
 coast of Nova Zembla, and to clear the strait of Waigats, as 
 has been observed by Martens, Barents, and other navigators 
 of the north. 
 
 It is farther said, in the book of Genesis, ' all the fountains 
 of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven 
 were opened.' The expression, the fountains of the great deep, 
 can, in my opinion, be applied only to an effusion of the polar 
 ices, the real sources of the sea, as the effusions of ice on moun- 
 tains are the sources of all great rivers. The expression, the 
 windows, or cataracts, of heaven, denotes likewise, if I am not 
 mistaken, the universal solution of the waters diffused over 
 the atmosphere, which are there supported by the cold, their 
 foci being then destroyed at the poles. 
 
 It is afterwards said, in Genesis, that after it had rained for 
 forty days, GOD made a wind to blow, which caused the waters 
 that covered the earth to disappear. This wind undoubtedly 
 brought back to the poles t{ie evaporations of the ocean, 
 which fixed themselves anew In ice. The Mosaic account, 
 finally, adds circumstances which seem to refer all the effects 
 of this wind to the poles of the world, for it is said, Gen. viii. 
 2, 3, * The fountains also of the deep, and the windows of 
 heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained ; 
 and the waters returned off the earth continually, and after the 
 end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.' 
 
 The continual agitation of these waters perfectly agrees to 
 the motion of the seas, from the line to the poles, then per- 
 formed without any obstacle, the globe being certainly aquatic ; 
 and its annual balancing in the ecliptic, of which the polar ices 
 are the moving power and counterpoise, had degenerated into 
 a diurnal titubation, a consequence of its first motion. These 
 waters retired from the ocean, converted anew into ice upon 
 the poles; and it is worthy of remark, that the space of a 
 hundred and fifty days, which they took to fix themselves in 
 
STUDY IV. 71 
 
 their former station, is precisely the time each of the poles 
 annually employs to load itself with its periodical congela- 
 tions. 
 
 In the sequel of this historical account of the deluge, we 
 find expressions analogous to the same causes : * GOD said 
 again to Noah, While the earth remaineth, seed-time and 
 harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and 
 day and night, shall not cease.' Gen. ch. viii. v. 22. 
 
 There must be nothing superfluous in the words of the 
 AUTHOR of Nature, as there is nothing of this description in 
 his works. The deluge commenced on the 17th day of the 
 second month of the year, which was among the Hebrews, 
 as with us, the month of February. Man had cast the seed 
 into the ground, but reaped not the harvest. That year there 
 was neither winter nor cold, from the general fusion of the 
 polar ices, their natural foci ; and the night, properly so called, 
 did not follow the day, because then there was no night at 
 the poles, which there is alternately one of six months ; be- 
 cause the sun, pursuing the direction of a meridian, illumi- 
 nated the whole earth, as is the case now, when he is in the 
 equator. 
 
 We may, farther, arrive at complete assurance of the gene- 
 ral effect of the polar effusions of the ocean, from the particular 
 effects of the icy effusions of mountains on the lakes and rivers 
 of the continent. I shall relate some examples of these last; 
 for the human mind, from its natural weakness, loves to par- 
 ticularize all the objects of its studies. 
 
 Addison, in his remarks on Misson's Tour to Italy, page 
 322, says, that there is in the lake of Geneva, in summer, 
 towards evening, a kind of flux and reflux, occasioned by the 
 melting of the snows, which fall into it in greater quantities 
 after noon than at other seasons of the day. 
 
 About the middle of the Euripus, a strait of the Archipelago, 
 which separates the ancient Bceotia from the island of Eubea, 
 now Negropont, the water is known to flow sometimes north, 
 sometimes south, ten, twelve, fourteen times a day, with the 
 rapidity of a torrent. These multiplied and frequently un- 
 equal movements, cannot possibly be referred to the tides of 
 the ocean, scarcely perceptible in the Mediterranean. A Jesuit, 
 quoted by Spon,* endeavours to reconcile these to the phases 
 
 * Voyage to Greece and the Levant, by Spon, vol. ii. p. 340. 
 
72 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of the moon ; but supposing his table of them to be accurate, 
 their regularity and irregularity is a difficulty of no easy 
 solution. He adds, that in the sea of Persia the flux never 
 takes place but in the night-time ; and that under the arctic 
 pole, on the contrary, it is perceptible twice in the day-time, 
 without ever being observed in the night. It is not so, says 
 he, with the Euripus. 
 
 I shall observe that his remark with respect to the pole 
 evinces that its two diurnal fluxes are the effects of the sun, 
 who acts, only during the day, on the icy extremities of the 
 New and Old Worlds. As to the Euripus, the variety, num- 
 ber, arid rapidity of its fluxes, prove their origin is also in 
 icy mountains, situated under different aspects of the sun. 
 For, according to that same Jesuit, the island of Eubea, on 
 one side of the strait, contains mountains covered with snow 
 for six months of the year : and we know that Boeotia, on 
 the other side, contains mountains of an equal elevation, and 
 even some crowned with ice all the year round, such as Mount 
 Oeta. If these fluxes and refluxes of the Euripus take place 
 as frequently in winter, which is not affirmed, the cause must 
 be ascribed to the rains which then fall on these lofty colla- 
 teral mountains. 
 
 I have no doubt that objections may be started against 
 the hasty explanation given of the course of the tides, of the 
 earth's motion in the ecliptic, and of the universal deluge, 
 occasioned by the effusions of the polar ices ; but these phy- 
 sical causes present themselves with a higher degree of pro- 
 bability, simplicity, and conformity to the general progress 
 of Nature, than the astronomical causes so far beyond our 
 reach, by which attempts have been made to explain them. 
 It belongs, however, to the impartial reader to decide. 
 
 Let us now return to the form of the great bason of the 
 ocean. Two principal currents cross it from east to west, 
 and from north to south. The first, coming from the south 
 pole, puts in motion the seas of India, and, directed along the 
 eastern extent of the old continent, runs from east to west, 
 and from west to east, in the course of the same year, forming, 
 in the Indian Ocean, what are called the monsoons. This 
 we have already remarked ; but what has not been hitherto 
 brought forward, though it well deserves to be so, is, that all 
 the bays, creeks, and mediterraneans of southern Asia, such 
 as the gulfs of Siam and Bengal, the Persian Gulf, the Red 
 
STUDY IV. 73 
 
 Sea, and a great many others, are directed relatively to this 
 current, north and south, so as not to be stemmed by it. 
 
 The second current, issuing- from the north pole, gives an 
 opposite movement to our ocean, and, enclosed between the 
 continent of America and ours, proceeds from north to south, 
 and returns from south to north in the same year, forming, 
 like that of India, real monsoons, though not so carefully 
 observed by navigators. All the bays and mediterraneans 
 of Europe, and those on the eastern coast of America, are 
 directed relatively to this current, east and west, so that their 
 mouth only is crossed by them, and their depth is not exposed 
 to the impulsions of the general movements of the ocean. 
 
 From the calmness of bays many vessels run thither in 
 quest of anchoring ground ; and for this reason Nature placed, 
 in their bottoms, the mouths of most rivers, that their waters 
 might be discharged into the ocean, without being driven 
 furiously back by the direction of its currents. She has 
 employed similar precautions for the security of even the 
 smallest streams which empty themselves into the sea. Not 
 an experienced seaman who does not know there is scarcely 
 a creek but what has its little rivulet. But for the wisdom 
 apparent in these dispositions, the streams, destined to water 
 the earth, must frequently have deluged it. 
 
 Nature employs still other means for securing the course 
 of rivers, and especially for protecting their discharges into 
 the sea. The chief of these are islands which present chan- 
 nels of different directions, that if the winds or currents of the 
 ocean should block up one of their outlets, the waters might 
 have a free passage through another. Here I cannot help 
 observing that we recede very widely from the intentions of 
 Nature, in reuniting the islands of a river to the adjoining 
 continent, for then its waters flow in a single channel only, 
 and when the winds blow in opposition to the current, they 
 can escape neither to the right nor to the left ; they swell, 
 overflow, inundate the plains, carry away the bridges, and 
 occasion most of the ravages which, in modern times, so 
 frequently endamage our cities. 
 
 Bays and gulfs are not situated at the extremities of the 
 currents of the ocean, but of islands. At the extremity of 
 the great current of the Indian Ocean is placed the island of 
 Madagascar, which protects Africa against its violence. The 
 islands of the Terra del Fuego defend the southern extremity 
 K 7 
 
74 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of America, at the confluence of the eastern and western 
 currents of the South Seas. The numerous archipelagoes of 
 the Indian Ocean and South Sea are situated about the line, 
 where the two general currents 'of the north and south seas 
 meet. 
 
 With islands too Nature protects the inlets of bays and 
 mediterraneans. All currents bear upon them, and many 
 are noted for their prodigious swells and their gusts of wind. 
 Not that they contain within themselves the causes of such 
 phenomena, but from their being placed in the foci of the 
 revolutions of the ocean and the atmosphere, for the purpose 
 of weakening their effects. They are in positions nearly 
 similar to those of capes, which are all celebrated for the 
 violent tempests which beat upon them. Hence the sea pro- 
 verb to double the cape, to express the surmounting of some 
 great difficulty. The ocean instead of bearing upon the 
 retiring parts of the continent, sets in upon and must speedily 
 have destroyed those most prominent, had not Nature most 
 wonderfully fortified them. 
 
 Every isle has its proper fortification, proportioned to its 
 danger, from the billows, of the ocean. It is not necessary to 
 suppose the water roused into a tempest, to form an idea of 
 their fury. The simple action of the trade-winds, however 
 uniform, gives them the most violent impulsion ; but their 
 course is retarded by the currents which cross it, and the 
 calms which slacken, and above all, by the banks, shallows, 
 and islands which break it. 
 
 Islands, then, are not fragments separated by violence from 
 the continents. Their position in the ocean, the manner they 
 are defended, and their duration, constitute a complete de- 
 monstration of this. Considering how long the sea has been 
 battering them with its utmost fury, they must have been, 
 by this time, reduced to a state of total ruin. Scylla and 
 Charybdis, nevertheless, emit to this day their ancient roar- 
 ings, so as to be heard at the extremities of Sicily. 
 
 Islands have existed, such as we now see them, from the 
 origin of the globe, and are in no one respect the work of 
 chance. They contain, as continents themselves do, moun- 
 tains, peaks, rivers, and lakes, proportioned to their magnitude. 
 To demonstrate this new truth, I shall again touch upon the 
 distribution of the globe. 
 
 The chains of mountains in both continents are parallel to 
 
STUDY [V. 75 
 
 the seas of their coasts : so that if you see the plan of those 
 chains, with its branches, you can determine the shore of the 
 sea which corresponds to them, the mountains being always 
 parallel. You may also, on seeing the sinuosities of a shore, 
 determine those of the chains of mountains in the interior of a 
 country ; for the gulfs of a sea always correspond to the valleys 
 of the mountains of the lateral continent. 
 
 These correspondencies are perceptible in the two great 
 chains of the Old and New Worlds. That of Taurus runs 
 east and west, as does the Indian Ocean, enclosing the differ- 
 ent gulfs by branches to the extremities of most of their capes. 
 On the contrary, the chain of the Andes, in America, runs 
 north and south, like the Atlantic Ocean. It is also worthy 
 of remark, that these chains of mountains are opposed to the 
 regular winds which cross those seas, and convey emana- 
 tions from them, their elevation being greater the farther they 
 are removed from the shore. 
 
 For this reason the chain of the Andes along the South 
 Sea receives the emanations of the Atlantic Ocean, wafted 
 by the east wind over the vast continent of America. The 
 broader that continent becomes, the greater is the elevation 
 of that chain. Toward the isthmus of Panama, where the 
 continent has no great breadth, the elevation of the moun- 
 tains is inconsiderable ; but they suddenly rise as the Ame- 
 rican continent widens. The situation and elevation of this 
 chain were equally necessary to the fertility of this grand 
 division of the New World ; for if, instead of stretching length- 
 wise by the South Sea, it had extended along the coasts of 
 Brazil, it would have intercepted all the vapours conveyed 
 over the continent by the east wind ; and if it were not ele- 
 vated to a region of the atmosphere to which no vapour could 
 ascend, because of the subtlety of the air and intenseness of 
 the cold, all the clouds borne by the east wind would be car- 
 ried beyond it into the South Sea. On either of these suppo- 
 sitions, most of the rivers of South America would be dried up. 
 
 The same reasoning may be applied to the chain of Taurus ; 
 but I shall subjoin some farther observations respecting the 
 configuration of those mountains, to confirm the use to which 
 they are destined by Nature. They are crowned, from dis- 
 tance to distance, by long peaks, mostly of granite, which 
 attract the vapours of the atmosphere in such a quantity, 
 that they themselves frequently disappear. 
 
76 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 I had the curiosity to examine the nature of the rock of 
 which the Peak of Piterboth, in the Isle of France, is com- 
 posed, and perceived on its surface small grains of copper. 
 No doubt it must be impregnated with that metal ; and to 
 the copper we may perhaps ascribe its virtue of attracting the 
 clouds ; this metal, as well as iron, having the property of 
 attracting thunder. I do not know of what materials other 
 peaks are composed, but at the summit and on the ridges of 
 the Andes are found the gold and silver mines of Chili and 
 Peru ; and all mines of iron and copper are at the source of 
 rivers, and in elevated situations, where they discover them- 
 selves by the fogs which surround them. Whether this 
 attractive quality be common to granite, to rocks of a different 
 nature, or depends on some metal amalgamated with them, 
 I consider all the peaks in the world as real electric needles. 
 
 But it was not sufficient that clouds should collect and fix 
 on the tops of mountains ; the rivers which have their sources 
 there, as soon as the rainy season was at an end, must have 
 ceased to flow, had not Nature contrived lakes in the vicinity 
 of their peaks, to furnish a regular and constant supply. Most 
 of those lakes, of an incredible depth, answer other purposes ; 
 such as receiving the melted snow of mountains, which would 
 otherwise flow too rapidly. When once full they are long 
 in exhausting. They exist, internally or externally, at the 
 source of all regular currents of water ; when external they 
 are proportioned by their extent, depth, and discharges, to 
 the size of the river they are designed to emit, as well as the 
 peaks in the vicinity. These correspondencies undoubtedly 
 were known to antiquity ; for I have seen ancient medals, 
 on which rivers were represented by figures leaning on an urn, 
 and stretched at the basis of a pyramid, probably designed to 
 denote their source and their discharge. 
 
 The islands which deviate from these dispositions, but few 
 in number, have remote relations still more wonderful, and 
 well worthy of being studied. They furnish, in their vegetable 
 and animal productions, other proofs that they are continents 
 in miniature. Every island has its champaign country, its 
 valleys, its hills, its hydraulic pyramids, and its Naiads, in 
 proportion to its extent. 
 
 Some few islands, it is true, contain mountains more ele- 
 vated than their territory may seem to require, as Teneriffe. 
 But that island has mountains of no great elevation propor- 
 
STUDY IV. 77 
 
 tioned to its bays. Its peak, covered with ice, is directly op- 
 posite the entrance of the great sandy desert, called Zahara, 
 and refreshes its shores and atmosphere by the effusion of 
 its snows, in the midst of summer. Nature has placed other 
 glaciers besides at the entrance of this burning desert, such 
 as Mount Atlas. 
 
 The icy mountains are principally designed to cool the 
 shores of the seas between the tropics, and the zones of sand 
 to accelerate the fusion of the polar ices. We can indicate 
 only those wonderful harmonies ; but it is sufficient to peruse 
 the journals of navigators, and to study geographical charts, 
 to be convinced that the principal part of the continent of 
 Africa is situated in such a manner, that the wind of the 
 north pole blows most constantly on its coasts ; and that the 
 shore of South America projects beyond the line, so as to 
 be cooled by the wind of the south pole. The trade-winds 
 in the Atlantic Ocean participate of the influence of both 
 poles ; that on our side draws considerably toward the north, 
 and that beyond the line depends greatly on the south pole. 
 These two winds are not oriental, as erroneously imagined, 
 they blow nearly in the directions of the channel which 
 separates America from Africa. 
 
 The warm winds in the torrid zone blow, in their turn, the 
 most constantly toward the poles; and it is singularly remark- 
 able, that as Nature has placed icy mountains in its vicinity 
 to cool its seas, conjointly with those of the poles, she has 
 likewise extended a long zone of sand, to increase the heat 
 of the south wind on its way to warm the seas of the north. 
 This zone commences beyond Mount Atlas, and encompasses 
 the earth like a belt, extending from the most westerly point 
 of Africa to the most easterly extremity of Asia, in a reduced 
 distance of more than three thousand leagues. Some branches 
 of it deviate from the general direction, and advance directly 
 toward the north. 
 
 Every icy mountain too has its sandy girdle, which accele- 
 rates the fusion of its snows. These zones of sand surround 
 not only their bases, but there are some of them on the higher 
 regions of the mountains up to the very peaks. These sandy 
 belts contribute also to the repair of the waste which the terri- 
 tory of the mountain, from time to time, undergoes : perpetual 
 clouds of dust issue from them, rising on the shores of the sea, 
 where the ocean forms the first deposits of these sands, reduced 
 
78 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 
 
 to an impalpable powder by the dashing of the waves upon 
 them ; we afterwards find these clouds of dust in the vicinity 
 of lofty mountains. The conveyance of the sands is made 
 from the shores of the sea into the interior of the continent at 
 different seasons, and in various manners. The most consider- 
 able happens at the equinoxes, for then the winds blow from 
 the sea into the land. 
 
 The icy and sandy zones are found in a different harmony 
 on the continent of the New World. They run, like its seas, 
 from north to south, whereas those of the old continent are 
 directed, conformably to the lengthwise direction of the Indian 
 Ocean, from west to east. 
 
 The influence of icy mountains extends farther over the 
 ocean than the land. Those of the two poles take the direc- 
 tion of the channel of the Atlantic Ocean. The snows which 
 cover the long chain of the Andes, in America, serve to cool 
 the whole of the South Sea, by the action of the east wind 
 which passes over it ; but as part of that sea and its shores, 
 sheltered from this wind, by the very height of the Andes, 
 would have been exposed to an excessive heat, Nature has 
 formed an elbow westward, at the mest southerly part of Ame- 
 rica, covered with icy mountains, so that the fresh breezes, 
 which perpetually issue from them, may graze along the shores 
 of Chili and Peru. These breezes, denominated the south- 
 erly, prevail there all the year round. They do not, in truth, 
 come from the south pole, for if so, no vessel could ever double 
 Cape Horn, but they come from the extremity of Magellan's 
 Land, which is evidently bent backward, with relation to the 
 shores of the South Sea. 
 
 The ices of the poles, then, renovate the waters of the sea, 
 as the ices of mountains renovate those of the great rivers. 
 These effusions of the polar ices press toward the line, from the 
 action of the sun, who is incessantly pumping up the waters 
 of the sea in the torrid zone, and determines, by this diminu- 
 tion of bulk, the waters of the poles to rush thitherward. This 
 is the first cause of the motion of the South Seas, as has been 
 already observed. It would appear highly probable that the 
 polar effusions are proportioned to the evaporation of the ocean. 
 
 The sea was destined to receive, by means of the rivers, all 
 the spoils of vegetable and animal productions. Its shores, 
 within the torrid zone, would have been quickly liable to pu- 
 trefaction, had not Nature employed different methods to keep 
 them cool. It is for this reason, as certain philosophers allege, 
 
STUDY IV. 79 
 
 that the sea is salt between the tropics ; but it is likewise so to 
 the north ; nay, more so, if we may rely on the recent experi- 
 ments of the interesting M. de Pages. 
 
 The saltness of the sea, however, does not preserve its 
 waters from corruption, as is vulgarly believed. Manners well 
 know that if a bottle or cask is filled, in hot climates, with sea 
 water, it soon becomes putrid. Sea water is not a pickle, but 
 a real lixivial, which quickly dissolves dead bodies. Though 
 salt to the taste, it takes out salt sooner than fresh water, as 
 our sailors employ no other in freshening their salt provisions. 
 The bones of all animals, as well as the madrepores, in a state 
 of life brown, red, &c. on being put into sea water, on the 
 brink of the shore, soon became white as snow. Sea water 
 is impregnated not only with salt but bitumen, and other sub- 
 stances not known ; but salt is in it, to assist the dissolution of 
 floating cadaverous bodies, as that we mingle with our food 
 assists digestion. Had Nature made it a pickle, the ocean 
 would be covered with all the impurities of the earth, thus 
 kept in a state of perpetual preservation. 
 
 These observations will indicate the use of volcanoes. They 
 do not proceed from the internal fires of the earth, but derive 
 their origin and materials from the waters. There is not a 
 single volcano in the interior of continents, unless in the vici- 
 nity of some great lake, such as that of Mexico. They are 
 situated mostly in islands, at the extremity or confluence of 
 the currents of the sea, and in the counter-tide of their waters. 
 This is the reason why we find them in such numbers toward 
 the line, and along the shores of the South Sea, where the 
 south wind brings back all the substances swimming about in 
 a state of dissolution. 
 
 Another proof that they owe their support to the sea is, that, 
 in their eruptions, they frequently vomit out torrents of salt 
 water. Newton ascribed their origin and duration to caverns 
 of sulphur in the bowels of the earth : but that great man had 
 not reflected on the position of volcanoes in the vicinity of 
 water, nor calculated the prodigious quantity of sulphur the 
 magnitude and duration of their fires must have required. 
 Besides, Nature does nothing in vain. What purpose could be 
 answered by such magazines of sulphur in the interior of the 
 earth ? They would remain entire in places not consumed by 
 the fire. What, besides, could renovate them Avhen ex- 
 hausted ] A supply so constant for keeping up volcanoes is 
 not in the earth, but in the sea. It is furnished by the oils, 
 
gO STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 bitumens, and nitres of vegetables and animals, conveyed by 
 the rains and rivers into the ocean, where the dissolution of all 
 bodies is completed. Volcanoes take fire, and feed themselves 
 with all these substances. 
 
 If Nature had not kindled these furnaces on the shores of 
 the ocean, its waters would be covered with vegetables and 
 animals, which could never evaporate, for they resist the action 
 of the air. Nature purifies the waters by the fire of volcanoes, 
 as she purifies the air by those of thunder ; and as storms are 
 more common in hot countries, she has in these likewise mul- 
 tiplied volcanoes, and for the same reason. 
 
 We find lavas, indeed, in the interior of countries ; but a 
 proof they owe their origin to the water is, that the volcanoes 
 which produced them became extinct when the waters failed 
 them. These volcanoes were kindled by the vegetable and 
 animal fermentations of the earth after the deluge, when the 
 spoils of so many forests and animals, whose trunks and bones 
 are still found in our quarries, floated on the surface of the 
 ocean, and formed prodigious deposits, when the currents ac- 
 cumulated in the cavities of the mountains. Doubtless they 
 caught fire in this state by the effect of fermentation merely, 
 just as we see stacks of damp hay catch fire in our meadows. 
 
 It now remains only to refute the opinion of those who 
 maintain that the earth is a secretion from the sun. The chief 
 arguments by which they support it are its volcanoes, its gra- 
 nites, and its progressive refrigeration from year to year. 
 
 We have demonstrated that volcanoes do not proceed from 
 the interior of the earth ; and granites do not present in the 
 aggregation of their grains the remotest vestige of the action 
 of fire. Agates, flints, and every species of the silex, seem to 
 be analogous to vitrifications, from their half-transparency, and 
 their being usually found in beds of marie, resembling banks 
 of lime extinguished ; but these substances are not the pro- 
 ductions of fire, for lavas never present any thing similar. I 
 have picked up, on the flinty hills of Lower Normandy, O3 7 ster- 
 shells, perfectly complete, amalgamated with black flints, 
 called bisets. Had these bisets been vitrified by fire, they 
 would have calcined, or, at least, altered the oyster-shells 
 which adhered to them; but -these were as sound as if just 
 taken out of the water. 
 
 It is a geometrical impossibility that our globe should have 
 been detached from the sun, by the transit of a comet, be- 
 cause it must have, on the very hypothesis of this impulsion, 
 
STUDY IV. 81 
 
 been hurried along in the sphere of the comet's attraction, or 
 carried back into that of the sun. It has, in truth, remained 
 in the sphere of the sun's attraction ; but it is not easy to 
 conceive how it never approached nearer, and maintains the 
 distance of almost 32,000,000 of leagues, while no comet 
 prevents its returning to the place from which it set out. 
 The sun, it is said, has a centrifugal force. The globe of the 
 earth, therefore, must be retiring from it. No, it is alleged, 
 because the earth has a constant tendency towards that 
 luminary. It must, accordingly, have lost the centrifugal 
 force, which should adhere to its very nature, as being a 
 portion of the sun. 
 
 It is also a physical impossibility, that the earth should 
 contain in its bowels so many heterogeneous substances, 
 supposing it a separation from a body so homogeneous as 
 the sun ; it is impossible they should be in any respect con- 
 sidered as the wreck of solar and vitrified substances, seeing 
 some of our terrestrial elements, as water and fire, are abso- 
 lutely incompatible. But I shall confine myself to the refrige- 
 ration ascribed to the earth, because the evidence on which 
 this opinion rests is level to the comprehension of all men, 
 and is of importance to their security. 
 
 If the earth is becoming colder, the sun, from which it is 
 said to have been separated, must be getting cold in propor- 
 tion ; and the mutual diminution of heat in these two globes 
 must become perceptible in a course of ages, at least on the 
 surface of the earth, in the evaporations of the seas, in the 
 diminution of rains, and especially in the destruction of a 
 great number of plants, killed every day, merely from the 
 diminution of only a few degrees of heat, when the climate 
 is changed upon them. Not a single plant, however, has 
 been lost of all those which were known to Circe, the most 
 ancient of botanists, whose herbal Homer has, in some mea- 
 sure, preserved for us. The plants celebrated in song by 
 Orpheus, and their virtues, subsist to this day. 
 
 Such are the testimonies adduced from the vegetable king- 
 dom, respecting the uniformity and constancy of the tempera- 
 ture of the globe : let us examine those of the human race. 
 There are some of the inhabitants of Switzerland, it is alleged, 
 who have perceived a progressive accumulation of the ices 
 on their mountains. I could oppose to this evidence that of 
 other modern observers, who pretend, with as little founda- 
 L 
 
82. STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tion, that the cold is diminishing there ; but I shall adhere 
 to the testimony of the ancients, who say, that if the refrige- 
 ration of the earth is perceptible in the life of one man, it 
 must be much more so in that of mankind ; now, all the 
 temperatures described by the most ancient historians, as 
 Tacitus, Caesar, Plutarch, and Xenophon, are precisely the 
 same at this day as they were at the time when those several 
 historians wrote. The book of Job, which contains more 
 profound views of Nature than is generally imagined, the 
 most common whereof were unknown to us two centuries 
 ago, makes frequent mention of the falling of the snows in 
 Arabia, toward the 30th degree of north latitude. Mount 
 Lebanon bears the Arabian name of Liban, white, on account 
 of the snows with which its summit is covered all the year 
 round. 
 
 If, during a period of more than 3000 years, the cold had 
 gone on increasing from year to year, in all these climates, 
 their winters must now have been as long and severe as in 
 Greenland. But Lebanon, and the lofty provinces of Asia, 
 have preserved the same temperature. The little isle of 
 Ithaca is still covered in winter with the hoar-frost ; and it 
 produces, as in the days of Telemachus, the laurel and the 
 olive. 
 
 STUDY FIFTH. 
 
 REPLY TO OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE, FOUNDED ON 
 THE DISORDERS OP THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
 
 THE earth, say the objectors, is a garden injudiciously 
 laid out. Men of wit, who never travelled, have painted it, 
 when proceeding from the hand of Nature, as if the giants 
 had been fighting in it. They represent its rivers flowing 
 at random ; its morasses as vast collections of mud ; the 
 trees of its forests turned upside down; its plains buried 
 under rocks, or overspread with thorns ; all its highways 
 impassable ; its culture the puny efforts of human genius. 
 Such representations have sometimes afflicted and inspired 
 me with distrust of the AUTHOR of Nature. To no purpose 
 had He in other respects loaded man with benefits ; one of 
 
STUDY V. 83 
 
 our most pressing necessities had been overlooked, if He had 
 neglected to care for our habitation. 
 
 The inundations of rivers, such as the Amazon, Oronoco, 
 and many others, are periodical They manure the lands 
 they inundate ; and it is well known that the banks of those 
 rivers swarmed with populous nations before Europeans 
 settled there. The inhabitants were benefited from these 
 inundations, by the abundance of the fisheries and the fer- 
 tility of the lands. So far from considering them as convul- 
 sions of Nature, they received them as blessings from Heaven, 
 just as the Egyptians prized the overflowings of the Nile. 
 Was it, then, a mortifying spectacle to see their deep forests 
 intersected with water, which they could traverse in their 
 canoes, and pick the fruits at their ease ? Nay, certain tribes 
 of the Oronoco, determined by these accommodations, had 
 acquired the singular habit of dwelling on the tops of trees, 
 and seeking under their foliage an habitation, food, and a 
 fortress. Most of them, however, inhabited only the banks 
 of rivers, and preferred them to the surrounding deserts, 
 though not exposed to inundations. 
 
 We see order only where we can see corn grow. Our 
 habit of confining the channels of rivers within dikes and 
 mounds, of gravelling and paving our high roads, of applying 
 the straight line to our garden-alleys and basons of water, 
 of squaring our parterres, nay, our very trees, accustoms us 
 to consider every deviation from our rectangles as abandoned 
 to confusion. But it is in places with which we have been 
 tampering, that we frequently see real disorder. We set 
 fountains a playing on the tops of mountains ; plant poplars 
 and limes upon rocks, throw our vineyards into valleys, and 
 raise our meadows to the declivities of hills. Let these 
 laborious exertions but be relaxed, and all this culture, the 
 work of man, will disappear ; demonstrating how inefficient 
 his power is, when struggling against that of Nature. 
 
 I have not had the felicity, like the primitive navigators, 
 who discovered uninhabited islands, to contemplate the face 
 of the ground as it came from the hand of the CREATOR ; 
 but I have seen portions of it which had undergone altera- 
 tions sufficiently inconsiderable to satisfy me that nothing 
 could then equal their virgin beauties. To the influence of 
 these first aspects I ascribe the superior talents of the earlier 
 writers who have painted Nature, and the sublime enthusiasm 
 
84 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 which a Homer and an Orpheus have transfused into their 
 poesy. Among the modems, the historian of Anson's expe- 
 dition, Cook, Banks, Solander, and others, have described 
 these natural sites, in the islands of Tinian, Masso, Juan 
 Fernandez, and Otaheite, delighting all persons of real taste, 
 though these islands had been, in part, degraded by the 
 Indians and Spaniards. 
 
 The Author here goes on to lament that he had seen only 
 countries frequented by Europeans, and desolated by war or 
 by slavery. He, however, excepts two places he had visited 
 in the course of his travels, the one in the Isle of France, the 
 other in Russian Finland. He dwells at great length on the 
 manner in which Nature disposes her plans in climates so 
 very opposite, and concludes his observations by stating, that 
 it would be no easy matter to describe the hospitable recep- 
 tion we found in the solitary mansions of those northern re- 
 gions. Their masters exerted themselves, in every possible 
 way, to detain us among them for many days together. They 
 sent to the distance of ten, of fifteen leagues, invitations to 
 their friends and relations, to come and assist them to enter- 
 tain us ; and the days and the nights passed away in dancing 
 and festivity. 
 
 Plants are not scattered about at random over the earth ; 
 there is order in their combination. If we examine their 
 expansion, attitude, magnitude, and proportions, we shall 
 find as much harmony in the aggregation of their parts, as in 
 that of their species. It is impossible, in any respect, to 
 consider them as mere mechanical productions of heat and 
 cold, of dryness and humidity, as all these physical causes 
 united could not have determined the port of one single 
 moss. It has been laid down as an indubitable principle, 
 that their saps ascend through the wood, and redescend 
 through the rind. To this I shall oppose the instance of 
 a great chestnut tree, in the garden of the Thuilleries, 
 which, for twenty years past, has had no bark round its 
 under part, and is nevertheless in perfect vigour. On the 
 other hand, we have seen old willows without a bit of good 
 wood left. Besides, how is it possible to apply this principle 
 of vegetation to a multitude of plants, some composed en- 
 tirely of tubes, and others having no rind, but enclosed only 
 in dry pellicles *? 
 
 Neither is there more truth in the supposition that they 
 
STUDY V. 85 
 
 rise in a perpendicular line, that to this direction they are de- 
 termined by the action of columns of air. Some, it must be 
 allowed, do follow this direction ; but creeping plants of every 
 species deviate from it. Others ascend vertically, and hav- 
 ing arrived at a certain height, in an air perfectly unob- 
 structed, fork off in various tiers, and send out their branches 
 horizontally. All these attitudes may be seen under the 
 same bearing of wind. Nay, some assume forms that all the 
 art of the gardener could hardly impress upon them ; such is 
 the badamier of the Indies. There are plants uncommonly 
 vigorous which recede from the vertical line the moment 
 they get above ground ; such is the false potatoe of India, 
 which loves to crawl along the sand of the shores ; and the 
 ratan of China, which frequently grows in similar situations. 
 These plants do not crawl from weakness. The scions of the 
 ratan are so strong that the Chinese make cordage of them 
 for their shipping ; and when on the ground, they serve as a 
 trap for the deer, who cannot disengage themselves. They 
 are nets spread out by the hand of Nature. 
 
 I should never have done were I to touch but slightly on 
 the different ports of vegetables ; what I have said will de- 
 monstrate that there is not a single one whose direction is 
 determined by the vertical column of the air, an error that 
 has gained currency from its being taken for granted that 
 plants affected the greatest volume of air. 
 
 Plants, it has been said, are mechanical bodies. Try then 
 to construct a body so slim, tender, and fragile, as a leaf, which 
 shall for whole years resist the winds, the rains, the keenest 
 frost, the most ardent sun. A spirit of life, independent of 
 all latitudes, governs, preserves, and reproduces plants. 
 They repair the injuries they may have sustained, and skin 
 over their wounds with a new rincL The pyramids of Egypt 
 are crumbled into powder ; but the grasses which clothed the 
 soil while the Pharaohs filled the throne subsist to this day. 
 How many Greek and Roman sepulchral monuments of 
 stone riveted with iron, have disappeared ! Nothing re- 
 mains around their ruins but the cypresses which shaded 
 them! 
 
 It is the sun, say they, who gives existence to vegetables, 
 and maintains it. But that all-powerful agent of Nature is 
 not the sole cause even of their expansion. If his heat in- 
 vites most of those of our climates to open their flowers, it 
 
 8 
 
86 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 obliges others to shut them : nay, his remoteness from our 
 hemisphere does not destroy in it the power of Nature. At 
 that season vegetate most of the mosses of the rocks, and 
 then the trunks of trees cover themselves, in humid situa- 
 tions, with plants imperceptible to the naked eye, called 
 minium and lichen, which give them the appearance, in frosty 
 weather, of columns of green bronze. These vegetations, 
 in the severity of winter, overturn all our reasonings respect- 
 ing the universal effects of heat, as plants of an organiza- 
 tion so extremely delicate require a temperature the most 
 gentle. 
 
 Again, the fall of the leaf itself, considered as an effect 
 of the sun's absence, is not occasioned by cold. If the palm 
 retains its foliage all the year in the south, the fir is equally 
 an evergreen in the north. The birch, the larch, and other 
 species of trees, shed their leaves in northern climates, on 
 the approach of winter ; but a similar depredation is likewise 
 made on other trees, to the southward. It is the resinous 
 substance, we are told, which preserves the foliage of the fir 
 in the north : but the larch, likewise a resinous plant, is 
 stripped of its verdure in winter ; whereas the filaria, the 
 ivy, the privet, and many other species, not resinous, continue 
 in full verdure at all seasons. 
 
 Without having recourse to mechanical causes, the effects 
 of which contradict themselves on an attempt to generalize 
 them, why not recognise, in these varieties of vegetation, 
 the steady and uniform direction of a Providence? That 
 Providence has assigned to the south, trees always green, 
 clothed with a broad foliage, to shelter the animal creation 
 from heat. The animals of hot climates have otherwise been 
 tenderly cared for, in being provided with clothing denuded 
 of hair, consequently light and cool ; and in having their 
 habitations garnished with green ferns and liannes, ever fresh 
 and comfortable. Neither has bountiful Nature neglected 
 the animals of the north. She has spread as a roof over their 
 heads, the evergreen firs, whose lofty and tufted pyramids 
 ward off the snow from their roots, and whose branches are 
 so well furnished with long gray mosses, that the trunk is 
 rendered almost invisible ; for a bed, she has accumulated a 
 bank of moss on the ground, a foot in thickness, and the soft 
 and dry leaves of many trees, which fall precisely at the ap- 
 proach of the inclement season: finally, their provision is 
 
STUDY V. 87 
 
 found in the fruits of those very trees, then arrived at full 
 maturity. 
 
 But one of the greatest blessings of Providence conferred 
 on the animals of the north, is their clothing of long and 
 thick hair, which grows in winter, and falls off in summer. 
 Naturalists account for this growth and decay, from the in- 
 fluence of heat. They pretend to support their system by 
 instancing the human hair and beard, which grow rapidly in 
 summer. But I would ask them how, in cold countries, 
 horses, which in summer are sleek and smooth, assume in 
 winter a long and shaggy coat, like the fleece of a sheep ? 
 To this they reply, The internal heat of their body, increased 
 by the external action of the cold, produces this wonderful 
 phenomenon. 
 
 To this I object, that cold does not produce this effect on 
 the human beard and hair, for it retards their growth ; that 
 in the case of animals, the hair is longer and thicker on those 
 parts of the body that have the least natural heat, such as 
 the tail, which is very bushy in horses, martens, foxes, and 
 wolves ; that this hair is short and thick on those parts which 
 have most natural heat, as the belly. Their backs, ears, and 
 frequently their very paws, are most amply furnished with 
 hair. But I merely suppose this last objection; the external 
 and internal heat of an African lion ought surely to be, at 
 least, as ardent as that of a Siberian wolf; whence is it, then, 
 that the first is smooth, as if newly shaven, whereas the other 
 is shagged up to the eyes. 
 
 The cold, deemed one of the greatest obstacles to vegeta- 
 tion, is as necessary to certain plants as heat is to others. 
 Vegetable transmigrations, however, might be effected by 
 employing ice, in the south, for the propagation of the plants 
 of hot climates, as I have seen ice imported from Etna 60 
 leagues distant, and preserved for months in the sultry tem- 
 perature of Malta ; so that I think it might be procured in 
 every country of the globe. 
 
 So far is cold from being the enemy of all plants, that in 
 the north we find forests of the tallest growth and greatest 
 extent in the world ; and at the foot of the eternal snows of 
 mount Lebanon, the cedar, the king of vegetables, rises in 
 all his majesty. The fir, next to him the greatest tree of our 
 forests, arrives at a prodigious size only on icy mountains, 
 and in the cold climates of Norway and Russia. 
 
88 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 I shall conclude this Study with refuting an error advanced 
 by some celebrated writers, and highly prejudicial to rural 
 economy, namely, that cold is diminished in the north in pro- 
 portion as the forests are cut down. 
 
 One day in summer, about two o'clock, being about to cross 
 the forest of Ivry, I saw some shepherds with their flocks, at 
 a distance from it, reposing under the shade of some trees. I 
 asked them why they did not take shelter in the forest from 
 the heat of the sun. They replied it was too hot there at 
 that time of the day, and that they never drove their sheep 
 thither, except in the morning and evening. Being desirous 
 however of traversing the forest, I engaged a lad to attend 
 me as a guide. I felt all the way a stifling heat, much more 
 ardent than was at that hour felt in the open country. I did 
 not begin to respire freely till I had got fairly clear of it, and 
 had made my escape from the edge of the forest more than 
 the distance of three musket shot. I have since reflected on 
 what the shepherds told me, respecting the heat of the woods, 
 and on what I myself had experienced ; and I have in fact 
 remarked that in the spring all plants are more forward in the 
 vicinity of woods, and that you find violets in flower on their 
 borders much earlier than you gather them on the open plain, 
 or on a naked hill. 
 
 Clearing ground of woods so greatly increases the heat in 
 warm countries, as I have had occasion to observe in the Isle 
 of France, on several parts of the coast, that the very grass 
 which pushes a way during the rainy season is soon burned up 
 by the sun ; and there results from this parchedness of the 
 coast, the drying up of many rivulets ; for the trees planted 
 on the heights attract thither the humidity of the air, and 
 fix it there. Besides, by destroying the trees on the high 
 grounds, the valleys are robbed of their natural manure, and 
 the plains of the pallisades which shelter them from the high 
 winds. These winds desolate to such a degree the cultiva- 
 tion in many places, that nothing will grow. I ascribe to 
 this the sterility of the heaths in Britanny. In vain has the 
 attempt been made to restore their ancient fertility ; it 
 never can succeed till their shelter and temperature are 
 recalled, by resowing their forests. But there is a requisite 
 prior even to this ; the peasantry must be rendered happy. 
 The prosperity of a country depends, above all things, on that 
 of its inhabitants. 
 
STUDY VI. 89 
 
 STUDY SIXTH. 
 
 REPLY TO OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE, FOUNDED ON 
 THE DISORDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 
 
 WE shall continue to display the fecundity of northern 
 regions, to overturn the prejudice which ascribes this princi- 
 ple of life, in plants and animals, only to the heat of the 
 south. I could expatiate on the numerous and extensive 
 chases of elks, rein-deer, water-fowls, heath-cocks, hares, white 
 bears, wolves, foxes, martens, ermines, beavers, &c., which 
 the inhabitants of the northern districts annually carry on, 
 the very peltry of which forms a considerable branch of com- 
 merce for the markets of all Europe : but I shall confine my- 
 self to their fisheries, because these precious gifts of the waters, 
 presented to all nations, are no where so abundant as in the 
 north. 
 
 From the rivers and lakes of the north are extracted incre- 
 dible multitudes of fishes. John SchsefTer, in his History of 
 Lapland, tells us they catch annually at Torneo, no less than 
 1300 boat-loads of salmon ; the pikes are found there as long 
 as a man, and that every year they salt as many as support 
 four kingdoms of the north. But these fisheries fall far 
 short of those of the seas,* from whence is dragged the enor- 
 mous whale, usually about 60 feet in length, 20 feet broad 
 over the body and at the tail, 18 feet high, and which yields 
 to 130 barrels of oil. The fat is two feet thick, and in cut- 
 ting it off they use knives six feet long. 
 
 From these seas of the north issue annually innumerable 
 shoals of fishes, enriching the fishers of Europe. Their size 
 is larger than in temperate latitudes, and their species more 
 numerous. There are computed twelve species of the whale 
 tribe ; and plaice are caught of the enormous weight of 400lbs. 
 But of fishes best known to us, herrings for example, it is an 
 incontestable fact, that these seas every year send out more 
 than sufficient to feed all the inhabitants of Europe. 
 
 The herring fishery was carried on so far back as the year 
 1 163, in the Straits of the Baltic, between the islands of Scho- 
 
 * Consult Frederic Martens, of Hamburgh. 
 
90 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 non and Seeland. Philip de Mesieres relates, that in 1389, 
 during September and October, the quantity of herrings in 
 these straits was so prodigious, that, ' for several leagues 
 together you might have cut them with a sword ; and it is 
 credibly reported, that 40,000 boats are employed for two 
 months in catching herrings ; each boat containing at least 
 six persons, and many not less than ten.' He makes the 
 number of persons employed 300,000 Prussians and Ger- 
 mans. 
 
 In 1610, the Dutch, who carry on the herring-fishery still 
 farther north, where the fish is better, derived a revenue from 
 it of 2,650, OOO/. sterling. I myself have witnessed in 
 Amsterdam, in 1762, the joy of the populace expressed by 
 displaying streamers over the shops where that fish was ex- 
 posed to sale, on the first arrivals ; and in every street this 
 was the case. 
 
 In 1782, at the mouth of Gothela, a small river which 
 washes the walls of Gottenburg, 139,000 barrels were cured 
 by salt, 3,700 smoked, and 2,845 casks of oil extracted from 
 what could not be preserved. The Gazette of France,* 
 which contains an account of this fishery, remarks that, pre- 
 vious to 1752, these fishes had entirely disappeared for 72 
 years together. I ascribe their desertion of this coast to the 
 noise of some naval engagement, as is the case with the 
 turtle of the island of Ascension, which forsake the road for 
 weeks together, when vessels passing that way discharge 
 their great guns. It may be likewise accounted for from a 
 conflagration of the forests, which might have destroyed the 
 vegetables that attracted them to the coast. 
 
 Pont-Oppidan, the Fenelon of Norway, relates,! that when 
 the herrings coasted along the shores of Norway, * The 
 whales, which pursue them in great numbers, and dart their 
 water-spouts into the air, give to the sea the appearance of 
 being covered over with smoking chimnies. The herrings, 
 to elude the pursuit, throw themselves close in shore into 
 every little bay or creek ; they branch off in such quantities 
 that you may take them out in baskets-full, and the country 
 people can even catch them by the hand.' After all the 
 united efforts of these fishers can effect, hardly any impression 
 
 * Friday the llth of October, 1782. 
 
 t Font-Oppidan's Natural History of Norway. 
 
STUDY VI. 91 
 
 is made on their general column, which coasts along Ger- 
 many, France, and Spain, as far as the Straits of Gibraltar ; 
 devoured on their passage, night and day, by multitudes of 
 fishes and sea-fowls, till the column is lost on the shores of 
 Africa, or returns, as other authors tell us, to the north. 
 For my own part, I no more believe herrings return from 
 whence they came, than that fruits reascend the trees from 
 which they have once dropped; Nature being so magnificent 
 in the entertainment which she provides for man, that she 
 never serves up the dishes a second time. 
 . The immense glut of herrings is astonishing ; but how is 
 that astonishment increased, when it is considered that this 
 column is not half of what annually issues from the north ! 
 It separates at the northern extremity of Iceland, and while 
 one division diffuses plenty over the shores of Europe, the 
 other pushes forward to convey similar benefits to those of 
 America, accompanied by an incredible multitude of pilchers 
 and cod, which renders fish so plenty in the island, that the 
 inhabitants have them dried, and reduced to meal with a 
 grindstone, to serve as food for their oxen and horses. 
 
 It would appear that another column of those fishes issues 
 from the north pole to the eastward of our continent, and 
 passes through the channel which separates America from 
 Asia. But as these seas are not much known to us, I shall 
 pursue this fish no farther. I must however observe, that 
 more than half those herrings are filled with eggs, and if the 
 propagation were to go on to its full extent for three or four 
 generations only, the ocean itself would be unable to contain 
 them. 
 
 The south pole is not less productive of fishes than the 
 north. The nations nearest to it live on fish, and practise 
 husbandry of no kind. Sir John Narborough says, in his 
 Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, there must be on 
 these shores an infinite number of fishes to support the sea- 
 calves, penguins, and other fowls, which live solely on fish, 
 and are all equally fat, though their number is beyond com- 
 putation. They one day killed 400 sea-lions in half an hour. 
 Their flesh is as tender and white as lamb, and excellent food 
 when fresh, but still better when it has been some time in 
 salt. Here I must observe, that the fish of cold countries only 
 take in salt easily, and retain part of their flavour. It seems 
 as if Nature intended thus to communicate to all the nations 
 
92 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of the globe the abundance of the fisheries which issue from 
 the frigid zones. 
 
 The western coast of America is not less amply supplied 
 with fish. 'Along the whole coast,' says Garcillaso de la 
 Vega,* ' from Arequipa to Tarapaca, a tract of more than 
 200 leagues, they dung the land with the excrement of cer- 
 tain fowls, called sea-sparrows, whose numbers exceed all 
 belief. They inhabit the desert islands on the coast, and by 
 the accumulation of their ordure, they whiten them to such 
 a degree, that, at some distance, they might be taken for 
 mountains covered with snow. The Incas reserved to them- 
 selves the right of disposing of those islands, as a royal boon 
 to such and such a favourite prince. This dung was entirely 
 the produce of the fishes on which those fowls constantly fed. 
 
 It will be no easy task, 1 confess, to refer to the beneficence 
 of Nature the wars which animals wage with each other. 
 Why should beasts of prey exist ? Supposing me incapable 
 of resolving this difficulty, Nature must not be accused of 
 cruelty because I am deficient in mental ability. She has 
 arranged what we do know with such consummate wisdom, 
 that we are bound to give her credit for the same character 
 of wisdom in cases where we cannot find her out unto per- 
 fection. I will, however, declare my opinion, and offer a 
 reply to that question. 
 
 Beasts of prey are necessary. What otherwise would 
 become of the carcasses of so many animals which perish 
 on the land and in the water, which would consequently be 
 poisoned with infection. Several species of carnivorous ani- 
 mals devour their prey alive. But who can tell whether in 
 this they do not transgress the law of their nature? Man 
 knows very little of his own history : how is it possible he 
 should know that of the beasts 1 Captain Cook observed, in 
 a desert island in the southern ocean, that the sea-lions, the 
 sea-calves, white bears, sots, eagles, and vultures, lived in 
 perfect concord. I have observed a similar good agreement 
 among the fool and the frigate of the island of Ascension. 
 But, after all, it was merely an association of plunderers ; 
 they lived peaceably together, that they might devour un- 
 molested their common prey, the fishes, which they all 
 gulped down alive. 
 
 * History of the Incas, book v. chap. iii. 
 
STUDY VI. 93 
 
 Let us revert to the great principle of Nature : she has 
 made nothing in vain. She destines few animals to die of 
 old age ; nay, I believe, she permits man only to complete 
 his career of life, because his old age alone can be useful to 
 his fellow-creatures. To what purpose would serve, among 
 the brute creation, grandsires destitute of reflection to pro- 
 geny brought into existence in the maturity of their expe- 
 rience ? On the other hand, what assistance could decrepit 
 parents find among children which abandon them the instant 
 they have learned to swim, fly, or walk ? Old age would be 
 to them a burthen from which they are delivered by the fero- 
 cious animals. Besides, from their unobstructed generations 
 would arise a posterity without end, which the globe is not 
 sufficient to contain. The preservation of individuals would 
 involve the extinction of the species. 
 
 Animals might always live, I shall be told, in a proportion 
 adapted to the places they inhabit ; but in that case they 
 must cease to multiply ; and from that moment farewell the 
 loves, the nests, the alliances, the foresight, and all the har- 
 monies which subsist among them. Every thing that is born 
 is doomed to die. But Nature, in devoting them to death, 
 does not render the instant of it cruel. It is usually in the 
 night time, in the hour of sleep, that they sink under the 
 fangs and teeth of their destroyers. Twenty strokes, sent 
 home in one instant to the sources of life, afford no leisure to 
 reflect that they are going to lose it. That fatal moment, is 
 not imbittered to them by any of the feelings which render 
 it so painful to the human race, regret for the past, and soli- 
 citude about futurity. Their unanxious spirits vanish in the 
 midst of a life of innocence, and frequently during the indul- 
 gence of the fond illusions of love. 
 
 Unknown compensations may, perhaps, farther sweeten 
 this last transition. I shall observe at least, as a circum- 
 stance deserving attentive consideration, that the animal 
 species whose life is sacrificed to the support of that of others, 
 such as that of insects, do not appear possessed of any sen- 
 sibility. If the leg of a fly happens to be torn away, she goes 
 and comes as if she had lost nothing ; the cutting off a limb 
 so considerable is followed by no fainting, convulsion, scream, 
 nor symptom of pain whatever. Cruel children amuse 
 themselves with thrusting straws into their anus ; they rise 
 into the air thus empaled ; they walk about and perform all 
 
94 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 their usual motions, without seeming to mind it. Others take 
 lady-birds, tear off a large limb, run a pin through the nerves 
 and cartilages of the thigh, and attach them with a slip of 
 paper to a stick. These unfeeling insects fly humming round 
 and round the stick, unweariedly, and without any appear- 
 ance of suffering pain. Reaumur one day cut off the fleshy 
 and muscular horn of a large caterpillar, which continued to 
 feed as if no mutilation had taken place. Is it possible to 
 think, that beings so tranquil in the hands of children and 
 philosophers, endure any feeling of pain when they are gob- 
 bled down in the air by the birds ] 
 
 These observations might be extended much farther, par- 
 ticularly to that class of fishes having neither bone nor blood, 
 and of these consist the greatest number of the inhabitants 
 of the seas, and they appear to be equally void of sensibility. 
 I have seen, between the tropics, a tunny, from the nape of 
 whose neck a sailor scooped out a large slice of the flesh with 
 a stroke of the harpoon, which was forced backward to his 
 head ; he followed the ship for several weeks, and was out- 
 done by no one of his companions, either in speed or friski- 
 ness. I have seen sharks, after being struck with musket 
 bullets, return to bite at the hook, from which they had just 
 before escaped, with their mangled throat. 
 
 We shall find a great analogy between fishes and insects, 
 if we consider that, neither have bones nor blood ; that their 
 flesh is impregnated with a glutinous liquid, apparently the 
 same in both, from its emitting a similar odour when burned ; 
 that most fishes pass, on their birth, through the state of in- 
 sects, issuing from their eggs in the form of worms ; that both 
 are cased in scales ; that many fishes are provided with 
 beards and horns, like insects ; finally, that their constitu- 
 tions, metamorphoses, manners, and fecundity being the 
 same, there is a powerful temptation to ascribe to these two 
 numerous classes the same insensibility. As to animals 
 which have blood, let Malebranche say what he pleases, they 
 are sensible, expressing a sense of pain by the same signs 
 which we do. 
 
 Let us now proceed to consider the generation of animals. 
 Certain Egyptians told Herodotus, that particular species of 
 animals were formed of the fermented mires of the ocean 
 and of the Nile. Whatever respect I have for the ancients, 
 I absolutely reject their authority in physics. If some of them 
 
STUDY IV. 95 
 
 have advanced that every thing proceeded from corruption, 
 others, more honest and sincere, have refuted them, even in 
 the earliest times. 
 
 Corruption produces no one living- body, but is fatal to all, 
 especially to those which have blood, and chiefly to man. 
 No air is unwholesome but where there is corruption. How 
 could such a principle have generated, in animals provided 
 with toes, nails, and claws ; skins clothed with hair and plu- 
 mage ; jaws pallisadoed with teeth adapted for cutting and 
 grinding ; heads adorned with eyes furnished with lids to 
 defend them from the sun ] How could the principle of cor- 
 ruption have collected those scattered members ; unite them 
 by nerves and muscles ; support them by bony substances, 
 fitted with pivots and hinges ; feed them with veins filled 
 with blood which circulates, whether the animal be in mo- 
 tion or at rest ; cover them with skins precisely adapted to 
 the climates they inhabit ; afterwards, make them move by 
 the combined action of a heart and a brain, and give to all 
 these machines, produced in the same place, and formed of 
 the same slime, appetites and instincts so entirely different ] 
 How could it have kindled in them the desire of reproducing 
 themselves by any other method than that which originally 
 gave them existence ? 
 
 Corruption, so far from conferring life, must have deprived 
 them of it, for it generates tubercles, inflames the eye, dis- 
 solves the blood, and produces an infinite number of diseases 
 in most animals.* The fermentation of any substance what- 
 ever could never have formed an organized animal, nor even 
 the egg from which it issued. Indeed the first operation of 
 Nature is so mysterious, that an egg with the smallest aper- 
 ture loses its prolific power. The slightest contact with the 
 exterior air, extinguishes in it the radical principles of life. 
 It is neither matter, then, nor degrees of heat, which are 
 wanting to man to imitate Nature in the pretended creation 
 of beings ; and this power, ever young and active, has by no 
 means wasted itself, as it is always exerting itself in their 
 
 * From this may be concluded how dangerous the putrid emanations from 
 our church-yards must be to the inhabitants of cities. Parish churches, in which 
 so many corpses are interred, become impregnated with an air so corrupted, es- 
 pecially in spring, when the ground begins to grow warm, that I consider this as 
 one of the chief sources of the small-pox, and of the putrid fevers which arc 
 prevalent at that season. 
 
96 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 reproduction ; a display of omnipotence equally wonderful 
 with that of conferring existence at the first. 
 
 The wisdom with which Nature has settled their propor- 
 tions is admirable. On a careful examination of animals, 
 we shall find no one deficient in its members, regard being 
 had to its manners, and the situation in which it is destined 
 to live. The large and long bill of the toucan, and his tongue 
 formed like a feather, were necessary to a bird who hunts for 
 insects on the humid sands of American shores. It was need- 
 ful that he should be provided with a long mattock to dig, 
 a large spoon to collect his food, arid a tongue fringed with 
 delicate nerves to enjoy the relish of it. Long legs and neck 
 were necessary to the heron, the crane, the flamingo, and 
 other birds which have to walk in marshy places, and seek 
 their prey under the water. Every animal has feet, a throat, 
 or a bill, formed to suit the soil they tread, and to procure 
 their food. From the different configurations of animals, 
 naturalists derive the characters which distinguish beasts of 
 prey from such as live on vegetable substances. 
 
 These organs of animals are themselves indelible as their 
 instincts. I have seen ducks propagated at a distance from 
 water, which retained on their feet the broad membranes of 
 their species, which on the approach of rain clapped their 
 wings, screamed aloud, and seemed to complain to heaven of 
 the injustice of man, who had banished them from their ele- 
 ment. Some philosophers consider the spurs appended to the 
 heels of hogs as useless, because they do not bear upon the 
 ground ; but this animal, destined to live in swampy places, 
 would frequently sink under the impulse of gluttony, had not 
 Nature placed above his heels two prominent excrescences, to 
 assist him in getting out again. How was it possible for en- 
 lightened men to misunderstand the use of these accessory 
 members, imitated by our country clowns in stilts ; which, 
 from this very resemblance, they call hogs-feet, and are em- 
 ployed in wading through marshy ground 1 
 
 Nature, who varies her means with the obstacles to be sur- 
 mounted, has bestowed excrescences on the heels of the hog, 
 for the same reason that she has clothed the rhinoceros with 
 a hide rolled up in several folds, in the midst of the torrid 
 zone. This clumsy animal appears invested with a threefold 
 mantle ; but being destined to live in the miry morasses of 
 India, he would have been in danger of sinking from his 
 
STUDY VI. 97 
 
 enormous weight, had he not been endowed with the strange 
 faculty of extending, by inflation, the folds of his skin, and 
 of rendering himself lighter, by occupying a larger space. 
 
 What to us appears a deficiency in certain animals, is a 
 wonderful compensation of Providence ; and it would be an 
 exception from the general law of Nature if she had any 
 other than the utility and happiness of the beings which she 
 has formed. Hence the elephant has a proboscis, which 
 serves like a hand as he scrambles over the roughest moun- 
 tains, where he delights to live, in picking up the grass of 
 the field, and the foliage of the trees, which the inflexibility 
 of his neck would not permit him otherwise to reach. 
 
 She has infinitely varied, among the animal creation, the 
 means of defence and subsistence. It cannot be supposed 
 that those which move slowly or scream violently are in a 
 state of habitual suffering ; for how could a race of creatures 
 always sickly perpetuate itself, nay, become one of the most 
 universally diffused of the whole globe 1 The sluggard, or 
 sloth, is found in Africa, Asia, and America. His tardiness 
 is no more a paralytic affection than that of the turtle and of 
 the snail. The cries he utters, when you go near him, are 
 not cries of pain. But among animals, some being destined 
 to roam about the earth, others to remain fixed, their means 
 of Defence vary with their manners. Some elude their 
 enemies by flight, others repel them by hissings, hideous 
 figures, poisonous smells, or lamentable cries. Some deceive 
 the eye, as the snail, which assumes the colour of the walls, 
 or of the bark of trees, whither he flies for refuge ; others, by 
 an inconceivable magic, transform themselves at pleasure 
 into the colour of surrounding objects, as the cameleon. 
 
 O, how sterile the imagination of man, compared to the 
 intelligence of Nature ! He has produced no one thing of 
 which he has not borrowed the model from her works. Genius 
 itself is neither more nor less than the art of observing. Man 
 cannot forsake the path of Nature, even when he is deter- 
 mined to go wrong. We are wise only with her wisdom : 
 and we play the fool in proportion as we attempt to derange 
 her plans. 
 
 Our female friends, too, who, sweetly capricious, amuse 
 
 themselves with embroidering fancy flowers on their dress, 
 
 borrow their patterns from the garden. Examine on their 
 
 gowns and handkeichiefs the sportive productions of their ima- 
 
 N 9 
 
98 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 gination : there you have the flower of the pink on the foliage 
 of the myrtle ; roses on the stalk of the reed ; pomegranates 
 in place of ears of corn. Nature alone produces rational har- 
 monies, and assorts, in both animals and plants, none but 
 parts adapted to the places, the air, the elements, the uses for 
 which she has destined them. Never was a race of mon- 
 sters beheld issuing from the sublimity of her conceptions. 
 
 I have frequently heard of living monsters announced for 
 public exhibition at our fairs, but never had the fortune to see 
 one. One day a placard was displayed at the fair of St. 
 Ovide, ' A cow with three eyes, and a sheep with six feet.' 
 I had a curiosity to see those animals, and examine the use 
 of organs and members to my apprehension entirely super- 
 fluous : how Nature had attached two new legs to the body of 
 a sheep, and had formed, to put them in motion, new nerves, 
 veins, and muscles, with their insertions. The third eye of 
 the cow perplexed me still more. I had nothing for it, then, 
 but, like other simpletons, to part with my money to gratify 
 my curiosity. The people were coming out in crowds, de- 
 lighted and astonished with their pennyworth. I too, at last, 
 contemplated the marvellous sight. The two superfluous legs 
 of the sheep were only two shrivelled pieces of skin, cut out 
 like thongs, and hanging down from the breast, without touch- 
 ing the ground, and incapable of being of any use whatever 
 to the poor animal. The pretended third eye of the cow was a 
 kind of oval wound in the middle of the forehead, without orbit, 
 without apple, without lid, and without any membrane which 
 presented one single organized part of an eye. I withdrew 
 without examining whether these accidents were natural 
 or artificial, for, in truth, it was not worth the trouble. 
 
 The monsters preserved in spirits of wine, and exhibited in 
 cabinets, such as pigs with the proboscis of an elephant, chil- 
 dren double-bodied, or with two heads, prove much less a 
 laboured production of Nature than the interruption of it. 
 None of those beings could have attained a complete expan- 
 sion ; and so far from demonstrating that the intelligence 
 which produced them had fallen into a blunder, they attest 
 the immutability of Supreme Wisdom, which has rejected 
 them from its plan, by refusing them life. 
 
 The benignity of Nature toward man challenges the high- 
 est admiration, in defying him, on the one hand, to infringe 
 her laws to gratify caprice ; on the other, she frequently per- 
 
STUDY VI. 
 
 99 
 
 mils him to derange some of them to relieve his necessities. 
 For instance, she connives at the production of the mule 
 from the copulation of the ass and the mare, that being ser- 
 viceable in mountainous countries, but she forbids the repro- 
 duction to proceed, as the primitive species are of more gen- 
 eral utility. 
 
 It is easy to discern, in most of the works of Nature, these 
 maternal condescensions, and, may I call them so 1 royal pro- 
 visions. They manifest themselves particularly in the pro- 
 ductions of the garden. She feeds the human race, in part 
 only, with vegetable superabundance, bestowed as the reward 
 of industry. However fertile the soil, vegetables of the same 
 species with those produced in the garden degenerate in the 
 uncultivated plain, grow wild, and spend themselves in 
 foliages and branches. Is it not, therefore, an instance of 
 wonderful complaisance on the part of Nature, that she should 
 transform, under the hand of man, into pleasant and whole- 
 some aliment, the same juices which would be converted in 
 the forest into lofty stems and tough roots 1 From time to 
 time Nature presents man with varieties both useful and 
 agreeable, extracted from the same genus. All our fruit- 
 trees come originally from the forest, and no one there reper- 
 petuates itself in its species. Were she to suspend her par- 
 ticular laws of beneficence in the gardens of our miscreants, 
 to establish in them her pretended general laws, what would 
 be their astonishment to find nothing reproduced but some 
 miserable wild carrots, and unsavoury fruits of every sort, 
 such as she produces on the mountains for the coarse palate 
 of the wild boar. The hen, which lays eggs much too large 
 in proportion to her size, and for nine months uninterruptedly, 
 contrary to all the laws of incubation among the feathered 
 race, would then fall back into the general order, and pro- 
 duce, at farthest, twenty eggs in a year. The hog would 
 lose his superfluous fat. The cow, which yields twenty-four 
 quarts of milk a day, would give only a bare sufficiency to 
 suckle her calf. 
 
 To this it is replied, that this profusion of eggs, fat, and 
 cream from our domestic animals, is the effect of their copious 
 feeding. But neither does the mare give as much milk as the 
 cow, nor the duck lay as many eggs as the hen, nor the ass 
 clothe himself with fat like the hog, though these animals 
 all feed plentifully alike. Besides, the mare, the she-goat, 
 
100 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the ewe, the she-ass, have only two teats, whereas the cow 
 has four. 
 
 The cow deviates in a very remarkable manner from the 
 general laws of Nature, who has adjusted, in every animal 
 species, the number of teats in the mother to that of the 
 young ; she, however, is furnished with four paps, though 
 she produces but one calf, and very rarely two, because the 
 two supernumeraries were destined to be nurses to the human 
 race. The sow, it is granted, has only twelve teats, though 
 intended to bring up sometimes a litter of fifteen or more. 
 Here the proportion seems defective. But if the first has 
 more teats than are requisite to the number of her family, 
 and the second too few for hers, it is because the one ia 
 ordained to present man with the surplus of her milk, and 
 the other with that of her brood. 
 
 Is it not strange that when so many plants and animals 
 exhibit proportions so beautiful, adaptations so wonderful to 
 our necessities, and proofs so evident of a Divine benevolence, 
 we should collect shapeless abortions, pigs with a long pro- 
 boscis, as if our yards teemed with young elephants, and 
 arrange them in our cabinets as a display of Nature 1 Those 
 who preserve them as invaluable curiosities, and deduce from 
 them consequences and doubts respecting the intelligence of 
 their AUTHOR, discover as much want of taste, and act as 
 unfairly, as one who should go into the workshop of a 
 founder, and pick up the figures accidentally mutilated, 
 metallic moulds which might lie scattered about, and tri- 
 umphantly display them as a proof of the artist's blundering 
 ignorance ! 
 
 The ancients burned monsters, the moderns preserve them 
 in spirits of wine. Oh ! if the earth were indeed abandoned 
 to disorder, and that, after an infinity of combinations, there 
 should at last appear, amidst the monsters which covered it, 
 a single body well proportioned, and adapted to the necessi- 
 ties of man, what a source of satisfaction would it be to 
 creatures at once sensible and unhappy, to catch but a glim- 
 mering of an INTELLIGENCE somewhere, who took an inter- 
 est in their destiny ! 
 
STUDY VII. 
 
 STUDY SEVENTH. 
 
 REPLIES TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE FOUNDED 
 ON THE CALAMITIES OF THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 THE arguments deduced from the varieties of the human 
 race, and the evils accumulated by the hand of Nature, by 
 governments, and by religions, on the head of man, attempt 
 to demonstrate that men have neither the same origin, nor 
 any natural superiority above the beasts ; that their virtues 
 are destitute of all prospect of reward, and that no Providence 
 watches over their necessities to supply them. 
 
 Our discussion of this interesting subject shall commence 
 with a reply to the objections founded on the varieties of 
 the human species. We pretend not to deny that there are 
 men black and white, copper-coloured and pale. Some have 
 .a beard, others little, if any. But these pretended characters 
 are accidents merely. Horses white, bay, or black, are ani- 
 mals of the same species. The Jllbinoes, or white negroes, 
 are a species of lepers, and no more form a particular race of 
 negroes, than persons with us who have been marked by the 
 small-pox form a race of spotted Europeans. 
 
 The black colour is a blessing of Providence to the inhabit- 
 ants of tropical countries. White reflects the rays of the 
 sun, black absorbs them. The first redoubles his heat, the 
 second weakens it. Nature has employed the opposite effects 
 of these colours for multiplying or weakening, on the earth, 
 the heat of the orb of day. The farther you advance south, 
 the blacker are men and animals ; and the farther you pro- 
 ceed northward, the whiter is the colour of both. Nay, when 
 the sun withdraws from the northern regions, many animals 
 there, in summer, of different colours, begin to whiten ; and 
 those of the southern regions, to which he is approaching, 
 then clothe themselves with tints deeper and more absorbent. 
 It is therefore by adaptations of climate that Nature has made 
 the inhabitants of the torrid zone black, as she has whitened 
 those of the icy zones. She has given another preservative 
 against the heat to the negroes of Africa, the hottest part of 
 the globe, by reason of that broad belt of sand which crosses 
 
 9* 
 
102 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 it ; she has covered the heads of those careless tribes with a 
 fleece more crisp than a tissue of wool, which shelters them 
 from the burning heat of the sun. They are so sensible of 
 this, that they never employ a head-dress, there being no 
 description of mankind to whom artificial coverings are more 
 rare than among the negroes. They use those of foreign 
 nations merely as objects of vanity and luxury, and I do not 
 know of any one that is peculiar to their nation. 
 
 The American tribes under the line are not black, but 
 copper-coloured. I ascribe this weakening of the black tint 
 to causes peculiar to their country. First, the universal 
 practice of rubbing themselves over with roucou, (a kind of 
 sweet-scented paste,) which preserves the skin from the too 
 vehement impression of the sun. Secondly, they inhabit a 
 woody country, crossed by the greatest river in the world, 
 which covers it with vapours. Thirdly, their territory rises 
 from the shores of Brazil to the mountains of Peru, which, 
 giving it a greater elevation, procures a greater degree of 
 coolness. Fourthly, the east winds, which blow there inces- 
 santly, contribute to that coolness. 
 
 Finally, the colour of all those nations is so much the effect 
 of climate, that the descendants of Europeans, settled there, 
 assume the black tint after the lapse of some generations. 
 This is perceptible in India, in the posterity of the Moguls, 
 tribes derived from the extremity of Asia, whose name signi- 
 fies whites, at this day as black as the nations they have 
 conquered. 
 
 Taliness of stature no more characterizes species than 
 difference of colour. A dwarf and a large apple-tree proceed 
 from the same grafts. Nature, however, has rendered it 
 invariable in the human species alone, because variety of 
 magnitude would have destroyed, in the physical order, the 
 proportions of man with the universality of her productions, 
 and involved, in the moral order, consequences still more 
 dangerous, by subjecting the smaller species of mankind to 
 the greater. 
 
 There are no races of dwarfs or giants. Those exhibited 
 at fairs are little men contracted, or tall over-grown fellows, 
 without proportion or vigour. They reproduce not them- 
 selves either in miniature or magnitude, whatever pains may 
 have been taken by certain princes to procure a distinct propa- 
 gation, among others by the late king of Prussia, Frederick II 
 
STUDY VII. 103 
 
 All nations have been, and still are, with little difference 
 and very few exceptions, of the same stature. Formerly, we 
 are told, there were real giants. The thing is possible ; but 
 this truth is become to us inconceivable, like all others of 
 which Nature no longer furnishes any testimony. If Poly- 
 phemuses, lofty as a tower, ever existed, every step they took 
 in walking must, in most soils, have sunk into the ground. 
 How could their long and clumsy fingers have milked the 
 little she-goats, reaped the corn, mowed down the grass, 
 picked the fruits of the orchard ] The greatest part of our 
 aliments would escape their eyes as well as their hands. 
 
 On the other hand, had there been generations of pigmies, 
 how could they have levelled the forests to make way for the 
 cultivation of the earth? They would have lost themselves 
 among the rushes. Every brook would have been to them 
 a river, and every pebble a rock. 
 
 On either of these suppositions all the relations of natural 
 order are burst asunder, and such discords necessarily involve 
 the utter destruction of all social order. 
 
 As much as Nature has affected variety in the species of 
 animals of the same genus, though inhabiting the same re- 
 gions, and subsisting on the same aliments, so much has she 
 studied uniformity in the production of the human species, 
 notwithstanding the difference of climate and of food. Man 
 may degrade himself to the level of the beast, but never was 
 his noble form dishonoured by the tail, the forked feet, and 
 the horns of the brute. In vain is the attempt made to trace 
 an approximation of man toward the class of mere animals, 
 by insensible transitions. 
 
 There is a much greater difference still between the reason 
 of man and that of beasts, than between their forms; the 
 dullest of mankind can learn the use of fire, and the practice 
 of agriculture, of which the most intelligent of animals is ab- 
 solutely incapable. Agriculture is the art of Nature, and fire 
 her primary agent. From experience we are assured, that 
 men have acquired by means of this element, and of this art, 
 an intelligence, of which all their other combinations are 
 merely consequences. Our sciences and arts are principally 
 derived from these two sources. The importance we assign 
 to our talents proceeds not from their utility, but from our 
 pride. We should take a material step toward its humilia- 
 tion, did we consider that the animals which have no skill in 
 
104 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 agriculture, and know not the use of fire, attain to the great- 
 est part of the objects of our arts and sciences, and even sur- 
 pass them. 
 
 I say nothing of those which build, spin, manufacture pa- 
 per, cloth, hives, and practise other trades, of which we have 
 no knowledge. But the torpedo defended himself from his 
 enemies by means of the electric shock, before academies 
 thought of making experiments in electricity ; and the limpet 
 understood the power of the pressure of the air, and attached 
 itself to the rocks, by forming the vacuum with its pyramidi- 
 cal shell, long before the air-pump was set a-going. The 
 quails which annually go from Europe to Africa, have such 
 a knowledge of the autumnal equinox, that the day of their 
 arrival in Malta is marked on the almanacs of that island 
 about the 22d of September, and varies every year as the 
 equinox. The swan and wild duck know the latitude where 
 they ought to stop, in reascending to the north, and easily 
 find out the spot where the year before they made their nests. 
 The frigate, which flies over vast oceans interrupted by no 
 land, and regains at night the rock hardly emerging out of 
 the water which he left in the morning, possesses means of 
 ascertaining his longitude, hitherto unknown to our most 
 ingenious astronomers. 
 
 Man, it has been said, owes his intelligence to his hands ; 
 but the monkey, the declared enemy of all industry, has 
 hands too. The sloth likewise has hands, and they ought to 
 have suggested to him the propriety of digging a retreat in 
 the earth, for himself and his posterity, exposed as they are 
 by the slowness of their progression. So far is the intelligence 
 of an animal from depending on the structure of its limbs, 
 that their perfection is frequently in the inverse ratio of its 
 sagacity, and appears a kind compensation of Nature to make 
 up a defect. To ascribe the intelligence of man to his hands, 
 is to deduce the cause from the means, and talent from the 
 tool with which it works. 
 
 It is still more extravagant to maintain, that human reason 
 depends on climate, because there are some shades of variety 
 in manners and customs. The Turks cover their heads with 
 turbans, we cover ours with hats ; they wear long flowing 
 robes, and we dress in coats with short skirts. In Portugal 
 they drink off the sediment of wines, we throw it away. To 
 all this I answer, that we would act as these people, if we 
 
STUDY VII. 105 
 
 were in their country ; and that they would act as we do, 
 were they in ours. 
 
 Turbans and flowing robes are adapted to hot countries, 
 where the head and body stands in need of being cooled, by 
 enclosing in the covering of both a greater mass of air. Hence 
 the use of turbans among the Turks, Persians, and Indians, 
 of the mitres of the Arabians, of the sugar-loaf bonnets of 
 the Chinese and Siamese, and that of wide and flowing robes, 
 Avorn by most nations of the South. From a contrary neces- 
 sity, northern nations, as the Polanders, Russians, and Tar- 
 tars, wear furred caps and close garments. We are obliged 
 to have, in our rainy climates, three aqueducts upon our 
 head, and garments shortened, because of the dirt. Instances 
 might be multiplied to show that the very varieties of national 
 customs prove the consistency of human reason. 
 
 Climate has no greater influence in changing human mo- 
 rality, which is reason in perfection. I admit that extreme 
 heat and cold produce an effect on the passions, and have re- 
 marked that the hottest days of summer, and the coldest of 
 winter, were the seasons of the year when most crimes were 
 committed. But I beg leave to add, that those seasons fertile 
 in crimes, are so too of splendid actions. This effervescence 
 of season acts on our senses like that of wine, producing an 
 extraordinary impulsion, but indifferently to good and evil. 
 Nature has implanted in us two powers, which ever balance 
 each other in just proportion. When the physical sense, love, 
 debases, the moral sentiment, ambition, raises us up again. 
 The equilibrium necessary to the empire of virtue is never 
 lost, except in persons debased by the habits of society, or of 
 education. Then the predominant passion assumes the com- 
 mand of our faculties ; but the fault is of society, which un- 
 dergoes its punishment, and not that of Nature. 
 
 In every country, temperature of climate hastens or retards 
 the expansion of all plants, and the gestation of all animals, 
 the human race excepted : let this be carefully remarked. 
 * In the Antilles islands,' says Father du Tertre, * the white 
 women and the negresses go with child nine months, as in 
 France.' I have made the same remark in all the countries 
 through which I have travelled ; and this observation demon- 
 strates that the body of man is not subjected, in this respect, 
 to the same laws with other animals. It manifests a moral 
 intention in nature, to preserve an equilibrium in the popula- 
 O 
 
106 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tion of nations, which would have been deranged, had the 
 pregnancy of the women been of shorter duration in hot 
 countries than in cold. This intention is farther manifested 
 in the admirable proportion she maintains between the num- 
 ber of males and females : it is compensated from north to 
 south, so that if there be rather more women born to the 
 south, there are rather more men to the north ; as if Nature 
 meant to attract and unite remote nations, by means of inter- 
 marriages. 
 
 Climate influences, but does not determine, morality ; and 
 though this supposed determination may be considered as the 
 basis of the legislation of nations, no one philosophical opinion 
 is more completely refuted by historic testimony. ' Liberty,' 
 say they, ' has found her asylum in the lofty mountains ; from 
 the north it was that the haughty conquerors of the world 
 issued forth. In the southern plains of Asia, reign despotism, 
 slavery, and all the political and moral vices, which may be 
 traced up to the loss of liberty.' 
 
 There is in Europe a multitude of monarchical mountains, 
 and many republics in plains. Each has, by turns, made 
 trial of different sorts of government. Neither cold, nor rug- 
 gedness of soil, inspire men with the energy of liberty, still 
 less with the unjust ambition of encroaching on that of others. 
 The peasants of Russia, Poland, and Bohemia, have been 
 slaves for ages ; whereas the Angrias and Mahrattas are free 
 men and tyrants in the south. The Turks, who possess the 
 finest provinces of Europe, issued from the mild climate of 
 Asia. The timidity of the Siamese, and of most Asiatics, has 
 been quoted ; but it is to be imputed to the multitude of their 
 tyrants, rather than to the heat of their countries. The Ma- 
 cassars, who inhabit the island of Celebes, almost under the 
 line, are possessed of a courage so intrepid, that a small num- 
 ber of them, armed with poniards only, put to flight the force 
 under the command of Count Forbin, at Bancock, consisting 
 of Siamese and French, the former numerous, and the others 
 armed with muskets and bayonets. 
 
 If from courage we make the transition to love, we shall 
 find that climate has no more a determining power over man 
 in the one case than in the other. In all countries love is a 
 torrid zone to the heart of man. These appropriations of 
 love to the nations of the south, and of courage to those of 
 the north, have been imagined as effects of climate, applica- 
 
STUDY VII. 107 
 
 ble only to foreign nations : but all these distinctions of tem- 
 perament vanish into air before this simple question : Are the 
 turtle-doves of Russia less amorous than those of Asia ; and 
 are the tigers of Asia less ferocious than the white bears of 
 Nova Zembla ] 
 
 Without seeking among men objects of comparison and 
 contrast, from difference of place, we shall find more diver- 
 sity in manners, opinions, habiliments, nay, in physiognomy, 
 between an opera actor and a capuchin friar, than there is 
 between a Swede and a Chinese. What a contrast is the 
 deceitful Greek, fondly attached to life, to the honest Turk, 
 ever devoted to death ! Their extraction, we shall be told, 
 is not the same ; for pride, among us, ascribes a mighty in- 
 fluence to the power of blood. But the greatest part of those 
 janissaries, so formidable to the cowardly Greeks, are fre- 
 quently their own children given in tribute. But in what 
 instance was an inclination to vice or virtue communicated 
 with the blood 1 Pompey, noted for his generosity, was the 
 son of Strabo, infamously notorious for his avarice. Calig- 
 ula, and Agrippina, the mother of Nero, were indeed brother 
 and sister ; but they were the children of Germanicus, the 
 darling hope of Rome. What a difference is even observable 
 in the same man, between his youth and mature age : be- 
 tween Titus, stigmatized as a second Nero, in his youth, and 
 Titus at his death, embalmed with the tears of the Senate and 
 people of Rome, and transmitted to posterity as the delight 
 of mankind 1 
 
 It is not climate, then, which regulates the morality of 
 man ; it is opinion and education ; and which triumph not 
 only over latitude, but even temperament. Neither place, 
 climate, nation, family, temperament, determine men to vice 
 or to virtue : they are everywhere free to choose. 
 
 Before we consider the evils men bring upon themselves, 
 let us attend to those inflicted by the hand of Nature. It is 
 demanded, Why should beasts of prey exist? They are 
 absolutely necessary. But for them the earth would be in- 
 . fested with cadaverous substances. There perishes annually, 
 of a natural death, the twentieth part, at least, of quadrupeds, 
 the tenth part of fowls, and an infinite number of insects. 
 As the rains convey these spoils of the land to the rivers, and 
 thence to the seas, on their shores it is that Nature has col- 
 lected the animals destined to consume them. The fero- 
 
108 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 cious animals descend by night from the mountains, to hunt 
 for prey in this direction ; there are even several classes 
 created expressly for such situations ; as the whole amphi- 
 bious race ; for example, the white bear, the otter, the croco- 
 dile. In hot countries especially, where the effects of corrup- 
 tion are most rapid and dangerous, Nature has multiplied 
 carnivorous animals. Legions of voracious crabs are nestled 
 in their sands ; shell-fish, of innumerable species, pave the 
 borders of their seas ; clouds of sea-fowls hover, with a loud 
 noise, over their shallows, or sail round and round, at the 
 discretion of the waves, in quest of food ; the whole species 
 of cartilaginous fishes, which live only on flesh, such as the 
 long shark, &c., and all the varieties of sea-dogs, swim there 
 in crowds, constantly employed in devouring the wreck of 
 bodies thrown upon the shore. 
 
 The wrecks of all those bodies, after having served for food 
 to the innumerable tribe of fishes, reduced at length into 
 phlegms, oils, bitumens, and united to the pulps of vegetables, 
 which descend from all quarters into the ocean, would repro- 
 duce in its waters a new chaos of putrefaction, did not the 
 currents convey their dissolution to volcanoes, whose fires 
 finish the process of decomposition, and give them back to 
 the elements. 
 
 Animals of prey are by no means an object of terror to man, 
 because most of them roam abroad only in the night. They 
 announce their approach even before it is possible to perceive 
 them. Some savour strongly of musk ; others have shrill 
 and piercing voices, heard by night at a great distance ; others 
 are distinguished by party-coloured spots or streaks, percepti- 
 ble a great way off, on the yellow ground of their skin : all 
 of them have eyes which sparkle in the dark. 
 
 After all, what is their ferocity to us ] Even supposing we 
 were not provided with arms and sagacity far superior to all 
 their cunning, Nature has given us dogs able to combat, nay, 
 to subdue them ; and she has adapted their species to those 
 of animals the most formidable. In the countries where lions 
 are natives, dogs are likewise produced capable of engaging 
 them in single combat. 
 
 The animals formidable to man are more to be feared from 
 their smallness than their magnitude ; there are none, how- 
 ever, but what may be rendered subservient to his benefit. 
 Serpents inhabit humid and unwholesome places, from which 
 
STUDY VII. 109 
 
 they keep us at a distance, more by their hideous figures than 
 their poisons. But there are noxious insects which prey upon 
 our fruits, our corn, nay, our very persons. If snails," May- 
 bugs, caterpillars, and locusts, ravage our plains, it is because 
 we destroy the birds of our groves which live upon them, and 
 would clear our fields, provided the bird-catchers were laid 
 under a prohibition to entrap them, as they do, by whole 
 coveys, in their nets, not to immure them in cages, but to 
 make food of them. 
 
 A fancy was adopted some years ago, in Prussia, to exter- 
 minate sparrows, as inimical to agriculture. Every peasant 
 was subjected to an annual capitation tax of twelve heads of 
 that bird, which were employed in the manufacture of salt- 
 petre, for there nothing is suffered to go to waste. At the 
 end of the second, or at farthest, of the third year, it was dis- 
 covered that insects had devoured their crops, and it was 
 found advisable to invite the sparrows from neighbouring 
 countries, to repeople the kingdom with them. These birds, 
 it is true, do eat corn, when the insects fail them ; but these 
 last, among others the weevil, consume the grain by bushels, 
 nay, by whole granaries. If, however, it were possible to 
 extinguish the whole race of insects, it would be the height 
 of imprudence to set about it ; for we should destroy, along 
 with them, most of the feathered tribes of our plains, which 
 have no other food for their young while in the nest. 
 
 As to the animals which fall upon our corn in the gra- 
 nary, and our woollens in the warehouse, such as rats, mice, 
 mites, moths ; I find that the former are useful in purifying 
 the earth from human excrement, which constitutes a con- 
 siderable part of their food. Besides, Nature has made man 
 a present of the cat, to clear the interior of his habitation 
 from those vermin. She has endowed this animal with un- 
 common agility, with wonderful patience and sagacity, and 
 with a spirit of domesticity perfectly adapted to her employ- 
 ment. 
 
 The weevil and the moth commit great depredations among 
 our grain and woollens ; and it is said the common hen is 
 sufficient to clear the granaries of them : we have, besides, 
 the spider and the swallow, which destroy them when they 
 take wing. I shall here consider only their political utility. 
 On looking into those prodigious magazines where monopo- 
 lizers hoard up the provision and clothing of a whole pro- 
 
110 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 vince, are we not bound to bless the Hand that created the 
 insect which obliges them to bring these necessary commod- 
 ities to market ? Were grain as incorruptible as gold and 
 silver, it would soon become as scarce. The commonalty 
 would be deprived of their subsistence, if it were as little 
 susceptible of change as its representative. The mite and 
 the moth first oblige the miser to employ many hands in stir- 
 ring about and sifting his grain, till they force him at last to 
 dispose of it altogether. How many poor wretches would 
 go naked, if the moth did not devour the wardrobes and 
 warehouses of the rich? It is most wonderful that articles 
 of luxury are not liable to perish by insects, as those subser- 
 vient to the most pressing wants of human life. It is possi- 
 ble to preserve coffee, silk, and cottons, even for ages; but 
 in India, where they are real necessaries of life, the insects 
 quickly corrode them, particularly cotton stuffs. 
 
 The insects which attack the human body equally oblige 
 the rich to employ domestics, to keep up cleanliness around 
 them. The Incas of Peru exacted even this tribute of the 
 poor ; for in all countries these insects attach themselves to 
 man, though it may have been said they did not pass the 
 line. They are rather teazing than noxious, and draw off 
 the bad blood. As they increase only in great heats, they 
 invite us to bathe, so wholesome, yet so much neglected, 
 because being expensive, it is become an object of luxury. 
 
 As to other calamities of Nature's inflicting, man feels 
 their pressure because he deviates from her laws. If storms 
 ravage his orchards and corn-fields, it is because he frequently 
 places them where Nature never intended they should grow. 
 Storms scarcely injure any culture except the injudicious 
 cultivation of man. Forests and natural meadows never 
 suffer in the slightest degree. Besides, they have their util- 
 ity. Thunder-storms purify and cool the air. The hail, 
 with which they are sometimes accompanied, destroys great 
 quantities of hurtful insects ; and hails are frequent only at 
 the season when such insects hatch and multiply, in spring 
 and summer. But for the hurricanes of the torrid zone, the 
 ants ' and locusts would render the islands situated between 
 the tropics totally uninhabitable. 
 
 I have already pointed out the absolute necessity of vol- 
 canoes, whose fires purify the sea, as those of thunder purify 
 the air. Earthquakes proceed from the same cause. Nature 
 
STUDY VII. HI 
 
 communicates previous notices of their effects, and where 
 their foci are situated. The inhabitants of Lisbon know 
 well that their city has been shattered by shocks of this kind, 
 and that it is imprudent to build in stone. To persons who 
 can submit to live in a house of wood, they have nothing- 
 formidable. Earthquakes are not universal; they are local 
 and periodical. 
 
 As to the epidemical maladies of the human race, and the 
 diseases of animals, they are, in general, to be imputed to 
 the effects of the corruption of the waters, from which arise 
 putrid exhalations that infect the air, vegetables, and ani- 
 mals. This may be charged, in almost every instance, on 
 the injudicious labours of man. The most unwholesome 
 regions of the earth are in Asia, on the banks of the Ganges, 
 from which proceed, every year, putrid fevers, that in 1771 
 cost, Bengal the lives of more than a million of men. They 
 have for their focus the rice plantations, which are artificial 
 morasses, formed along the Ganges, for the culture of that 
 grain. After the crop is reaped, the roots and stalks, remain- 
 ing on the ground, rot, and are transformed into infectious 
 puddles, exhaling pestilential vapours. In the view of pre- 
 venting these pernicious consequences, the culture of this 
 plant has been prohibited in many parts of Europe, especially 
 in Russia, round Otzchakof, where it was formerly produced 
 in great quantities. 
 
 From the ancient miry canals of Egypt, the leprosy and 
 pestilence are perpetually issuing forth. In Europe, the salt 
 marshes of Brouage, which the sea-water no longer reaches, 
 and in which the rain waters stagnate, because they are con- 
 fined, are become constant sources of distemper among the 
 cattle. Similar diseases annually issue from the canals of 
 Holland. 
 
 The bad air of Rome, in summer, proceeds from the waters 
 of its ancient aqueducts, which are diffused among the ruins, 
 or have inundated the plains, the levels having been inter- 
 rupted by the magnificent labours of the ancient Romans. 
 The purple fever, dysentery, and small-pox, so common all 
 over our plains, after the heats of summer, or in warm and 
 humid springs, proceed from the puddles of the peasantry, 
 wherein the refuse of plants putrefy. Many of our city dis- 
 tempers issue from the laystalls which surround them, and 
 the cemeteries in and about our churches. 
 
112 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 There would not have been a single unwholesome spot on 
 earth, if men had not put their hands to it. The malignity 
 of the air of St. Domingo, Martinico, Porto-Bello, and sev- 
 eral districts of America, have been quoted, as a natural effect 
 of climate ; but these places have been inhabited by savages, 
 busied in diverting the course of rivers, and choking up rivu- 
 lets, as essential to their defence. They imitate the beavers 
 in the fortification of their villages, by inundating the adja- 
 cent country. I am the more induced to impute to the sa- 
 vages the corruption of the air, so murderous in some of the 
 Antilles, that all the islands found uninhabited were exceed- 
 ingly wholesome. 
 
 As the corruption of the air is a subject peculiarly interest- 
 ing, I shall venture to suggest some simple methods of re- 
 medying it. First, by substituting, in place of the stagnant 
 puddles of our plains, the use of judiciously constructed cis- 
 terns, the waters of which are so salubrious. They are em- 
 ployed all over Asia. Care should be taken to prevent the 
 throwing the bodies and other offal of dead animals into the 
 laystalls of our cities ; they ought to be carried to the rivers, 
 thereby rendered more productive of fish. In the case of 
 cities which are not washed by rivers to carry off the garbage, 
 or if this method is found otherwise inconvenient, attention 
 should be paid, at least, to placing the laystalls only to the 
 north and north-east of such cities, in order to escape, espe- 
 cially during summer, the fetid gusts which pass over them 
 from the south and south-west. 
 
 Secondly, to abstain from digging canals. We are ac- 
 quainted with the maladies resulting from those of Egypt, in 
 the vicinity of Rome, and elsewhere, when care is not taken 
 to keep them in repair. 
 
 Thirdly, the attempts made in France to dry the marshes, 
 have cost many men, and frequently been left incomplete. 
 From the bosom of rotten earth arise putrid emanations, 
 scattering death among the workmen. 
 
 To remedy these inconveniences, I beg leave to observe, 
 that a piece of land covered with water is never unwhole- 
 some ; it becomes so, only when the water evaporates, and 
 exposes to the air the mud of its bottom and sides. The 
 putridity of a morass might be remedied as effectually by 
 transforming it into a lake, as into solid ground. Its situa- 
 tion must determine whether of these two objects is to be 
 
STUDY VII. H3 
 
 preferred. If in a bottom, and without efflux, the indication 
 of Nature ought to be followed up, and the whole covered 
 with water. If there is not enough to form a complete in- 
 undation, ditches might be cut, and the stuff dug out thrown 
 on the adjoining lands. Thus we should have canals 
 always full of water, and little isles both fertile and whole- 
 some. 
 
 Egypt avenges, by the pestilence of her canals, the op- 
 pression of the Turks, who prevent her inhabitants from 
 keeping them in repair. America, sinking under the accu- 
 mulated strokes of Europeans, exhales from her bosom a 
 thousand maladies fatal to Europe, and drags down with 
 her the haughty Spaniard expiring on her ruins. Thus the 
 Centaur left with Deinira his empoisoned robe, as a present 
 fatal to his conqueror: thus the miseries of mankind pass 
 from huts to palaces, from the line to the poles, from age to 
 age ; and their long and lingering effects cry in the ears 01 
 the potentates of the earth ' Learn to be just, and oppress 
 not the miserable.' 
 
 Not only the elements, but reason itself corrupts in the 
 haunts of wretchedness. What torrents of error, fear, super- 
 stition, discord, have broken out in the lower regions of so- 
 ciety, and swelled to the terror and subversion of thrones ! 
 The more that men are oppressed, the more miserable are 
 their oppressors, and the more feeble is the nation which they 
 compose. 
 
 First, from the haunts of misery issue forth prostitutions, 
 thefts, murders, and a multitude of physical evils besides, 
 which, in all countries, are the plagues that tyranny pro- 
 duces. But those of opinion are much more terrible. One 
 man subjugates another, not for his property, but to command 
 his admiration, his reverence. Ambition proposes to itself 
 no boundary short of this. However high his condition, or 
 reduced that of his rival, let him have at his mercy the for- 
 tune, labour, wife, person of his adversary ; he has gained 
 no point unless he has gained his homage. Oppressors are 
 thus the oppressed, becoming the arbiters of their own hap- 
 piness ; and the oppressed paying them back injustice for in- 
 justice, disturb them with false reports, religious terrors, &c., 
 which engender among them jealousies, law-suits, duels, 
 issuing in their total destruction. This reaction of evils upon 
 each other, is in proportion to the ills they bring upon man- 
 P 10* 
 
114 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 kind. On contemplating this tremendous balance, we must 
 acknowledge the existence of Sovereign Justice. 
 
 All governments are internally happy, and respectable 
 abroad, which bestow on their subjects the right of acquiring 
 fortune and honours : and the contrary takes place, when 
 they reserve to a particular class of citizens the benefits which 
 ought to be common to all. When human policy locks the 
 chain round the ankle of a slave, Divine Justice rivets the 
 other end round the neck of the tyrant. 
 
 [The author here enters at large into the benefits and dis- 
 advantages of every form of government, in which we lament 
 the compass of our abridgment will not permit us to follow 
 him. He points out the reaction of equity and felicity, of 
 injustice and misfortune, and traces the calamities of society 
 up to their very source. For the author's beautiful strain of 
 reasoning on the subject, we refer the reader to the original 
 work.] 
 
 Religion is now considered as the concern only of the vul- 
 gar, a mere political contrivance to keep them in order. Our 
 philosophers oppose to it the philosophy of Socrates, Epictetus, 
 and Marcus Aurelius, as if the morality of those sages were 
 less austere than that of JESUS CHRIST, and the benefits to 
 be expected from it better secured than those of the gospel ! 
 What profound knowledge of the heart of man ; what won- 
 derful adaptation to his necessities ; what delicate touches of 
 sensibility, are treasured up in that divine book ! I leave its 
 mysteries out of the question. Part of them, we are told, have 
 been taken from Plato. But Plato himself borrowed them 
 from Egypt, and the Egyptians were indebted for them to the 
 Patriarchs. These mysteries are not more incomprehensible 
 than those of Nature and of our own existence. Besides, in 
 our examination of them we mislead ourselves. We want to 
 penetrate to their source, and are capable only of perceiving 
 their effects. Every supernatural cause is equally impene- 
 trable to man, himself only an effect, a result, a combination 
 for a moment. He cannot judge of divine things according 
 to their nature, but to his own, and from the correspondence 
 they bear to his necessities. 
 
 These testimonies of our weakness, these indications of our 
 heart, being used in the study of religion, we shall find nothing 
 worthy of that name on earth so perfectly adapted to the wants 
 of human nature as the religion of the Bible. I say nothing 
 
STUDY VII. 115 
 
 of the antiquity of its traditions. The poets of most nations 
 have sung the creation, the indiscreet curiosity of the first 
 woman, and the universal deluge, as if they had copied these 
 histories from the book of Genesis. 
 
 To the Mosaic account of the creation, and the recent ex- 
 istence of the world, have been objected the antiquity and 
 multiplicity of lavas in volcanoes. But have these observa- 
 tions been accurately made 1 Volcanoes must have emitted 
 their fiery currents more frequently in the earlier ages, when 
 the earth was more covered with forests, and the ocean, load- 
 ed with vegetable spoils, supplied more abundant matter to 
 their furnaces. Besides, can we distinguish between what 
 is old and modern in thp structure of the world 1 The hand 
 of creation must have manifested the impress of ages upon it 
 from its birth. Were we to suppose it eternal, and abandon- 
 ed to the laws of motion simply, the period must be long past, 
 when there could not have been the smallest rising on its sur- 
 face. The action of the rains, of winds, and of gravity, would 
 have brought down every particle of land to the level of the 
 seas. 
 
 It is not in the works of GOD, but of men, that we can trace 
 epochs. Our monuments announce the late creation of the 
 earth. If it were of high antiquity only, we should, surely, 
 find some productions of human industry much older than 
 three or four thousand years. We have substances on which 
 time makes no very perceptible alteration. I have seen con- 
 stellation-rings of gold, or Egyptian talismans, just come from 
 the hand of the workman. Savages, who know not iron, are 
 acquainted with gold, and search after it, as much for its du- 
 rability, as for its shining colour. Instead, then, of finding 
 antiques of only three or four thousand years, we ought to 
 possess some of sixty, of a hundred, of two hundred thousand 
 years. 
 
 Lucretius, who ascribes the creation of the world to atoms, 
 on a system of physics altogether unintelligible, admits it to 
 be quite a recent production. 
 
 If genial Nature gave the heavens no birth, 
 And from eternal ages roll'd the earth, 
 Why neither wars nor poets sages, tell 
 Till Homer sung how mighty Hector fell ? 
 
 The religious traditions of our Scriptures serve as a founda- 
 
116 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tion to the religion of the Turks, Persians, and Arabians : 
 they extend over the greatest part of Africa: we find them 
 again in India, from whence all nations and all arts originally 
 proceeded : we can trace them in the ancient religion of the 
 Bramins ;* in the history of Brama, or Abraham ; of his wife 
 Sarai, or Sara ; in the incarnations of Wistnou, or of Christ- 
 nou ; in a word, they are diffused even among the savage 
 tribes of America. 
 
 One of the monuments of our religion universally diffused, 
 inexplicable on the principles of physics, proves a general 
 deluge, by the wrecks of marine bodies scattered over the 
 globe ; another, irreconcilable to the laws of our politics, 
 attests the reprobation of the Jews, dispersed, hated, despised, 
 persecuted, without government or country ; nevertheless, 
 always numerous, subsisting, and tenacious of their law. 
 Certain illustrious authors have stated these supernatural 
 proofs of a Divine Justice, in a very striking light. I shall 
 satisfy myself with adducing a few still more affecting, from 
 their correspondence to Nature and the necessities of mankind. 
 
 The morality of the Gospel has been challenged, because 
 JESUS CHRIST permitted a legion of demons to take posses- 
 sion of 2000 swine, which were precipitated into the sea and 
 choked. c Why,' ask the objectors, ' ruin the proprietors of 
 those animals T JESUS CHRIST acted in this as a legislator. 
 The owners of the swine were Jews ; they transgressed, 
 therefore, the law which declares those animals unclean. 
 But here again starts up a new objection, levelled at Moses, 
 * Why are those animals pronounced unclean V Because, 
 in the climate of Judea they are subject to the leprosy. But 
 here is a fresh triumph to our wits. ' The law of Moses,' 
 say they, c was, then, relative to climate, consequently, a 
 mere political institution.' To this I answer, that if I found, 
 in either the Old Testament or the New, any usage not rela- 
 tive to the laws of Nature, I should be still more astonished. 
 It is the character of a religion, divinely inspired, to be per- 
 fectly adapted to the happiness of man, and the laws enacted 
 by the AUTHOR of Nature. From this want of correspondence 
 false religions may be detected ; and as to the point in ques- 
 tion, the law of Moses, from its privations, was evidently 
 intended to be the law of a particular people ; whereas that 
 
 * See Rogers's History of the Manners of the Bramins. 
 
STUDY VII. 117 
 
 of the Gospel, from its universality, must have been intended 
 for the whole human race. 
 
 Paganism, Judaism, Mahometanism, have all prohibited 
 the use of certain species of animal food ; so that if one of 
 those religions should become universal, it would produce 
 either total destruction or unbounded multiplication, in evi- 
 dent violation of the plan of creation. The Jews and Turks 
 proscribe pork ; the Indians of the Ganges reverence the 
 heifer and the peacock. Not an animal exists but would 
 serve as a feticha to some negro, or a manitou to some savage. 
 The Christian religion alone permits the necessary use of all 
 animals ; and prescribes abstinence from those of the land 
 only at the season when they are procreating, and when those 
 of the sea abound on the shores. 
 
 All religions have filled their temples with carnage, and 
 immolated to DEITY the life of the brute creation. The 
 Bramins themselves, so compassionate to beasts, present to 
 their idols the blood and life of men. The Turks offer in 
 sacrifice camels and sheep. Our religion, more pure, if we 
 attend merely to the matter of the sacrifice, presents in 
 homage to GOD bread and wine, the most delicious gifts 
 bestowed on man. Nay, the vine is the most widely diffused 
 of all fruit-trees ; corn is almost the only alimentary plant 
 which thrives in all climates ; the liquor of the one, and the 
 flour of the other, is capable of being preserved for ages, and 
 transported to every corner of the earth. 
 
 All religions have admitted a plurality of women in mar- 
 riage : Christianity but one. All have boasted of their gene- 
 alogies, and, regarding with contempt most other nations, 
 have permitted their votaries to reduce them to a state of 
 slavery. Ours alone has protected the liberty of all men, 
 calling them back to the same destination and origin. The 
 religion of the Indians promises pleasure in this world ; that 
 of the Jews, riches ; that of the Turks, conquests ; but ours 
 enjoins the practice of virtue, and its reward heaven. Chris- 
 tianity alone knew our unbounded passions were of divine 
 original. It has not limited love in the heart of man, to wife 
 and children, but extends it to all mankind : it circumscribes 
 not ambition to the sphere of a party, to the glory of one 
 nation, but has directed it to heaven and immortality : our 
 religion intended that our passions should minister as wings 
 to our virtue. It diffuses charms ineffable over innocence, 
 
118 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and communicates a divine majesty to grief. So far from 
 uniting us on earth, to render us miserable, she bursts the 
 chains by which we are held captive. How many calamities 
 has she soothed ! how many tears wiped away ! how many 
 hopes inspired, when there was no longer room for hope ! 
 how many doors of mercy thrown open to the guilty ! how 
 many supports given to innocence ! If religion was designed 
 only for the consolation of the miserable, it was of course 
 designed to promote that of the human race ! 
 
 Were the Christian religion producing universally its native 
 effects, the earth would be a paradise. Christianity has abo- 
 lished slavery in the greatest part of Europe. It wrested, in 
 France, enormous possessions from the earls and barons, and 
 destroyed a part of their inhuman rights by the terrors of a 
 life to come. But the people opposed another bulwark to 
 tyranny, viz. the power of the women. 
 
 Our historians remark the influence women have had 
 under certain reigns, but never that of the sex in general. 
 They are nothing in their eyes unless decorated with titles. 
 It was, however, from this feeble division of society that 
 Providence, from time to time, called forth those who have 
 defended the nation from internal foes, more formidable than 
 foreign assailants. Hear what the good Plutarch says on 
 the subject : ' Before the Gauls had passed the Alps, and 
 got possession of Italy, a violent sedition arose, which issued 
 in a civil war. But their wives, the two armies being on the 
 point of engaging, threw themselves into the intervening 
 space, and taking up the cause of their dissension, discussed 
 it with so much wisdom, moderation, and equity, that they 
 gave complete satisfaction to both parties. The result was 
 a unanimous return to cordial friendship, reuniting city to 
 city, and family to family ; so that ever since they consult 
 their wives respecting war or peace, and settle all differences 
 with neighbours and allies conformably to the advice of the 
 women.' 
 
 The power of the women proceeds from their oppression. 
 The commonalty, as oppressed as they, gave them their 
 confidence, as they had given theirs to the people. Both 
 parties were wretched, but misery attracted them to each 
 other. They decided equitably, as they had nothing to gain 
 or lose. To the women we must ascribe the taste for rail- 
 lery, which has at all times characterized our nation. With 
 
STUDY VII. 119 
 
 a song simply they have often made our tyrants tremble, 
 and by them ridicule has acquired a prodigious influence in 
 France, though the armour only of the weak, because women 
 are the first to use it ; and as, from national prejudice, their 
 esteem is the first of blessings, their contempt must be the 
 most grievous calamity imaginable. 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu having restored to kings the legislative 
 authority, thereby stripped the nobility of the power of injur- 
 ing each other by civil wars ; but he could not abolish their 
 rage for duelling, because the root of this prejudice is in the 
 people, and edicts have no power over their opinions when 
 they are oppressed. The edict of the prince prohibits the 
 gentleman to meet his antagonist in single combat, and the 
 opinion of his valet-de-chambre forces him out. The nobility 
 arrogate to themselves all the national honour, but the people 
 determine the object of it, and allot its proportions. Gold, 
 however, has levelled every rival influence, and triumphed 
 over even the power of women. 
 
 As most men are shocked at abuses, only by seeing them 
 in detail, because every thing great dazzles and commands 
 respect, I shall here produce a few instances of the effect of 
 venality in the lower orders of society. All the subaltern 
 conditions which naturally rank under others, of right, are 
 become the superiors, in fact, merely because they are the 
 richer. Accordingly, it is the apothecary, now-a-days, who 
 has the employing of the physician ; the attorney of the ad- 
 vocate ; the handicraft of the merchant ; the master-mason 
 of the architect ; the bookseller of the scholar, even those of 
 the academy ; the chair-hirer in church of the preacher, &c. 
 It is easy to see to what all this leads. From this venality 
 alone must ensue the decline of all talents. 
 
 The nobility having preserved a part of their privileges in 
 the country, trades-people, possessed of fortune, do not choose 
 to live there, for fear of being exposed to insult or confounded 
 with the peasantry. They like better to live in small cities, 
 in indolence and listlessness, than to vivify the fields which 
 degrade their cultivators. Hence small landed estates sink 
 in value, and are falling into the hands of the great proprie- 
 tors. If wealthy families were permitted to purchase the 
 lands lying commodiously for them, such bargains would 
 speedily become fatal to the state. I have often been aston- 
 ished that there is no law in France to prevent the un- 
 
120 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 bounded accumulation of landed property. The Romans had 
 censors, who limited the extent of a man's possessions to 
 seven acres, as being sufficient for the subsistence of one fa- 
 mily. By the word acre, was understood as much land as a 
 yoke of oxen could plough in one day. As Rome increased 
 in luxury, it was extended to 500 : but even this law was 
 soon infringed, and the infraction hurried forward the ruin of 
 the republic. 
 
 Conquerors have always met with feeble resistance in 
 countries where property is unequally divided. Overgrown 
 estates destroy the spirit of patriotism in those who have every 
 thing and those who have nothing. ' The shocks of corn,' said 
 Xenophon, ( inspire those who raise them, with courage to 
 defend them. The sight of them in the fields is as a prize ex- 
 hibited in the middle of the theatre to crown the conqueror.' 
 
 Such is the danger to which excessive accumulation of 
 property exposes a state outwardly; but the internal mischief 
 it produces among the citizens, and on the state of lands, is 
 not less to be deplored. It is not upon the face of vast do- 
 minions, but in the bosom of industry, that the FATHER of 
 mankind pours out the precious fruits of the earth. 
 
 Enormous property causes poverty all over the kingdom, 
 for the very same reason which has procured it the eulogium 
 of many of our writers, namely, that it spares men the labours 
 of agriculture. In many places there is no employment for 
 the peasantry during a great part of the year ; but I shall in- 
 sist only on their wretchedness, which seems to increase with 
 the riches of the district they inhabit. 
 
 The district of Caux is the most fertile country in the world. 
 Agriculture, on the great scale, is there carried to the height 
 of perfection ; but as the laws have there assigned in every 
 family two-thirds of the landed property to the first-born, you 
 find unbounded affluence on the one hand, and extreme indi- 
 gence on the other. 
 
 I happened one day to be walking through this fine coun- 
 try, admiring as I went its plains, so well cultivated and so 
 extensive, that the eye loses itself in the unbounded pros- 
 pect. It was in the month of March, and very early in the 
 morning. It blew extremely cold from the north-east. I 
 perceived something red running across the fields, about a 
 quarter of a league before me. I got up in time to see that 
 they were two little girls in red jackets and wooden shoes, 
 
STUDY VII. 121 
 
 who were scrambling through the ditch which bounded the 
 road. The tallest, about six or seven years old, was crying 
 bitterly. * Child,' said I, ' what makes you cry, and whithei 
 are you going at so early an hour ]' ' Sir,' replied she, my 
 poor mother is veiy ill. There is not a mess of broth to be 
 had in all our parish. We are going to that church in the 
 bottom, to try if the cure of this parish can find us some. I 
 am crying because my little sister is not able to walk any 
 farther.' As she spake she wiped her eyes with a bit of can- 
 vass, which served her for a petticoat. On her raising up 
 the rag to her face, I could perceive that she had not the sem- 
 blance of a shift. The abject misery of the children, in the 
 midst of plains so fruitful, wrung my heart. The relief which 
 I could administer was small indeed. I myself was then on 
 my way to see misery in other forms. Indeed the number of 
 wretches in the best cantons of this province amount to a 
 fourth, nay, to a third of the inhabitants in every parish ; and 
 many other provinces of the kingdom are incomparably worse 
 than Normandy. 
 
 The spirit of finance has accumulated all these woes on the 
 heads of the people, by stripping them of the means of sub- 
 sistence, and sapping the foundations of their morality. The 
 people usually balance the vices of their oppressors by their 
 own, opposing corruption to corruption. From the prolific 
 womb of vulgar debauchery issue buffoons, comedians, deal- 
 ers in luxury, nay, even men of letters, who, to flatter the 
 rich, and save themselves from indigence, extend dissipation 
 of manners and opinions to the extremity of Europe. In the 
 class of the unmarried vulgar we find the most powerful bul- 
 wark opposed to rank and wealth. This numerous body 
 comprehends not only the youth of both sexes, but those who, 
 from peculiarity of condition, are deprived of the honours of 
 society and the first pleasures of Nature ; an association which 
 has all reputations at their mercy, disturbing the peace of 
 families at their will. These persons retail for a dinner that 
 inexhaustible collection of anecdotes, favourable or unfavour- 
 able, which are in every instance to regulate public opinion. 
 
 A rich man cannot marry a handsome wife, nor enjoy him- 
 self at home in his own way ; those persons oblige him, unless 
 he would be laughed at, to make his wife the central point of 
 all fashionable society ; he must adopt the manners which 
 his plebeian dictators prescribe, however contradictory to 
 
 Q 11 
 
STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Nature, however inconsistent with conjugal felicity. While 
 they dispose of the reputation and pleasures of the rich, two 
 of the columns attack their fortune in front; one employs 
 intimidation, the other seduction. 
 
 My present reflections shall not be confined to the power 
 and wealth acquired by several religious orders, but extend 
 to their number in general. Politicians pretend that France 
 would become too populous were there no convents in it. 
 Are England and Holland over-peopled, where there are 
 none 1 It betrays, besides, little acquaintance with the 
 resources of Nature. The more inhabitants a country con- 
 tains, the more productive it is. France could maintain, per- 
 haps, four times more people than it now contains, if par- 
 celled out into small freeholds. We must not form our judg- 
 ment of its fertility from its immense domains. Those vast 
 deserted districts yield only one crop in two years, or, at most, 
 two in three. But with how many crops and men are small 
 tenements covered ! I have seen, in the same field, cherry- 
 trees growing in potato-beds ; vines clambering up the 
 cherry-trees, and lofty walnut-trees rising above the vines ; 
 four crops, one above another, within the earth, upon the 
 earth, and in the air, even in the meadow land of St. Ger- 
 vais, near Paris. In a word every species of vegetable is 
 there produced by the industry of cultivation. 
 
 Here a young rustic, with a basket and ladder, mounts a 
 fruit-tree, like another Vertumnus ; while some young girl, 
 in the adjoining valley, sings her song loud enough to be 
 heard by him, presenting the image of another Pomona. If 
 cruel prejudices have stricken with sterility and solitude a 
 considerable part of France, and have henceforth allotted the 
 possession of a great kingdom to a little handful of proprietors, 
 how is it that, instead of founders of new orders, founders of 
 new colonies do not arise among us, as among the Egyptians 
 and the Greeks *? Shall France never have to boast of an 
 Inachus and of a Danaus 1 Why do we force the African 
 tribes to cultivate our lands in America, while our starving 
 peasantry want employment at home ] Why not transport 
 thither our poor by families ; children, old men, lovers, cous- 
 ins, nay, the very churches and saints of our villages, that, 
 they may find in those far distant lands the loves and the 
 illusions of a country. Ah ! had liberty and equality been 
 invited to those regions where Nature does so much with 
 
STUDY VII. 123 
 
 moderate cultivation, the cottages of the New World would, 
 at this day, have been preferable to the palaces of the Old. 
 
 Politicians consider war as necessary to a state, because, as 
 they pretend, it takes off the superflux of mankind. In 
 general they have a very limited knowledge of human nature. 
 Independent of the resources of the subdivision of property, 
 which multiplies the fruits of the earth, there is no country 
 but what has the means of emigration within its reach, espe- 
 cially since the discovery of the New World. Besides, even 
 the best peopled states contain immense tracts of uncultivated 
 land. China and Bengal are, I believe, the countries on the 
 globe which contain most inhabitants. In China', neverthe- 
 less, are many and extensive deserts, amidst its finest prov- 
 inces, because avarice attracts their cultivators to the vicinity 
 of great rivers and cities, for the conveniency of commerce. 
 Many enlightened travellers have made this observation. 
 
 Generally to the excessive number of bachelors may be 
 ascribed that of profligate women ; they are in exact propor- 
 tion to each other. This evil, too, is the effect of a natural 
 reaction. As the two sexes are born and die in nearly equal 
 numbers, every man comes into the world and leaves it in 
 company with his female. He, therefore, who prefers celi- 
 bacy to marriage, dooms a female to a single life. The ec- 
 clesiastical order robs the sex of so many husbands, and the 
 social order deprives them of the means of subsistence ; our 
 manufactures and machinery have swallowed up almost all 
 the arts by which they were formerly enabled to earn a live- 
 lihood. I do not speak of those who knit stockings, embroider, 
 weave, &c. employments which in better times so many 
 worthy matrons followed, but are now entirely engrossed by 
 persons bred to the business ; but we have, forsooth ! tailors, 
 shoemakers, male hair-dressers for the ladies. We have 
 men-milliners, dealers in linen, gauze, muslin, gum-flowers. 
 Men are not ashamed to assume the easy and commodious 
 occupation, leaving to the poor women the rougher and more 
 laborious. We have female dealers in cattle, in pigs ; others 
 who vend bricks and navigate barges ; some even labour in 
 quarries. 
 
 We meet multitudes in Paris sweating under an enormous 
 load of linen, under heavy water-pails, blacking shoes on the 
 quays ; others yoked, like beasts, to little carts. Thus the 
 sexes unsex themselves ; the men dwindle into females, the 
 
124 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 women harden into men. Females, in truth, would rather 
 turn their charms to account than their strength. But what 
 mischief is every day produced by women of the town ! What 
 conjugal infidelity, what domestic plunder, do they occasion ! 
 Scarcely has night begun to spread her curtain, when every 
 street, every place of resort, swarms with them ; at every cor- 
 ner they lie in wait for their prey. Kept mistresses loll it 
 away to the opera in magnificent equipages, every one ol 
 them bent on melting down a fortune. It is thus GOD pun- 
 ishes the oppressors of a people by the oppressed. 
 
 An attempt has lately been made to encourage virtue in 
 our poor country girls, by festivals called rose-feasts ; when 
 our Paris trades-people crown our rustic vestals, and con- 
 descend likewise to permit the youthful peasants to eat at the 
 same table with themselves for that day ; for the rich, and 
 our city dames in business, do not put themselves on a level 
 with the female peasantry, even at the foot of the altar. 
 But you who bestow crowns on virtue, are you not afraid of 
 blighting the prize by your touch 1 Noble and generous 
 effort ! They bestow a garland of roses upon indigent 
 virtue in the country, while in the city vice flaunts about 
 glittering with diamonds. 
 
 On the other hand, the punishments of guilt appear as 
 injudiciously adjusted as the rewards of virtue. We too 
 frequently hear these terrible words, The sentence of condemna- 
 tion ! but never, The sentence of reward. Crimes are repressed 
 by infamous punishments. A simple brand inflicted, instead 
 of reforming the criminal, frequently plunges him deeper in 
 guilt, and often drives his family into vicious courses. Where 
 can an unhappy wretch find refuge, who has been publicly 
 whipped, branded, and drummed out 1 Necessity has made 
 him a thief ; indignation and despair will hurry him on to 
 murder. His relations, dishonoured in the public estimation, 
 abandon their homes, and become vagabonds. His sisters 
 give themselves up to prostitution. 
 
 These effects of the fear which the hangman impresses on 
 the lower orders, are considered as prejudices salutary to 
 them, but they produce unspeakable mischief. The vulgar 
 extend them to actions the most indifferent, and convert 
 them into bitter aggravations of misery, not from a sense of 
 honour, nor even from the shame of guilt, but only to the 
 species of punishment. The decapitation of a man for trea- 
 
STUDY VII. 125 
 
 son, or his being shot for desertion, are considered as no 
 stigma on his family. The people, sunk below their level, 
 despise that only which is peculiar to themselves, and show 
 no pity in their decisions, because they are miserable. 
 
 The wretchedness of the lower orders is, therefore, the 
 principal source of our physical and moral maladies. There 
 is another, no less fertile in mischief, I mean the education 
 of children. This branch of political economy engaged, 
 among the ancients, the attention of the greatest legislators ; 
 with us education has no manner of reference to the consti- 
 tution of the state. In early life are formed the inclinations 
 and aversions which influence the whole of our existence. 
 Our first affections are likewise the last ; they accompany us 
 through life, reappear in old age, and then revive the sensi- 
 bilities of childhood with still greater force than those of 
 mature age. 
 
 Wise Nature, in giving so much more force to early habits, 
 intended that our happiness should depend on those most 
 concerned to promote it our parents ; for on the affections 
 they at that season inspire depends the affection we are one 
 day called upon to return. But with us, as soon as the child 
 is born, he is transferred to a mercenary nurse. The first 
 bond Nature intended should attach him to his parents is 
 burst asunder before it is formed. The day will come, per- 
 haps, when he will behold the funeral procession of those 
 who gave him birth leave his father's door with as much 
 indifference as they saw his cradle turned out. He may be 
 recalled home, it is true, at the age when the graces, when 
 innocence, when the necessity of having an object of affection, 
 should fix him there for ever. But he is permitted to taste 
 those sweets only to make him feel, in a little while, the 
 bitterness of losing them. He is sent to school, and boarded 
 far from home. There he is doomed to shed tears which no 
 maternal hand is ever more to wipe away ; there he is to 
 form friendships with strangers pregnant with regret and 
 repentance ; and there he must learn to extinguish the 
 natural affections of brother, sister, father, and mother, the 
 most powerful and the sweetest chains by which Nature 
 attaches us to our country. 
 
 After this first horrid outrage committed on his young 
 heart, others equally violent are offered to his understanding. 
 His tender memory must be loaded with ablatives, conjunc- 
 
 11* 
 
126 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tions, conjugations. The blossom of human life Is sacrificed 
 to the metaphysical jargon of a dead language. What 
 Frenchman could submit to the torture of learning his own 
 in that manner ? And if there be those who have exercised 
 such laborious patience, do they speak better than persons 
 who have never endured such drudgery ] Who writes best, 
 a lady of the court, or a pedantic grammarian ? To learn to 
 speak by grammar rules, is the same thing with learning to 
 walk by the laws of equilibrium. Practice teaches the gram- 
 mar of a language, and the passions are our best instructors 
 in the rhetoric of it. A period of life all fire and activity is 
 thus repressed by an unnatural constraint, transforming it 
 into a state, sad, sedentary, and speculative, which has a 
 dismal influence on the temperament, by ingrafting upon it 
 maladies without number. 
 
 Of love and ambition, the two moving principles of the 
 human heart, the last is by far the most durable and danger- 
 ous. It dies last in the aged, and our education puts it pre- 
 maturely in motion in the young. It would be infinitely 
 better to assist them in directing their early tender affections 
 toward an amiable object. Most men are destined to feel the 
 power of this gentle passion, which Nature has made the 
 firmest cement of society. If their age forbid a commerce 
 of early love, their affections ought to be directed into the 
 channel of friendship, and thus battalions of friends might 
 be formed among them, prepared to devote themselves in the 
 service of their country.* 
 
 Ambition, give it what specious name you please, is the 
 sworn enemy of all virtue, the source of the most dangerous 
 and detestable vices, every one being disposed to gratify it in 
 his own way. It is forbidden by Nature and Religion. But 
 emulation, we are told, awakens talents. It would be easy 
 to demonstrate that the most celebrated writers, in every 
 walk of literature, never were brought up at college, from 
 Homer, acquainted with no language but his own, down to 
 J. J. Rousseau, who was a very indifferent Latin scholar. 
 How many young men have made a brilliant figure in the 
 run of the classes, who were by and by totally eclipsed in the 
 vast sphere of literature ! Italy is crowded with colleges 
 
 * Children, at Sparta, were taught only to obey, to love virtue, to love their 
 country, and to live in the most intimate union, till they were divided in their 
 schools into two classes, of Lovers and Beloved. 
 
STUDY VII. 127 
 
 and academies ; but can she boast, at this day, of so much 
 as one man eminently distinguished 1 Do we not see there, 
 on the contrary, talents distracted, by ill-assorted societies, 
 jealousies, cabals, intrigues, and ambition, become enfeebled 
 and melt away 1 
 
 I think I perceive another reason of this decline ; nothing 
 is studied in those seminaries but methods and forms of learn- 
 ing, or what is called manner. This study, by fixing us in 
 the track of a master, forces us out of the path of Nature, the 
 source of all talents. Observe the arts brought to the high- 
 est perfection in France, and you will find they are those for 
 which there is no public school, no prize, no academy ; such 
 as milliners, jewellers, hair-dressers, cooks, &c. We have, it 
 is true, men of high reputation in the liberal arts, and in the 
 sciences ; but these men acquired their talents before they 
 were admitted into academies. But admitting that talents 
 are formed in colleges, they would not for that be less pre- 
 judicial to the nation ; for it is more important that a country 
 should possess virtue than talents, and that men should be 
 happy than renowned. A treacherous glare covers the vices 
 of those who succeed in our colleges. But in the multitude 
 who never succeed, all the vices of a negative ambition are 
 already in a state of fermentation, and prepared to burst forth, 
 at the command of their leader, upon the world. 
 
 After having elevated a poor boy above his equals, by the 
 title of emperor, and even above the whole human race, by 
 that of son of the church, he is cruelly brought low by rigor- 
 ous and degrading punishments.* I have seen, at college, 
 many a pretty creature, ready to swoon with pain, receive on 
 their little hands a dozen sharp strokes ; and by the infliction 
 of this punishment, the skin separated from the tip of their 
 fingers. What shall be said of those infamous punishments, 
 which produce a disgraceful effect on the morals of both 
 scholars and regents 1 It is impossible to enter on this sub- 
 ject without putting modesty to the blush. And yet they 
 are employed by priests ! 
 
 Our children, subverted by the vices of a faulty education, 
 
 * Consult Monta^ne's Essays, book i. chap. 25. Montagne was one of those 
 men not educated at college. He was instructed without tasting corporal pun- 
 ishment, and without emulation, under the paternal roof, by the gentlest of 
 fathers, and by preceptors whose memory he has preciously embalmed in his 
 writings. He became, by means of an education diametrically opposite to 
 ours, one of the beet and most intelligent men of the nation. 
 
128 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 become false reasoners, knavish, hypocritical, envious, ugly, 
 and wicked. In proportion as they increase in age, they in- 
 crease also in malignity and the spirit of contradiction. Not 
 a schoolboy knows any thing of the laws of his country, but 
 some may have heard talk about those of the twelve tables. 
 No one of them can tell how our own wars are conducted ; 
 but many can entertain you with those of the Greeks and 
 Romans. They all know single combat is prohibited; yet 
 many go to the fencing-schools, where the only thing taught 
 is to fight duels. 
 
 Others, destined to functions more peaceful, are put to 
 school to learn the art of disputation. Truth, we are gravely 
 told, is struck out of the collision of opinions. Out of dis- 
 putations have arisen sophisms, paradoxes, errors of every 
 kind. Truth never shows her face before tyrants ; and 
 every man who disputes would be a tyrant if he could. The 
 light of truth has no resemblance to the fatal coruscations 
 of thunder, but to the brightness of the sun when heaven is 
 without a cloud. 
 
 I shall not follow our youth into the world, where he would 
 be sufficiently unhappy, supposing him to have preserved 
 only that fear of blame and desire of commendation under 
 which his studies were conducted. Influenced by the opinion 
 of another, himself possessing no steady principle, the silliest 
 of women will rule over him with more unbounded empire 
 than his professor. All I plead for is, that children should 
 be delivered, at least, from that tedious apprenticeship of 
 misery, by which they are depraved, at the happiest and 
 most amiable period of their existence, and which has after- 
 ward so much influence on their characters. Man is born 
 good, society renders him wicked, and our mode of educa- 
 tion prepares the way for it. 
 
 Trace the history of a villain's life, and we shall find his 
 infancy has been miserable. Where children were unhappy, 
 I have observed them wicked and ugly ; but where I saw 
 them happy, they were beautiful and good. In Holland and 
 Flanders, where they are brought up with the greatest gen- 
 tleness, their beauty is singularly remarkable. You never 
 hear them, as in our cities, uttering loud and bitter cries ; 
 still less are they threatened with the rod by their mothers 
 and nurses ; they are not gay, but contented. You observe 
 on their countenance an air of tranquillity and satisfaction 
 
STUDY VII. 129 
 
 perfectly enchanting, and infinitely more interesting 1 than 
 the boisterous mirth of our young- people, when they are no 
 longer under the eye of their fathers or preceptors. 
 
 This calmness diffused over all their actions, is the source 
 of a happy composure during their whole life. I never saw 
 any country where parental tenderness was so strikingly ex- 
 pressed ; the children repay in their old age the indulgence 
 with which they were treated in helpless infancy. By bonds 
 so endearing are those people so powerfully attached to their 
 country, that we find very few of them settling among stran- 
 gers. With us, fathers like better to see children sprightly 
 than good, because in an ambitious society, spirit raises man 
 to the head of a party, but goodness makes dupes. They 
 have epigrams composed by their children ; but wit being 
 only the perception of the relations of society, children scarcely 
 ever have any but what is borrowed. Wit itself is frequently, 
 in them, the proof of a miserable existence, as may be re- 
 marked in the schoolboys of our cities, who usually are 
 sprightlier than the children of the peasantry ; but in gene- 
 ral they are all forward in point of feeling ; and this reflects 
 great blame on those who degrade them, at an age when they 
 feel more delicately than men. 
 
 Affecting instances of sensibility are not unfrequent in the 
 children of the common people. Walking through the Pre St. 
 Gervais, about the setting in of winter, I observed a poor wo- 
 man, lying along the ground, weeding a bed of sorrel ; close by 
 her was a little girl, of six years old at most, standing motion- 
 less and quite impurpled with the cold. I addressed myself 
 to the woman, who was indisposed, and inquired into the 
 nature of her malady. ' Sir,' said she, c for three months past, 
 I have suffered severely from the rheumatism ; but my dis- 
 ease gives me less pain than that poor child does : she will 
 not quit me a single moment. If I say to her, See, you are 
 quite benumbed with cold, go and warm yourself ; she replies, 
 Alas ! mother, if 1 leave you, your complaints will be your 
 only companion.' 
 
 Another time, being in the park at Marly, I there found 
 three children, two little girls, employed with singular activity 
 in picking up the scattered sticks of dry wood, which they 
 deposited in a basket, and a little boy, all in tatters, and ex- 
 tremely lean, devouring a morsel of bread. I asked the tall- 
 est what she intended to do with the wood ; she replied, 
 R 
 
130 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 ' Look, sir, at that poor boy ; he is very miserable ! He is 
 so unfortunate as to have a step-mother, who sends him out, 
 all day long, to pick up wood : if he carries none home, he 
 is beaten severely ; when he happens to have got a little, and 
 is carrying it off, the Swiss at the park gate takes it from 
 him, and applies it to his own use. He is half dead with 
 hunger, and we have given him our breakfast.' Having thus 
 spoken, she and her companion filled the little basket ; helped 
 him up with it on his back, and ran away before their unhappy 
 friend to the gate of the park, to see if he could pass unmo- 
 lested. 
 
 Foolish instructors ! Human nature, you tell us, is cor- 
 rupted : yes, but you are the persons who corrupt it by con- 
 tradictions, by unprofitable studies, by dangerous ambition, 
 by shameful chastisements : and by an equitable reaction of 
 Divine Justice, that feeble and unfortunate generation will 
 one day give back to that which oppresses it, all the mischief 
 which it first received. 
 
 STUDY EIGHTH. 
 
 REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST A DIVINE PROVIDENCE, 
 AND THE HOPES OF A LIFE TO COME, FOUNDED ON THE IN- 
 COMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD, AND ON THE MISERIES 
 OF A PRESENT STATE. 
 
 * WHAT avails it me,' some one will say, { that my tyrants 
 are punished, if I am still to be the victim of tyranny ? Is it 
 possible that such compensations should be the work of GOD ? 
 Great philosophers, who have devoted their whole life to the 
 study of Nature, have refused to acknowledge its Author. 
 Who hath seen GOD at any time 1 What is it that constitutes 
 GOD ] But taking it for granted that an intelligent Being 
 directs the affairs of this universe, man assuredly is abandon- 
 ed to himself : no hand has traced his career : as far as he is 
 concerned, there are, apparently, two Deities ; the one invit- 
 ing him to unbounded enjoyment, and the other dooming him 
 to endless privation ; one God of Nature, and another God of 
 Religion. Man is left totally uncertain whether of the two 
 he is bound to please ; and whatever be the choice which he 
 
STUDY VIII. 131 
 
 is determined to make, how can he tell whether he is render- 
 ing himself an object of love or of hatred 1 
 
 6 His virtue itself fills him with doubts and scruples; it ren- 
 ders him miserable, both inwardly and outwardly ; it reduces 
 him to a state of perpetual warfare with himself, and with 
 the world, to the interests of which he is obliged to make a 
 sacrifice of himself. If he is chaste, the world calls him im- 
 potent ; if religious, he is accounted silly ; if he discovers be- 
 nignity of disposition, it is because he wants courage ; if he 
 devotes himself for the good of his country, he is fanatic ; if 
 simple, he is duped ; if modest, he is supplanted ; everywhere 
 he is derided, betrayed, despised, now by the philosopher, and 
 now by the devotee. On what foundation can he build the 
 hope of a recompense for so many struggles and mortifica- 
 tions 1 On a life to come ? What assurance has he of its ex- 
 istence? Where is the traveller that ever returned from 
 thence ? 
 
 * What is the soul of man? Where was it a hundred years 
 ago] Where will it be a century hence 1 It expands with 
 the senses, and expires when they expire. What becomes of 
 it in sleep, in a lethargy 1 It is the illusion of pride to ima- 
 gine it immortal : Nature universally points to death, in his 
 monuments, in his appetites, in his loves, in his friendships : 
 man is universally reduced to the necessity of drawing a veil 
 over this idea. In order to live less miserable, he ought to 
 divert himself, that is, as the word literally imports, he ought 
 to turn aside from that dismal perspective of woes which Na- 
 ture is presenting to him on every side. To what hopeless 
 labours has she not subjected his miserable life ? The beasts 
 of the field are a thousand times happier ; clothed, lodged, 
 fed by the hand of Nature, they give themselves up without 
 solicitude to the indulgence of their passions, and finish their 
 career without any presentiment of death, and without any 
 fear of an hereafter. 
 
 ' If there be a GOD who presides over the destiny of all, he 
 must be inimical to the felicity of the human race. What is 
 it to me that the earth is clothed with vegetables, if I have 
 not the shade of a single tree at my disposal ? Of what im- 
 portance to me are the laws of harmony and of love, which 
 govern Nature, if I behold around me only objects faithless 
 and deceiving ; or if my fortune, my condition, my religion, 
 impose celibacy upon me ? The general felicity diffused over 
 
 
132 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the earth, serves only as a bitter aggravation of my particular 
 wretchedness. What interest is it possible for me to take in 
 the wisdom of an arrangement which renovates all things, 
 if, as a consequence of that very arrangement, I feel myself 
 sinking, and ready to be lost for ever ? One single wretch 
 might arraign Providence, and say with Job the Arabian, 
 chap. iii. 20, Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, 
 and life unto the bitter in soul ? Alas ! the appearances of hap- 
 piness have been disclosed to the view of man, only to over- 
 whelm him with despair of ever attaining it. If a GOD, 
 intelligent and beneficent, governs Nature, diabolical spirits 
 direct and confound at least the affairs of the children of men.' 
 
 I shall, first, reply to the principal authorities on which 
 some of these objections are supported. They are extracted, 
 in part, from a celebrated poet, and a learned philosopher, 
 namely, Lucretius and Pliny. 
 
 Lucretius has clothed the philosophy of Empedocles and 
 Epicurus in very beautiful verses. His imagery is enchant- 
 ing; but that philosophy of atoms, which adhere to each 
 other by chance, is so completely absurd, that wherever it 
 appears, the beauty of the poetry is impaired. To what, we 
 may ask him, do those primary atoms, out of which you con- 
 struct the elements of Nature, owe their existence 1 Who 
 communicated to them the first movement ] How is it pos- 
 sible they should have given to the aggregation of a great 
 number of bodies, a spirit of life, a sensibility, and a will, 
 which they themselves possessed not ? 
 
 If you believe, with Leibnitz, that those monads, or unities, 
 have perceptions peculiar to themselves, you give up the 
 laws of chance, and must allow to the elements of Nature 
 the intelligence you refuse to its AUTHOR. Descartes has 
 subjected those impalpable principles to the laws of an inge- 
 nious geometry ; and after him, the herd of philosophers, 
 seduced by the facility of erecting all sorts of systems with 
 the same materials, have applied to them, by turns, the laws 
 of attraction, of fermentation, of crystallization ; but all with- 
 out success. 
 
 Lucretius has thought proper to pursue a method still 
 more strange, namely, that in a work, the professed object 
 of which is to materialize the Deity, he sets out with deifying 
 matter. He has given way to this universal principle, that 
 we find it impossible powerfully to interest mankind, what- 
 
STUDY VIII. 133 
 
 ever be the object, without presenting to the mind some of 
 the attributes of Deity. On this hypothesis, therefore, in his 
 first book De Rerum Natura, he deifies Venus ; ascribes to 
 her the creation of the world ; addresses prayers, and bestows 
 on her person the epithet of sacred ; he invests her with the 
 character of goodness, justice, intelligence, and power, which 
 belongs to GOD only ; in a word, the attributes are so exactly 
 the same, that, suppressing only the word Venus, in the 
 invocation of his poem, you may apply it almost entirely to 
 the Divine Wisdom. He is constrained to admit, in the 
 sequel of his poem, that this goddess, so wonderfully bene- 
 ficent, is directly chargeable with the ruin of health, of for- 
 tune, and, sooner or later, with the loss of reputation : that, 
 from the very lap of the pleasures which she bestows, there 
 issues a something which im bitters enjoyment, torments a 
 man, and renders him miserable. 
 
 Pliny takes the directly opposite course. In the very 
 threshold of his Natural History, he affirms there is no God, 
 and the whole work is an elaborate demonstration of the 
 being of GOD. His authority must be of considerable weight, 
 as it is not that of a poet to whom opinions are a matter of 
 indifference, provided he can produce a striking picture ; nor 
 that of a sectary, obstinately determined to support a party, 
 whatever violence may be done to conscience ; nor, finally, 
 that of a flatterer, making his court to vicious princes. Pliny 
 wrote under the virtuous Titus, and dedicated his book to 
 him. He carries to such a height the love of truth, and 
 contempt of the glory of the age in which he lived, as to 
 condemn the victories of Caesar, in Rome itself, and when 
 addressing a Roman emperor. He is replete with humanity 
 and virtue ; and exposes the cruelty of masters to their slaves, 
 the luxury of the great, nay, the dissolute conduct of several 
 empresses. He sometimes pronounces the panegyric of good 
 men ; and exalts even above the inventors of arts persons 
 who have rendered themselves illustrious by their continency, 
 modesty, and piety. 
 
 His work is a combination of brilliancies, a real encyclo- 
 pedia, containing the history of the knowledge and the errors 
 of his time. These last are sometimes imputed to him 
 unjustly, for he frequently brings them forward in the view 
 of refuting them. The physicians and apothecaries, who 
 have extracted many of their prescriptions from him, abuse 
 
134 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 him, because he finds fault with their conjectural art and 
 systematic spirit. He abounds, besides, in curious informa- 
 tion, in profound views, and interesting traditions ; and what 
 renders his performance invaluable, he uniformly expresses 
 himself in a picturesque manner. With all this taste, judg- 
 ment, and knowledge, Pliny is an atheist. Nature, from 
 whom he has derived such various intelligence, may address 
 him in the words of Caesar to Brutus : What, 'you too, my son ! 
 
 If I may be permitted to say it, in justification of Pliny, 
 I believe his immortal work to be falsified, where he is made 
 to reason as an atheist. All his commentators agree that 
 no author has suffered more from the unfaithfulness of tran- 
 scribers than he has done ; that copies of his Natural History 
 exist in which whole chapters are entirely different. I shall 
 here observe, that the writings of the ancients have passed 
 through more than one unfaithful language, nay worse, 
 more than one suspicious hand. They have met with the 
 fate of their monuments, among which their temples have 
 been most of all degraded. Their books have also been 
 mutilated, chiefly in passages favourable to religion, or the 
 reverse. An instance of this we have in the transcription of 
 Cicero's Treatise on the Nature of the Gods, in which the 
 objections against Providence are omitted. 
 
 Montagne upbraids the first Christians with having sup- 
 pressed, on account of four or five articles which contradicted 
 their creed, a part of the works of Cornelius Tacitus, * though 
 the emperor Tacitus, his relation, had, by his express edicts, 
 furnished all the libraries in the world with them.'* 
 
 In our own days, every party exerts itself to run down the 
 reputation and opinions opposed to it. Mankind is, in the 
 hands of religion and philosophy, like the old man in the 
 fable, between two dames of different ages. They had both 
 a mind to trim his locks, each in her own way. The younger 
 picked out all the white hairs, which she could not bear ; the 
 old one, for an opposite reason, removed the black ; conse- 
 quently his head was speedily reduced to complete baldness. 
 
 It is impossible to adduce a more satisfactory demonstra- 
 tion of this ancient infidelity of the two parties, than an inter- 
 polation to be found in the writings of Flavins Josephus, who 
 was contemporary with Pliny. He is made to say, in so 
 
 * Essays, book ii. chap. xix. 
 
STUDY VIII. 135 
 
 many words, that the Messiah was just born ; and he con- 
 tinues his narration, to the end of a voluminous history, 
 without once referring to this wonderful event. How can it 
 be believed that Josephus, who frequently indulges himself 
 in a tedious detail of minute circumstances, should not have 
 reverted a thousand and a thousand times to a birth so deeply 
 interesting to his nation, considering that its very destiny 
 was involved in that event, and that even the destruction of 
 Jerusalem was only one of the consequences of the death of 
 JESUS CHRIST ? He, on the contrary, perverts the meaning 
 of the prophecies which announce Him, applying them to 
 Vespasian and Titus ; for he, as well as the other Jews, 
 expected a Messiah triumphant. Besides, had Josephus be- 
 lieved in CHRIST, would he not have embraced his religion! 
 
 For a similar reason, is it credible that Pliny should com- 
 mence his Natural History with denying the existence of GOD, 
 and afterwards fill every page of it with expatiating on the 
 wisdom, goodness, providence,- and majesty of Nature ; on 
 the presages and premonitions, sent expressly from the gods ; 
 and even on the miracles divinely operated through the me- 
 dium of dreams ] 
 
 Certain savage tribes have been adduced as examples of 
 atheism, and every sequestered corner of the globe has been 
 for this purpose explored. But obscure tribes were no more 
 intended to serve as an example to the human race, than cer- 
 tain mean and obscure families among ourselves could be 
 proposed as proper models to the nation ; especially when the 
 object is to support by authority an opinion necessarily sub- 
 versive of all society. Besides, such assertions are abso- 
 lutely false. I have read the history of voyages from which 
 they are extracted! The travellers acknowledge they had 
 but a transient view of those people, and were totally unac- 
 quainted with their languages. They supposed there could 
 be no religion among them, because they saw no temples ; as 
 if any other temple were necessary to the belief in GOD than 
 that of Nature ! These same travellers contradict them- 
 selves, by relating that those nations, elsewhere represented 
 as destitute of all religion, make obeisance to the moon, by 
 prostrating themselves to the earth, or lifting up their hands 
 to heaven : that they pay respect to the memory of their 
 forefathers, and place viands on their tombs. The immor- 
 
136 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tality of the soul, admitted how you will, necessarily sup- 
 poses the existence of GOD. 
 
 But if the first of all truths stood in need of testimony from 
 men, we could collect that of the whole human race, from 
 geniuses the most exalted, down to the lawest state of igno- 
 rance. This unanimity of testimony is of irresistible weight ; 
 for it is impossible that such a thing should exist on the earth 
 as universal error. 
 
 Newton, who pursued his researches into the laws of 
 Nature so profoundly, never pronounced the name of GOD 
 without moving his hat, and otherwise expressing the most 
 devout respect. He took pleasure in recalling this sublime 
 idea, and considered it as the natural bond of union among 
 all nations. Corneille le Bruyn, the Dutch painter, relates, 
 that happening to dine one day at his table, in company with 
 several other foreigners, Newton, when the desert was served 
 up, proposed a health to the men of every country who be- 
 lieve in GOD. This was drinking the health of the human 
 race. A belief in GOD arises from the spectacle of Nature 
 simply. A poor ignorant Arabian of the desert was one day 
 asked, How he came to be assured there was a God ? ' In 
 the same way,' he replied, ' that I am able to tell by the print 
 impressed on the sand whether it was a man or a beast which 
 passed that way.'* 
 
 Man, as has been said, cannot imagine any form, or pro- 
 duce a single idea, of which the model is not in Nature. He 
 expands his reason only on the reasons Nature has supplied. 
 GOD must, therefore, necessarily exist, were it but for this, 
 that man has an idea of him. But if we attentively consider 
 that every thing necessary to man exists in a most wonder- 
 ful adaptation to his necessities, for the strongest of all reasons 
 GOD likewise must exist, He who is the universal adaptation 
 of all the societies of the human race. 
 
 But I should wish to know, in what way those who doubt 
 of his existence, on a review of the works of Nature, would 
 desire to be assured of it 1 Do they wish he should appear 
 under a human form, and assume the figure of an old man, 
 as he is painted in some of our churches 1 They would say, 
 this is a man. Were He to invest himself with some unknown 
 and celestial form, could we in a human body support the 
 
 * Travels through Arabia, by Mons. d' Arvieux. 
 
STUDY VIII. 137 
 
 sight ? The complete and unveiled display of even a single 
 one of his works on the earth would be sufficient to confound 
 our feeble organs. For example, if the earth wheels around 
 its axis, as is supposed, there is not a human being in exist- 
 ence, who, from a fixed point in the heavens, could view the 
 rapidity of its motion without horror ; for he would behold 
 rivers, oceans, kingdoms, whirling about under his feet with 
 a velocity almost thrice as great as a cannon-ball. But even 
 the swiftness of this diurnal rotation is a mere nothing : for 
 the rapidity with which the globe describes its annual circle, 
 and hurls us round the sun, is seventy-five times greater than 
 that of a bullet shot from the cannon. Were it but possible 
 for the eye to view through the skin the mechanism of our 
 own body, the sight would overwhelm us. Durst we make 
 a single movement if we saw our blood circulating, the nerves 
 pulling, the lungs blowing, the humours filtrating, and all the 
 incomprehensible assemblage of fibres, tubes, pumps, currents, 
 pivots, which sustain an existence at once so frail and so pre- 
 sumptuous? 
 
 Would we wish, on the contrary, that GOD should manifest 
 himself in a manner more adapted to his own nature, by the 
 direct and immediate communication of his intelligence, to 
 the exclusion of every intervenient mean ? 
 
 When some striking truth or affecting sentiment impresses 
 an audience at a theatre, some are melted into tears, others 
 almost choked with an oppressed respiration, others quite in 
 a transport, clapping their hands, and stamping with their 
 feet ; the females in the boxes actually fainting away. Were 
 these violent agitations of spirit to go on progressively but for 
 a few minutes only, the persons subject to them might lose 
 their reason, perhaps life. What would be the case, then, if 
 the Source of all truth and feeling were to communicate him- 
 self to us in a mortal body? GOD has placed us at a suitable 
 distance from his infinite Majesty ; near enough to perceive, 
 but not so near as to be annihilated by it. He veils intelli- 
 gence under the forms of matter, and He restores our confi- 
 dence respecting the movements of the material world by the 
 sentiment of his intelligence. If at any time he is pleased 
 to communicate himself in a more intimate manner, it is not 
 through the channel of haughty science, but through that of 
 modest virtue. He discloses himself to the simple, and hides 
 his face from the proud. 
 
 S 12* 
 
 
138 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 * But,' it is asked, ' what made GOD 1 Why should there 
 be a God ]' Am I to call in question his existence because I 
 am incapable of comprehending his origin 1 This style of 
 reasoning would lead us to conclude that man does not exist: 
 for, Who made man ] Why should there be men ] Why am 
 I in the world in the eighteenth century 1 Why did I not 
 arrive in some of the ages which went before ] and, Where- 
 fore should I not be here in those which are to come 1 The 
 existence of GOD is at all times necessary, and that of men 
 only contingent. Nay, the existence of man is the only ap- 
 parently superfluous existence in the order established upon 
 earth. Many islands have been discovered without inhabit- 
 ants, which presented abodes the most enchanting, from the 
 disposition of the valleys, of the waters, of the woods, of the 
 animals. Man alone deranges the plans of Nature : he diverts 
 the current from the fountain ; he digs into the side of the 
 hill ; he sets the forest on fire ; he massacres without mercy 
 every thing that breathes ; everywhere he degrades the earth, 
 which could do very well without him. 
 
 The harmony of this globe would be partially destroyed, 
 perhaps entirely so, were but the smallest genus of plants to 
 be suppressed ; for its annihilation would leave a certain 
 space of ground destitute of verdure, and thereby rob of its 
 nourishment the species of insect which there found the 
 support of life. The destruction of the insect again would 
 involve that of the species of bird which in these alone finds 
 the food proper for their young ; and so on to infinity. The 
 total ruin of the vegetable and animal kingdoms might take 
 its rise from the failure of a single moss, as we may see that 
 of an edifice commence in a small crevice. But if the human 
 race existed not, it would be impossible to suppose that any 
 thing had been deranged : every brook, every plant, every 
 animal, would always be in its place. Indolent and haughty 
 philosopher, who presumest to demand of Nature wherefore 
 there should be a God, why demandest thou not rather 
 wherefore there should be men ? 
 
 All his works speak of their AUTHOR. The plain which 
 gradually escapes from my eye, and the capacious vault of 
 heaven which encompasses me on every side, convey to me 
 an idea of his immensity ; the fruits suspended on the bough 
 within reach of my hand, announce his providential care ; the 
 constant revolution of the seasons display his wisdom ; the 
 
 
STUDY VIII. 
 
 variety of provision which his bounty makes, in every climate, 
 for the wants of every thing that lives, the stately port of the 
 forests, the soft verdure of the meadow, the grouping of plants, 
 the perfume and enamel of flowers, an infinite multitude of 
 harmonies, known and unknown, are the magnificent lan- 
 guages which speak of Him to all men in a thousand and a 
 thousand different dialects. Nay, the very order of Nature 
 is superfluous : GOD is the only being whom disorder invokes, 
 and whom human weakness announces. In order to attain 
 the knowledge of his attributes, we need only have a feeling 
 of our own imperfections. 
 
 Man has given nothing to himself, he has received all. 
 But I should consider it an insult to the understanding of my 
 reader, were I to insist longer on the proofs of the existence 
 of GOD. I shall now reply to the objections against his good- 
 ness. 
 
 The laws which govern man are derived from the same 
 plan of wisdom which has constructed the universe. Man is 
 not a being of a nature perfectly simple. Virtue, which ought 
 to be the great object of his pursuit on earth, is an effort which 
 he makes over himself for the good of mankind, in the pleas- 
 ing view of GOD only. It proposes to him the Divine Wis- 
 dom as a model, and presents the most secure and unerring 
 path to happiness. Study Nature, and you will perceive that 
 nothing can be more adapted to the felicity of man, and that 
 virtue carries her reward in her bosom, even in this world. 
 
 Let us not complain that GOD has made an unfair distribu- 
 tion of his gifts, when we see the abundance in which bad 
 men live. Whatever is on the earth most useful, beautiful, 
 and best, is within the reach of every man. Obscurity is bet- 
 ter than glory, and virtue than talents. The light of the sun, 
 a little field, a wife and children, are sufficient to employ a 
 succession of pleasures to him. Must he have luxuries too ? 
 A flower presents him colours more lovely than the pearl 
 dragged from the abysses of the ocean; and a burning coal 
 on his hearth has a brighter lustre, and is infinitely more use- 
 ful, than the famous gem which glitters on the head of the 
 Grand Mogul. 
 
 After all, What did GOD owe to man 1 Water from the 
 fountain, a little fruit, wool to clothe him, as much land as 
 he is able to cultivate with his own hands. So much for the 
 wants of his body. As to those of the soul, it is sufficient 
 
140 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 for him to possess in infancy the love of his parents ; in 
 maturity that of his wife ; in old age the gratitude of his 
 children ; at all seasons the good will of his neighbours, the 
 number of whom is restricted to four or five, according to the 
 extent and form of his domain ; so much knowledge of the 
 globe as he can acquire by rambling about for half a day, 
 so as to get home to his own bed at night, or, at most, to the 
 extremity of his domestic horizon ; such a sense of Provi- 
 dence as Nature bestows on all men, and which will spring 
 up in his heart fully as well after he has made the circuit of 
 his own field, as after returning from a voyage round the 
 world. 
 
 With corporeal enjoyments and mental gratifications like 
 these he ought to be content; whatever more he desires is 
 above his wants, and inconsistent with the distributions of 
 Nature. He cannot acquire superfluity but by the sacrifice 
 of some necessary ; public consideration he must purchase 
 at the price of domestic happiness ; and a name in the world 
 of science by renouncing his repose. Besides, these honours, 
 attendants, riches, that submission, men so eagerly hunt after, 
 are desired unjustly : a man cannot obtain them but by 
 plundering and enslaving his fellow -citizens : their acqui- 
 sition exposes to incredible labour and anxiety, the possession 
 is disturbed by incessant care, and privation tears the heart 
 with regret. By pretended blessings such as these, health, 
 reason, conscience, all, is depraved and lost. 
 
 Virtuous persons, in truth, are sometimes destitute not only 
 of the blessings of society, but of those of Nature. To this 
 I answer, that their calamities frequently are beneficial to 
 them. When persecuted by the world, they are usually in- 
 cited to engage in some illustrious career. Affliction is the 
 path of great talents, or of great virtues, which are infinitely 
 preferable. 
 
 A resignation to the will of GOD ought in every situation 
 to sooth the soul to peace. But if the illusions of a vain 
 world should ruffle our spirit, let me suggest a consideration 
 which may go far toward restoring our tranquillity. When 
 any thing in Nature bears hard upon us, and inspires mistrust 
 of its AUTHOR, let us suppose an order of things contrary to 
 that which galls us, and we shall find a multitude of conse- 
 quences resulting from this hypothesis that would involve 
 much greater evils than those of which we complain. If 
 
STUDY VIII. 141 
 
 you wish to justify the order of Nature, it is sufficient to de- 
 viate from it ; and, in order to refute all human systems, no- 
 thing more is necessary than to admit them. 
 
 For example, complaints are made of death : but if men 
 were not to die, What would become of their posterity ] Long 
 before now there would not have been room for them on the 
 earth. Death, therefore, is a benefit. Men complain of the 
 necessity of labouring : but unless they laboured, How could 
 they pass their time *? The reputedly happy of the age, who 
 have nothing to do, are at a loss how to employ it. Labour, 
 therefore, is a benefit. Men envy the beasts the instinct 
 which guides them : but if, from their birth, they knew, like 
 them, all that they ever are to know, What should they do 
 in the world 1 They would saunter through it without inter- 
 est or curiosity. Ignorance, therefore, is a benefit. 
 
 The other ills of Nature are equally necessary. Pain of 
 body and vexation of spirit are barriers erected by Nature to 
 prevent our deviating from her laws. But for pain bodies 
 would be broken to pieces on the slightest shock ; but for 
 chagrin the mind would become the victim of every sickly 
 appetite. Diseases are the efforts of temperaments to purge 
 oft some noxious humour. Nature employs disease not to 
 destroy the body, but to preserve it ; it is ever the conse- 
 quence of some violation of her laws, physical and moral. 
 The remedy is frequently obtained by leaving her to act in 
 her own way. The regimen of aliments restores our health 
 of body, and that of men, tranquillity of mind. Whatever 
 opinions disturb our repose in society, they almost always 
 vanish in solitude. Sleep itself dispels our chagrin more 
 gently and infallibly than a book of morals. If our distresses 
 are such as to break our rest, they may be mitigated by hav- 
 ing recourse to GOD. Here is the central point towards 
 which all the paths of human life converge. Prosperity, at 
 all seasons, invites us to his presence, but adversity leaves us 
 no choice. 
 
 The evils of society are no part of the plan of Nature, but 
 they demonstrate the existence of another order of things : 
 for is it natural to imagine, that the BEING good and just, 
 who has disposed every thing on earth to promote the happi- 
 ness of man, will permit him to be deprived of it without 
 punishing the wretch who dared to counteract his gracious 
 designs ? Will He do nothing in behalf of the virtuous but 
 
142 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 unfortunate man, whose constant study was to please him, 
 when he has loaded with blessings so many miscreants who 
 abuse them 1 After having displayed a bounty which has 
 met with no return, will he fail in executing necessary jus- 
 tice ? 
 
 ' But,' we are told, e every thing dies with us. Here we 
 ought to believe our own experience ; we were nothing be- 
 fore our birth, and we shall be nothing after death.' I adopt 
 the analogy ; but if I take my point of comparison from the 
 moment I was nothing, and when I came into existence, 
 what becomes of this argument ] Is not one positive proof 
 better than all the negative proofs in the world ] You con- 
 clude from an unknown past to an unknown future to per- 
 petuate the nothingness of man ; and I, for my part, deduce 
 my consequence from the present which I know, to the fu- 
 ture which I do not know, as an assurance of this future 
 existence. I proceed on the presumption of a goodness and 
 a justice to come, from the instances of goodness and justice 
 which I see actually diffused over the universe. 
 
 Besides, if we have in our present state the desire and 
 presentiment only of a life to come ; and if no one ever 
 returned thence to give -us information concerning it, the 
 reason is, a proof more sensible would be inconsistent with the 
 nature of our present life on the earth. Evidence on this point 
 must involve the same inconveniences with that of the ex- 
 istence of GOD. Were we assured by some sensible demon- 
 stration that a world to come was prepared for us, I have the 
 fullest conviction that all the pursuits of this world would 
 from that instant be abandoned. The passage from the 
 one world to the other being in every man's power, the 
 gulf would be quickly shot : but Nature has involved it in 
 obscurity, and planted doubt and apprehension to guard the 
 
 It would appear, we are told by some, that the idea of the 
 immortality of the soul could arise only from the speculations 
 of men of genius, who, considering the combination of this 
 universe, and the connexion which present scenes have with 
 those which preceded them, must have thence concluded that 
 they had a necessary connexion with futurity; or else that 
 this idea of immortality was introduced by legislators to con- 
 Bole mankind under the pressure of their political injustice. 
 But if this were the case, how could it have found its way 
 
 
STUDY VIII. 143 
 
 into the desert?, and been diffused at once, over the islands 
 of the South Seas and Lapland, over Asia and North Amer- 
 ica, among the inhabitants of Paris and those of the New 
 Hebrides 1 How is it possible that so many nations, separated 
 by vast oceans, so different in manners and in language, 
 should all believe in the immortality of the soul ] Whence 
 could they have derived a belief so flatly contradicted by 
 their daily experience ] They every day see their friends 
 die, but the day never comes when any one reappears. 
 
 Shall we be told that pride cherishes this fond opinion in 
 their breasts 1 What, is it pride that induces a wretched ne- 
 gro in the West Indies to hang himself, in the hope of return- 
 ing to his own country, where a second state of slavery awaits 
 him 1 Other nations, such as the islanders of Otaheite, re- 
 strict the hope of this immortality to a renovation of precisely 
 the same life they are going to leave. Ah ! the passions 
 present to rnan far different plans of felicity ; the miseries of 
 his existence, and the illumination of his reason, would long 
 ago have destroyed the life that is, had not the hope of a life 
 to come been, in the human breast, the result of a super- 
 natural feeling. 
 
 But wherefore is man the only one of the animals subjected 
 to other evils than those of Nature 1 Wherefore should he 
 have been abandoned to himself, disposed as he is to go 
 astray? He is, therefore, the victim of some malignant 
 being. 
 
 It is the province of religion to take us up where philoso- 
 phy leaves us. The nature of the ills we endure unfolds 
 their origin. If man renders himself unhappy, it is because 
 he would himself be the arbiter of his own felicity. Man is 
 a god in exile. The reign of Saturn, the Golden Age, Pan- 
 dora's box, from which issued every evil, at the bottom of 
 which hope only remained : a thousand similar allegories, 
 diffused over all nations, attest the felicity and the fall of a 
 first man. 
 
 But there is no need to have recourse to foreign testimo- 
 nies. We carry the most unquestionable evidence in our- 
 selves. The beauties of Nature bear witness to the existence 
 of GOD, and the miseries of man confirm the truths of re- 
 ligion. Animals are lodged, clothed, fed, by the hand of 
 Nature, without care, and almost without labour. Man alone 
 is overwhelmed with calamity. First, he is born naked ; 
 
144 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and is possessed of so little instinct, that if his mother were 
 not to rear him for several years he would perish of hunger, 
 heat, or cold. He knows nothing but from the experience 
 of his parents. They must find him a place to lodge, weave 
 garments for him, provide his food for eight or ten years. 
 Encomiums have been passed on certain countries for their 
 fertility and mildness of climate, but I know of none where 
 subsistence of the simplest kind does not cost man solicitude 
 and labour. In India he must be sheltered from heat, from 
 rain, and from insects. He must there cultivate rice, weed, 
 thrash, shell, and dress it. The banana, useful as it is, must 
 be watered and hedged round, to secure it from the wild 
 beasts. Magazines of provisions must be provided during 
 those seasons when the earth produces nothing. When man 
 has thus collected around him every thing necessary to a 
 quiet and comfortable life, ambition, jealousy, avarice, glut- 
 tony, incontinency, or langour, take possession of his heart. 
 He perishes, the victim of his own passions. Undoubtedly 
 to have sunk thus below the level of the beasts, man must 
 have aspired at an equality with the DEITY. 
 
 Wretched mortals ! Seek your happiness in virtue, and 
 you will have no ground of complaint against Nature. De- 
 spise that useless knowledge, those unreasonable prejudices, 
 which have corrupted the earth, and which every age sub- 
 verts in its turn. Love those laws which are eternal. Your 
 destiny is not abandoned to chance, nor to mischievous de- 
 mons. Recall those times, the recollection of which is still 
 fresh among all nations. The brute creation everywhere 
 found the means of supporting life ; man alone had neither 
 aliment, nor clothing, nor instinct. 
 
 Divine Wisdom left man to himself, in order to bring him 
 back to GOD. She scattered her blessings over the earth, 
 that to gather them he might explore every region of it ; that 
 he might expand his reason by the inspection of her works, 
 and that he might love her from a sense of benefits. She 
 placed between herself and him harmless pleasures, raptur- 
 ous discoveries, pure delights, and endless hopes, to lead him 
 to herself through the path of knowledge and happiness. 
 She fenced his way on both sides, by fear, languor, remorse, 
 pain, and all the ills of life, as boundaries destined to prevent 
 him from losing himself. The mother thus scatters fruit 
 along the ground to induce her children to learn to walk ; 
 
STUDY VIII. 145 
 
 she keeps at a little distance, smiles, calls, stretches out her 
 arms towards him ; but if he happens to fall, she flies to his 
 assistance, wipes away his tears, and comforts him. 
 
 Thus Providence relieves man, supplying* his wants in a 
 thousand extraordinary ways. What would have become 
 of him in the earliest ages, had he been abandoned to his own 
 reason, still unaided by experience] Where found he corn, 
 a principal part of the food of so many nations, and which 
 the earth, while it spontaneously produces all sorts of plants, 
 nowhere exhibits ? Who taught him agriculture, an art so 
 simple that the most stupid of mankind is capable of learning 
 it, and yet so sublime, that the most intelligent of animals 
 can never pretend to practise it 1 There is scarcely an ani- 
 mal but what supports its life by vegetables, no one but 
 what has daily experience of their reproduction, and does not 
 employ, in quest of those that suit him, many more combi- 
 nations than would have been necessary for resowing them. 
 
 But on what did man himself subsist till an Isis or a Ceres 
 revealed to him this blessing of the skies ] Who showed him, 
 in the first ages of the world, the original fruits of the orchard, 
 scattered over the forest, and the alimentary roots concealed 
 in the bosom of the earth 1 Must he not have died of hunger 
 before he had collected a sufficiency to support life, or perished 
 by poison before he had learned to select, or sunk under 
 fatigue or restlessness before he had formed round his habita- 
 tion grass-plots and arbours 1 This art, the image of creation, 
 was reserved for that being alone who bore the impression of 
 the Divinity. 
 
 If Providence had abandoned man to himself, on proceed- 
 ing from the hands of the Creator, what would have become 
 of him ] Could he have said to the plains : Ye unknown 
 forests, show me the fruits, my inheritance ? Earth, open, 
 and disclose, in the roots buried under thy surface, my des- 
 tined aliment ] Ye plants, on which my life depends, mani- 
 fest to me your qualities, and supply the instinct which Nature 
 has denied ? Could he have had recourse, in his distress, to 
 the compassion of the beasts, and, ready to perish with hunger, 
 have said to the cow : Take me into the number of thy chil- 
 dren, and let me share, with thy offspring, the produce of one 
 of thy superfluous teats 1 When the north wind made him 
 shiver with cold, would the wild goat and timid sheep have 
 run at his call to warm him with their fleeces ? Wandering, 
 T 13 
 
146 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 without a protector or asylum, when he heard by night the 
 howlings of ferocious animals demanding their prey, could 
 he have made supplication to the generous dog, and said to 
 him : Be thou my defender, and I will make thee my slave ] 
 Who could have subjected to his authority so many animals 
 which stood in no need of him, which surpassed him in cun- 
 ning, in speed, in strength, unless the hand which, notwith- 
 standing his fall, destined him still to empire, had humbled 
 their heads to the obedience of his will ? 
 
 How was it possible for him, with reason less infallible 
 than their instinct, to raise himself up to the heavens, mea- 
 sure the course of the stars, cross the ocean, call down the 
 thunder, and imitate most of the works and appearances of 
 Nature ? We are astonished at these things now ; but I am 
 much rather astonished that a sense of Deity should have 
 spoken to his heart long before a comprehension of the works 
 of Nature had perfected his understanding. View him in 
 the state of nature, engaged in perpetual war with the ele- 
 ments, with beasts of prey, with his fellow-creatures, with 
 himself; frequently reduced to situations of subjection no 
 other animal could possibly support ; and he is the only being 
 who discovers, in the very depth of misery, the character of 
 infinity, and the restlessness of immortality. He erects 
 trophies, engraves the record of his achievements on the 
 bark of trees, celebrates his funeral obsequies, and puts 
 reverence on the ashes of his forefathers, from whom he has 
 received an inheritance so fatal. 
 
 Agitated by the rage of love or vengeance, when he is not 
 the victim of his fellow-men, he is their tyrant : and he alone 
 knows that justice and goodness govern the world, and that 
 virtue exalts man to heaven. He receives from his cradle 
 none of the presents of Nature, no soft fleece, no plumage, 
 no defensive armour, no tool, for a life so painful and so 
 laborious ; and he is the only being who invites the gods to 
 his birth, to his nuptials, and to his funeral obsequies. 
 
 However far he may have been misled by extravagant 
 opinions, as often as he is struck by unexpected bursts of joy 
 or grief, his soul, by an involuntary movement, takes refuge in 
 the bosom of Deity. He cries out : Ah, my GOD ! He raises 
 to heaven suppliant hands, and eyes bathed with tears, in 
 hope of there finding a father. Ah ! the wants of man bear 
 witness to the providence of a Supreme Being. He has made 
 
STUDY IX. 
 
 147 
 
 man feeble and ignorant, only that he may stay himself on 
 his strength, and illuminate himself by his light ; and so far 
 is it from being true, that chance or malignant spirits domi- 
 neer over a world, where every thing concurred to destroy a 
 creature so wretched, his preservation, his enjoyments, and 
 his empire, demonstrate that, at all times, a beneficent GOD 
 has been the friend and protector of human life. 
 
 STUDY NINTH. 
 
 OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE METHODS OP OUR REASON, AND 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF OUR SCIENCES. 
 
 I HAVE hitherto displayed the immensity of the study of 
 Nature, and proposed new plans to assist our idea of the order 
 established in her various kingdoms : but, checked by my 
 own incapacity, all I could presume to promise was a slight 
 sketch of what exists in the vegetable order. Before I pro- 
 ceeded to lay down new principles on this subject, I thought 
 myself called upon to refute those prejudices which the world 
 and our sciences might have diffused over Nature. 
 
 I have combated our natural sciences as far only as system 
 is concerned : I give them full credit on the side of observa- 
 tion. Besides, I highly respect those who devote themselves 
 to the pursuit of science. I know nothing more estimable, 
 next to the virtuous man, than the man of real knowledge, 
 if it be possible to separate the sciences from virtue. What 
 sacrifices does not the cultivation of them demand ! While 
 the herd of mankind is growing rich and renowned by agri- 
 culture, commerce, navigation, and the arts, those who clear- 
 ed the way for the rest lived in indigence, unknown to, and 
 disregarded by, their contemporaries. The man of science, 
 like the torch, illuminates all around him, and remains him- 
 self in obscurity. 
 
 I have attacked neither the learned, whom I honour, nor 
 the sciences, my consolation through life : but had time per- 
 mitted, I would have disputed every inch of ground with our 
 methods and systems. They have thrown us into such a va- 
 riety of absurd opinions, in every branch of scientific research, 
 that our libraries contain more error than information. The 
 
148 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 mischief they produce might easily be checked, by arranging 
 side by side all the books which contradict themselves ; and 
 as these are almost infinite in number, the result of human 
 knowledge, as far as they convey it, will be reduced almost 
 to nothing. 
 
 Our very methods of acquiring knowledge delude us into 
 error. To succeed in the search of truth we ought to be ex- 
 empted from the influence of passion ; and yet, from infancy, 
 the passions are wilfully set afloat, and reason receives an im- 
 proper bias. This maxim is laid down as the fundamental 
 basis of all conduct and opinion, Make your fortune. The 
 effect is, we prize nothing but what relates to this appetite. 
 Even natural truths vanish, because we no longer contem- 
 plate Nature, except in machines or books. 
 
 That we may believe in GOD, some person of consequence 
 must assure us there is one. If Fenelon says it is so, we ad- 
 mit it, because he was preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy, 
 an archbishop, a man of quality, and addressed by the title 
 my lord. We are convinced of the existence of GOD by the 
 arguments of Fenelon, because his credit reflects some upon 
 ourselves. I do not mean to affirm that his virtue contributed 
 nothing to the force of his reasoning : but no farther than as 
 it is connected with his reputation and fortune ; for were we 
 to meet this same virtue in a water-porter, its lustre would 
 fade in our eyes. To no purpose would such a one furnish 
 proofs of the existence of a GOD, more unanswerable than all 
 the speculations of philosophy, in a life labouring under con- 
 tempt, exhibiting uniform probity and fortitude, and passed 
 in perfect resignation to the will of the Supreme : these tes- 
 timonies are of no consideration with us ; we estimate their 
 importance from the celebrity they have acquired. 
 
 But should a period come, when men of high reputation, 
 in favour with powerful princes, deny the existence of GOD ; 
 from the same effect of our education, which engaged us to 
 believe in Him, on. the faith of Fenelon, we would renounce 
 our belief on the credit of the others. Thus our education 
 warps us, disposing us indifferently to preach the Gospel or 
 the Alcoran, according as they best suit our interest. 
 
 Most of the laws we have presumed to assign to Nature 
 have been deduced from our weakness or pride. We have 
 settled it, for instance, that the sun must be in the centre of 
 the planets, to regulate their motion, because we place our- 
 
STUDY IX. 149 
 
 selves in that of our personal concerns, to keep an eye over 
 them. But if, in the case of the celestial spheres, the centre 
 naturally belongs to the most considerable bodies, how comes 
 it that Saturn and Jupiter, much larger than our globe, should 
 be at the extremity of our vortex 1 
 
 1 do not reject our planetary system, such as it is given us ; 
 but I admit it for the reason which at first suggested it, from 
 its being best adapted to the weakness of my body and mind. 
 I find that the daily rotation of the earth saves the sun a pro- 
 digious journey ; but, in other respects, I do not believe this 
 system is that of Nature, nor that she has disclosed the causes 
 of motion to men, incapable of accounting for the movement 
 of their own fingers. 
 
 I beg leave to suggest some farther probabilities in favour 
 of the sun's motion round the earth. ' The astronomers of 
 Greenwich having discovered that a star of Taurus has a 
 declination of two minutes every 24 hours ; that this star not 
 being dim, and having no train, cannot be considered as a 
 comet, communicated their observations to the astronomers of 
 Paris, who found them accurate. M. Messier was appointed 
 to make a report of this to the Academy of Sciences at their 
 next meeting.'* 
 
 If the stars are suns, here then is a sun in motion, a pre- 
 sumption, at least, that ours may move. 
 
 The stability of the earth may be presumed, because the 
 distance of the stars never changes with respect to us, which 
 must perceptibly take place, if we performed every year, as is 
 alleged, a round of 64,000,000 of leagues in diameter through 
 the heavens ; for in a space so vast, we must draw nigher to 
 some, and remove from others. 
 
 Sixty-four millions of leagues, we are told, dwindle to a 
 point in the heavens, compared to the distance of the stars. 
 I doubt the truth of this. The sun, a million of times greater 
 than the earth, presents an apparent diameter of only six 
 inches, at the distance of 32,000,000 of leagues. If this dis- 
 tance reduces so immense a body to a diameter so small, 
 doubtless double the distance would still diminish and reduce 
 it, perhaps to the apparent magnitude of a star ; that, on 
 being thus diminished, and our still removing 64,000,000 of 
 leagues farther, he would entirely disappear. How comes 
 
 * Extract from the Courier de 1'Europe, Friday, 4th May, 1781. 
 
 13* 
 
150 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 it to pass, then, that when the earth approaches, or removes 
 to this distance from the stars, in performing its annual circle, 
 no one of those stars increases or diminishes in magnitude 
 with respect to us ? 
 
 I submit some farther observations, tending to prove that 
 the stars have, at least, motions peculiar to themselves. An- 
 cient astronomers observed, in the neck of the Whale, a star 
 which presented much variety in its appearances ; sometimes 
 it appeared for three months together, sometimes longer; 
 sometimes its apparent magnitude was greater, sometimes 
 smaller : the time of its appearances was irregular. The 
 same astronomers observed a new star in the heart of the 
 Swan, which from time to time disappeared. In the year 
 1 603, it was equal to a star of the first magnitude : it gradu- 
 ally diminished, and at length disappeared. M. Cassini per- 
 ceived it in 1655. It increased for five years successively, 
 then began to decrease, and reappeared no more. In 1670 a 
 new star was observed near the head of the Swan, by Father 
 Anselm and several other astronomers. It disappeared, and 
 became again invisible in 1672. From that period it was 
 seen no more till 1709, and in 1713 it totally disappeared. 
 
 These examples demonstrate, that the stars not only have 
 motions, but describe curves very different from the circles 
 and ellipses we have assigned to heavenly bodies. I am per- 
 suaded there is among these the same variety of motion, as 
 between that of many terrestrial bodies ; and that stars de- 
 scribe cycloids, spirals, and other curves, of which we have 
 no idea. 
 
 I must proceed no farther on this ground, for fear of ap- 
 pearing better informed respecting the affairs of heaven than 
 those much nearer us. I only intended to expose my doubts 
 and ignorance. If stars are suns, then there must be stars in 
 motion, and surely ours may be in motion, as well as they are. 
 
 Thus our general maxims become the sources of error ; for 
 we charge with disorder whatever seems to recede from our 
 pretended order. 
 
 It is a maxim, that a man of genius catches every thing at 
 a glance, and executes all by one single law ; but I consider 
 this sublime method of observing and executing, as one of 
 the strongest proofs of the weakness of the human mind. 
 Man cannot proceed with confidence but in one single path ; 
 should a variety present themselves, he becomes perplexed, 
 
STUDY IX. 151 
 
 and is at a loss which he ought to pursue : that he may not 
 deviate, he admits only one to be right ; and once engaged, 
 right or wrong, pride stimulates him forward. The AUTHOR 
 of Nature, on the contrary, embracing the spheres of all 
 beings, produces them by laws various as his own inexhaust- 
 ible conceptions, to accomplish one single end, their general 
 good ; and it is well worthy of remark, that the only end He 
 discloses to our understanding, is the same with that he pro- 
 poses to our virtue. 
 
 In the last age, every thing was explained on the princi- 
 ples of corpuscular philosophy, because it was perceived that 
 some bodies were formed by intus-susception, or an aggrega- 
 tion of parts ; but being indifferently endowed, its reign was 
 of short duration. Others having found that air pressed, set 
 to work to demonstrate its gravity. Our books referred every 
 thing to the gravity of the air ; they investigated its elas- 
 ticity, and explained equally well all the operations of Nature 
 by this quality of the air. The universal cry was, now the 
 veil is removed ; we have caught her in the fact. But did 
 not the savage know, when walking against the wind, that 
 air had both gravity and elasticity ? Did he not employ both 
 those qualities in managing his canoe when under sail 1 I 
 do not object to investigation, if natural effects are ap- 
 plied to the necessities of human life ; but they are intro- 
 duced only to regulate the operations of Nature, and not our 
 own. 
 
 Others explain the system of the universe, by ascribing to 
 it laws which have so much accuracy and precision, that 
 Divine Providence has nothing more to do. They represent 
 him as a geometrician, or mechanist, who amuses himself 
 with making spheres, merely for the pleasure of spinning 
 them round. They pay no regard to harmonies and other 
 moral causes. Though their observations may do them 
 honour, the results are unsatisfactory. Their reasoning on 
 Nature resembles that of a savage, who, on observing, in 
 one of our cities, the motion of the indexes of a public clock, 
 and seeing, that on their pointing in a certain direction upon 
 the hour-plate, the turrets fell a shaking, crowds issued into 
 the streets, and many of the inhabitants were put in motion, 
 should thence conclude, that a clock was the principle of all 
 European occupations. This is the defect of the sciences, 
 which, without consulting the end of the operations of Na- 
 
152 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 ture, perplex themselves in an unprofitable investigation of 
 the means. 
 
 The gods of the ancients impressed upon them some respect 
 for the works of creation, and attached them to their coun- 
 try by a sentiment of religion. But our machinery destroys 
 the harmonies of Nature and Society. The first is to us 
 only a gloomy theatre, composed of levers, pulleys, weights, 
 and springs ; the second merely a school for disputation. 
 Those systems, we are told, give exercise to the mental fac- 
 ulties. It may be so ; but may they not mislead the under- 
 standing and deprave the heart 1 While the head is laying 
 down principles, the heart deduces consequences. If every 
 thing is the production of unintelligent powers, of attractions, 
 of fermentations, the play of fibres, of masses, we are then 
 subjected to their laws, as all other bodies are. Women and 
 children deduce these consequences. What, in the mean 
 time, becomes of virtue 1 You must submit, say these inge- 
 nious gentlemen, to the laws of Nature. So then, we must 
 obey the power of gravity; sit down, and walk no more. 
 Nature speaks by a hundred thousand voices. Which of 
 these is now sounding in our ears 1 What ! will you adopt as 
 the rule of life, the example of fishes, quadrupeds, plants, or 
 even of the heavenly bodies ] 
 
 Metaphysicians, who pay no regard to the laws of physics, 
 explain the system of the universe, by means of abstract 
 ideas ; a proof their system is not that of Nature, is, that 
 with their materials and method, it would be easy to subvert 
 their order, and frame another totally different from it. 
 Hence a reflection arises, which levels a mortal blow at the 
 pride of human understanding ; all these efforts of the genius 
 of man, so far from being able to construct a world, are inca- 
 pable of putting a grain of sand in motion. 
 
 Others consider the state we live in as that of progressive 
 ruin and punishment. They suppose, conformably to the 
 authority of the sacred writings, that this earth once existed 
 with other harmonies. I readily admit what scripture says 
 on this subject, but I object to the explanations of commen- 
 tators. Such is our intellectual weakness, that we cannot 
 conceive or imagine any thing beyond what Nature actually 
 exhibits to us. They are mistaken, when they affirm, for 
 instance, that when the earth was in a state of perfection, the 
 sun was constantly in the equator ; that the days and nights 
 
STUDY IX. 153 
 
 were perpetually equal ; that there was an eternal spring ; that 
 the whole face of the ground was smooth, level, and so on. 
 
 Were the sun constantly in the equator, I question whether 
 a single spot of the globe would be habitable. First, the 
 torrid zone would be burned up, as has been already demon- 
 strated ; the icy zones would extend much farther than at 
 present ; the temperate zones would be at least as cold toward 
 their middle, as they are with us at the vernal equinox ; and 
 this temperature would prevent the greatest part of fruits 
 from coming to maturity. I know not where the perpetual 
 spring would be ; but, if it could anywhere exist, never could 
 autumn exist there likewise. The case would be still worse 
 were there neither rocks nor mountains on the surface of the 
 globe ; for not one river, nay not a brook of water, would flow 
 over the whole earth. There would be neither shelter nor 
 reflex, to the north, to cherish the germination of plants ; 
 neither shade nor moisture, to the south, to preserve them 
 from the heat. These wonderful arrangements actually 
 exist over the whole northern regions, which become loaded 
 with rocks as the latitude increases ; and they rise in all the 
 islands and districts between the tropics, where the ground is 
 covered with rocks, especially toward the line ; in Ethiopia, 
 which Nature has overspread with vast and lofty rocks, which 
 form deep valleys, delightfully shady and cool. Thus, in 
 order to refute our pretended plans of perfection, it is suffi- 
 cient to admit them. 
 
 The botanists, another class of literati, on the contrary, 
 never deviate from their track, and abstain from looking at 
 any thing beyond it, however rich in facts. They have 
 observed the sexual parts in plants, and employ themselves 
 in collecting and arranging them conformably to the number 
 of those parts, without inquiring any farther about them. 
 When classed in their heads and herbals, into umbellated, 
 rose-formed, or tubulous, with the number of their stamina ; 
 if to this they are able to affix some Greek terms, they are 
 possessed, they imagine, of the complete system of vegetation. 
 Others of them go somewhat farther, and study the principles 
 of plants ; to attain their object, they pound them in mortars, 
 or dissolve them in alembics. The process being completed, 
 they exhibit salts, oils, earths ; and gravely tell you, these 
 are the principles of such and such a plant. For my part, 
 I no more believe that any one can show me the principles 
 U 
 
154 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of a plant in a phial, than he can display those of a wolf, or 
 a sheep, in a kettle. I respect the mysterious operations of 
 chymistry; but when they act on vegetables, the process 
 destroys them. 
 
 Many other errors have been adopted respecting the laws 
 of expansion and fecundation of plants. The ancients dis- 
 tinguished, in many plants, males and females ; and a fecun- 
 dation, by means of emanations of the seminal powder, such 
 as in the date-bearing palm-tree. We have applied this law 
 to the whole vegetable kingdom. It embraces a very exten- 
 sive field ; but how many vegetables propagate themselves 
 by suckers, slips, knittings, and the extremities of their 
 branches ! Here are, then, in the same kingdom, various 
 methods of reproduction. Nevertheless, when we no longer 
 perceive in Nature the law once adopted in our books of 
 science, we weakly imagine she has gone astray. We have 
 only one thread, and when it snaps, we conclude the system 
 of the universe is on the point of dissolution. The Supreme 
 Intelligence disappears the moment that our own happens 
 to be disturbed. No doubt the AUTHOR of Nature has estab- 
 lished laws for the vegetable world 3 now so generally studied, 
 but still unknown. 
 
 There are laws of adaptation and utility in the generation 
 of animals, to which we ascribe uncertainty, as soon as we 
 perceive variety ; or when we apprehend an approximation 
 to the vegetable kingdom by imaginary relations, suggested 
 by the perception of effects common to both. 
 
 Medicine nas deduced a multitude of errors from those 
 apparent analogies of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. 
 Her studies are liable to strong suspicions. She pursues the 
 operations of the soul through the structure of a corpse, and 
 the functions of life in the lethargy of death. If she perceives 
 some valuable property in a vegetable, she exalts it into a 
 universal remedy. Listen to her aphorisms. Plants are 
 useful to human life : hence she concludes a vegetable diet 
 will make a man live for ages. Who can enumerate the 
 books, treatises, panegyrics, composed on the virtues of plants ! 
 Many patients die, notwithstanding, with their stomachs full 
 of those wonderful simples. Not that I undervalue their qual- 
 ities when judiciously applied; but I absolutely reject the 
 reasonings which attempt to connect the duration of human 
 life with the use of a vegetable regimen. 
 
STUDY IX. 155 
 
 The life of man is the result of all the moral adaptations, 
 and depends more on sobriety, temperance, and the other 
 virtues, than on the nature of aliments. The animals which 
 live on plants, do they attain the age of man ? The deer 
 and wild goats, which feed on the admirable vulnerary herbs 
 of Switzerland, ought never to die ; but they are short-lived. 
 The bees which suck the nectar of their flowers, likewise die, 
 and several of their species in one year. A term is fixed for 
 the life of every animal, and a regimen peculiar to it ; that 
 of man alone extends to every variety of aliment. The 
 Tartar lives on raw horse-flesh, the Dutchman on fish, other 
 nations on roots and milk diet ; and in all countries you meet 
 with old people. Vice alone, and mental uneasiness, shorten 
 human life ; and the moral affections possess such an influ- 
 ence over man, that even disease itself owes its origin to 
 them. 
 
 The same extravagances existed in the systematic philoso- 
 phy of the age of Socrates ; not that he was unacquainted 
 with Nature, for he had studied her thoroughly ; but he relin- 
 quished the investigation of the causes, in the view of rising 
 into admiration at the results. He collected many observa- 
 tions on the subject, and used them in his conversations on 
 the Divine Providence. 
 
 Nature presents nothing but harmonies and adaptations to 
 our necessities, and we persist in vain efforts to trace her up 
 to the causes she employs ; as if we meant to extort from her 
 the secrets of her power. We do not know even the most 
 common principles which she sets a working in our hands 
 and feet. Earth, water, air, and fire, are elements, as we say; 
 but under what form must earth appear to be an element 1 
 That stratum called humus, which covers it, and serves as a 
 basis to the vegetable kingdom, is a refuse of all sorts of 
 substances, of marl, sand, clay, and vegetables. 
 
 Is sand its elementary part ] Sand appears to be a secretion 
 from the rock. Is the rock, then, an element? It appears 
 to be an aggregation of sand, as in freestone. Whether of 
 the two, sand or rock, was the principle of the other 1 and 
 took the precedency to the formation of the globe ? Sup- 
 posing us possessed of this information, what have we gained? 
 There are rocks formed of aggregations of all sorts. Granite 
 is composed of grains ; marbles and calcareous stones of the 
 paste of shells and madrepores. There are banks of sand 
 
156 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 composed of the wrecks of all these stones : I have seen the 
 sand of crystal. 
 
 Shell-fish, which give us some light respecting the nature 
 of calcareous stone, do not indicate the origin of that sub- 
 stance ; themselves forming the refuse that swims in the 
 seas. Difficulties increase as you attempt to explain the 
 formation of so many various bodies issuing out of the earth, 
 and nourished by it. In vain you call to your assistance 
 analogies, assimilations, homogeneities, and heterogeneities. 
 Is it not strange, that thousands of species of resinous, oily, 
 elastic, soft, and combustible vegetables, should differ so en- 
 tirely from the rugged and stony soil which produces them ? 
 
 The Siamese philosophers easily get rid of all embarrass- 
 ment on the subject, for they admit, in Nature, a fifth ele- 
 ment, which is wood. But this supplement is incapable of 
 carrying them very far; for it is still more astonishing, that 
 animal substance should be formed of vegetable, than that 
 this last should be formed of fossil. Which way does it be- 
 come sensible, living, and impassioned ? They admit, I 
 grant, the interposition of the sun's action. But how can 
 the sun be, in animals, the cause of any moral affection, 
 when we do not see it exercising a disposing influence even 
 on the component parts of plants ? For example, its general 
 effect is to dry that which is humid. How comes it to pass 
 then, that in a peach exposed to its action, the pulp exter- 
 nally should be meltingly plump, and the nut within ex- 
 tremely hard ; whereas the contrary takes place in the fruit 
 of the cocoa-tree, replenished with milk inwardly, and clothed 
 externally with a shell as hard as a stone 1 
 
 Neither has the sun more influence on the mechanical 
 construction of animals ; whose interior parts, constantly 
 moistened with humours, blood, and marrow, are frequently 
 the hardest, such as the teeth and bones ; and the parts 
 most exposed to his heat are often very soft, as hair, feathers, 
 the flesh, and the eyes. How is there so little analogy be- 
 tween plants, tender, ligneous, liable to putrefaction, and the 
 earth which produces them ; and between the corals and 
 madrepores of stone, and the sea-water in which they are 
 formed ? To all appearance, the contrary ought to happen : 
 the water ought to have produced soft, the earth solid plants. 
 
 If things exist thus, there must be more than one good 
 reason for it ; I think I have a glimpse of a tolerable one : 
 
STUDY IX. 157 
 
 that if these analogies actually took place, the two elements 
 would soon become uninhabitable, and be overwhelmed by 
 their vegetation. The sea would be incapable of breaking 
 madrepores of wood, and the air of dissolving forests of stone. 
 
 The same doubts might be started, respecting the nature 
 of water. This element, we allege, is formed of small glob- 
 ules, which roll one over another ; that to the spherical form 
 of its elementary particles we ought to ascribe its fluidity. 
 But if these are globules, there must be between them inter- 
 vals and vacuities causing motion. How comes it to pass, 
 then, that water is incompressible 1 If you apply to it a 
 strong compressing power in a tube, it will force its way 
 through the pores of that tube, though of gold ; and burst 
 it, if iron : no effort can reduce it to a smaller size. But, ig- 
 norant of the form of its component parts, we cannot even 
 determine that of the combined whole. Does it consist in 
 invisible vapours in the air, as the dew, or collected into mists 
 in the clouds, or consolidated into masses in the ice, or finally, 
 in a fluid state, as in the rivers ? Fluidity, it is said, forms 
 one of its principal characters. Yes, because we drink it in 
 that state, and because, under this relation, it interests us the 
 most. We determine its principal character, as we do that 
 of all the objects of Nature, from our own craving necessity, 
 but this character appears foreign to it : for it owes its fluid- 
 ity to the action of heat ; deprive it of this, and it changes 
 into ice. It would be singular, should it be made to appear, 
 after all our fundamental definitions, that the natural state 
 of water was to be solid, and that of earth fluid : now this 
 must actually be the case, if water owes its fluidity only to 
 heat, and if earth is nothing but an aggregation of sands, 
 united by different glues, and attracted to a common centre, 
 by the general action of gravity. 
 
 The elementary qualities of air are not of more easy deter- 
 mination. Air, we say, is an elastic body : when shut up in 
 the grains of gunpowder, the action of fire dilates it to such 
 a degree, as to communicate to it the power of hurling a globe 
 of iron to a prodigious distance. But how could it have been, 
 with all this elasticity, compressed into the grains of a crum- 
 bling powder? If you put even any liquid substance into a 
 state of fermentation in a flask, a thousand times more air will 
 be separated from it, than you could force into the vessel with- 
 out breaking it. How could this air be confined in a sub- 
 
 14 
 
158 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 stance soft and fluid, without disengaging itself by its own 
 action. 
 
 The air, when loaded with vapours, we farther say, is re- 
 frangible. The farther we advance north, the more elevated 
 does the sun appear over the horizon, above the place which 
 he actually occupies in the heavens. The Dutch mariners, 
 who passed the winter of 1597 in Nova-Zembla, after a night 
 of several months, saw the sun reappear fifteen days sooner 
 than they expected. All this is very well ; but if vapours 
 render the air refrangible, why is there no aurora, nor twi- 
 light, nor any durable refraction of light whatever, between 
 the tropics, not even on the sea, where so many vapours are 
 exhaled, by the constant action of the sun, that the horizon 
 is sometimes quite involved in mist by them 1 
 
 The light is not refracted, says another philosopher, by the 
 vapours, but by cold ; for the refraction of the atmosphere is 
 not so great at the end of summer as winter, at the autumnal 
 equinox as at the vernal. 
 
 I admit the truth of this observation ; however, after very 
 hot days in summer, there is refraction to the north, as well 
 as in our temperate climates, and none between the tropics : 
 the cold, therefore, seems not to be the mechanical, but the 
 final cause of refraction. This multiplication of light, which 
 increases in the atmosphere, with the intenseness of the cold, 
 is a consequence of the same law which transmits the moon 
 into the northern signs, as the sun forsakes them, and causes 
 her to illuminate the long nights of our pole, whae the sun 
 is under the horizon ; for light of any sort is warm. These 
 wonderful harmonies are not in the nature of the elements, 
 but in the will of HIM who has established them in subordi- 
 nation to the necessities of a being endowed with sensibility. 
 
 Fire presents phenomena still more incomprehensible. First 
 of all, is fire matter ] Matter, according to philosophy, is 
 divisible in length, breadth, and depth. Fire is divisible only 
 in perpendicular length. Never will you divide a flame, or a 
 ray of the sun, in its horizontal breadth. Here then is matter 
 divisible only in two dimensions. Besides, it has no gravity, 
 for it continually ascends; nor levity, for it descends, and 
 penetrates bodies ever so much below it. Fire, we are told, 
 is contained in all bodies. But, being of a consuming nature, 
 how does it not devour them ] How can it remain in water 
 without being extinguished ? 
 
STUDY IX. 159 
 
 These and several other difficulties induced Newton to be- 
 lieve fire was not an element, but certain subtile matter put 
 in motion. Friction, it is true, and collision, elicit fire from 
 several bodies. But how comes it that air and water, though 
 much agitated, never catch fire 1 Nay, how comes it that 
 water even gets cold by motion, though its fluidity is entirely 
 owing to its being impregnated by fire 1 Contrary to the na- 
 ture of all other motions, wherefore does that of fire go on in 
 a state of propagation, instead of meeting a check ? All bodies 
 lose their motion by communicating it. If you strike several 
 billiard balls with one, the motion is communicated among 
 them, it is divided and lost. But a spark of fire disengages 
 from a piece of wood the igneous particles contained in it, 
 arid the whole together increase their rapidity to such a de- 
 gree, as to make one vast conflagration of a whole forest. 
 
 We are not better acquainted with the negative qualities. 
 Cold, they tell us, is produced by the absence of heat ; but 
 if cold is merely a negative quality, how is it capable of pro- 
 ducing positive effects? If you put into water a bottle of 
 iced wine, as I have seen done in Russia, you soon perceive 
 ice of an inch thick cover the outside of the bottle. A block 
 of ice diffuses cold all over the surrounding atmosphere. 
 Darkness, which is a privation of light, diffuses no obscurity 
 over surrounding light. If you open, in summer, a grotto 
 dark and cool, the surrounding light will not be impaired by 
 its darkness, but the heat of the adjacent air will be dimin- 
 ished by the cold issuing from it. I am aware of the reply : 
 it will be said, if there is no perceptible obscuration in the 
 first case, it is owing to the rapidity of light which replaces 
 the darkness ; but this would be increasing the difficulty, by 
 supposing that darkness too has positive effects. 
 
 On such pretended fundamental principles are most of our 
 systems of physics reared. If we are in error or ignorance 
 at the outset, we soon go astray on the road ; and it is in- 
 credible with what facility, having laid down our principles 
 so slightly, we repay ourselves in consequences, vague terms, 
 and contradictory ideas. I have seen, for example, the 
 formation of thunder explained in celebrated physical tracts. 
 Some say it is produced by the collision of two clouds ; as if 
 clouds or foggy vapours could produce a collision ! Others 
 gravely tell you it is the effect of air dilated by the sudden 
 inflammation of the sulphur and nitre floating in it. But 
 
160 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 that it may produce those tremendous explosions, we must 
 suppose the air confined in a body which made some resist- 
 ance. If a great mass of gunpowder is set fire to in an 
 unconfined situation, no explosion follows. I know that the 
 detonation of thunder has been imitated, in the experiment 
 of fulminating powder; but the materials employed in its 
 composition have a sort of tenacity. They undergo, from 
 the iron ladle which contains them, a resistance against 
 which they sometimes act with such violence as to perforate 
 it. But to imitate a phenomenon is not to explain it. The 
 other effects of thunder are explained with similar levity. 
 As the air is cooler after a thunder-storm, the nitre, we are 
 told, diffused through the atmosphere, is the cause of it; but 
 was not that nitre there before the explosion, when we were 
 almost suffocated with heat 1 Does nitre cool only when it 
 is set on fire ] On this principle our batteries of cannon 
 ought to become glaciers in the midst of a battle, for a world 
 of nitre is then kindled into flame ; they must, however, cool 
 the cannon with vinegar ; for after having been fired off 
 twenty times in quick succession, it is impossible to apply 
 your hand to the piece. The instantaneous flame of the 
 nitre penetrates the metal, notwithstanding its thickness and 
 solidity. 
 
 The heat may likewise be occasioned by the interior vibra- 
 tion of the parts ; but the cooling of the air after a thunder- 
 storm proceeds, in my opinion, from the surrounding stratum 
 of frozen air, from the height of 12 to 1500 fathoms, which 
 being divided and dilated at its base by the fire of the stormy 
 clouds, flows hastily into our atmosphere. Its motion deter- 
 mines the fire of the thunder to direct itself contrary to its 
 nature, toward the earth. 
 
 It was affirmed, in the last age, that the earth was drawn 
 out at the poles, and we are now positively told it is flattened 
 there. I shall not at present enter into an examination of 
 the principles of this last conclusion, and the observations on 
 which it has been supported. The flattening of the earth 
 at the poles has been accounted for from a centrifugal force, 
 to which its motion through the heavens has been ascribed ; 
 though this pretended force, which has increased the diameter 
 of the earth at the equator, has not the power of raising even 
 a straw into the air. 
 
 The flattening of the poles, they tell us, has been ascer- 
 
STUDY IX. j 6 1 
 
 tained by the measurement of two terrestrial degrees, made 
 at a vast expense ; the one in Peru, near the equator, and 
 the other in Lapland, bordering- upon the polar circle.* 
 Those experiments were made, undoubtedly, by men of great 
 capacity and reputation. But persons of at least equal ca- 
 pacity and as high a name, have demonstrated, upon other 
 principles and experiments, that the earth was lengthened at 
 the poles. Cassini estimates at 50 leagues the length by 
 which the axis of the earth exceeds its diameters, giving to 
 each pole 25 leagues of elevation over the circumference of 
 the globe. We shall agree with this illustrious astronomer, 
 if we consider the testimony of the eye as of any weight ; 
 for the shade of the earth appears oval over its poles, in cen- 
 tral eclipses of the moon, as was observed by Tycho Brahe 
 and Kepler, whose names are a host in themselves. 
 
 But without considering any name as an authority where 
 natural truths are concerned, we may conclude, from simple 
 analogies, the elongation of the axis of the earth. If we 
 consider the two hemispheres as two mountains, whose bases 
 are at the equator, the summits at the poles, and the ocean 
 which alternately flows from one of these summits as a 
 great river descending from a mountain, we shall have, under 
 this point of view, objects of comparison to determine the 
 point of elevation from which the ocean takes its rise, by the 
 distance of the place where its course terminates. Thus the 
 summit of Chimborazo, the most elevated of the Andes of 
 Peru, out of which the river of the Amazons issues, having 
 a league and one-third nearly of elevation above the mouth 
 of that river, is distant from it, in a straight line, about 26 
 degrees, or 650 leagues ; it may be thence concluded, that 
 the summit of the pole must be elevated above the circum- 
 ference of the earth nearly five leagues, to have a height 
 proportioned to the course of the ocean, which extends as far 
 as the line, 90 degrees distant, in a straight line. 
 
 If we farther consider, that the course of the ocean does 
 not terminate at the line, but when it descends in summer 
 from our pole, extends beyond the Cape of Good-Hope, as 
 far as the eastern extremities of Asia, where it forms the 
 westerly monsoon, which almost encompasses the globe un- 
 der the equator, we must assign to the pole, from which it 
 
 * It is evident that the conclusion from those very measurements ought to 
 have been, that the earth is lengthened at the poles. 
 
 V 14* 
 
162 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 departs, an elevation proportioned to its course, and of trip- 
 ling, at least, that elevation, to give its waters a sufficient 
 declivity. I put it down, then, at 15 leagues : and if to this 
 height we add that of the ices there accumulated, the enor- 
 mous pyramids of which over icy mountains have sometimes 
 an elevation of one-third above the heights which support 
 them, we shall find that the pole can hardly have less than 
 an elevation of the 25 leagues above the circumference 
 which Cassini assigned to it. 
 
 Obelisks of ice 10 leagues high are not disproportioned to 
 the centre of cupolas of ice 2000 leagues in diameter, which, 
 in winter, cover our northern hemisphere ; and which have in 
 the southern hemisphere, in February, that is, in the summer 
 of that hemisphere, prominent borders, elevated like promon- 
 tories, and 3000 leagues, at least, in circumference, accord- 
 ing to the relation of Captain Cook, who coasted them round 
 in 1773 and 1774. 
 
 The analogy I establish between the hemispheres of the 
 earth, the poles, and the ocean which flows from them, and 
 two mountains, their peaks, and the rivers which there have 
 their sources, is in the order of the harmonies of the globe, 
 which exhibits a great number of similar harmonies on a 
 smaller scale in the continents, and in most islands, which 
 are continents in miniature. 
 
 Philosophy has, in all ages, affected very obscure causes 
 to explain common effects, in the view of attracting the ad- 
 miration of the vulgar, who scarcely ever admire any thing 
 but what they do not comprehend. She has taken advan- 
 tage of this weakness of mankind, by infolding herself in a 
 pomposity of words, or in the mysteries of geometry, the 
 better to carry on the deception. For how many ages did 
 she ring in our schools the horror of a vacuum, which she as- 
 cribed to Nature 1 How many pretended demonstrations of 
 this have been given, which were to crown their authors with 
 never-fading laurels, but are now gone to the land of forget- 
 fulness ? 
 
 She disdains to dwell on simple observations, which level 
 to every capacity the harmonies of all the kingdoms of Na- 
 ture. For example, the philosophy of our day refuses to the 
 moon all influence over vegetables and animals. The most 
 considerable growth of plants, however, is in the night-time ; 
 nay, there are several vegetables which flower then only, 
 
STUDY IX. 163 
 
 and numerous classes of insects, birds, quadrupeds, and fishes 
 regulate their loves, hunting-matches, and peregrinations 
 according to the phases of the orb of night. But what ! de- 
 grade philosophers to the experience of gardeners and fisher- 
 men ! What, condescend to think and talk^ like such 
 groundlings ! 
 
 If philosophy denies the influence of the moon over the 
 minuter objects of the earth, she makes it up amply, by giv- 
 ing her a very extensive power over the globe itself, without 
 being over-scrupulous about the self-contradiction. She 
 affirms that the moon, in passing over the ocean, presses upon 
 it, and thus occasions the flux of the tides on its shores. 
 But how is it possible the moon should compress our atmos- 
 phere, which only extends, they say, to a score of leagues 
 at most from us ? Or, admitting a subtile matter possessed 
 of great elasticity, which should extend from our seas as far 
 as the moon, how could this matter be compressed by it, un- 
 less you suppose it confined in a channel ] Must it not extend 
 to the right and left, while the action of the planet could not 
 be felt on any determinate point of the circumference of our 
 globe ? 
 
 Besides, why does not the moon act on lakes and seas of 
 small extent, where there are no tides 1 Their smallness 
 ought no more to exempt them from the influence of her 
 gravitation, than deprive them of the benefit of her light. 
 Why are tides almost imperceptible in the Mediterranean 1 
 Wherefore do they undergo, in many places, intermittent 
 movements, and retardations of two or three days ] Where- 
 fore, in a word, toward the north, do they come from the 
 north, east, or west, and not from the south, as was observed 
 with surprise by Martens, Barents, Linschoten, and Ellis, 
 who expected to see them come from the equator, as on the 
 coasts of Europe ] 
 
 The principal movements of the sea take place in our 
 hemisphere at the same times with the principal phases of the 
 moon ; but we ought not from thence to conclude their neces- 
 sary dependence, still less explain it by laws not demon- 
 strated. The currents and tides of the ocean proceed, as I 
 think I have proved, from the effusion of the polar ices, which 
 depend on the variety of the course of the sun, as he ap- 
 proaches either pole : and as the phases of the moon are 
 
164 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 themselves regulated by the course of the orb of day, this is 
 the reason why both take place at the same time. 
 
 Farther, the full moon has an effective and evaporating 
 warmth, which must act, therefore, on the polar ices.* The 
 Academy of Sciences formerly maintained that her light did 
 not warm, after experiments made on her rays, and on the 
 ball of a thermometer, with a burning mirror. This error has 
 been completely refuted at Rome and Paris by a simple ex- 
 periment. A vessel full of water was exposed to the light of 
 the moon, and another placed in the shade : the water in the 
 first vessel was evaporated much sooner than in that of the 
 second. 
 
 By all our industry and ingenuity, we can ascertain in 
 Nature only results and harmonies : first principles univer- 
 sally escape us. The methods of our sciences have exercised 
 a pernicious influence on our morals and religion. Men are 
 easily misled respecting an intelligence which governs all 
 things, when nothing is presented to them as first causes but 
 mechanical means. Alas ! that is not the way toward that 
 heaven we pretend to know so well. The greatest of man- 
 kind have looked thitherward as their last asylum. Cicero 
 hoped after death to inhabit the stars ; and Ceesar, from that 
 elevation, to preside over the destiny of Rome. 
 
 How ! as the reward of virtue is our destination only to be 
 confounded with the elements ! What, thy soul, O sublime 
 Fenelon ! to be exhaled in inflammable air, and to have had 
 on earth the sentiment of an order which did not exist even 
 in the heavens ! How, among those stars so luminous is there 
 nothing but material globes ; and in their motions, so con- 
 stant and varied, nothing but blind attractions 1 How ! every 
 thing around us insensible matter and no more ; and intelli- 
 gence given to man only to render him miserable ! How ! 
 and can we have been deceived by the involuntary sentiment 
 which makes us raise our eyes to heaven in the agony of 
 sorrow, there to solicit relief ! 
 
 Ah ! not thus has Nature appointed her gifts. We bewilder 
 ourselves with vain sciences. By driving our researches up 
 to the very principles of Nature, nay, of DEITY, we have sti- 
 fled, in the heart, all feelings of both. We are like the peas- 
 
 * This observation was made more than 1600 years ago. * The moon pro- 
 duces thaw ; dissolving all ices and frosts by the humidity of her influence.' 
 Pliny's Natural History, book ii. chap. 101. 
 
STUDY IX. 165 
 
 ant who was living happily in a little valley in the heart of 
 the Alps. A brook descending" from those mountains fertil- 
 ized his garden. Long he adored in tranquillity the benefi- 
 cent Naiad who supplied his stream, and increased its quan- 
 tity and coolness with the summer's heat. One day he was 
 desirous to discover the place where she concealed her inex- 
 haustible urn. To prevent his going astray, he pursues up- 
 ward the track of his rivulet. Every step discovers to him 
 a thousand new objects ; plains, forests, rivers, kingdoms, 
 boundless oceans. Transported with delight he proceeds in 
 flattering hope of speedily reaching the blessed abode where 
 the gods preside over the destiny of this world. But, after a 
 painful scramble, he arrives at the bottom of a tremendous 
 glacier. He no longer sees anything around him but mists, 
 rocks, torrents, precipices. All, all has vanished. Sweet 
 and tranquil valley, humble roof, beneficent Naiad ! his pa- 
 trimony is now reduced to a cloud, and his divinity to an 
 enormous mass of ice. 
 
 But the sublime genius and the pure spirit of Newton as- 
 suredly could not have stood still at the boundary prescribed 
 to a vulgar mind. Had he been in the place of our Alpine 
 peasant, he would have observed, with admiration, the con- 
 stant impulsion communicated by the action of the sun, placed 
 at an immense distance ; and instead of fruitlessly rambling 
 after the habitation of a Naiad, at the summit of the Alps, 
 would have prostrated himself before that GOD, whose provi- 
 dence embraces the concerns of a universe. 
 
 In order to study Nature with understanding and to advan- 
 tage, all the parts must be viewed in their harmony and con- 
 nexion. The system of its harmonies I shall now proceed to 
 unfold, is, in my opinion, the only one within the reach of 
 man. It was first displayed by Pythagoras of Samos, the 
 father of philosophy, and founder of that sect transmitted to 
 us under the name of Pythagoreans. Never did a succession 
 of men arise so enlightened as those sages were in the natural 
 sciences, and none whose discoveries reflect higher honour 
 on the human understanding. There existed, at that time, 
 philosophers who maintained that water, fire, air, atoms, were 
 the principles of things. Pythagoras opposed to this doctrine 
 that the principles of things were the adaptations and propor- 
 tions of which the harmonies were composed, and that good- 
 ness and intelligence constituted the nature of GOD. 
 
166 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 STUDY TENTH. 
 
 OF SOME GENERAL LAWS OF NATURE ; AND FIRST, OF 
 PHYSICAL LAWS. 
 
 WE shall divide these laws into physical and moral, and 
 endeavour to unfold the means of diminishing the sum of 
 human wretchedness. I am presuming to open a path hitherto 
 unattempted, and dare not natter myself that my progress and 
 success keep pace with the ardour of my imagination and the 
 anticipations of my heart. But the imperfect materials I have 
 collected may perhaps one day assist men of greater ability 
 in raising to Nature a temple more worthy of her. 
 
 OF CONFORMITY. 
 
 Though conformity be a perception of our reason, I place 
 it at the head of our physical laws, because it is the first 
 feeling we endeavour to gratify in examining natural objects. 
 Nay, there is a connexion so intimate between the physical 
 character of those objects and the instinct of every being 
 possessed of sensibility, that a colour simply is sufficient to 
 rouse the passions of animals. A red object puts the bullock 
 into a rage, and suggests to most fowls and fishes the idea 
 of prey. The objects of Nature display in man a feeling of 
 a higher order, independent of his wants ; it is that of con- 
 formity. It is by means of the multiplied conformities of 
 Nature that man has formed his own reason ; for reason 
 means nothing else but the relation or conformity of things 
 that exist. 
 
 Animals have a sensibility only of objects having con- 
 formities to their wants ; and they have, in this respect, a 
 share of reason as perfect as our own. But man differs from 
 animals in his capacity of extending this sentiment of con- 
 formity to all the relations of Nature, however foreign to his 
 personal demands ; and this extension of reason has procured 
 him, by way of eminence, the denomination of a rational 
 animal. 
 
 It is true, that if all the particular rationality of animals 
 were united, the sum would probably transcend the general 
 reason of man ; for human reason has devised most of its 
 
STUDY X. 167 
 
 arts and crafts from an imitation of their productions : besides, 
 all animals come into the world with their peculiar industry, 
 whereas man must acquire his by time and reflection, and 
 by imitating the industry and skill of another. But man 
 excels them, not only by uniting in himself the intelligence 
 of all, but by his capability of rising upward to the source of 
 all conformities, to GOD himself. 
 
 The only character which essentially distinguishes man 
 from the animal is, he is a religious being. They partake 
 not with him of this sublime faculty, the principle of human 
 intelligence. By it man is exalted above the beasts, enabled 
 to form a conception of the general plans of Nature, and sup- 
 poses an order of things from having caught a glimpse of an 
 Author. It was not Nature which first pointed out GOD to 
 man, but a sense of the DEITY in man which indicated to 
 him the order of Nature. The savages are religious long 
 before they are naturalists. 
 
 Accordingly, by the sentiment of this universal conformity 
 man is struck with all possible conformities, though foreign to 
 him. He takes an interest in the history of an insect ; and 
 if his attention is not engaged in behalf of all the insects 
 which surround him, it is because he perceives not their re- 
 lations, or else the constant habit of seeing them renders them 
 insipid ; perhaps it may be some contemptible prejudice, for 
 he is affected still more by moral than physical ideas, and by 
 his passions more than by his reason. 
 
 We shall farther remark, that all the sentiments of con- 
 formity spring up in the heart of man at the sight of some 
 useful end, which frequently has no relation to his own 
 personal wants ; it follows that man is naturally good, be- 
 cause he is rational ; seeing the aspect alone of a conformity, 
 though foreign to him, communicates pleasure. From this 
 natural sentiment of goodness the sight of well-proportioned 
 animals conveys to us agreeable sensations, increasing in 
 proportion as the creature unfolds its instinct. Want of con- 
 formity also communicates a painful sensation, always ex- 
 cited at the sight of any thing incongruous. We are shocked 
 on looking at a monster, pained to see an animal wanting a 
 foot or an eye, nay, at the sight of incongruity even in insen- 
 sible objects. Withered plants, mutilated trees, an ill-assorted 
 edifice, hurt our feelings. These sensations are perverted or 
 suppressed in man only by prejudice or by education. 
 
168 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 OF ORDER. 
 
 A series of conformities, with a common centre, constitutes 
 order. There are conformities in the members of an animal, 
 but order exists only in the body. Conformity refers to the 
 detail, order to the combination. Order extends our pleasure, 
 by collecting conformities, and fixes them by a determination 
 towards one centre. It discovers at once, in a single object, 
 a succession of particular conformities, and the leading one 
 to which they all refer. 
 
 Thus, as being endowed with a reason which embraces all 
 Nature, it affords us pleasure to review the relations between 
 the proboscis of a bee and the nectareous juices of flowers ; 
 between those of her thighs, hollowed into spoons, and bristled 
 with hairs, to the fine powder of the stamina which she there 
 collects ; the use of a long sting, furnished for the defence 
 of her property, and all the conformities of the organs of this 
 small insect, are more ingenious and in much greater number 
 than those of the largest animals. 
 
 The interest, however, grows upon us when we see her 
 covered with a yellow powder, her thighs pendent and half 
 oppressed with her burden, directing her flight across plains, 
 rivers, and shady groves, under points of the wind, with which 
 she is well acquainted, and alighting with a humming sound, 
 on the cavernous trunk of some aged oak ; that one, whose 
 particular conformities we have been admiring, is only a single 
 member of a numerous republic ; this republic itself is but a 
 small colony of the immense nation of bees spread over the 
 whole earth, from the line to the shores of the frozen ocean. 
 This nation again is subdivided into species, conformably 
 to the variety of flowers ; for some being destined to live on 
 flowers which have no depth, such as the radiated, are armed 
 with five hooks, to prevent their sliding on the petals. Others, 
 such as the bees of America, have no stings, because they 
 construct their hives in the trunks of prickly trees, very com- 
 mon there, which accordingly afford them protection. Many 
 are the conformities among other species of bees, totally un- 
 known to us ; yet this vast nation is but one little family of 
 the class of flies, of which we know, in our climate alone, 
 near 6000 species, as distinct, as to forms and instincts, as 
 bees themselves are from other flies. 
 
 Were we to compare the relations of this volatile class, so 
 
STUDY X. 169 
 
 numerous in itself, with all the parts of the vegetable and 
 animal kingdoms, we should find an innumerable multitude 
 of different orders of conformity, endless classes, with their 
 divisions and subdivisions, the minutest individual of which 
 presents a very extensive sphere of conformities, are them- 
 selves only particular conformities, only rays and points in 
 the general sphere, of which man alone occupies the centre, 
 and apprehends the immensity. 
 
 From a sense of the general order two sentiments obviously 
 result ; the one throws us imperceptibly into the bosom of 
 the DEITY, and the other recalls us to the perception of our 
 wants ; the one exhibits to us, as the original cause, a Being 
 infinitely intelligent without us ; the other, as the ultimate 
 end, a very limited being in our own person. These senti- 
 ments characterize the spiritual and corporeal powers of man, 
 and are the general sources of the pleasure we derive from 
 the order of Nature. 
 
 A bee has a sentiment of the order of her hive, yet knows 
 not how the ants regulate their nest, though she may have 
 seen them labour. To no purpose would she resort, in the 
 event of her hive's being destroyed, to seek refuge, as a re- 
 publican, in the midst of their republic ; she would meet from 
 them no hospitality, no consideration, no compassion. Hence 
 it follows, that the society of animals could not subsist inde- 
 pendent of the passions, nor human society independent of 
 virtue. Man alone, of all animals, possesses the sentiment 
 of universal order, that of DEITY himself; and by carrying 
 over the whole earth the virtues which are the fruits of it, 
 whatever may be the differences which prejudice interposes 
 between man and man, it is sure of alluring all hearts to itself. 
 
 OF HARMONY. 
 
 Nature 'opposes beings to each other, in order to produce 
 between them agreeable conformities. This law has been 
 acknowledged from the highest antiquity. It is to be found 
 in many passages of the holy Scriptures. I produce one from 
 the book of Ecclesiasticus :* ' All things are double one 
 against another; and He hath made nothing unperfect : one 
 thing establisheth the good of another.' 
 
 I consider this great truth as the key of all philosophy. 
 It has been fruitful in discovery, as well as that other : 
 
 * Chap. xiii. vr. 24, 25. 
 W 15 
 
170 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Nothing has been created in vain. It has been the source of 
 taste in arts and eloquence. Out of contraries arise the 
 pleasures of vision, hearing, touching, tasting, and all the 
 various attractions of beauty. But from contraries likewise 
 arise ugliness, discord, and all disgusting sensations. Is it 
 wonderful that Nature should employ the same causes to 
 produce opposite effects 1 When she opposes contraries to 
 each other, painful affections are excited in us ; but when she 
 blends them, we are agreeably affected. From the opposition 
 of contraries springs discord, from their union results harmony. 
 
 Let us find in Nature some proofs of this law. Cold is the 
 opposite of heat, light of darkness, earth of water ; and the 
 harmony of these contrary elements produces effects the most 
 delightful ; but if cold succeeds rapidly to heat, or heat to 
 cold, most vegetables and animals are in danger of perishing. 
 The light of the sun is agreeable ; but if a black cloud sud- 
 denly intercepts the lustre of his rays, or if lightning bursts 
 from the bosom of a dark night, the eye undergoes a painful 
 sensation. 
 
 Nature opposes, at sea, the white foam of the billows to the 
 black colour of the rocks, to announce to mariners from afar 
 the danger of shallows. She frequently presents to them 
 forms analogous to destruction, such as those of ferocious 
 animals, edifices in ruins, or the keels of ships turned upward. 
 She even extracts from these awful forms hollow noises re- 
 sembling groans, and broken off by long intervals of silence. 
 She employs also those clashing oppositions and ominous 
 signs to express the characters of savage and dangerous ani- 
 mals. The lion strolling through the solitudes of Africa an- 
 nounces his approach by roarings resembling thunder. The 
 vivid and instantaneous flashes of fire, which dart from his 
 eyes in the dark, exhibit besides the appearance of lightning. 
 During the winter season the bowlings of wolves in the for- 
 ests of the north resemble the whistling of the winds among 
 trees ; the cries of birds of prey are shrill, piercing, and now 
 and then interrupted by hollow notes. Nay, some emit the 
 sounds of a human being in pain. Such is the lorn, a species 
 of sea-fowl, which feeds on the shelvy coasts of Lapland,* on 
 the dead bodies of animals thrown ashore : he cries like a 
 man drowning. 
 
 * See John Schaeffer'a History of Lapland. 
 
STUDY X. 171 
 
 Noxious insects exhibit the same oppositions and signals 
 of destruction. The gnat, thirsting after human blood, an- 
 nounces himself to the eye by the white points on his brown- 
 coloured body, and to the ear by his shrill notes, which dis- 
 turb the tranquillity of the grove ; the carnivorous wasp is 
 speckled with black stripes on a yellow ground ; and the in- 
 sects which attack our persons more immediately, are distin- 
 guished by glaring oppositions of colour to the field on which 
 they settle. 
 
 But when two contraries come to be blended, the combina- 
 tion produces pleasure, beauty, and harmony. I call the in- 
 stant and the point of their union harmonic expression. This 
 is the only principle I have perceived in Nature, for the ele- 
 ments themselves, as we have seen, are not simple ; they 
 always present accords formed of two contraries to analyses 
 multiplied without end. Thus the gentlest temperature, and 
 the most favourable to every species of vegetation, are those 
 of the seasons in which the cold is blended with heat, as 
 spring and autumn. They are then productive of two saps 
 in trees, which the strongest heats of summer do not effect. 
 The most agreeable production of light and darkness is per- 
 ceptible at those seasons when they melt into each other, 
 and form what painters call the clear-obscure and half-lights. 
 Hence the most interesting hours of the day are those of 
 morning and evening ; when the shade and light strive for 
 the mastery of the azure fields. The most lovely prospects 
 are those in which land and water are lost in each other ; this 
 suggested that observation of honest Plutarch, namely, that 
 the pleasantest land-journeys are those along the shore of the 
 sea ; and the most delightful voyages those which are coast- 
 ing along the land. You will observe these same harmonies 
 result from savours and sounds the most opposite, in the 
 pleasures of the palate and of the ear. 
 
 We shall proceed to examine the uniformity of this law, in 
 the very principles by which Nature gives us the first sensa- 
 tions of her works, viz. colours, forms, and motions. 
 
 OF COLOURS. 
 
 Colours, say naturalists, are refractions of light on bodies, 
 demonstrated by the prism, which, by breaking a ray of the 
 eun, decompounds it into seven coloured rays, displaying 
 themselves in the following order : red, orange, yellow, 
 
172 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 green, blue, indigo, and violet. These are, as they will 
 have it, the seven primitive colours ; but as we do not know 
 what is primitive in Nature, I shall content myself with a 
 few reflections on the number and order of those seven pre- 
 tended primitive colours. 
 
 First, it is evident four of these are compounded ; for 
 
 / orange is made up of yellow and red ; green of yellow and 
 
 blue ; violet of blue and red ; and indigo is only a tint of 
 
 blue surcharged with black. This reduces the solar colours 
 
 to three primordial ; namely, yellow, red, and blue ; to which 
 
 if we add white, the colour of light, and black, the privation 
 
 of it, we shall have five simple colours, with which may be 
 
 , compounded all imaginable shades of colour. 
 
 I must here observe, that our philosophical machinery 
 deceives us with its affectation of superior intelligence, not 
 only in ascribing false elements to Nature, as when the prism 
 displays compound for primitive colours, but by stripping her 
 of such as are true ; for how many white and black bodies 
 must be reckoned colourless, considering that this same 
 prism does not exhibit their tints in the decomposition of 
 the solar ray ! 
 
 This instrument leads us farther into an error respecting 
 the natural order of these very colours, by making the red 
 ray the first in the series, and the violet ray the last. The 
 order of colours in the prism, therefore, is only a triangular 
 decomposition of a ray of cylindrical light, the two extremes 
 of which, red and violet, participate the one of the other, 
 without terminating it ; so that the principle of colours, which 
 is the white ray and its progressive decomposition, is no longer 
 manifested in it. I believe it is even possible to cut a crystal 
 with so many angles as would give to the refractions of the 
 solar ray an order entirely different, and multiply the pre- 
 tended primitive colours far beyond the number seven. The 
 authority of such a polyedron would be as respectable as 
 that of the prism, if the algebraists were to apply to it a few 
 calculations, somewhat obscure, with a seasoning of the 
 corpuscular philosophy, as they have done with regard to 
 the effects of the triangular instrument. 
 
 We shall employ a method, not quite so learned, to convey 
 an idea of the generation of colours, and the decomposition 
 of the solar ray. Instead of examining them in a prism of 
 glass, we shall consider them in the heavens, and there we 
 
STUDY X. 173 
 
 shall behold the five primordial colours unfold themselves in 
 the order which we have indicated. 
 
 In a fine summer's night, when the sky is loaded only 
 with some light vapours, sufficient to stop and to refract the 
 rays of the sun, walk out into an open plain, where the first 
 fires of Aurora may be perceptible. You will first observe 
 the horizon whiten at the spot where she is to make her 
 appearance ; and this radiance, from its colour, has procured 
 for it, in the French language, the name of aube, (the dawn,) 
 from the Latin word alba, white. This whiteness insensibly 
 ascends in the heavens, assuming a tint of yellow some de- 
 grees above the horizon ; the yellow as it rises passes into 
 orange ; and this shade of orange rises upward into the lively 
 vermilion, which extends as far as the zenith. From that 
 point you will perceive in the heavens behind you the violet 
 succeeding the vermilion, then the azure, after it the deep 
 blue or indigo colour, and, last of all, the black, quite to the 
 westward. 
 
 Though this display of colours presents a multitude of 
 intermediate shades, which rapidly succeed each other, yet 
 at the moment the sun is going to exhibit his disk, the 
 dazzling white is visible in the horizon, the pure yellow at 
 an elevation of 45 degrees ; the fire colour in the zenith ; 
 the pure blue 45 degrees under it, toward the west ; and in 
 the very west the dark veil of night still lingering on the 
 horizon. I think I have remarked this progression between 
 the tropics, where there is scarcely any horizontal refraction 
 to make the light prematurely encroach on the darkness, as 
 in our climates. 
 
 Sometimes the trade- winds, from the north-east or south- 
 east, blow there, card the clouds through each other, then 
 sweep them to the west, crossing and recrossing them over 
 one another, like the osiers interwoven in a transparent bas- 
 ket. They throw over the sides of this chequered work the 
 clouds which are not employed in the contexture, roll them 
 up into enormous masses, as white as snow, draw them out 
 along their extremities in the form of a crupper, and pile them 
 upon each other, moulding them into the shape of moun- 
 tains, caverns, and rocks ; afterwards, as evening approaches, 
 they grow somewhat calm, as if afraid of deranging their 
 own workmanship. When the sun sets behind this magnif- 
 icent netting, a multitude of luminous rays are transmitted 
 
 15* 
 
174 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 through the interstices, which produce such an effect, that 
 the two sides of the lozenge illuminated by them have the 
 appearance of being girt with gold, and the other two in the 
 shade seem tinged with ruddy orange. Four or five divergent 
 streams of light, emanated from the setting sun up to the 
 zenith, clothe with fringes of gold the undeterminate sum- 
 mits of this celestial barrier, and strike with the reflexes of 
 their fires the pyramids of the collateral aerial mountains, 
 which then appear to consist of silver and vermilion. At 
 this moment of the evening are perceptible, amidst their re- 
 doubled ridges, a multitude of valleys extending into infinity, 
 and distinguishing themselves at their opening by some shade 
 of flesh or of rose colour. 
 
 These celestial valleys present in their different contours 
 inimitable tints of white, melting away into white, or shades 
 lengthening themselves out without mixing over other shades. 
 You see, here and there, issuing from the cavernous sides of 
 those mountains, tides of light precipitating themselves, in 
 ingots of gold and silver, over rocks of coral. Here it is a 
 gloomy rock, pierced through and through, disclosing, be- 
 yond the aperture, the pure azure of the firmament ; there 
 it is an extensive strand, covered with sands of gold, stretch- 
 ing over the rich ground of heaven ; poppy-coloured, scarlet, 
 and green as the emerald. 
 
 The reverberation of those western colours diffuses itself 
 over the sea, whose azure billows it glazes with saffron and 
 purple. The mariners, leaning over the gunwale of the ship, 
 admire in silence those aerial landscapes. Sometimes this 
 sublime spectacle presents itself to them at the hour of prayer, 
 and seems to invite them to lift up their hearts with their 
 voices to the heavens. It changes every instant into forms 
 as variable as the shades, presenting celestial colours and 
 forms which no pencil can pretend to imitate, and no lan- 
 guage can describe. 
 
 Travellers who have, at various seasons, ascended to the 
 summits of the highest mountains on the globe, never could 
 perceive, in the clouds below them, any thing but a gray and 
 lead-coloured surface, similar to that of a lake. The sun, 
 notwithstanding, illuminated them with his whole light ; 
 and his rays might there combine all the laws of refraction 
 to which our systems of physics have subjected them. 
 Hence not a single shade of colour is employed in vain, 
 
STUDY X. 175 
 
 through the universe ; those celestial decorations being made 
 for the level of the earth, their magnificent point of view 
 taken from the habitation of man. 
 
 These admirable concerts of lights and forms, manifest 
 only in the lower region of the clouds the least illuminated by 
 the sun, are produced by laws with which I am totally unac- 
 quainted. But the whole are reducible to five colours : yellow, 
 a generation from white ; red, a deeper shade of yellow ; blue, 
 a strong tint of red ; and black, the extreme tint of blue. This 
 progression cannot be doubted, on observing in the morning 
 the expansion of the light in the heavens. You there see 
 those five colours, with their intermediate shades, generating 
 each other nearly in this order : white, sulphur yellow, lemon 
 yellow, yolk of egg yellow, orange, aurora colour, poppy red, 
 full red, carmine red, purple, violet, azure, indigo, and black. 
 Each colour seems to be only a strong tint of that which 
 precedes it, and a faint tint of that which follows ; thus the 
 whole together appear to be only modulations of a progression, 
 of which white is the first term, and black the last. 
 
 Indeed trade cannot be carried on to any advantage, with 
 the Negroes, Tartars, Americans, and East Indians, but 
 through the medium of red cloths. The testimonies of trav- 
 ellers are unanimous respecting the preference universally 
 given to this colour. I have indicated the universality of 
 this taste, merely to demonstrate the falsehood of the philo- 
 sophic axiom, that tastes are arbitrary, or that there are in 
 Nature no laws for beauty, and that our tastes are the effects 
 of prejudice. The direct contrary of this is the truth ; preju- 
 dice corrupts our natural tastes, otherwise the same over the 
 whole earth. 
 
 With red Nature heightens the brilliant parts of the most 
 beautiful flowers. She has given a complete clothing of it 
 to the rose, the queen of the garden : and bestowed this tint 
 on the blood, the principle of life in animals : she invests most 
 of the feathered race, in India, with a plumage of this colour, 
 especially in the season of love ; and there are few birds with- 
 out some shades, at least, of this rich hue. Some preserve 
 entirely the gray or brown ground of their plumage, but 
 glazed over with red, as if they had been rolled in carmine ; 
 others are besprinkled with red, as if you had blown a scarlet 
 powder over them. 
 
 .The red colour, situated in the midst of the five primordial 
 
176 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 colours, is the harmonic expression of them by way of excel- 
 lence ; and the result of the union of two contraries, light and 
 darkness. There are, besides agreeable tints, compounded 
 of the oppositions of extremes. For example, of the second 
 and fourth colour, that is, of yellow and blue, is formed green, 
 which constitutes a very beautiful harmony, and ought, 
 perhaps, to possess the second rank in beauty, among colours, 
 as it possesses the second in their generation. Nay, green ap- 
 pears to many, if not the most beautiful tint, at least the most 
 lovely, because it is less dazzling than red, and more conge- 
 nial to the eye. 
 
 Colours may also have a powerful influence on the passions ; 
 and, as well as their harmonies, may be referred to the moral 
 affections. For example, making red the point of departure, 
 which is the harmonic colour supereminently, and proceed- 
 ing towards white in an ascending progression, the nearer 
 you approach to this first term, the more lively and gay are 
 the colours. You will have in succession the poppy, orange, 
 yellow, lemon, sulphur, and white. On the contrary, the 
 farther you proceed from red towards black, the sadder and 
 more lugubrious are the colours ; for this is the progression ; 
 purple, violet, blue, indigo, and black. 
 
 In the harmonies to be formed, on both sides, by the union 
 of opposite colours, the more that the tints of the ascending 
 progression predominate, the more lively will be the harmonies 
 produced ; and the contrary will take place as the colours of 
 the descending harmony shall prevail. From this harmonic 
 effect, green, compounded of yellow and blue, is so much 
 more gay, as the yellow has the ascendant, and sad in pro- 
 portion as the blue predominates. 
 
 From this harmonic influence, white transfuses most gayety 
 into all other tints, because it is light itself. Nay, it pro- 
 duces, from opposition, a most delightful effect in the har- 
 monies, which I call melancholy ; for blended with violet, it 
 gives the delicious hue of the lilac flower ; mixed with blue, 
 it makes azure ; and with black, produces pearl-gray ; but 
 melted away into red, it exhibits the rose-colour, that en- 
 chanting tint, the flower of life. But according to the pre- 
 dominance of black in gay colours, the effect produced is 
 more mournful than that of unmixed black. This becomes 
 perceptible on blending it with yellow, orange, and red, 
 thereby rendered dull and gloomy colours. Red gives life 
 
STUDY X. 177 
 
 wherever it is infused, as white communicates gayety, and 
 black sadness. 
 
 It would be ridiculous to affect ignorance of the objections 
 which may be started against the universality of these prin- 
 ciples. We have represented white as a gay, and black as 
 a sad colour. Nevertheless, certain negro nations represent 
 the devil as white ; the inhabitants of the peninsula of India, 
 in token of mourning, rub their forehead and temples with 
 the powder of sandal-wood, the colour of which is a yellow- 
 ish white. The navigator La Barbinois says, that white is 
 the colour of mourning among the Chinese. From these in- 
 stances it might be concluded, that the feeling of colour 
 must be arbitrary, as it is not the same in all nations. 
 
 I venture to offer the following reply to these objections. 
 The black nations of Africa and Asia prefer white women 
 to those of every other tint. If there be negro nations who 
 paint the devil white, it is from the strong feeling they have 
 of the tyranny the whites exercise over them. White, ac- 
 cordingly, having become with them a political colour, ceases 
 to be a natural one. Besides, the white of the devil is not 
 a white beautifully harmonious, like that of the human 
 figure, but a dead chalk white, such as that with which our 
 painters illuminate the figures of phantoms and ghosts in 
 their magical and infernal scenes. 
 
 If this dazzling colour is the expression of mourning 
 among the Indians and Chinese, the reason is, it contrasts 
 harshly with the black skin of those nations. The Indians 
 are black. The skin of the southern Chinese is much sun- 
 burnt. They derive their religion and leading customs from 
 India, the inhabitants of which are black. Their outward 
 garments are of a gloomy colour ; and the ornamental fur- 
 niture of their houses consists of beautiful black varnished 
 ware. White must, therefore, produce a harsh dissonance 
 with their furniture, dress, and above all, with the dusky 
 colour of their skin. 
 
 If those nations wore a black habit, in mourning, as we 
 do, be their colour ever so deep, it would not form a clashing 
 opposition in their dress. The expression of grief, accord- 
 ingly, is precisely the same with them as with us. For if 
 we in mourning oppose the black colour of our clothes to the 
 white of our skin, thence to produce a funereal dissonance, 
 the southern nations oppose the white colour of their gar- 
 X 
 
178 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 merits to the dusky colour of their skin, to produce the same 
 effect. 
 
 This variety of taste confirms the universality of the prin- 
 ciples we have laid down respecting the causes of harmony 
 and dissonance. It farther demonstrates, that the agreeable- 
 ness or disagreeableness of a colour resides not in one single 
 shade, but in the harmony, or in the clashing contrast, of 
 two opposite colours. 
 
 OF FORMS. 
 
 If I am not mistaken, the principles of these, as of colours, 
 are reducible to five, the line, triangle, circle, ellipse, arid 
 parabola. 
 
 The line generates all forms, as the ray of light does all 
 colours. It goes on like the other, in its generations, step by 
 step, producing first, by three fractions, the triangle, which of 
 all others contains the smallest surfaces under the greatest 
 of circuits. The triangle afterward, composed itself of three 
 triangles at the centre, produces the square, which consists 
 of four triangles from the central point ; the pentagon, which 
 consists of five ; the hexagon, which consists of six ; and so 
 of the rest of the polygons, up to the circle, composed of a 
 multitude of triangles, whose summits are at its centre, and 
 the bases at its circumference : and which, contrary to the 
 triangle, contains the greatest of surfaces under the smallest 
 of peripheries. The form which has, hitherto, always been 
 going on progressively, commencing with the line, relatively 
 to a centre, up to the circle, afterwards deviates from it, and 
 produces the ellipse, then the parabola, and finally all the 
 other widened curves, the equations of which may all be re- 
 ferred to this last. So that, under this aspect, the indefinite 
 line has no common centre : the triangle has three points in 
 its bounding lines, which have a common centre ; the square 
 has four ; the pentagon five ; the hexagon six ; and the 
 circle has all the points of its circumference regulated con- 
 formably to one common and only centre. The ellipse begins 
 to deviate from this regulation, and has two centres ; and the 
 parabola, as well as the other curves, which are analogous to 
 it, have centres innumerable contained in their several axes, 
 from which they remove farther and farther, forming some- 
 thing like funnels. 
 
 On the supposition of this ascending generation of forms, 
 
STUDY X. 179 
 
 from the line, through the triangle, up to the circle ; and 
 their descending generation, from the circle, through the 
 ellipse, to the parabola, I deduce, from these five elementary 
 forms, all the forms of Nature ; as, with five primordial colours, 
 I compose all the possible shades of colour. 
 
 The line presents the slenderest form, the circle the fullest, 
 and the parabola the most obliquely fluted. In this progres- 
 sion, the circle, which occupies the middle between these two 
 extremes, is the most beautiful of all elementary forms, as red 
 is the most beautiful primordial colour. I presume not to say, 
 that this form must be the most beautiful, because it is the 
 figure of the stars, which, however, would be no contemptible 
 reason ; but, to employ only the testimony of our senses, it is 
 the most grateful to both eye and touch ; and the most sus- 
 ceptible of motion ; finally, it is considered as most conform- 
 able to the taste of all nations, who employ it in their orna- 
 ments and architecture; and it is particularly conformable to 
 the taste of children, who prefer it to every other, in the in- 
 struments of their amusement. 
 
 It is remarkable, that these five elementary forms have the 
 same analogies to each other which the five primordial colours 
 have among themselves ; so that if you proceed to their as- 
 cending generation, from the sphere toward the line, you will 
 have forms angular, lively, and gay, which shall terminate in 
 the straight line. If, on the contrary, you descend from the 
 sphere to the excavations of the parabola, you will be present- 
 ed with a gradation of cavernous forms, so frightful in abysses 
 and precipices. 
 
 Farther, if you join the elementary forms to the primordial 
 colours, term for term, you will observe their principal char- 
 acter mutually strengthen each other, at least in the two 
 extremes, and in the harmonic expression of the centre : for 
 the first two terms will give the white ray, that of light itself; 
 the circular form, united to the red colour, will produce a 
 figure analogous to the rose, composed of spherical portions, 
 with carmine tints, and, from the effect of this double har- 
 mony, deemed the most beautiful of flowers. Finally, black, 
 added to the vacuity of the parabola, increases the gloom of 
 retreating and cavernous forms. 
 
 With these five elementary forms may be composed figures 
 as agreeable as the shades produced from the harmonies of 
 the five primordial colours. So that the more there shall 
 
180 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 enter, into those mixed figures, of the two ascending terms 
 of the progression, the more light and gay such figures will 
 be ; and the more the two descending terms shall predomi- 
 nate, the more heavy and dull will be the forms. Thus, the 
 form will be more elegant, as the first term, the straight line, 
 shall have the predominance. For example, the column 
 gives us pleasure, because it is a long cylinder, with the 
 circle for its basis, and two straight lines, or a long quadri- 
 lateral figure, for its elevation. But the palm-tree, of which 
 it is an imitation, pleases still more, because the stellated 
 and radiating forms of its palms, likewise taken from the 
 straight line, constitute a very agreeable opposition with the 
 roundness of its stem ; and if to this you unite the harmonic 
 form by way of excellence, namely, the circular, you will 
 add inexpressibly to the grace of this beautiful tree. This, 
 likewise, Nature, who knows much more of the matter than 
 we, has taken care to do, by suspending, at the basis of its 
 divergent boughs, sometimes the oval date, and sometimes 
 the rounded cocoa-nut. 
 
 In general, as often as you employ the circular form, you 
 will greatly enhance the agreeableness of it, by uniting it 
 with the two contraries of which it is composed ; for you will 
 then have a complete elementary progression. The circular 
 form alone presents but one expression, the most beautiful 
 of all, in truth ; but united to its two extremes, it forms, if I 
 may so express myself, an entire thought. 
 
 It is, farther, from these harmonies, that long ridges of 
 mountains, overtopped by lofty peaks of a pyramidical form, 
 separated by deep valleys, delight us by their gracefulness 
 and majesty. If to these you add rivers meandering below, 
 radiating poplars waving on their banks, flocks of cattle and 
 shepherds, you will have vales similar to that of Tempe, 
 The circular forms of the mountains, in such a landscape, 
 are placed between their extremes, namely, the prominency 
 of the rocks, and the cavity of the valleys. But if you sepa- 
 rate from it the harmonic expressions, that is, the circular 
 wavings of those mountains, together with their peaceful 
 inhabitants, and allow the extremes only to remain, you will 
 then have the dreary prospect of Cape Horn ; angular, per- 
 pendicular rocks, hanging over fathomless abysses. 
 
 If to these you add oppositions of colour, as that of snow 
 on the summits of the dusky rocks, the foam of the billows 
 
STUDY X. 181 
 
 breaking on the lurid shore, a pale sun in a gloomy sky, 
 torrents of rain in the midst of summer, tremendous squalls 
 of wind succeeded by sullen calms, a European vessel, on 
 her way to spread desolation over the islands of the South 
 Sea,* running upon a rock when it is beginning to grow dark, 
 firing from time to time guns, the signal of distress, the noise 
 of which the echoes of those horrid deserts reverberate, the 
 terrified Patagonian running in amazement to his cave ; and 
 you will have a complete view of that land of desolation, 
 covered over with the shades of death. 
 
 OF MOVEMENTS. 
 
 It remains that I suggest a few reflections on the subject 
 of motions. Of these we shall also distinguish five which are 
 fundamental : self-motion, or the rotation of a body round 
 itself, which supposes no change of place, and is the principle 
 of all motion ; such is, perhaps, that of the sun ; after that, 
 the perpendicular, circular, horizontal, and state of rest. All 
 movements may be referred to these five. Nay, geome- 
 tricians, who represent them likewise by figures, suppose the 
 circular motion to be generated of the perpendicular and hori- 
 zontal, and, to use their language, produced by the diagonal 
 of their squares. 
 
 I shall not insist on the analogies which actually exist be- 
 tween the white colour, the straight .4ine, and self-motion, or 
 rotation ; the red colour, the spherical form, and circular 
 motion ; between darkness, vacuity, and rest. I leave to the 
 reader the pleasure of following up this idea, and forming to 
 himself, with these elements of Nature, harmonies the most 
 enchanting, with the additional charm of novelty. I shall 
 confine myself, at present, to a few hasty observations respect- 
 ing motion. 
 
 Of all movements, the harmonic or circular motion is 
 the most agreeable. Nature has diffused it over most of her 
 works, and rendered even the vegetables in the earth suscep- 
 tible of it. Our plains represent this, when the winds form, 
 
 * Would not the effect of this dreadful picture have been considerably 
 strengthened, had our Author represented his European vessel as attempting to 
 double Cape Horn, on her return from spreading devastation over the South Seas, 
 and making shipwreck on that coast, after the scene of blood was acted ? In 
 this case we should have had the striking and instructive representation of the 
 connexion between Human Guilt and Divine Justice; of the clashing collision 
 of criminality and vengeance. H. H. 
 
182 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 on the meadow or corn-field, a series of undulations, resem- 
 bling the waves of the sea ; or when they gently agitate, on 
 the sides of the lofty mountains, the towering tops of the 
 trees, waving them about in segments of a circle. Most birds 
 form portions of great circles as they play through the airy 
 expanse, and seem to take pleasure in tracing, as they fly, 
 curves and spiral motions. Nature has bestowed this agree- 
 able style of flying on many species of the feathered race, 
 not otherwise to be prized for their song or plumage. Such 
 is the flight of the swallow. 
 
 The case differs with respect to the movements of ferocious 
 or noxious animals. They advance leaping, springing, and 
 join to slow movements others violently rapid ; as in the 
 motion of the cat watching a mouse : those of the tiger are 
 exactly similar. The same discordancy is observable in the 
 flight of carnivorous birds. The species of owl called the 
 grand-duke floats through a tranquil sky, as if the wind car- 
 ried him this way and that. Tempests present, in the heav- 
 ens, the same characters of destruction. You sometimes per- 
 ceive stormy clouds moving in opposite directions; now they 
 fly like lightning, while others remain immoveable as the rock. 
 In the tremendous hurricanes of the West Indies, the explo- 
 sion is always preceded arid followed by a dead calm. 
 
 The more a body possesses of self-motion, or rotation, the 
 more agreeable it appears, especially when united to the har- 
 monic or circular motion. From the effect of self-motion, 
 every moral idea out of the question, animals interest us more 
 than vegetables, because they have the principle of motion 
 within themselves. 
 
 Motion is the expression of life. In this you see why Na- 
 ture has multiplied the causes of it in all her works. One of 
 the great charms of a landscape is objects in motion ; but this 
 the pictures of most of our great masters frequently fail to 
 express. If you except those representing tempests, every- 
 where else their forests and meadows are motionless, and the 
 water of their lakes congealed. Yet the inversion of the 
 leaves of trees presenting a gray or white underside ; the 
 undulations of the grass in valleys, and on the ridges of 
 mountains ; those which ruffle the surface of the waters, and 
 the foam which whitens the shores, recall, with inexpressible 
 pleasure, in a burning summer scene, the breath so gentle 
 and cooling of the zephyrs. To these might be added, with 
 
STUDY X. 18 3 
 
 infinite grace and powerful effect, the movements peculiar to 
 the animals which inhabit them ; it might be possible even 
 to represent the motion and weight of a loaded carnage toil- 
 ing up a hill, by expressing the dust of the crushed pebbles 
 rising up behind its wheels. Nay, I think the effects of the 
 singing of birds, and of the echoes, might be rendered per- 
 ceptible, by the expression of certain characters not necessary 
 here to unfold. 
 
 So far are our painters, those even whose talents are con- 
 spicuous, from paying attention to accessories so agreeable, 
 that they omit them in subjects of which those accessories 
 form the principal character. For example, if they represent 
 a chariot at full speed, they exhibit every spoke of the wheels. 
 The horses, indeed, are galloping, but the chariot is immove- 
 able. The wheels of a carriage, however, running with a 
 rapid motion, present but one single surface ; all their spokes 
 are confounded to the eye. I have seen, in modern pictures, 
 machines in motion, wrestlers and warriors in action, but in 
 no one of them did I ever find attention paid to these effects 
 so simple, yet so expressive of the truth of Nature. Our 
 painters consider them as petty details, beneath the notice of 
 a man of genius. Nevertheless they are traits of character. 
 
 Details, frequently traits of character, are not to be des- 
 pised. If our painters and sculptors withhold the expression 
 of motion to landscapes, wrestlers, and chariots in the course, 
 they bestow it on the portraits and statues of our great men. 
 They represent them as angels sounding the alarm to judg- 
 ment, with flowing hair, wild wandering eyes, the muscles 
 of the face convulsed, and garments fluttering in the wind. 
 These, they tell us, are the expressions of genius. But per- 
 sons of genius, and great men, are not bedlamites. I have 
 seen some of their portraits, on antiques, which represent them 
 with a serene and tranquil air. It is the property of inani- 
 mate matter, vegetables, and animals, to obey the movements 
 of Nature ; but a great man should have his emotions under 
 command, and only as he exercises this empire does he merit 
 the name of Gre at. 
 
 I have just hinted the necessity of conformity to artists, who 
 will find it much more difficult to execute, than it is easy for 
 me to criticise. God forbid that I should give a moment's pain 
 to men whose works have given me exquisite pleasure. It 
 was simply my wish to stimulate the ingenious to tread in 
 
184 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the steps of Nature, and pursue that track as far as genius 
 can carry them. 
 
 This would be the place to speak of music, for sounds are 
 movements merely : but persons of much ability have treated 
 this noble art with consummate skill. If any foreign testi- 
 mony could farther confirm me in the principles I have 
 hitherto laid down, it is that of musicians, who have restricted 
 harmonic expression to three sounds. I might, like them, 
 reduce to three terms the elementary generations of colours, 
 forms, and motions ; but they have omitted, in their fun- 
 damental basis, the generative principle, sound, properly so 
 called, and the negative term, silence ; especially as this last 
 produces powerful effects in the movements of music. 
 
 These proportions might be extended to the progressions 
 of tasting ; the most agreeable of them have similar genera- 
 tions, as we know by experience to be the case with regard 
 to most fruits, whose different stages of maturity successively 
 present five savours, namely, the acid, sweet, sugary, vinous, 
 and bitter. They are acid while growing, sweet as they 
 ripen, sugary in a state of perfect maturity, vinous in their 
 fermentation, and bitter in a state of dryness. Farther, we 
 should find the most agreeable of these savours, namely, the 
 sugary, is that which occupies the middle place in this pro- 
 gression, of which it is the harmonic term ; that, from its 
 nature, it forms new harmonies, by a combination with its 
 extremes ; for the beverages most grateful to the palate con- 
 sist of acid and sugar, as the refreshing liquors prepared with 
 citron -juice ; or of sugar and bitter, such as coffee. 
 
 Though I have a thorough conviction of the truth of these 
 elementary generations, it would not, however, surprise me, 
 should many of my readers dissent from what I have ad- 
 vanced. Our natural tastes are perverted by prejudices 
 which determine our physical sensations, much more power- 
 fully than these last give direction to our moral affections. 
 I shall endeavour, in another place, to unfold the causes of 
 these moral affections. They stand in connexion with laws 
 more sublime than any physical laws : while these last amuse 
 our senses, the others speak to the heart, and calmly admon- 
 ish us, that man is ordained to a much higher destination. 
 All I have hitherto said on this subject, or hereafter may say, 
 is reducible to this great law : Every thing in Nature is 
 formed of contraries : from their harmonies the sentiment of 
 
STUDY X. 185 
 
 pleasure results, and out of their oppositions issues the senti- 
 ment of pain. 
 
 This law extends also to morals. Every truth, those of 
 fact excepted, is the result of two contrary ideas. It follows, 
 that as often as we decompound a truth, by dialectics, we 
 divide it into the two ideas of which it is constituted ; and 
 if we confine ourselves to one of its elementary ideas, as to 
 a detached principle, and deduce consequences from it, we 
 shall convert it into a source of endless disputation ; for the 
 other elementary idea, if pursued, will supply consequences 
 diametrically opposite, themselves susceptible of contradic- 
 tory decompositions without end. The schools are admirably 
 adapted to instruct us how to manage this process, and 
 thither are we sent to form our judgment. 
 
 All disorders, both physical and moral, are but the clashing 
 opposition of two contraries. If man would pay attention 
 to this law, wranglings and mistakes would speedily cease ; 
 for every thing being composed of contraries, whoever affirms 
 a simple proposition is only half right, as the contrary pro- 
 position has equally an existence in nature. 
 
 There is perhaps p the world but one intellectual truth, 
 pure, simple, and without contradiction. Those who have 
 denied it only support their negation on the apparent disor- 
 ders of Nature, the extreme principles of which alone they 
 contemplated ; so that they have not demonstrated that 
 God did not exist, but that He was not intelligent or good. 
 Their error proceeds from their ignorance of natural laws. 
 Besides, their arguments have been mostly founded on the 
 disorders of men, who exist in an order different from that of 
 Nature, and who alone of all beings endowed with percep- 
 tion have been committed to their own direction. 
 
 As to the nature of GOD, I know that faith itself presents 
 Him to us as the harmonic principle, not only with relation 
 to all that surrounds Him, of which he is the Creator and 
 Mover, but even in his essence divided into three persons. 
 A single act of his will called us into being ; the slightest 
 communication of his works is sufficient to illuminate our 
 reason ; but I have a thorough persuasion that if the smallest 
 ray of his divine essence were to communicate itself directly 
 to us, in a human body, we must be annihilated. 
 
 Y 16* 
 
186 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 OF CONSONANCES. 
 
 Consonances are repetitions of the same harmonies. They 
 increase our pleasures by multiplying and transferring the 
 enjoyment of them to new scenes. They farther communi- 
 cate pleasure by convincing us that the same Intelligence 
 has presided over the different plans of Nature, presenting 
 throughout similar harmonies. Consonances accordingly 
 confer more pleasure than simple harmonies, as they convey 
 the sentiments of extension and divinity, so congenial to the 
 human soul. Natural objects excite satisfaction only as they 
 awaken intellectual feeling. 
 
 The most beautiful harmonies are those which have the 
 most consonances. Nothing is more beautiful than the sun, 
 nothing in nature so frequently repeated as his form and 
 light. He is variously reflected by refractions of the air, 
 which exhibit him above the horizon before he is actually 
 risen, and after he has set ; by the parhelia, which reflect 
 his disk sometimes twice or thrice in the misty clouds of the 
 north ; by the rainy clouds, in which his refracted rays trace 
 an arch shaded with a thousand various colours ; and by the 
 waters, whose reflexes exhibit him where he is not, in the 
 bosom of meadows, amidst flowers besprinkled with dew, and 
 in the shade of green forests. The dull and inert earth, too, 
 reflects him in the specular particles of gravels, micas, crys- 
 tals, and rocks. It presents to us the form of his disk and 
 rays in the disks and petals of the myriads of radiated flowers 
 with which it is covered. In a word, this beautiful star has 
 multiplied himself into infinity with unknown varieties, in 
 the innumerable stars of the firmament, which he discovers 
 to us when he quits our horizon ; as if he had withdrawn 
 himself from the consonances of the earth only to display to 
 the delighted eye those of heaven. 
 
 From this law of consonance it follows that what is best 
 and beautiful in Nature, is also common and most frequently 
 repeated. To it we must ascribe the varieties of species in 
 each genus, the more numerous as that genus is useful. 
 There is no family in the vegetable kingdom so necessary as 
 the gramineous, on which subsist not only quadrupeds but 
 birds and insects, and there is no one whose species are so 
 varied. The millet of Africa, the maize of Brazil, the rice 
 of Asia, the palm-sago of the Moluccas, the trunks of which 
 
STUDY X. 187 
 
 are filled with alimentary flour, are in consonance with the 
 corns of Europe. We shall find consonances of another kind 
 in the same places, as if it had been the intention of Nature 
 to multiply her benefits by varying only the form of them, 
 without changing almost anything of their qualities. Thus 
 in our gardens, what a delightful and beneficial consonancy 
 there is between the orange and citron trees, the apple and 
 the pear, the walnut and the filbert ; and in our farm-yards 
 between the horse and the ass, the goose and the duck, the 
 cow and the she-goat. 
 
 Although each genus is in consonancy with itself from 
 difference of sex, there are between the sexes contrasts giving 
 energy to their loves from the very opposition of contraries, 
 from which all harmony takes its birth ; but without the 
 general consonancy of form between them, sensible beings 
 of the same genus never would have approached each other. 
 Without this, one sex would have remained a stranger to the 
 other. Before each could have observed what the other pos- 
 sessed that corresponded to its necessities, the time of reflec- 
 tion? would have absorbed that of love, and perhaps extin- 
 guished desire. It is consonancy which attracts, and contrast 
 wtych unites them. There is not in any one genus an animal 
 of one sex entirely different from one of the other in exterior 
 forms ; and if such differences are actually found, as certain 
 naturalists pretend, in several species of fishes and insects, 
 I am persuaded Nature placed the habitation of male and 
 female very close to each other, and planted their nuptial 
 couch near their cradle. 
 
 There is a consonancy of forms more intimate still than 
 even that of the two sexes, I mean the duplicity of the organs 
 of each individual. Every animal is double. If you consider 
 his two eyes, his two nostrils, his two ears, the number of his 
 legs and arms disposed by pairs, you would be tempted to say, 
 here are two animals glued the one to the other, and united 
 under the same skin. Nay, the single parts of his body, as 
 the head, tail, and tongue, appear to be formed of two halves, 
 compacted together by seams. It is not so with the members 
 properly so called : for example, one hand, one ear, one eye, 
 cannot be divided into two similar halves ; but the duplicity 
 of form in the parts of the body distinguishes them essentially 
 from the members ; for the part of the body is double, and 
 the member is single ; the former is always single and alone, 
 
188 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and the latter always repeated. Thus the head and tail of 
 an animal are parts of its body, and the legs and ears are 
 members. 
 
 This most wonderful law of Nature destroys all the hypoth- 
 eses which introduce chance into the organization of beings ; 
 for independently of its harmonies, it doubles the proofs of a 
 Providence, who did not deem it sufficient to give one princi- 
 pal organ to animals adapted to each element in particular, 
 such as the eye for the light, the ear for sound, the foot for 
 the ground, but determined that they should have each of 
 those organs by pairs. 
 
 Certain sages have considered this admirable duplication 
 as a predisposition of Providence, that the animal might 
 always be able to supply the loss of one of the double organs, 
 exposed as they are to so many accidents ; but the interior parts 
 of the body, which at first sight appear to be single, present 
 on closer examination a similar duplicity of forms, even in 
 the human body, where they are more confounded than in 
 other animals. Thus the five lobes of the lungs, one of which 
 has a kind of division ; the fissure of the liver ; the supernal 
 separation of the brain by the duplication of the dura-mater ; 
 the septum lucidum, similar to a leaf of talc, which separates 
 the two anterior ventricles of it ; the two ventricles of the 
 heart ; and the divisions of the other viscera announce this 
 double union, and seem to indicate, that the very principle oj 
 life is the consonance of two similar harmonies. 
 
 From this duplicity of organs there results more utility than 
 if they had been single. Man with two eyes can take in at 
 once more than half the horizon, with one only he could 
 scarcely have embraced a third part. Provided with two 
 arms he can perform many actions he never could have ac- 
 complished with but one, such as raising upon his head a 
 load of considerable size and weight, and clambering up a 
 tree. Had he been placed upon one leg, not only would his 
 position be much more unsteady than on two, but he would 
 be unable to walk ; his progressive motion would be reduced 
 to crawling or hopping, producing discord to the other parts 
 of his body, and the variety of soils over which he is destined 
 to move. 
 
 If Nature has given a single exterior organ to animals, as 
 the tail, it is because its use extends but to a single action, 
 to which it is fully equivalent. Besides, the tail from its situa- 
 
STUDY X. 189 
 
 tion is secured against danger, and hardly any but very 
 powerful animals have a long tail, as bulls, horses, and lions. 
 Rabbits and hares have it very short. In feeble animals 
 which have one of considerable length, as the thornback, it 
 is armed with prickles, or else it grows again, if it happens 
 to be torn off by an accident, as in the case of a lizard. 
 Finally, whatever may be the simplicity of its use, it is formed 
 of two similar halves, as the other parts of the body. 
 
 There are other interior consonances, which collect diag- 
 onally the different organs of the body, to form but one only 
 and single animal of its two halves. I leave to anatomists 
 the investigation of this incomprehensible connexion ; but 
 the cruel experiments every day made on brutes, to discover 
 these secret correspondencies of Nature, serve only to spread 
 a thick veil over them ; and the barbarous means employed 
 by our modern physics, have an influence still more fatal on 
 the morals of those who practise them ; for, together with 
 false information, they inspire them with the most atrocious 
 of all vices, cruelty. 
 
 If man may presume to put questions to Nature respecting 
 the operations she is pleased to conceal, I should prefer the 
 road of pleasure to that of pain. Of the propriety of this sen- 
 timent I witnessed an instance at a country-seat in Normandy. 
 Walking in an adjoining field with a young gentleman, we 
 perceived bulls fighting. He ran to them with his staff bran- 
 dished, and the poor animals instantly gave up their conten- 
 tion. He went up to the most ferocious, and began to tickle 
 him at the root of the tail. The animal, whose eyes were 
 still inflamed with rage, became motionless, with outstretched 
 neck, expanded nostrils, transpiring the air with a satisfaction 
 which most amusingly demonstrated the intimate correspond- 
 ence between this extremity of his body and his head. 
 
 The duplicity of organs is farther observable in the essen- 
 tial parts of vegetables, as the anther & of the flowers, which 
 are double bodies : in their petals, one half corresponding 
 exactly to the other ; in the lobes of their seed, &c. A single 
 one of these parts, however, appears sufficient for the expan- 
 sion and generation of the plant. This observation applies 
 to the very leaves, the halves of which are mostly correspond- 
 ent ; and if any one recedes from this order, undoubtedly the 
 reason is worthy of investigation. 
 
 These facts confirm the distinction between the parts and 
 
190 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 members of a body ; for in leaves where this duplicity occurs 
 the vegetative faculty is usually to be found, which is diffused 
 over the body of the vegetable itself ; so that if you carefully 
 replant those leaves at the proper season, the complete vege- 
 table will thence be reproduced. Perhaps it is because the 
 interior organs of the tree are double that the principle of 
 vegetative life is diffused even over its slips, which sprout 
 again from one branch. Nay, some have the power of per- 
 petuating themselves by cuttings simply. Of this we have 
 a noted instance in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. 
 Two sisters became heiresses of an orange-tree; each insisted 
 on having it thrown into her allotment. At length, after 
 much wrangling, and neither being disposed to resign her 
 claim, it was settled that the tree should be cleft in two, and 
 each take her half. The orange-tree underwent the judg- 
 ment pronounced by Solomon on the child it was cleft 
 asunder : each sister replanted her own half, and, wonderful 
 to be told ! the tree which had been separated by unsisterly 
 animosity, received a new clothing of bark from the benignant 
 hand of Nature, 
 
 This universal consonance of forms suggested to man the 
 idea of symmetry. He has introduced it into most of the 
 works of art, particularly architecture, as an essential part of 
 order. To such a degree is it the work of intelligence and 
 combination, that I consider it as the principal character by 
 which we distinguish organized bodies from such as are not 
 so, however regular their assemblage may appear. 
 
 In conformity to these reflections, on considering the globe 
 of the earth, I observed that it too presented a duplicity of 
 form. From the beginning it had been my idea that this 
 globe, being the production of an Intelligence, order must 
 pervade it. I had discerned the utility of islands, and even 
 of banks, and of rocks, to protect the parts of continents most 
 exposed to the currents of the ocean, at the extremities of 
 which they are always situated. I had also seen the utility 
 of bays, removed from the currents of the ocean, and hollowed 
 into deep retreats to shelter the discharge of rivers, and serve, 
 by the tranquillity of their waters, as an asylum to the fishes, 
 which retire thither to collect the spoils of vegetation there 
 disgorged by the rivers. I had admired them in detail, but 
 had formed no conception of their combination. My mind 
 was bewildered, and I should without hesitation have ascribed 
 
STUDY X. 191 
 
 the whole to chance, had not the order I perceived in each of 
 the parts suggested to me the possibility that it might exist 
 also in the totality of the work. 
 
 I shall now display the globe under a new aspect. The 
 reader will pardon a digression which exhibits to him one 
 little fragment of the materials I had laid up for a geograph- 
 ical structure, but which tends to prove the universality of 
 the laws I am endeavouring to establish. 
 
 I first endeavoured to find out consonances between the 
 northern and southern halves of the globe, but perceived only 
 oppositions ; the northern being, if I may so express myself, 
 a terrestrial hemisphere, and the southern a maritime, and 
 so different from each other, that the winter of one is the 
 summer of the other ; and the seas of the first hemisphere 
 seem to be opposed to the lands and islands scattered over 
 the second. This contrast presented another analogy with 
 an organized body, for every organized body has two halves 
 in contrast, as there are two in consonance. 
 
 I found in it then something like analogy with an animal, 
 whose head should have been to the north, from the attraction 
 of the magnet peculiar to our pole, which seems there to fix 
 a sensorium, as in the head of an animal : the heart under 
 the line, from the constant heat of the torrid zone, which 
 seems to determine this as the region of the heart : finally, 
 ihe excretory organs in the southern part, in which the 
 greatest seas, the vast receptacles of the alluvions of conti- 
 nents, are situated ; and where we likewise find the greatest 
 number of volcanoes, which may be considered as the excre- 
 tory organs of the seas, whose bitumens and sulphurs they 
 consume. Besides, the sun, who sojourns five or six days 
 longer in the northern hemisphere, seemed to present to me 
 a more marked resemblance to the body of an animal, in 
 which the heart, the centre of heat, is somewhat nearer to 
 the head than to the lower extremities. 
 
 Though these contrasts appeared sufficiently determinate 
 to manifest order on the globe, and though I perceived some- 
 thing similar in vegetables distinguished into two parts, 
 opposite in functions and forms, as the leaves and roots ; I 
 was afraid of giving scope to my imagination, and attempting 
 to generalize the laws of Nature peculiar to each existence, 
 by extending them to kingdoms not susceptible of the appli- 
 cation. But I ceased to doubt of the general order of the 
 
192 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 globe, when with two halves in contrast I found two others 
 in consonance. I was astonished, I confess, when I observed 
 in its duplicity of forms members exactly repeated on that 
 side and on this. 
 
 The globe, considered from east to west, is divided, as all 
 organized bodies are, into two similar halves, the Old and 
 New World. Each part mutually corresponds in the eastern 
 and western hemispheres. The lakes of Finland and the 
 gulf of Archangel correspond to the lakes of Canada and 
 Baffin's Bay ; Nova Zembla to Greenland ; the Baltic to 
 Hudson's Bay; the islands of Great Britain -and Ireland, 
 which cover the first of these mediterraneans, to the islands 
 of Good Fortune and Welcome, which protect the second ; 
 the Mediterranean, properly so called, to the Gulf of Mexico, 
 which is a kind of mediterranean formed in part by islands. 
 At the extremity of the Mediterranean we find the isthmus 
 of Suez in consonance with the isthmus of Panama, placed 
 at the bottom of the gulf of Mexico. Conjoined by those 
 isthmuses the peninsula of Africa presents itself in the Old 
 World, and the peninsula of South America in the New. 
 The principal rivers of these divisions of the globe front each 
 other in like manner ; for the Senegal discharges itself into 
 the Atlantic directly opposite to the river of the Amazons. 
 Finally, each of these peninsulas, advancing toward the south 
 pole, terminates in a cape equally noted for violent tempests, 
 the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. 
 
 There are between these two hemispheres many other 
 points of consonance on which I shall no longer insist. 
 These different particulars, it is admitted, do not correspond 
 exactly in the same latitudes ; but they are disposed in the 
 direction of a spiral line winding from east to west, and ex- 
 tending from north to south, so that these corresponding 
 points proceed in a regular progression. They are nearly of 
 the same height, setting out from the north, as the Baltic and 
 Hudson's Bay ; and they lengthen in America, in proportion 
 as it advances toward the south. This progression is percep- 
 tible along the Old Continent, as may be seen from the form 
 of its capes, which, taking the point of departure east, length- 
 en so much more south as they advance toward the west ; 
 such as the Cape of Kamtschatka in Asia, Cape Comorin in 
 Arabia, the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, and finally, Cape 
 Horn in America. 
 
STUDY X. 193 
 
 These differences of proportion are to be accounted for from 
 this, that the two terrestrial hemispheres are not projected in 
 the same manner ; for the Old Continent has its greatest 
 breadth from east to west, and the New its greater extent 
 from north to south ; and it is manifest this difference of pro- 
 jection has been regulated by the AUTHOR of Nature for the 
 same reasons which induced him to bestow double parts on 
 animals, in order that, if necessity required, the one might 
 supply what was deficient in the other, but principally that 
 they might be of mutual assistance. 
 
 If, for example, there existed only the ancient continent 
 with the South Sea alone, the motion of that sea being much 
 accelerated under the line by the regular winds from the east, 
 would, after having surrounded the torrid zone, advance with 
 incredible fury, and attack tremendously the land of Japan : 
 for the size of the billows of the sea is always in proportion 
 to its extent. But from the disposition of the two continents 
 the billows of the great eastern current of the Indian Ocean 
 are partly retarded by the archipelagoes of the Moluccas and 
 Philippine Islands ; they are still farther broken by other 
 islands, such as the Maldivia, by the capes of Arabia, and by 
 that of Good Hope, which throws them back toward the 
 south. Before they reach Cape Horn they have to encoun- 
 ter new obstacles from the current of the south pole, which 
 then crosses their course, and the change of the monsoon, 
 which totally destroys the cause of the commotion at the end 
 of six months. Thus there is not a single current, easterly 
 or northerly, which pervades so much as a quarter of the 
 globe in the same direction. Besides, the division of the 
 parts of the globe into two, is so necessary to its general har- 
 mony, that if the channel of the Atlantic Ocean, which 
 separates them, had no existence, all the oriental rivers of 
 America and the occidental of Europe would be dried up ; 
 for those rivers owe their supplies only to the clouds which 
 emanate from the sea. Besides, the sun enlightening on 
 our side only one terrestrial hemisphere, the mediterraneans 
 of which would disappear, must bum it up with his rays ; 
 and at the same time, as he warmed on the other side a 
 hemisphere of water only, most of the islands of which would 
 sink of course, because the quantity of that sea must be in- 
 creased by the subtraction of ours, an immensity of vapour 
 would arise and go merely to waste. 
 
 Z 17 
 
194 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 It would appear that, from these considerations, Nature 
 has not placed in the torrid zone the greatest length of the 
 continents, but only the mean breadth of America and Africa, 
 because the action of the sun would there have been too 
 vehement. She has placed there, on the contrary, the long- 
 est diameter of the South Sea, and the greatest breadth of 
 the Atlantic Ocean, and there she has collected the greatest 
 quantity of islands in existence. Farther, she has placed in 
 the breadth of the continents, there lengthened out, the 
 greatest bodies of running water in the world, all issuing 
 from mountains of ice. Again, for this reason, she has mul- 
 i tiplied in the torrid zone and its vicinity, lofty chains of 
 mountains covered with snow, and she directs thither the 
 winds of the north and south pole, of which the trade-winds 
 always partake. Several of the great rivers which flow 
 there are not situated precisely under the line, but in regions 
 of the torrid zone, hotter Xhan the line itself. 
 
 From all this we have a glimpse of the necessity of two 
 continents, mutually to check the movements of the ocean. 
 Nature could not have disposed them otherwise, than by ex- 
 tending one lengthwise and the other in breadth, that the 
 opposed currents of their ocean might balance each other, and 
 that there might thence result a harmony adapted to their 
 shores, and to the islands contained in their basons. 
 
 Were we to suppose these two continents projected circularly, 
 from east to west, under the two temperate zones, the circu- 
 lation of the sea contained between them would be too vio- 
 lently accelerated by the east wind. There could be no lon- 
 ger any communication by sea from the line toward the poles ; 
 consequently no icy effusions in that ocean, no tides, no cool- 
 ing, and no renovation of its waters. If we suppose, on the 
 contrary, both continents extended from north to south, as 
 America is, there would be no longer any oriental current in 
 the ocean ; the two halves of each sea would meet in the 
 midst of their channel, and their polar effusions would there 
 encounter each other with an impetuosity of commotion, of 
 which the icy effusions precipitated from the Alps convey but 
 a faint idea. But by the alternate and opposite currents of 
 the seas the icy effusions of our pole proceed, in summer, to 
 cool Africa, Brazil, and the southern parts of Asia, forcing 
 its way beyond the Cape of Good Hope, by the monsoon, 
 which then carries the current of the ocean towards the east ; 
 
STUDY X. 195 
 
 and during our winter the effusions of the south pole proceed 
 towards the west, to moderate on the same shores the action 
 of the sun, which is there unremitting. By means of these 
 two spiral motions of the seas, similar to those of the sun in 
 the heavens, there is not a single drop of water but what may 
 make the tour of the globe by evaporation under the line, 
 dissolution into rain in the continent, and congelation under 
 the pole. These universal correspondences are so much the 
 more worthy of being remarked, that they enter into all the 
 plans of Nature, and present themselves in the rest of her 
 works. 
 
 From any other imaginable order would result other incon- 
 veniences, which I leave the reader to find out. Hypotheses 
 ex absurdo are at once amusing and useful ; they change, it 
 is true, natural proportions into caricatures ; but they have 
 this advantage, that by convincing us of the weakness of our 
 understanding, they impress us with a deep sense of the 
 wisdom of Nature. 
 
 OP PROGRESSION. 
 
 Progression is a series of consonances ascending or descend- 
 ing. Wherever we meet progression it produces exquisite 
 pleasure, because it excites in the soul a sentiment of infinity. 
 
 When the leaves of a vegetable are arranged round ita 
 branches, as the branches themselves are round the stem, there 
 ia consonancy, as in pines ; but if the branches are farther dis- 
 posed among themselves on similar plans, diminishing in 
 magnitude, as in the pyramidical form of firs, there is pro- 
 gression ; and if these trees are disposed in long avenues de- 
 creasing in height and colouring, like their particular mass, 
 our pleasure is heightened, because the progression becomes 
 infinite. 
 
 From this instinct of infinity we take pleasure in viewing 
 every object which presents a progression ; as nursery-grounds, 
 containing plants of different ages, hills flying off to the ho- 
 rizon in successive elevations, perspectives without a termi- 
 nation. 
 
 Nature has not formed, after our limited manner, perspec- 
 tives with one or two consonances ; but she composes them 
 of a multitude of different progressions to be found in the 
 minutest of her works, of which they constitute the principal 
 charm. They are not the effect of any mechanical law, but 
 
196 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 have been apportioned to each vegetable, to prolong the en- 
 joyment of its fruit, conformably to the wants of man. Some 
 appear only during the season of heat, others can be preserved ; 
 but those designed to supply the accidental demands of man- 
 kind remain on the earth at all times. Not only are these 
 last enclosed in shells for their preservation, but they appear 
 upon the tree at all seasons, and in every cegree of maturity. 
 In tropical countries, on the uninhabited shores of the islands,* 
 the cocoa-tree bears at once 12 or 15 clusters of cocoa-nuts, 
 some in the bud, others in flower, others knit, others full of 
 milk, and, finally, some in a state of perfect maturity. The 
 cocoa is the seaman's tree. 
 
 The productions of our corn-fields and vineyards present 
 dispositions still more wonderful ; for though the ear of corn 
 has several faces, its grains come to maturity at the same 
 time, from the mobility of its straw, which presents them to 
 all the aspects of the sun. The vine does not grow in form 
 of a bush nor of a tree, but in hedge-rows ; and though its 
 berries be arranged in form of clusters, their transparency 
 renders them throughout penetrable by the rays of the sun. 
 Nature thus lays men under the necessity, from the sponta- 
 neous maturity of these fruits, destined to the general support 
 of human life, to unite their labours, and mutually assist each 
 other in the pleasant toils of the harvest and the vintage. 
 The corn-field and the vineyard may be considered as the 
 most powerful cements of society ; for although nature has 
 refused to the corn-plant and the vine the power of yielding 
 their fruits at all seasons of the year, she has bestowed on the 
 flour of the one and the wine of the other, the quality of being 
 preservable for ages. 
 
 OF CONTRASTS. 
 
 Contrasts differ from contraries in this, that contraries act 
 but in one single point, and contrasts in their general combi- 
 nation. An object has but one contrary, but may have many 
 contrasts. White is the contrary of black ; but it contrasts 
 with blue, green, red, and various other colours. 
 
 Nature, to distinguish the harmonies, consonances, and 
 progressions of bodies, makes them exhibit contrasts. This 
 law is the less observed, being common. Naturalists consider 
 
 * See Francis Pyrard's Voyage to the Maldives. 
 
STUDY X. 197 
 
 the colour of bodies as simple accidents ; and look on their 
 very forms as the effect of some attraction, incubation, crystal- 
 lization, c. Books are composed to extend by analogies the 
 mechanical effects of those laws to the different productions 
 of Nature; but if they really possess so much power, how 
 comes it that the sun has not long ere now rilled the waters, 
 the dry land, the forests, the heavens, the plains, and all the 
 creatures over which he exercises so much influence with the 
 uniform and monotonous effects of his light 1 All these objects 
 ought to assume his appearance, and present only white or 
 yellow to our eyes, and be distinguished from each other only 
 by their shades. A landscape ought to exhibit no other effects 
 but those of a cameo or of a print. Latitudes, we are told, 
 diversify the colour of them. But if latitudes have this power, 
 how comes it to pass that the productions of the same climate 
 and of the same field have not all the same tints'? Whence 
 is it that quadrupeds, which are born and die in the meadow, 
 do not produce young ones green as the grass on which they 
 feed? 
 
 Nature has not satisfied herself with establishing particular 
 harmonies in every species of beings to characterize them, 
 but, that they might not be confounded among themselves, 
 she exhibits them in contrasts. In general, she has made 
 herbs green, to detach them from the earth, and has given 
 the colour of earth to animals which live on herbage, to dis- 
 tinguish them from the ground on which they stray. This 
 general contrast may be remarked in domestic animals, the 
 yellow beasts of the forests, and all the granivorous birds 
 which live among herbage or the foliage of trees, as the hen, 
 partridge, quail, lark, sparrow, and many others of earthy 
 colours, because they live among verdure. But those who 
 live on dingy grounds are clad in brilliant colours, as the 
 bluish tomtit and the woodpecker, which scramble along the 
 rind of trees in pursuit of insects, and many others. 
 
 Nature universally opposes the colour of the animal to that 
 of the ground on which it is destined to live ; and this most 
 admirable law admits not a single exception. Flat fishes, 
 but indifferent swimmers, and destined to live at the bottom 
 of the sea, have the colour of the sands where they find their 
 nourishment, being spotted, like the beach, with gray, yellow, 
 black, red, and brown. They are thus speckled, I admit, 
 only on one side ; but they are so sensible of this resemblance, 
 
198 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 that when enclosed within the parks formed on the etrand to 
 entrap them, and observing the tide gradually retiring, they 
 bury their fins in the sand, expecting its return, and present 
 to the eye only their deceitful side. It so perfectly resembles 
 the ground on which they squat to conceal themselves, that 
 it would be impossible for the fishermen to distinguish them 
 from it without the help of sickles, which they draw in every 
 direction along the surface of the sand, to detect by the touch 
 what the eye could not discern. This I have witnessed, more 
 highly amused at the dexterity of the fishes than at that of 
 the fishermen. 
 
 Nature has bestowed at once, in the colours of innoxious 
 animals, contrasts with the ground on which they live, and 
 consonances with that which is adjacent, and has superadded 
 the instinct of employing these alternately, as good or bad 
 fortune prompts. These wonderful accommodations may be 
 remarked in most of our small birds, whose flight is feeble 
 and of short duration. The gray lark subsists among the 
 grass of the plains : if terrified, she glides away, and takes 
 her station between two little clods of earth, where she 
 becomes invisible, and remains in perfect tranquillity. 
 
 The same thing is true of the partridge. I have no doubt 
 that these defenceless birds have a sense of those contrasts 
 and correspondences of colour, for I have remarked it even 
 in insects ; it is also conspicuous even in the cameleon, 
 endowed with the incomprehensible faculty of assuming at 
 pleasure the colour of the ground over which he moves. 
 
 But in the age of weakness and inexperience Nature 
 confounds the colour of harmless animals with that of the 
 ground on which they inhabit, without committing to them 
 the power of choice. The young of pigeons, and of most 
 granivorous fowls, are clothed with a greenish shaggy coat, 
 resembling the mosses of their nests. Caterpillars are blind, 
 and have the complexion of the foliage and of the barks 
 which they devour. Nay, young fruits, before they are 
 armed with prickles, or enclosed in cases, in bitter pulps, in 
 hard shells, to protect their seeds, are, during the season of 
 their expansion, green as the leaves which surround them. 
 Some embryos, it is true, as those of certain pears, are ruddy 
 and brown, but they are then of the colour of the bark of the 
 tree to which they belong. When those fruits have enclosed 
 their seeds in kernels, or nuts, so as to be in no farther danger, 
 
STUDY X. 199 
 
 they then change colour, and give their respective trees their 
 natural contrasts. It is strikingly remarkable, that every 
 fruit which has changed colour has seed in a state of 
 maturity. 
 
 The insects, in like manner, having deposited their robes 
 of infancy, and now committed to their own experience, 
 spread about over the world, to multiply the harmonies of it 
 with the attire and instincts which Nature has conferred upon 
 them. Clouds of butterflies, which in their caterpillar state 
 were confounded with the verdure of plants, now oppose the 
 colours and forms of their wings to those of flowers. 
 
 Nature does not employ those agreeable correspondences 
 and contrasts in the decoration of noxious animals, nor even 
 of dangerous vegetables. Carnivorous or venomous animals 
 form, at every age, and wherever they are, oppositions harsh 
 and disgusting ; but the useful bee is of the complexion of 
 the stamina and calices of the flowers, where she reaps her 
 innocent harvests. 
 
 Poisonous plants also present disgusting contrasts, from the 
 livid colours of their flowers, which are in harsh oppositions 
 with the tender shades ; from their nauseous and virulent 
 smells ; from their prickly foliage, of a dark-green hue, and 
 clashing with white on the under side, as the aconite tribes. 
 
 Such of the brute creation as are intended to live on two dif- 
 ferent grounds, are impressed with a double contrast in their 
 colours. Thus, for example, the kingfisher, which skims 
 along rivers, is at once musk-coloured and glazed over with 
 azure ; so as to be detached from the dusky shores by his 
 azure colour, and from the azure of the waters by his musk 
 colour. The duck, which dabbles on the same shores, has 
 the body tinged of an ash colour, while the head and neck 
 are of an emerald-green, so that he is perfectly distinguish- 
 able by the gray colour of his body, from the verdure of the 
 aquatic plants among which he waddles, and by the verdure 
 of his head and neck, from the dark-coloured mud where he 
 finds part of his food, and in which, by another most astonish- 
 ing contrast, he never soils his plumage. 
 
 Nature opposes, then, the colours of every animal to those 
 of the respective ground on which it is to be placed ; and 
 what confirms the truth of this law is, that the greatest part 
 of birds which live on one ground only have but a single 
 colour, and that one strongly contrasted with the colour of 
 
200 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the ground. Accordingly, the birds which live aloft in the 
 air, on the azure ground of the heavens, or in the bosom of 
 the waters, in the midst of lakes, are mostly white, which 
 of all colours forms the most striking contrast with blue, and 
 is consequently most adapted to render them perceptible at 
 a distance. 
 
 There are others, which, to form a contrast with those last 
 mentioned, detach themselves from the skies and waters by 
 their black or dusky colours : as the crow, which is percep- 
 tible at so great a distance in the heavens, on the white 
 ground of the clouds. Hence it may be inferred, that when 
 an animal is invested with but one single tint, he is intended 
 but for. one situation ; and when he combines in himself the 
 contrast of two opposite tints, that he lives on two grounds, 
 the colours themselves of which are determined by that of 
 the plumage, or hair, of the animal. We must, however, 
 guard against an unlimited generalization of -this law, and 
 consider it as harmonizing with the exceptions which wise 
 Nature has established, for the preservation of animals ; such 
 as the whitening of them, to the north, in winter, as a remedy 
 against cold, and imbrowning them to the south, during the 
 ardours of summer, to shelter them from the effects of burn- 
 ing. What evidently demonstrates that these great effects 
 of harmony are not mechanical results, is, that among the 
 infinite number of birds which live in the higher regions of 
 the air, or on the surface of the azure seas, there are none of 
 the colour of blue ; and that many birds which live between 
 the tropics, in the bosom of black rocks, or under the shade 
 of sullen forests, are azure-coloured. 
 
 These harmonies are contrived for the use of man ; and as 
 a farther consequence of these correspondences with him, 
 Nature has given to the birds which live remote from him, 
 cries shrill, hoarse, and piercing, which render them percepti- 
 ble at a distance, amidst their wild retreats. She has be- 
 stowed sweet notes and melodious voices on the little birds 
 of our groves, domesticated in our habitations, to heighten 
 our delight, as well by their warbling as by the beauty of their 
 colours. 
 
 All the kingdoms of Nature present themselves to man 
 with the same correspondences, the abysses of the ocean not 
 excepted. The fishes which live on animal substances, as 
 the whole class of the cartilaginous do, have disgusting forms 
 
STUDY X. 201 
 
 and colours. Fishes which live in the open sea, have colours 
 marbled with white, black, brown, which distinguish them 
 in the bosom of the azure billows. But among those which 
 frequent the dusky shores, and particularly such as are de- 
 nominated saxatile, because they live among rocks, are found 
 fishes, the lustre of whose skin and scales surpasses all the 
 efforts of the pencil, especially when alive. The legions of 
 mackarel and herrings diffuse the radiance of silver and azure 
 over the northern strands of Europe. 
 
 Among the black rocks of the seas of the Tropics, the fish 
 known by the name of captain is caught, whose colours vary 
 with the latitude. This beautiful fish, says Francis Gauche, 
 which takes pleasure in the rocks, is streaked in form of 
 lozenges ; his scales are of a pale gold colour, and his back 
 coloured and glazed over with laca, inclining toward vermil- 
 ion. His dorsal fin and tail are waved with azure, fading 
 away into green toward the extremities. Here likewise is 
 found the magnificent fish called the sardin, which is adorned 
 with scales of at once a gold and silver hue, crossed from 
 head to tail by black lines, which admirably heighten their 
 lustre. 
 
 Wherever you see a brilliant fish, be assured his habitation 
 is near the shore, and that he lives in the open ocean if he 
 is of a dark colour. This truth we may ascertain in the chan- 
 nels and on the banks of our own rivers. The silver smelt 
 and the bray, whose scales are employed in the formation of 
 mock pearls, play on the strand of the Seine ; whereas the 
 eel, of the gloomy colour of slate, takes pleasure to dabble at 
 the bottom of the stream. We must not, however, pretend 
 to generalize these laws, to the exclusion of exceptions. 
 Nature subjects all to the mutual adaptation of beings, and 
 to the enjoyment of man ; for though the fishes on the shores 
 have, in general, shining colours, there are several species of 
 them invariably of a dark colour. 
 
 The saxatile fishes, which can easily ensure their safety 
 among the rocks, by agility in swimming, or by the facility 
 of finding a retreat in their cavernous receptacles, or of there 
 defending themselves against their enemies, by the armour 
 which Nature has bestowed, have all of them lively and 
 shining colours, the cartilaginous excepted. All shell -fish 
 which walk and migrate, and, consequently, have the power 
 of choosing their asylum, are those, in their kind, which have 
 2 A 
 
202 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the richest colours and form, with the different grounds of the 
 sea, secondary harmonies totally unknown : but those which 
 do not change their situation, as most oysters, which fre- 
 quently adhere to the rocks, or those which are perpetually 
 at anchor in straits, as muscles, or those, in a word, which I 
 believe are blind, like our land-snails, are of the colour of the 
 ground they inhabit, to be less perceptible to their enemies. 
 
 It is impossible to ascribe, as in the shell-fish of India, 
 colours so charming to the action of the sun on those shells, 
 covered as they are with tartars and rough coats ; we may 
 venture to affirm, that Nature has veiled their beauty, only 
 to preserve it for the enjoyment of man, and placed them only 
 on the verge of the shores, where the sea purifies, by tossing 
 them about, to put them within his reach. Thus she places 
 the most brilliant shells in regions the most exposed to the 
 ravages of the elements ; and presents to the poor Patagonians 
 spoons and cups, the lustre of which far surpasses the richest 
 plate of polished nations. 
 
 Hence it may be inferred, that fishes in general, and shell- 
 fish in particular, which have two opposite colours, live on two 
 different grounds, as we have observed in the case of birds, 
 and that those which have only one colour frequent only one 
 ground. 
 
 It must not be concluded, on the other hand, that such 
 shell-fish are indebted for their colours to the rocks on which 
 they adhere by suction ; for it would thence follow, that the 
 rocks of Magellan's strait, which produce muscles and limpets 
 so rich in colouring, should be themselves inlaid with mother- 
 of-pearl, opal, and amethyst ; besides, every rock maintains 
 shell-fish of very different colours. Many of those marine 
 harmonies have escaped me, for I then considered them as 
 merely the effect of chance. I looked at and admired them, 
 but I observed them not : I suspected, however, even then, 
 that the pleasure which their harmonic combination inspired, 
 must be referable to some with which I am unacquainted. 
 
 Enough has been said to demonstrate how much natural- 
 ists have mutilated the finest portion of natural history, by 
 retailing isolated descriptions of animals and plants, without 
 noticing the season when, and the place where, they are to be 
 found. By this negligence they strip them of all their beauty , 
 for there is not an animal or plant existing, whose harmonic 
 point is not fixed to a certain situation, to a certain hour of 
 
STUDY X. 203 
 
 the day or night, to the rising or setting eun, to the phases of 
 the moon, nay, to the very tempests ; to say nothing of the 
 other contrasts and correspondences resulting from these. 
 
 I am so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of all those 
 harmonies, that I doubt not, on seeing the colour of an ani- 
 mal, one might determine nearly that of the ground it inhab- 
 its ; and by following up those indications, a road might be 
 paved to curious discoveries. 
 
 We meet with those contrasts even in the brute soils of the 
 earth. If a uniform and mechanical cause had produced the 
 globe of the earth, it must have been universally of the same 
 matter and colour : the hills, mountains, rocks, and sands, 
 must have been amalgams, or the rubbish, of each other; but 
 this is not found to be the case in any one district, however 
 small. In the same canton may be found red mountains, 
 black rocks, white plains, and yellow sands ; with substances 
 as much varied as their colour. I shall for the present only 
 recommend to naturalists to study Nature, as the great 
 painters do, by uniting the harmonies of the three kingdoms. 
 Every one who observes in this manner, will find a new light 
 diffused over the perusal of voyages and of natural history, 
 though their authors scarcely ever speak of those contrasts. 
 But every man will be himself in a condition to discover their 
 delightful effects, in what is called brute Nature, I mean that 
 with which man has not intermeddled. As often as a natural 
 object presents to you a sentiment of pleasure, you may rest 
 assured it exhibits some harmonic concert. 
 
 Beyond doubt, animals and plants of the same climate 
 have not received from the sun, nor the elements, liveries so 
 varied, and so characteristic. Many new observations may 
 be made upon their contrasts. He who has not seen them 
 in their natural place, has not yet become acquainted with 
 their beauty or deformity. Not only are they in opposition 
 to the grounds of their respective habitations, but also be- 
 tween themselves, as to genus and genus ; and it is worthy of 
 remark, that when these contrasts are established, they exist 
 in all the parts of the two individuals. We shall speak of 
 those plants in the following Study, by simply glancing at 
 that delightful and inexhaustible subject. 
 
 Those of animals are still farther extended ; they are 
 opposed in forms, gestures, and instincts; and with differences 
 so decidedly marked, they love to associate with each other, 
 
204 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 in the same places. This consonance of tastes distinguishes 
 beings in contrast, from those which are contrary, or enemies. 
 Thus the bee and the butterfly extract the nectar of the same 
 flowers ; and the single-hoofed horse, snuffing up the wind, 
 with his mane flowing over his graceful neck, delights to 
 amble about airily over the same meadows on which the 
 ponderous bull impresses his cloven foot ; the dull and steady 
 ass takes pleasure in scrambling over the rocks where the 
 capricious goa?t frisks and bounds ; the cat and dog live 
 peaceably by the same fireside, unless where the tyranny of 
 man has vitiated their dispositions, by a treatment calculated 
 to excite hatreds and jealousies between them. 
 
 Finally, contrasts exist not only in the works of Nature in 
 general, but in each individual in particular, and constitute, 
 as well as consonances, the organization of bodies. If you 
 examine one of those bodies, of whatever species, you will 
 remark in it forms absolutely opposite, and, nevertheless, 
 consonant. It is thus that, in animals, the excretory organs 
 contrast with those of nutrition. The long tails of horses 
 and bulls are opposed to the large size of their heads and 
 necks, and come in as a supplement to the motions of these 
 anterior parts, too unwieldy to drive away the insects that 
 infest them. On the contrary, the broad tail of the peacock 
 forms a contrast with the length of the neck, and smallness 
 of the head, of that magnificent bird. The proportions of 
 other animals present oppositions no less harmonic, nor less 
 happily adapted to the necessities of each species. 
 
 Harmonies, consonances, progressions, and contrasts, must, 
 therefore, be reckoned among the first elements of Nature. 
 To those we are indebted for the sentiments of order, beauty, 
 pleasure, which spring up in the mind at sight of her works ; 
 and from her absence arise the uneasy feelings of disorder, 
 ugliness, languor, and disgust. They extend equally to all 
 the kingdoms ; and though I have limited myself to an 
 examination of their effects in the vegetable kingdom only, 
 it is impossible to deny myself the pleasure of indicating 
 them, at least, in the human figure. Here Nature has com- 
 bined all the harmonic expressions in their highest degree of 
 excellency. All I can do is to trace a feeble sketch of it. 
 Neither have I leisure to arrange more than a part of my 
 observations on this vast and interesting subject. But the 
 little which I am going to advance will be sufficient to over- 
 
STUDY X. 205 
 
 turn the position maintained by men of celebrity in the world 
 of science, namely, That human beauty is arbitrary. 
 
 OF THE HUMAN FIGURE. 
 
 All the harmonic expressions are combined in the human 
 figure. Observe the form of the head of man, which ap- 
 proaches to the spherical, the form, by way of excellence. I 
 do not believe this configuration is common to it with that of 
 any animal whatever. On its anterior part is traced the oval 
 of the face, terminated by the triangle of the nose, and en- 
 compassed by the radiations of the hair. The head is sup- 
 ported by a neck of considerably less diameter than itself, 
 which detaches it from the body by a concave part. 
 
 This slight sketch presents, at the first glance, the five 
 harmonic terms of the elementary generation of forms. The 
 hair exhibits lines ; the nose the triangle ; the head the 
 sphere ; the face the oval ; and the void under the chin the 
 parabola. The neck, which, like a column, sustains the 
 head, exhibits, likewise, the very agreeable harmonic form 
 of the cylinder, composed of the circular and quadrilateral. 
 
 These forms, however, are not traced in a stiff and geo- 
 metrical manner, but imperceptibly run into each other, and 
 mutually blend, as parts of the same whole. The hair does 
 not fall in straight lines, but flowing ringlets, and harmonizes 
 with the oval of the face ; the triangle of the nose is neither 
 acute, nor a right angle ; but, by the undulatory swelling of 
 the nostrils, presents a harmony with the heart form of the 
 mouth, and, sloping towards the forehead, melts away into 
 the cavities of the eyes. The spheroid of the head also amal- 
 gamates with the oval of the face. The same thing holds 
 with respect to the other parts, as Nature employs, in their 
 general combination, the roundings of the forehead, cheeks, 
 chin, and neck, that is, portions of the most beautiful of the 
 harmonic expressions, namely, the sphere. 
 
 There are, farther, proportions which form, with each other, 
 pleasing harmonies and contrasts : as that of the forehead, 
 which presents a quadrilateral form, in opposition to the trian- 
 gle, composed of the eyes and mouth ; and that of the ears, 
 formed of very ingenious acoustic curves, not to be met with 
 in the auditory organ of animals, because, in mere animals, 
 the ear collects not, like that of man, all the modulations of 
 speech. 
 
 18 
 
206 - STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 But I must expatiate more at large on the charming forms 
 assigned by Nature to the eyes and mouth, placed in the full 
 blaze of evidence, as the two active organs of the soul. The 
 mouth consists of two lips, the upper moulded into the shape 
 of a heart, that form so lovely as to have become proverbial 
 for its beauty ; and the under rounded into a demi-cylindric 
 segment. In the opening between the lips, we have a glimpse 
 of the quadrilateral figure of the teeth, whose perpendicular 
 and parallel lines contrast most agreeably with the round 
 forms adjoining, and so much the more, as we have seen, 
 that the first generative term being brought into union with 
 the supremely excellent harmonic term, that is, the straight 
 line with the spherical form, the most harmonic of all contrasts 
 results from it. 
 
 The same relations are to be found in the eyes, the forms 
 of which combine still more the harmonic elementary ex- 
 pressions ; as it was fit the chief of all the organs should do. 
 They are two globes, fringed on the lids with eyelashes, 
 radiating with divergent pencil strokes, which form with them 
 a most delightful contrast, and present a striking consonance 
 with the sun, after which they seem to have been modelled, 
 having, like that orb, a spherical figure, encircled with diver- 
 gent rays in the eyelashes ; having a movement of self-rota- 
 tion, and possessing the power, like him, of veiling themselves 
 in clouds by means of their lids. 
 
 The same elementary harmonies may be traced in the 
 colours of the head, and in its forms ; in the face we have 
 the pure white exhibited in the teeth and eyes ; then the 
 shades of yellow, which dissolve into its carnation, as paint- 
 ers well know ; after that the red, the eminently excellent 
 colour, which glows on the lips and cheeks. You farther 
 remark the blue of the veins, and sometimes that of the eye- 
 balls ; and finally, the black of the hair, which, by its oppo- 
 sition, gives relief to the colours of the face, as the vacuum 
 of the neck detaches the forms of the head. 
 
 Observe, that Nature employs not, in decorating the human 
 face, colours harshly opposed ; but blends them, as she does 
 the forms, softly and insensibly into each other. Thus, the 
 white melts here into yellow, there into red. The blue of the 
 veins has a greenish cast. The hair is rarely of a jet black; 
 but brown, chestnut, flaxen, and in general of a colour into 
 which a slight tint of the carnation enters, to prevent a 
 
STUDY X. 207 
 
 violently harsh opposition. She also employs spherical seg- 
 ments in forming the muscles which unite the organs, and 
 particularly to distinguish these organs she makes use of 
 red. She has accordingly extended a slight shade of it to 
 the forehead, which is strengthened upon the cheeks, and 
 applied pure and unmixed to the mouth, that organ of the 
 heart, where it forms a most agreeable contrast with the 
 whiteness of the teeth. The union of this colour with that 
 harmonic form, is the most powerful consonance of beauty ; 
 and it is worthy of remark, that wherever the spherical 
 forms swell, there the colour strengthens, except in the eyes. 
 
 As the eyes are the principal organs of the soul, they are 
 destined to express all its emotions, which could not have 
 been done with the harmonic red tint, for this would have 
 given but one single expression. Nature, in order there to 
 express the contrary passions, has united in the eye the most 
 opposite of colours, the white of the orbit and the black of 
 the iris, and sometimes of the ball, which form a very harsh 
 opposition, when the globes of the eye are displayed in the 
 full extent of their diameter ; but by means of the eyelids, 
 which man can contract or dilate at pleasure, he is enabled 
 to give them the expression of all the passions, from love to 
 fury. 
 
 Those eyes whose balls are blue are naturally the softest, 
 because the opposition is then less harsh with the adjacent 
 white ; but they are terrible when animated with rage, from 
 a moral contrast, which constrains us to consider those as the 
 most formidable of all objects, that menace evil, after having 
 encouraged us to expect good. Persons, therefore, thus dis- 
 tinguished, ought to be carefully on their guard against 
 treachery to that character of benevolence bestowed on them 
 by Nature ; for blue eyes express, by their colour, something 
 enchantingly celestial. 
 
 The movements of the muscles of the face would be dif- 
 ficult to describe, though it might be possible to explain their 
 laws. They must of necessity be referred to the moral 
 affections. Those of joy are horizontal, as if the soul, in the 
 enjoyment of felicity, had a disposition to extend itself. 
 Those of chagrin are perpendicular, as if, under the pressure 
 of calamity, the mind was looking toward Heaven for refuge, 
 or seeking it in the bosom of the earth. In the alterations 
 of colours, and contractions of forms, we shall discover the 
 
208 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 truth of the principle we have laid down, that the expression 
 of pleasure is in the harmony of contraries, blending with 
 each other in colours, forms, and motions ; and that the ex- 
 pression of pain consists in the violence of their oppositions. 
 The eyes alone have motions ineffable ; under the influence 
 of strong emotions, they are suffused with tears, and thus 
 seem to have a farther analogy with the orb of day, who, in 
 the season of tempests, shrouds himself in rainy distillations. 
 
 The principal organs of sense, four of which are placed in 
 the head, have particular contrasts, which detach their 
 spherical by means of radiated forms, and their shining 
 colours by dusky tints. Thus the bright organ of vision is 
 contrasted by the eyebrows ; those of smell and taste by 
 the mustaches ; the organ of hearing, by that part of the 
 hair called the favourite lock, which separates the ear from 
 the face ; and the face itself is distinguished from the rest 
 of the head by the beard and hair. 
 
 The human body alone unites in itself the modulations and 
 concerts, inexpressibly agreeable, of the five elementary forms, 
 and the five primordial colours, without exhibiting anything 
 of the harsh and rude oppositions perceptible in the brute 
 creation ; of it alone the first touch is perceptible, and may 
 be seen completely; other animals being disguised under 
 hair, feathers, or scales, which conceal their limbs, shape, and 
 skin. Farther, it is the only form which, in its perpendicu- 
 lar attitude, displays all its positions and directions at once; 
 for you can hardly perceive more of a quadruped, bird, or fish, 
 than one half, in the horizontal position proper to them, be- 
 cause the upper part of their body conceals the under. 
 
 Man's progressive motion is subject to neither the shocks 
 nor the tardiness of movement of most quadrupeds, nor to the 
 rapidity -of that of birds ; but is the result of movements the 
 most harmonic, as his figure is of forms and colours the most 
 delightful. 
 
 The more that the consonances of the human figure are 
 agreeable, the more disgusting are its dissonances. Hence, 
 on the face of the earth, nothing is so beautiful as a hand- 
 some man, nothing so shocking as a very ugly one. 
 
 This farther suggests a reason why it will be for ever im- 
 possible for art to produce a perfect imitation of the human 
 figure, from the difficulty of uniting in it all the harmonies ; 
 and from the still greater difficulty of effecting a complete 
 
STUDY X. 209 
 
 combination of those of a different nature. The exertions of 
 painters and sculptors in general do them much honour ; but 
 they demonstrate the weakness of Art, which falls below 
 Nature just, in proportion as it aims at uniting more of her 
 harmonies. Instead of blending them, as Nature herself 
 does, Art can only place them in opposition. This proves 
 that harmony results from the union of two contraries, and 
 discord from their collision : and the more agreeable the har- 
 monies of an object are, the more disgusting are its discord- 
 ances. Hence the real origin of pleasure and dislike, in 
 physics as in morals, and the reason why the same object 
 so frequently excites affection and aversion. 
 
 Many interesting reflections remain to be made on the hu- 
 man figure, especially by connecting with it the moral sen- 
 sations, which alone give expression to the features. The 
 physical beauty of man is so striking, in the eyes even of the 
 animal creation, that to it principally must be ascribed the 
 empire he everywhere exercises over them. The feeble seek 
 refuge under his protection ; the most powerful tremble at sight 
 of him. The lark will save herself amidst troops of men, 
 when she perceives the bird of prey hovering over her ; the 
 stag, when run down by the hounds, appeals with sobs for 
 relief, to the compassion of persons accidentally passing that 
 way ; the India-hens, under the impulse of love, throw them- 
 selves chuckling at the feet of the country people ; and it is 
 well known with what familiarity monkeys and fowls of all 
 kinds approach travellers in the forests of India. But dan- 
 gerous animals are seized with terror at the sight of man, 
 unless driven from their natural bias by some pressing neces- 
 sity. An elephant is led about in Asia by a little child ; the 
 African lion retires growling from the cabin of the Hottentot, 
 and seeks for himself a kingdom untrodden by the foot of 
 man ; and the immense whale, amidst his native element, 
 trembles and flees away before the puny bark of the Lapland- 
 er. Thus is executed that all-potent law, which secured em- 
 pire to man, though sunk in guilt and wretchedness : ' And 
 the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every 
 beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air ; upon all 
 that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the 
 sea ; into your hand are they delivered.' Gen. ix. 2. 
 
 It is remarkable, that through all Nature, there is no ani- 
 mal, plant, fossil, nor even globe, but what has its consonance 
 2B 18* 
 
210 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and contrast out of itself, man alone excepted. No one 
 visible being enters into society with him but as his servant 
 or slave. 
 
 We must, undoubtedly, reckon among the human propor- 
 tions, that law so universal, so wonderful, which produces 
 males and females in equal numbers. Did chance preside 
 over the generations of the human race, as over our alliances, 
 we should one year have an unmixed crop of male children, 
 and another, a race entirely female. Some nations would 
 consist wholly of men, others of women ; but all over the 
 globe, the two sexes are born, within the same space of time, 
 equal in number. A consonance so regular demonstrates 
 that a Providence watches over the affairs of mankind, not- 
 withstanding the absurdity and disorder of human institu- 
 tions. This is a standing testimony to the truth of our 
 religion, which limits man to one woman in marriage, and 
 by this conformity to natural laws, peculiar to itself, seems 
 alone to have emanated from the AUTHOR of Nature. A 
 religion therefore which permits or connives at a plurality of 
 wives, must be erroneous. 
 
 I Ah ! how little acquainted are they with the laws of Na- 
 ture, who, in the union of the two sexes, look for nothing 
 farther than the pleasures of sense ! / They are only culling 
 the flowers of life, without once tasting its fruit. The fair 
 sex ! this is the phrase of our men of pleasure ; women are 
 known to them under no other idea. But the sex is fair only 
 to persons who have no other faculty but eyesight. It is, 
 besides, to those who have a heart, the creative sex, which, 
 at the peril of life, carries man for nine months in the womb ; 
 the cherishing sex, which suckles and tends him in infancy. 
 It is the pious sex, which conducts him to the altar while yet 
 a child, and teaches him to draw in, with the milk of the 
 maternal breast, the love of a religion which the cruel policy 
 of men would frequently render odious to him. It is the 
 pacific sex, which sheds not the blood of a fellow creature ; 
 the sympathizing sex, which ministers to the sick, and 
 handles without hurting them. 
 
 To no purpose does man. pretend to boast of his power and 
 strength ; if his robust hands are able to subdue iron and 
 brass, those of the woman, more dexterous and usefully em- 
 ployed, can spin into threads the flax and the fleeces of the 
 sheep. The one encounters gloomy care with the maxims 
 
STUDY X. 211 
 
 of philosophy, the other banishes it by sportiveness and 
 gayety. The one opposes to external evils the force of his 
 reason ; the other, far happier, eludes them by the mobility 
 of hers. If the man sometimes considers it as his glory to 
 bid defiance to danger in the field of battle, the woman 
 triumphs, in calmly meeting dangers more inevitable, and 
 frequently more cruel, on her bed, and under the banners of 
 pleasure. Thus they have been created to support together 
 the ills of life, and to form by their union the most powerful 
 of consonances, and the sweetest of contrasts. 
 
 I am obliged by the plan of my work to refrain from pur- 
 suing my reflections on subjects so interesting as the marriage 
 and beauty of man and woman. I must, however, hazard 
 some farther observations, to induce others to dive into this 
 rich mine. 
 
 All philosophers who have studied man are agreed, and 
 with good reason, that he is the most wretched of all ani- 
 mals. Most of them have been sensible that an associate 
 was necessary to him to relieve his burdens, and they have 
 made his happiness in part to consist in friendship. This is 
 an evident demonstration of human weakness and misery ; 
 for were man naturally strong, he would stand in no -need of 
 either associate or assistance. 
 
 When the ancients represented perfect friendship, it was 
 always restricted to two ; for man is frequently reduced to 
 the necessity of deriving his felicity from the concurring 
 interposition of many beings similar to himself. The principal 
 reason for this restriction is deducible from the nature of the 
 human heart, which from its very weakness is capable of 
 attaching itself only to one object at once; and being com- 
 pounded of opposite passions that maintain a perpetual coun- 
 terpoise, is, in some sense, active and passive, and stands in 
 need of loving and being beloved, of comforting and being 
 comforted, of honouring and being honoured, and so on. 
 Those singular affections have ever been associated with vir- 
 tuous and heroic actions ; but when the union comprehended 
 more persons than two, it was speedily dissolved by discord, 
 or if permitted to subsist for any length of time, became 
 famous only for the mischief which it brought on mankind. 
 
 If the heart of man admits of but a single object, what 
 judgment shall we form of our modern friendships, embracing 
 as they do, a multiplicity 1 Undoubtedly if a man has thirty 
 
212 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 friends, he can bestow on each of them only the thirtieth part 
 of his affection, and can receive in return no greater propor- 
 tion of theirs. He must of necessity, therefore, deceive them; 
 for no one is disposed to be a friend by fractions. But, if the 
 truth may be told, such friendships are merely confederacies 
 of ambition ; relations interested and purely political, employ- 
 ed in practising mutual illusion, in the view of aggrandizing 
 themselves at the expense of society, which would be pro- 
 ductive of unspeakable mischief, were they more closely 
 united and not counterbalanced by opposite confederacies. 
 Almost all our general associations accordingly issue in 
 intestine wars. 
 
 The AUTHOR of Nature has given to each of us, in our 
 species, a natural friend, completely adapted to all the de- 
 mands of human life, capable of supplying all the affections 
 of the heart, and all the restlessness of temperament. He 
 says, from the beginning of the world : c It is not good that 
 man should be -alone : I will make him a help meet for him ; 
 and the LORD GOD made woman, and brought her unto 
 the man.'* Woman pleases all our senses by her form and 
 graces. She has in her character every thing that can inter- 
 est the heart of man at every stage of life. She merits, by 
 the long and painful solicitudes she exercises over our infancy, 
 our respect as a mother, and our gratitude as a nurse ; after- 
 ward, as man advances to youth, she attracts all his love as 
 a mistress ; and in the maturity of manhood, all his tender- 
 ness as a wife, his confidence as a faithful steward, his pro- 
 tection, as being feeble ; and even in old age she merits our 
 highest consideration, as the source of posterity, and our inti- 
 macy, as a friend who has been our companion through life. 
 Her gayety, nay, her very caprices, balance at all seasons the 
 gravity and over-reflective constancy of man, and acquire 
 reciprocally a preponderancy over him. 
 
 Thus the defects of one sex, and the excess of the other, 
 are an exact mutual compensation. They are formed, if I 
 may use the expression, to be grooved into each other, like the 
 corresponding pieces of carpenter's-work, the prominent and 
 retreating parts of which constitute a vessel fit to launch on 
 the stormy ocean of life, and to attain additional strength 
 from the very buffetings of the tempest. Had we not been 
 
 * Genesis, chap, U. ven 18, 22. 
 
STUDY X. 213 
 
 informed by a sacred tradition, that woman was extracted 
 from the side of man ; and though this great truth were not 
 every day manifested, in the wonderful birth of the children 
 of the two sexes in equal numbers, we should be speedily 
 instructed in it by our wants. Man without the woman, and 
 woman without the man, are imperfect beings in the order of 
 Nature. But the greater the contrast in their characters, the 
 more complete union there is in their harmonies. It is from 
 their opposition in talents, tastes, and fortunes, that the most 
 intense, the most durable affection is produced. Marriage is 
 therefore the friendship of Nature, and the only real union 
 which is not exposed, like those among men, to estrangement, 
 rivaiship, jealousies, and the changes time is effecting in our 
 inclinations. 
 
 But wherefore are there so few happy marriages among us 1 
 I answer, because with us the sexes have divested themselves 
 each of its proper nature, and assumed the other ; because 
 the women with us adopt the manners of men from education, 
 and men the manners of women from habit. ; The women 
 have been despoiled of the graces and talents peculiar to their 
 sex, by the masters, sciences, customs, and occupations of 
 men. There is no way left to bring both back to Nature, 
 but to inspire them with a taste for religion. By religion I 
 do not mean attachment to ceremonies or systems of theology, 
 but the religion of the heart, pure, simple, unostentatious ; 
 such as it is so beautifully depicted in the Gospel. 
 
 Religion will restore to the two sexes not only their moral 
 character, but physical beauty. It is not climate, aliment, 
 bodily exercise, nor all these together, which form human 
 beauty ; it is the moral sentiment of virtue, which cannot 
 subsist independently of religion. Aliment and exercise, no 
 doubt, contribute greatly to the magnitude and the expansion 
 of the body, but they have no influence on the beauty of the 
 face, the true physiognomy of the soul. It is not uncommon 
 to see persons tall and robust disgustingly ugly ; with the 
 stature of a giant, and the face of a monkey. 
 
 Beauty of face is to such a degree the expression of the 
 harmonies of the soul, that, in every country, those classes 
 of citizens who are obliged to live with others in a state 01 
 constraint, are sensibly the homeliest of society. The truth 
 of this observation may be ascertained, particularly among 
 the noblesse of many of our provinces, who live with each 
 
214 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 other in the perpetual jealousy of rank, and with their neigh- 
 bours of an inferior order in a state of unremitting- hostility, 
 for the maintenance of their prerogatives. The same thing 
 does not hold good respecting the noblesse of some other of 
 our provincial districts, and the nobility of other parts of 
 Europe. These, living in good understanding among them- 
 selves and with their compatriots, are in general the hand- 
 somest men of their nation, because their social and benevolent 
 spirit is not in a state of incessant constraint and anxiety. 
 
 To the same moral causes may be referred the beauty of 
 the features of the Greek and Roman physiognomies, where 
 we generally meet with models so exquisite in their statues 
 and medallions. They were beautiful, because happy ; they 
 lived in cordial union with their equals, and in favour with 
 the citizens at large. The descendants of those nations are 
 far from exhibiting a resemblance to their ancestors, though 
 the climate of their country is not in the smallest degree 
 changed. 
 
 To render children beautiful, they must be made physi- 
 cally, but, above all, morally happy. You must prevent every 
 possible occasion of vexation, not by kindling in their breasts 
 dangerous and headstrong passions, but by teaching them 
 to curb such as they have from Nature ; and especially, by 
 guarding against the communication of every thing unnatural, 
 such as useless and irksome tasks, emulations, rivalships, and 
 the like. 
 
 The ugliness of a child may be imputed to his nurse or 
 preceptor. I have sometimes observed families singularly 
 beautiful. On inquiring into the cause of this, I have found 
 that they were happy ; that the mothers had suckled their 
 own children ; that these had learned their occupations 
 under the paternal roof, and been treated with tenderness ; 
 that their parents were fondly attached to each other ; that 
 they all lived together in a state of liberty and cordiality, 
 which rendered them good, happy, and satisfied. 
 
 I have thence deduced, that we frequently make a false esti- 
 mate of the happiness of human life. On seeing here a gar- 
 dener with the port of a Roman emperor, and there a great 
 lord with the mask of a slave, I imagined at first Nature had 
 committed a mistake. But experience demonstrates, that 
 the great lord in question, from his birth to his death, is placed 
 in a series of positions, which permit him not to gratify his 
 
STUDY X. 215 
 
 own inclinations three times a year. He must do the will, 
 first of his preceptors and masters ; in more advanced life, 
 that of his prince, of ministers of state, of his rivals, nay, fre- 
 quently that of his enemies : thus he finds fetters innumera- 
 ble in his very dignities. Our gardener passes his life with- 
 out the slightest contradiction. Like the centurion in the 
 gospel, he says to his servant, Come, and he cometh; and to 
 another, Do this, and he doeth it. This demonstrates that 
 Providence has assigned to our very passions a part widely 
 different from that which society presents to them ; for, in 
 cases innumerable, the most unrelenting slavery is imposed 
 with an accumulation of honours ; and in the meanest of 
 human conditions we frequently find the possession of the 
 most unbounded empire. 
 
 Besides, persons disfigured by the corruptive impression of 
 vicious education and habits, have it in their power to reform 
 their looks ; and to acquire a beauty altogether irresistible, 
 by being internally good, gentle, compassionate, sensible, be- 
 neficent, and devout. These affections of a virtuous soul will 
 impress on their features celestial characters, beautiful even 
 in old age. 
 
 But to no purpose will a man attempt to decorate his coun- 
 tenance with the indications of good qualities to which his 
 heart is a stranger. This false beauty produces an effect 
 still more disgusting than the most decided ugliness : for 
 when, attracted by an apparent goodness, we actually find 
 dishonesty and perfidy, we are seized with horror, as when 
 we find a serpent lurking on a bed of flowers. We are bound 
 to aspire then after moral beauty, that its divine irradiations 
 may be diffused over our features and actions. Though a 
 prince himself may boast of birth, riches, credit, wit, the 
 people to know him must look him in the face. They form 
 their judgment entirely from the physiognomy: it is in every 
 country the first, and frequently the last letter of recommen- 
 dation. 
 
 OF CONCERTS. 
 
 Concert is an order formed of several harmonies of various 
 kinds. It differs from simple order in this, that the last is 
 frequently nothing but a series of harmonies of the same 
 species. 
 
 Every particular work of Nature presents, in different kinds, 
 
216 STUDIES OF NATURE? 
 
 harmonies, consonances, contrasts ; and forms a real concert. 
 It may be remarked, on the subject of those harmonies and 
 contrasts, that vegetables whose flowers have the least lustre 
 are frequented by animals of the most brilliant colours, arid 
 that the most highly coloured vegetables serve as an asylum 
 to the duskiest animals. This is particularly evident in coun- 
 tries between the tropics, where the trees and herbage with- 
 out flowers lodge and support birds, insects, nay, monkies, 
 of the most lively colours. 
 
 In our temperate regions most of the birds are dull-coloured, 
 because our vegetables have flowers and fruits with shining 
 colours : our lively coloured birds and insects usually choose 
 for their habitation vegetables that have no apparent flowers. 
 Thus the heath-cock glitters on the gray verdure of the pine, 
 whose apples serve him for food ; and the goldfinch builds 
 his nest in the rough fuller's-thistle. On the contrary, birds 
 of dusky hue inhabit shrubbery with gay-coloured flowers. 
 The black-headed bullfinch builds his nest in the white thorn, 
 and that lovely bird exhibits a farther consonance and con- 
 trast with the prickly shrub where he resides, by his blood- 
 stained breast and sweet song. The nightingale with brown 
 plumage delights to nestle in the rose-bush, according to the 
 traditions of the- oriental poets, who have sung the loves of 
 that melancholy bird for the rose. 
 
 If to each plant are added its elementary harmonies, as 
 those of the season when it appears, of the soil in which it 
 vegetates, the effects of the dews, and the reflexes of the light 
 on its foliage, the movements it undergoes from the action of 
 the winds, its contrasts and consonances with other plants, 
 and with quadrupeds, birds; -.and insects peculiar to it, and a 
 delightful concert will be formed, the harmonies of which are 
 still unknown to us. By pursuing this track alone we can 
 obtain a glimpse of the magnificent edifice of Nature. I 
 would entreat naturalists,. o^Ans fond of gardening, painters, 
 nay poets, thus to prosecu^pheiristudies, and to take fre- 
 quent draughts from this perenniappring of taste and delight. 
 
 I know not at present what name I ought to give to the 
 conformities those particular corilerts have with man. Cer- 
 tain it is, that every work of Nature strengthens its particular 
 concert by the habitation of man, and communicates to it 
 some expression of grandeur, gayety, terror, or majesty. 
 She raises the physical character of her works to a sublime 
 
STUDY X. 217 
 
 moral character, by collecting them around mankind. She 
 not only employs particular concerts to express them, but 
 when she means to expose them on the great scale, she com- 
 bines a multitude of similar harmonies and contrasts to form 
 one great general concert, which has only a single expression, 
 let the field of representation be ever so extensive. 
 
 To express, for example, the maleficent character of a 
 venomous plant, she combines in it clashing oppositions of 
 forms and colours, the indications of that maleficence ; as 
 retreating and bristly forms, livid colours, dark greens with 
 
 white and black spots, virulent smells But when a whole 
 
 district is to be characterized as unwholesome, she collects a 
 multitude of similar dissonances. The air is loaded with 
 thick fogs, the turbid waters exhale only nauseous smells, no 
 vegetable thrives on the putrid soil but such as are disgust- 
 ing, the dracunculus, for instance, the flower of which ex- 
 hibits the form, the colour, and the smell of an ulcer. The 
 yew-tree only arises in the cloudy atmosphere, whose red 
 trunk and gloomy foliage serves as an asylum to owls. If 
 any animal seeks a retreat under its lurid shade, it is the 
 blood-coloured centipede, or the toad crawling over the humid 
 and rotten ground. By these, or similar signs, Nature scares 
 man away from noxious situations. 
 
 If she intends to give him at sea the signal of an impend- 
 ing tempest, as she has opposed in ferocious animals the fiery 
 glare of the eye to the thickness of the eyebrows ; their 
 stripes and spots to the yellow colour of their skin, and the 
 stillness of their movements to the thundering noise of their 
 voices ; she collects also in the sky and on the deep many 
 clashing oppositions, which in concert announce approaching 
 devastation. Dark clouds sweep through the air in the most 
 horrible forms ; here and there the pale fire of lightning 
 bursts from the gloom ; the noise of thunder from their dark 
 womb resounds like the roaring of the celestial lion. The 
 orb of day, scarcely visible through their rainy and multiplied 
 veils, emits long radiations of a wan and sickly light. The 
 leaden surface of the ocean sinks and swells into broad and 
 white foaming surges. A hollow murmuring noise seems to 
 issue from those threatening billows. The black shallows 
 whiten at a distance, with horrid sounds, from time to time 
 interrupted by ominous silence. The sea, which alternately 
 covers and reveals them, displays to the light of day their 
 2C 19 
 
218 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 cavernous foundations. The Norwegian lorn perches on one 
 of their craggy points, uttering lamentable cries, like those of 
 a drowning man. The sea ospray rises aloft in the air, and 
 not daring to commit herself to the impetuosity of the winds, 
 struggles with a plaintive screaming voice against the tem- 
 pest, which bends back her stubborn wings. The black 
 procellaria flutters about, grazing the foam of the waves, 
 and seeks, in the cavity of their moving valleys, a shelter 
 from the fury of the winds. If this small and feeble bird 
 happens to perceive a ship in the midst of the sea, he flees 
 for refuge along her side, and as a reward for the protection 
 which he solicits, announces the tempest to the mariner 
 before it overtakes him. 
 
 Nature uniformly proportions the signs of destruction to 
 the magnitude of the danger. Every storm has its peculiar 
 character in particular latitudes ; those of summer are unlike 
 those of winter ; and widely different is the spectacle of an 
 enraged sea, shining at noonday under the rays of the sun, 
 and that of the same sea illuminated, at the midnight hour, 
 by a single flash of lightning. Nature frequently accompanies 
 the signs of the disorder which agitates the ocean, with agree- 
 able expressions of harmony, that serve only to redouble the 
 horror of the scene. Tempests, off the Capes of Good Hope 
 and Horn, in the full blaze of light, are inexpressibly tremen- 
 dous. The soul stands aghast at sight of the indications of 
 tranquillity converted into those of storm ; the unclouded 
 azure in the heavens, and the rainbow playing upon the 
 waves. The principles of harmony appear to be completely 
 inverted. Nature seems to have put on a character of per- 
 fidiousness, and to conceal fury under the mask of benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 If Nature, by introducing certain agreeable harmonies into 
 scenes of discord, redoubles their confusion, she frequently 
 throws in a discordance in concerts the most delightful, for 
 the purpose of heightening the pleasurable effect. She 
 employs offensive contrasts only to chase man from some 
 perilous situation. In all the rest of her works she employs 
 only harmonic mediums. 
 
 In our harvest fields we find that charming shade of green, 
 produced by the alliance of the two primordial opposite colours, 
 the yellow and the blue. This harmonic colour decompounds 
 itself by another metamorphosis, toward the harvest time, 
 
STUDY X. 219 
 
 into the three primordial colours, namely, the yellow of the 
 ripening corn, the red of the wild poppy, and the azure of 
 the bluebottle. These two plants are intermingled with the 
 standing corn, all over Europe, let the farmer take what pains 
 he may in sifting the grain and weeding his field. They 
 form, by their harmony, a rich purple tint, which rises admi- 
 rably on the yellow ground of the corn-field. 
 
 The corn-plant itself has relations innumerable with the 
 wants of man and domestic animals. It is neither too high 
 nor too low for his stature, but is easily handled and reaped. 
 It furnishes grain to his poultry, bran to his pigs, forage and 
 litter to his black cattle and horses. Every plant in his 
 corn-field possesses virtues particularly adapted to the mala- 
 dies incident to the condition of the labouring man. The 
 poppy cures the pleurisy, procures sleep, stops hemorrhages 
 and spitting of blood. The bluebottle is diuretic, vulnerary, 
 cordial, and cooling, an antidote to the stings of venomous 
 insects, and a remedy for inflammation of the eyes. Thus 
 the husbandman finds all needful pharmacy in the field which 
 he cultivates. 
 
 The culture of this staff of life discloses to man many other 
 agreeable concerts with his fleeting existence. The direction 
 of its shadow informs him of the hour of the day ; from its 
 growth he learns the rapid flight of the seasons ; he reckons 
 the flux of his own fugitive years, by the succession of the 
 guiltless harvests he has reaped. He is haunted with no 
 apprehension, like the inhabitants of great cities, of conjugal 
 infidelity, or a too numerous posterity. His labours are 
 always surpassed by the benefits of Nature. When the sun 
 gets to the sign of Virgo, he summons his kindred, invites his 
 neighbours, and leads them, at dawn of day, with sickle in 
 hand, to the ripened field. His heart exults with joy as he 
 binds up the swelling sheaves, while his children dance 
 around him, crowned with garlands of bluebottles and wild 
 poppies. The harmless play recalls to his memory the amuse- 
 ments of his own early days, and of his virtuous ancestors, 
 whom he hopes at length to rejoin in a better and happier 
 world. The sight of his copious harvest demonstrates that 
 there is a GOD ; and every return of that joyous season, 
 bringing to his recollection the delicious eras of his past ex- 
 istence, inspires him with gratitude to the Great Being who 
 
220 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 has united the transient society of men by an eternal chain 
 of blessings. 
 
 Ye flowery meadows, ye majestic, murmuring forests, ye 
 mossy fountains, ye desert rocks, frequented by the dove 
 alone, ye enchanting solitudes, which charm by your ineffable 
 concerts ; happy is the man who shall be permitted to unveil 
 your hidden beauties ! but happier far is he who shall have 
 it in his power calmly to enjoy them in the inheritance of his 
 forefathers ! 
 
 OF SOME OTHER LAWS OF NATURE, HITHERTO 
 IMPERFECTLY KNOWN. 
 
 There are, besides those which have been mentioned, some 
 physical laws not hitherto profoundly investigated, though 
 we have had a glimmering of them, and made them the fre- 
 quent subject of conversation. Such is the law of attraction. 
 It has been acknowledged in the planets, and in some metals, 
 as in iron and the loadstone, in gold and mercury. I believe 
 attraction to be common to all metals, and even fossils ; but 
 that it acts in each in particular circumstances, not yet ascer- 
 tained. Each of the metals, perhaps, may incline toward 
 different points of the earth, as magnetic iron does to the 
 north. It would probably be necessary to ascertain this by 
 experiment, that each metal should be armed with its proper 
 attraction ; which takes place when united to its contrary. 
 
 How do we know whether a needle of gold, rubbed with 
 mercury, might not have attractive poles, as a needle of steel 
 has when rubbed with the magnet ? Thus prepared, it might 
 possibly indicate the places which contain mines of that rich 
 metal. Perhaps it might determine the general points of 
 direction to the east or west, which might indicate the longi- 
 tudes more steadily than the variations of the magnetic needle. 
 
 If there be a point at the pole, on which the globe revolves, 
 there may possibly be one under the equator, from which 
 commenced, and which may have determined, its motion of 
 rotation. It is, however, certain there exist many of those 
 particular points of attraction, scattered over the earth, such 
 as the matrices which renovate the mines of metals, by 
 attracting to themselves the metallic parts dispersed in the 
 elements. Metals have besides other attractions ; and I con- 
 sider these as the principal matrices of all fossil bodies, and as 
 
STUDY X. 221 
 
 the ever active means employed by Nature for repairing the 
 mountains and rocks, which the action of the other elements, 
 but especially the injudicious labours of men, have an inces- 
 sant tendency to impair. 
 
 I shall here remark, on the subject of mines of gold, that 
 they are placed, as well as those of all metals, not only on 
 the most elevated part of continents, but in icy mountains. 
 The gold mines of Peru and Chili are situated in the Cordil- 
 leras ; those of Mexico in the vicinity of Mount St. Martha, 
 covered with snow all the year round. It may be said that 
 all rivers which wash down particles of gold along their 
 shores, issue from icy mountains. 
 
 To this it may be objected, that gold was formerly found 
 in Europe, in places where there were no icy mountains ; nay, 
 that some has been picked up on the surface of the ground, 
 as in Brazil. But, if I might venture to hazard a conjecture 
 respecting the origin of this gold, I believe it to have pro- 
 ceeded from the total effusion of the ices of the mountains 
 at the time of the deluge, when vegetable earths and minerals 
 were forced along other countries, where their fragments 
 were found, in the earlier ages, in grains, and even in larger 
 masses. 
 
 It would appear as if Nature, by burying the foci of 
 this rich metal under the snows, had intended to fence it with 
 ramparts still more inaccessible than the flinty bosom of the 
 rock, lest the undismayed ardour of human avarice should at 
 length destroy them entirely. It has become the most 
 powerful bond of society, the perpetual object of a life so 
 rapidly hurrying to a 'close. Alas ! were Nature to inflict 
 condign punishment on this insatiable thirst in the nations of 
 Europe, for a metal so useless as a real necessary of human 
 life, she has only to change the territory of some one of them 
 into gold. Every other nation would instantly flock thither, 
 and soon exterminate its wretched inhabitants. The Peru- 
 vians and Mexicans have had the dreadful experience of this. 
 
 There are metals not so. highly prized, but much more 
 useful. The peaks and crests of the mountains are filled 
 with iron or copper, intermingled with a vitreous body of 
 granite or of natural crystal, which attracts the rains and 
 stormy clouds. Seamen have seen, a thousand times, those 
 peaks and crests covered with a cloudy cap concealing them 
 from view, without once suspecting the cause of this appear- 
 
 19* 
 
STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 ance ; and philosophers, deducing their conclusions from 
 charts, have taken those rocky protuberances for wrecks of 
 a primitive earth, without troubling themselves about their 
 effects. They ought to have observed that those metallic 
 pyramids and crests, as well as most mines of iron and cop- 
 per, are to be found in elevated situations, and at the source 
 of rivers, of which they are the primitive causes by their 
 attractions. Their general inattention to this subject is thus 
 only to be accounted for ; seamen observe, and do not reason ; 
 and the learned reason, but do not observe. Undoubtedly, 
 had the experience of the one been united to the sagacity of 
 the other, prodigies of discovery might have been expected. 
 
 I am persuaded we might acquire the art of forming, by 
 electric stones, artificial fountains, which should attract the 
 rainy clouds in dry situations, as chains and rods of iron 
 attract thunder-clouds. It is true princes must be at the 
 expense of such costly and useful experiments ; but they 
 would immortalize their memory. The Pharaohs, who built 
 the pyramids of Egypt, would not have drawn upon them- 
 selves the curses of their subjects, as Pliny assures us they 
 did, for their enormous and useless labours, had they reared, 
 amidst the sands of Upper Egypt, an electrical pyramid, 
 which might there have formed an artificial fountain. The 
 Arab who should resort thither at this day to quench his 
 thirst, would still pronounce benedictions on names which, if 
 we may believe the great Natural Historian, had already 
 sunk into oblivion, and ceased to be mentioned in his time. 
 
 For my own part, I think that several metals might be 
 proper for producing similar effects. A Prussian officer of 
 rank informed me that having remarked vapours to be at- 
 tracted by lead, he had employed it for drying the atmosphere 
 of a powder-magazine, constructed under ground, in the 
 throat of a bastion, but useless from its humidity. He or- 
 dered the concave ceiling of the arch to be lined with lead, 
 where the gunpowder was deposited in barrels ; the vapours 
 of the vault collected in great drops, on the leaden roof, run 
 off in streamlets along the sides, and left the gunpowder 
 barrels perfectly dry. 
 
 There are many other harmonic laws as yet undiscovered ; 
 as the proportions of magnitudes, and durations of existence, 
 of beings vegetative and sensible, which differ exceedingly, 
 though their nutriment and climates may be the same. Man, 
 
STUDY X. 223 
 
 while yet a youth, sees his dog die of old age ; and also the 
 sheep he fondled when a lamb. Though the former lived 
 at his own table, and the latter on the herbage of his mea- 
 dow, neither the fidelity of the one, nor the temperance of 
 the other, could prolong their days ; whereas animals which 
 live only on carrion and garbage live for ages, as the crow. 
 In such researches we must follow the spirit of conformity, 
 the basis of our own, and of the reason of Nature. 
 
 By consulting this we shall find, that if such a carnivo- 
 rous animal, the crow for instance, is long-lived, it is because 
 his services and experience are long necessary for purifying 
 the earth. If an innocent animal lives but a little while, it 
 is because his flesh and skin are necessary to man. If the 
 domestic dog, by his death, diffuses sorrow over the children 
 of the family, Nature undoubtedly intended to give them, in 
 the loss of an animal so worthy the affections and regret of 
 man, the first experience of the privations with which human 
 life is to be exercised. 
 
 The duration of an animal's life is sometimes proportioned 
 to that of the vegetable on which it feeds. A multitude of 
 caterpillars are born and die with the leaves by which their 
 transitory existence is supported. There are insects whose 
 being is limited to five hours ; such is the ephemera. But 
 as Nature has made nothing in vain, it is not credible that 
 she should have created momentary lives, and beings infi- 
 nitely minute, to fill up imaginary chains of existence. 
 
 The aversions and instincts of animals emanate from laws 
 of a superior order, into which we shall never be able to pene- 
 trate ; but supposing those intimate conformities to elude our 
 researches, they must be referred to the general conformity 
 of beings, and especially to that of man. There is nothing 
 so luminous in the study of Nature, as to refer every thing 
 that exists to the goodness of GOD, and to the demands of 
 humanity. This method of viewing objects not only dis- 
 covers to us a multitude of unknown laws, but it sets bounds 
 to those we do know, and believe to be universal. 
 
 If Nature were governed by the laws of attraction only, 
 every thing would be in a state of rest. Bodies, tending 
 toward one common centre, would there accumulate, and 
 arrange themselves round it in the ratio of their gravity. The 
 substances which compose the globe would be so much 
 heavier as they approached the centre, and those at the sur- 
 
224 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 face would all be reduced to a level. The bason of the seas 
 would be choked with the wrecks of the land ; and this mag- 
 nificent architecture, formed of harmonies so various, would 
 soon become an aquatic globe entirely. All bodies, hurled 
 downward by one common precipitation, would be condemned 
 to an everlasting immobility. 
 
 On the other hand, if the law of projection employed for 
 explaining the motions of the heavenly bodies, on the suppo- 
 sition of their tendency to fly off in the tangent of a curve ; 
 if, I say, this law predominated, all bodies not actually ad- 
 herent to the earth would be hurled from it, like stones from a 
 sling : our globe itself, subjected to this law, would fly off 
 from the sun never to return. It would sometimes traverse 
 the spaces of immensity, where no star would be perceptible 
 for many ages; sometimes, swinging through regions where 
 chance might have collected the matrices of creation, it might 
 pass along amidst the elementary parts of suns, aggregated 
 by the central laws of attraction, or scattered about in sparks 
 and rays, by those of projection. 
 
 But supposing these two contrary forces combined happily 
 enough in favour of the globe, to fix it, with its vortex, in a 
 corner of the firmament, where they should act without 
 destroying themselves, it would present its equator to the 
 sun as regularly as it describes its annual course round him. 
 From those two constant motions never could be produced 
 that other motion so varied, by which it daily inclines one of 
 its poles toward the sun, till its axis has formed, on the plane 
 of its annual circle, an angle of twenty-three degrees and a 
 half; then that other retrograde motion, by which it presents 
 to him, with equal regularity, the opposite pole. Far from 
 presenting to him alternately its poles, in order that his fer- 
 tilizing heat may by turns melt their ices, it would retain 
 them buried in eternal night and winter, with a part of the 
 temperate zones, whereas the rest of its circumference would 
 be burned up by the too constant fires of the tropics. 
 
 But if we suppose a third variable law, which gives to the 
 earth the movement that produces the seasons, and a fourth, 
 which gives it the diurnal motion of rotation round itself ; 
 and that no one of these laws, so opposite, should ever sur- 
 pass the others, and, at least, determine it to obey but one 
 single impulsion ; it would be impossible to affirm they had 
 determined the forms and movements of the bodies on its 
 
STUDY X. 225 
 
 surface. First, the force of projection, or centrifugal, would 
 not have left upon it any one detached body. On the other 
 hand, the force of attraction, or gravity, would not have 
 permitted the mountains to rise, and still less the metals, 
 the heaviest part of them, to be placed at their summits, 
 where they are usually found. 
 
 Vegetables themselves, entirely subjected to the action of 
 the elements, have configurations diversified without end. 
 But how comes it that animals have the principles of so 
 many motions, so entirely different ] Wherefore has not 
 gravity nailed them down to the surface of the earth ? They 
 ought to crawl along it at most. How comes it to pass, that 
 the laws which regulate the course of the stars, those laws 
 whose influence has, in modern times, been made to extend 
 even to the operations of the human soul, should permit the 
 birds to rise into the air and fly as they please, notwithstanding 
 the united powers of the attraction and projection of the globe 1 
 
 It is conformity, adaptation to use, which has regulated 
 those laws, and generalized or suspended their effects sub- 
 ordinate to the necessities of sensible beings. Though Nature 
 employs an infinity of means, she permits man to know only 
 the end she has in view. Her works are subjected to rapid 
 dissolutions ; but she always suffers him to perceive the 
 immortal consistency of her plans. It is on this she wishes 
 to fix his heart and mind. She aims not at rendering man 
 ingenious and proud, but good and happy. She universally 
 mitigates necessary evils ; and multiplies blessings often 
 superfluous. In her harmonies, formed of contraries, she 
 has opposed the empire of death to life ; but life endures for 
 an age, death only an instant. She allows man to enjoy 
 the expansions of beings, so delightful to behold ; but con- 
 ceals from him, with a precaution truly maternal, their tran- 
 sient state of dissolution. 
 
 If an animal dies, if plants are decompounded in a morass, 
 putrid emanations, and reptiles of a disgusting form, chase 
 us away from them. An infinite number of secondary beings 
 are created for the purpose of hastening forward the decom- 
 positions. If cavernous mountains and rocks present appear- 
 ances of ruin ; owls, birds of prey, and ferocious animals, 
 keep us at a distance. Nature drives far from us the spec- 
 tacles and the ministers of destruction, and allures us to her 
 harmonies. 
 2D 
 
226 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 From a profusion of this unbounded benevolence of Nature, 
 the action of the sun is multiplied wherever it was most 
 necessary, and mitigated where it might have been hurtful. 
 When the orb of day has left us, the moon appears to reflect 
 his light, with varieties in her phases which have relations, 
 hitherto unknown, to a great number of species of animals, 
 and especially of fishes, which travel only in the night-time, 
 at the epochas which she indicates to them. The farther the 
 sun withdraws from one pole, the more are his rays refracted 
 there ; but when he has entirely abandoned it, then his light 
 is supplied in a most wonderful manner. First, the moon, by 
 a movement altogether incomprehensible, replaces him there, 
 and appears perpetually above the horizon, as was observed 
 in 1596, at Nova Zembla, by the unfortunate Dutchmen 
 who wintered there, in the 76th degree of north latitude. 
 
 In those dreadful climates Nature multiplies her resources, 
 to bestow on sensible beings, and even on animals, the bene- 
 fits of light and heat. When the season returns, the sun re- 
 appears there before his natural term, as the Dutch mariners 
 saw him to their astonishment above the horizon of Nova 
 Zembla, on the 24th of January, fifteen days sooner than they 
 expected him. This return, so much earlier than their hopes, 
 filled them with joy, and disconcerted the calculations of their 
 intelligent pilot, the unfortunate Barents. 
 
 Naturalists consider colours as accidents. But if we attend 
 lo the general uses for which Nature employs them, we shall 
 be persuaded there is not, even on rocks, a single shade im- 
 pressed without a meaning and a purpose. Let us observe 
 the principal effects of the two extreme colours, white and 
 black, with relation to the light. Of all colours, white best 
 reflects the rays of the sun, because it sends them back with- 
 out any tint, as pure as it receives them ; black, on the con- 
 trary, is the least adapted to their reflection, because it absorbs 
 them. Hence gardeners whiten the walls against which 
 their espaliers are planted, to accelerate the maturity of their 
 fruits, by the reverberation of the sun's rays ; and opticians 
 blacken the walls of the camera-obscura, that their reflexes 
 may not disturb the luminous picture on the tablet. 
 
 Nature frequently employs contrary means for producing 
 the same effect. She makes glass with fire ; she makes it 
 too with water, crystal for instance : farther, she produces it 
 from animal organization, such as certain transparent shell- 
 
STUDY X. 227 
 
 fish. She forms the diamond by a process to us utterly un- 
 known. Conclude now, because a body has been vitrified, it 
 must certainly be by the effect of fire, and rear on this percep- 
 tion the system of the universe ! The utmost that we can do 
 is to catch some harmonic instants in the existence of beings. 
 That which is verifiable becomes calcareous, and what is cal- 
 careous changes into glass, by the action of the same fire. 
 Deduce, then, from these simple modifications of the fossil 
 kingdom, invariable characters for determining the general 
 classes of it ! 
 
 On the other hand, Nature frequently employs the same 
 means for producing effects directly contrary. For example, 
 to increase the heat over the lands of the north, and to miti- 
 gate it over those of the south, she makes use of opposite 
 colours ; she produces in both the same effects, by covering 
 the face of both with rocks. These rocks are essentially 
 necessary to vegetation. 
 
 Nature proposes to herself, universally, only the accommo- 
 dation of beings possessed of sensibility. This remark is all- 
 important in the study of her works ; otherwise, from the 
 similitude which she employs, or the exceptions from them, 
 we might be tempted to doubt of the consistency of her laws, 
 instead of ascribing the majestic obscurity which pervades 
 them to the multiplicity of tier resources, and to the profun- 
 dity of our own ignorance. 
 
 This law of adaptation and conformity has been the source 
 of all our discoveries. It was this which wafted Columbus 
 to America ; because, as Herrera tells us,* he thought, con- 
 trary to the opinion of the ancients, that the whole five zones 
 must be inhabited, as GOD had not formed the earth to be a 
 desert. This law regulates our ideas respecting objects abso- 
 lutely beyond the reach of our examination. By means of 
 it, though ignorant whether there may be men in the planets, 
 we are assured there must be eyes, because there is light. 
 It has awakened a sense of justice in the heart of every 
 man, informing him there is another order of things after 
 this life. This law, in a word, is the most irresistible proof 
 of the existence of GOD; for amidst such a multitude of 
 adaptations, so ingenious and so numerous, that every day is 
 presenting some with all the merit of novelty, the first of all, 
 
 * Herrera's History of the West-Indies, book i. chap. 2, 
 
228 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 which is the DEITY, must undoubtedly exist, as he is the 
 general conformity of all particular conformities. 
 
 How often, on coming out of the King's magnificent 
 Cabinet of Natural History, do we stop mechanically to look 
 at a gardener digging a hole in the field, or a carpenter hew- 
 ing a piece of timber ! It looks as if we expected some new 
 harmony to start out of the bosom of the earth, or burst from 
 the side of a lump of oak. We set no value on those we 
 have just been enjoying, unless they lead us forward to 
 others we do not know as yet. But were the complete his- 
 tory given us of the stars of the firmament, and the invisible 
 planets which encircle them, we should perceive a multitude 
 of ineffable plans of intelligence and goodness, after which 
 the heart would continue fondly to sigh : its last and only 
 end is the DIVINITY himself. 
 
 STUDY ELEVENTH. 
 
 APPLICATION OF SOME GENERAL LAWS OP NATURE 
 TO PLANTS. 
 
 BEFORE I proceed to speak of plants, I must be indulged 
 in making a few reflections on the language of botany. 
 
 We are still so young in the study of Nature, that our 
 languages are deficient in terms to express her most common 
 harmonies. This is so true, that however exact the descrip- 
 tion of plants may be, and compiled by botanists of whatever 
 ability, it is impossible to distinguish them in the fields, unless 
 you have previously seen them in Nature, or at least in a 
 herbary. Men of genius have taken inexpressible pains to 
 assign characteristic names to the different parts of plants, 
 and have even borrowed most of those names from the Greek, 
 a language of singular energy of expression. Those names 
 being mostly compounds, cannot be rendered into modern 
 language ; hence a great part of the works of Linnaeus are 
 absolutely incapable of translation. These learned and 
 mysterious expressions, no doubt, diffuse a venerable air over 
 the study of botany : but Nature has no need of such re- 
 sources of human art to attract our respect. 
 
 Most of those foreign names, employed particularly by the 
 
STUDY XL 229 
 
 herd of botanists, do not so much as express the most com- 
 mon characters of vegetables. They frequently make use, 
 for example, of such vague expressions as these, suave ru- 
 bente, suave olenle, of an agreeable red, sweet-smelling, to 
 characterize flowers ; without expressing the shade of red, 
 or the species of perfume. They are still more embarrassed 
 to convey the dusky colours of the stem, root, or fruit : atro- 
 rubente, say they, fusco-nigrescente, of a dark red, of a- dusky 
 brown. As to the forms of vegetables, the case is still worse, 
 though they have fabricated terms compounded of four or 
 five Greek words to describe them. 
 
 J. J. Rousseau communicated to me, one day, a set of 
 characters somewhat resembling the algebraic, which he had 
 invented briefly to express the colours and forms of vegeta- 
 bles. Some represented the forms of the flowers ; others of 
 the leaves ; others of the fruits. Some resembled a heart, 
 some were triangular, some of the lozenge shape. He did 
 not employ above nine or ten signs to compose the expression 
 of one plant. Some he placed above others, with ciphers 
 indicating the genera and species of the plant, so that you 
 would have taken them for the terms of an algebraic formula. 
 However ingenious and expeditious this method might be, 
 he informed me he had given it up, because it presented 
 skeletons only. 
 
 This sentiment came with peculiar grace from a man whose 
 taste was equal to his genius, and may suggest some reflec- 
 tions to those who are for abridging every thing, especially 
 the works of Nature. The idea of John-James, however, 
 well deserves to be followed up, should it only serve to 
 produce, one day, an alphabet proper to express the language 
 of Nature. 
 
 Though we have only the term white, to express the colour 
 of that name, Nature presents to us many sorts of it. Paint- 
 ing, with respect to this article, is as barren as language. 
 
 A painter of Italy found himself much embarrassed how 
 to represent three figures dressed in white. The point in 
 question was, to give effect to those figures, to be thus uni- 
 formly dressed, and to draw out different shades of the most 
 simple of all colours. He was going to abandon his object 
 as impossible, when, passing through a corn-market, he per- 
 ceived the effect he was in quest of. It was a group formed 
 by three millers, one under a tree, the second in the half tint 
 
 20 
 
230 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of the shade of that tree, and the third exposed to the rays of 
 the sun : so that though the drapery of all three was white, 
 they were completely detached from each other. He intro- 
 duced a tree, therefore, amidst the three personages of his 
 picture, and by illuminating one of them with the rays of the 
 sun, and throwing over the other two different tints of shade, 
 he was enabled to exhibit a drapery of three several casts of 
 white. n 
 
 Naturalists are much embarrassed to find distinctive epi- 
 thets for dusky colours ; they, however, evade the difficulty 
 by the vague expressions of blackish, gray, ash-coloured, 
 brown, conveyed, it is true, in Greek and Latin words : but 
 those words frequently confound their images, by giving no 
 representation whatever ; for what, in good earnest, is meant 
 by these, and such like epithets, atro-purpurante, fusco-nigres- 
 cente, which they employ so often ? 
 
 It is possible to make thousands of tints widely different, 
 to which such general expressions might be applied. As 
 those dark shades, in truth, are much compounded, it is diffi- 
 cult to characterize them by the phraseology of our com- 
 mon vocabularies. But this might be effectually accom- 
 plished, by referring them to the different colours of our 
 domestic vegetables. I have remarked in the barks of 
 trees and shrubbery, in the capsules and shells of their 
 fruits, as well as in the dead leaves, an incredible va- 
 riety of those sad and gloomy shades, from yellow down to 
 black, with all the intermixtures and accidents of the other 
 colours. Thus, instead of saying in Latin, a yellow inclining 
 to black, or an ash -coloured tint, in order to determine some 
 particular shade of colour in a production of Art, or of Nature, 
 we might say a yellow of the colour of a dried walnut, or a 
 gray like the bark of a beech tree. 
 
 Those expressions would be the more exact, that Nature 
 invariably employs such tints in vegetables, as determining 
 characters and indications of maturity, vigour, or decay ; and 
 our peasantry can tell the different species of wood in the 
 forests by the bark simply. Thus, not botany alone, but all 
 the arts, might find in vegetables an inexhaustible dictionary 
 of unvarying colours, unembarrassed with barbarous and 
 technical compound words, but which would continually pre- 
 sent new images. Our books of science would thence derive 
 much pleasing vivacity, from being embellished by compari- 
 
STUDY XL 
 
 eons and expressions borrowed from the loveliest kingdom of 
 Nature. The great poets of antiquity carefully availed them- 
 selves of this, by referring most of the events of human life 
 to some appearance of the vegetable kingdom. 
 
 An approximation of savours and smells of every species 
 and country, to those of the plants of our gardens and fields, 
 may likewise be traced. The ranunculus of the meadow 
 has the acridity of the Java pepper ; the root of the holy- 
 thistle, and the flower of the pink, smell like the clove of 
 Amboyna. As to compound savours and smells, they may 
 be referred to such as are simple, the elements of which 
 Nature has scattered over all climates, and united in the 
 class of vegetables. I know a species of morel, used as food 
 by the Indians, which when boiled has the taste of beef. 
 They call it brette. There is a species of the crane's-bill, the 
 leaf of which resembles in smell a roasted leg of mutton. 
 The muscari, a species of small hyacinth, which grows 
 among shrubbery early in the spring, smells very strongly of 
 the plum. Its small monopetalous flowers, of a delicate blue 
 colour, and with lips or incisions, have likewise the form of 
 that fruit. 
 
 By such approximations Dampier and Father du Tertre 
 have formed the most accurate notions of the fruits and 
 flowers which grow between the tropics, by referring them 
 to those of our own climates ; giving, by means of trivial 
 similitudes, a precise idea of a foreign vegetable, which you 
 would search for to no purpose in the Greek names of our 
 first-rate botanists. 
 
 These approximations of plants farther present us with 
 the combined whole of an unknown object, without which 
 we can form no determinate idea of it. One defect of botany 
 is, it exhibits the characters of vegetables only in succession ; 
 it does not collect, but decompounds them. It refers them 
 indeed to a classical, but not an individual order, the only 
 one the human mind permits us to catch. We love order, 
 because we are feeble, and there is no order we can so easily 
 adopt as that which Nature is everywhere presenting. 
 
 It would therefore be important to have, in botany, an 
 alphabet of colours, savours, smells, forms, and aggregations, 
 derived from our most common plants. Those elementary 
 characters would enable us to express ourselves exactly in 
 
232 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 all the parts of natural history, and to present to ourselves 
 relations equally new and curious. 
 
 When we see a multitude of plants, of different forms, 
 vegetate on the same soil, there is a disposition to believe 
 that those of the same climate grow indifferently everywhere. 
 But those only which are produced in places particularly as- 
 signed to them by Nature, attain there all the perfection of 
 which they are susceptible. The same thing holds good with 
 respect to animals. 
 
 If we throw a simple glance on plants, we shall perceive 
 they have relations to the elements which promote their 
 growth : to each other, from the groups they contribute to 
 form ; to the animals whom they nourish ; and finally, to 
 man, the centre of all the works of creation. To these re- 
 lations I give the name of harmonies, and I divide them into 
 elementary, vegetable, animal, and human. 
 
 We shall make application of the laws previously estab- 
 lished, and take a glimpse of many others, equally worthy of 
 research, and calculated to excite admiration. Reader, be 
 not astonished at their number or extent. Let this great 
 truth be deeply impressed on thy heart: GOD has made nothing 
 in vain ! A scholar, with his systems and methods, finds 
 himself stopped short in Nature every step he takes ; while, 
 furnished with this as a key, the ignorant rustic is able to 
 unlock every door of knowledge. 
 
 ELEMENTARY HARMONIES OF PLANTS. 
 
 Plants have as many principal parts as there are elements 
 with which they keep up a relation. By their flowers, they 
 stand related to the sun, which fecundates their seeds, and 
 carries them on to maturity ; by their leaves, they are related 
 to the waters, which bedew them ; by their stems, to the 
 winds which agitate them ; by their roots, with the ground 
 which sustains them j and by their grains, with their situa- 
 tions adapted to their growth and increase. Not that these 
 principal parts have no indirect relations besides to the other 
 elements, but it will be sufficient for our purpose to dwell on 
 such as are immediate. 
 
 Elementary Harmonies of Plants with the Sun, by the Flowers. 
 
 Though botanists may have made great and laborious 
 
 researches respecting plants, they have paid no attention to 
 
STUDY XI. 233 
 
 any of those relations. Fettered by their systems, they have 
 only considered them on the side of the flowers ; and arranged 
 them in the same class, wherever they found these external 
 resemblances, without even inquiring the particular use of 
 the florification. They have, indeed, distinguished in it the 
 stamina, the antherae, and the stigmata, for the fecundation 
 of the fruit ; but, excepting this, and some others respecting 
 the interior organization, they have neglected, or misunder- 
 stood, the relations the whole plant has with the rest of Nature. 
 
 This partial division has led them into the strangest 
 confusion ; for, by considering the flowers as the principal 
 characters of vegetation, and by comprehending in the same 
 class those which were similar, they have united plants 
 entirely foreign to each other, and have separated, on the 
 contrary, many evidently of the same genus. Such is, in 
 the first case, the fuller's-thistle, called dipsacus, which they 
 class with the scabious, because of the resemblance of some 
 parts of its flower ; though it presents in its branches, leaves, 
 smell, seed, prickles, and the rest of its qualities, a real thistle : 
 and such is, in the second, the great chesnut of India, excluded 
 from the class of chesnut-trees, because it has different flowers. 
 To class plants from the flowers, that is, from the parts of 
 their fecundation, is the same thing with classing animals 
 from those of generation. 
 
 Though they have referred the character of a plant to ita 
 flower, they misunderstood the use of its most shining part, 
 that of the corolla. They call that the corolla, which is, in 
 common language, denominated the leaves of a flower. It 
 is a Latin word, signifying a little crown, from the disposition 
 of the leaves, in many species, in the form of coronets ; and 
 they have given the name of petals to the divisions of that 
 crown. Some, in truth, have acknowledged it to be properly 
 adapted for covering the parts of fecundation before the 
 expansion of the flower ; but its calix is much better adapted 
 to this purpose, from its thickness, beards, and sometimes 
 the prickles with which it is invested. Besides, when the 
 corolla leaves the stamina exposed, and when it continues 
 fully blown for whole weeks, it must of necessity be answering 
 some other purpose ; for Nature does nothing in vain. 
 
 The corolla seems intended to reverberate the rays of the 
 sun on the parts of fecundation ; and we shall not doubt this, 
 if we consider the colour and form of it in most flowers. 
 2 E 20* 
 
234 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Their corollae, divided into petals, are only an assemblage of 
 mirrors directed towards one focus. Of these they have some- 
 times four, which are plain, as the flower of the colewort in 
 the cruciform ; or a complete circle, as the daisy in the class 
 radiated ; or spherical portions, as the rose ; or entire spheres, 
 as the bells of the lily of the valley ; or cones mutilated, as 
 the foxglove, the corolla of which is formed like a sewing 
 thimble. Nature has placed at the foci of these, plain, 
 spherical, elliptical, parabolic, and other mirrors, the parts of 
 the fecundation of plants, as she has placed those of genera- 
 tion in animals in the warmest parts of their bodies. 
 
 The petals appear to such a degree destined to warm the 
 parts of fecundation, that Nature has placed a circle of them 
 around most compound flowers, themselves aggregations of 
 many small tubes, that form so many particular flowrets. 
 This is obviously remarkable in the petals which surround the 
 disks of daisies and sun-flowers. 
 
 Nature has still other means of multiplying the reflexes of 
 heat in flowers. Sometimes she places them on stems of no 
 great elevation, to collect warmth from the reflections of the 
 earth ; sometimes she glares over their corollse with a shining 
 varnish, as the yellow meadow-ranunculus, or butter-flower. 
 Sometimes she withdraws the corolla, and makes the parts 
 of fecundation shoot from the partition of an ear, of a cone, 
 or of the branch of a tree. There are others, such as most 
 part of the convolvuluses, which expand only in the night. 
 
 There are compound flowers, which being in a horizontal 
 position, and completely exposed, behold the sun from his 
 rising to his setting ; as the flower of the dandelion. But it 
 possesses very peculiar means of sheltering itself from the 
 heat : it closes entirely whenever the heat becomes excessive. 
 It has been observed to open in summer at half an hour after 
 five in the morning, and to collect its petals towards the centre 
 about nine o'clock. The flower of the garden-lettuce, on the 
 contrary, in a vertical plane, opens at seven o'clock, and shuts 
 at ten. 
 
 From a series of similar observations, Linnaeus formed a 
 botanical time-piece ; for he had found plants which opened 
 their flowers at every hour of the day and night. There is 
 cultivated in the king's garden, at Paris, a species of serpent- 
 ine aloes, without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower 
 exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the short time of 
 
 O 
 
STUDY XI. 235 
 
 its expansion, blows in July, about five o'clock in the evening, 
 when it gradually opens its petals, expands them, fades, and 
 dies. By ten o'clock of the same night, it is totally withered, 
 to the great astonishment of the spectators, who flock in 
 crowds to the sight ; for what is uncommon is alone admired. 
 The flower of our common thorn, I do not mean that of the 
 white-thorn, is still more extraordinary ; for it flowers so 
 rapidly that there is scarce time to observe its expansion. 
 
 These observations, taken in their connexion, clearly de- 
 monstrate the relations of the corollee to the heat of the sun. 
 But if Nature withdraws the greatest number of flowers from 
 the too violent action of the sun, she destines others to appear 
 in the lustre of his rays, without sustaining the least injury 
 from them. On the first she bestows dusky reflectors, or such 
 as can close themselves as occasion requires ; she provides 
 others with parasols. But she need not create new parts to 
 communicate new characters to her works ; she deduces them 
 at once from existence and non-existence, rendering them 
 positive or negative, at her pleasure. She has given curves 
 to most flowers, for the purpose of collecting the heat at their 
 centre : she employs the same curves, when she thinks 
 proper, in order to dissipate the heat : she places the foci of 
 them so as to act outwardly. 
 
 To reverberating flowers, perpendicular, conical, spherical, 
 elliptical, parabolic, or plane, may be referred most of the curves 
 of flowers. There are some flowers in form of a parasol, but 
 the others are much more numerous ; for the negative effects 
 in every harmony exceed the positive. For example, there 
 is but one way of coming into life, but thousands of going 
 out of it. 
 
 PERPENDICULAR reverberating flowers are those which 
 grow adhering by the back to a cone, to long catkins, or to 
 an ear of corn. 
 
 CONICAL reverberating flowers reflect on the parts of 
 florification a complete cone of light. 
 
 SPHERICAL reverberating flowers are those whose petals 
 are formed into segments of a circle. 
 
 ELLIPTICAL reverberating flowers are those which present 
 oval-formed cups, narrower at the top than in the middle. 
 
 Flowers with PARABOLIC or PLANE mirrors, are those which 
 reflect the rays of the sun in parallel directions. 
 
 To preserve flowers from the shock of the winds upon their 
 
236 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 stems. Nature mostly inwraps them in an integument, which 
 botanists call the calix. The more ramous the plant, the 
 thicker the calix of its flower. She sometimes fringes it with 
 little cushions and beards, as in the rose-bud. Thus the 
 mother puts a pad round the head of her little child, to se- 
 cure it against accidents from falling. Nature has so clearly 
 marked her intention as to this, in the flowers of ramous plants, 
 that she has deprived of this clothing such as grow on stems 
 not branchy, and where they are in no danger from the agi- 
 tation of the winds. 
 
 Flowers have, farther, very curious relations with animals 
 and with man, from the diversity of their configurations and 
 their smells. Those of one species of the orchis represent 
 bugs, and exhale their odour ; those of a species of the arum 
 resemble putrid flesh, and have the infection of it to such a 
 degree, that the flesh-fly resorts thither to deposit her eggs. 
 But when botanists shall have diffused over this branch of the 
 subject all the light of which it is susceptible, and consider 
 how Nature compensates the differences of their several ex- 
 posures, they will no longer doubt those elementary harmo- 
 nies, but acknowledge that the flower, far from presenting 
 an unvarying character in plants, exhibits a perpetual char- 
 acter of diversity. If there be any constant character in 
 plants we must look for it in the fruit. To this Nature has 
 directed all the parts of vegetation, as to the principal object. 
 That saying of WISDOM itself, By their fruits ye shall know 
 them, is at least as applicable to plants as to the human species. 
 
 ELEMENTARY HARMONIES OF PLANTS WITH WATER AND AIR, 
 BY MEANS OF THEIR LEAVES AND FRUITS. 
 
 When the AUTHOR of Nature designed to clothe with vege- 
 tables even the highest and steepest pinnacles of the earth, 
 He first adapted the chains of mountains to the basons of the 
 seas which were to supply them with vapours ; to the course 
 of the winds which were to waft them thither, and to the 
 different aspects of the sun by which they were to be heated. 
 When those harmonies were established between the ele- 
 ments, the clouds ascended out of the ocean, and dispersed 
 themselves over the most remote parts of the continents. 
 There they distilled in fogs, mists, dews, rains, snows, and de- 
 scended from the heights of the atmosphere, some in a tran- 
 quil air, as our spring showers ; others, driven by furious winds, 
 
STUDY XL 237 
 
 beat horizontally on the sides of the mountains ; others fell in 
 torrents. There were some accumulated in mountains of 
 snow, on the summits of the Andes, to cool by their effusions 
 the continent of South America, and, by their icy atmosphere, 
 the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In a word, mighty 
 rivers flowed over regions where the rain never descends, and 
 the Nile watered the plains of Egypt. 
 
 Then GOD said : ' Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb 
 yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, 
 whose seed is in itself upon the earth.' At the voice of the 
 Almighty, the vegetables appeared with organs perfectly 
 fitted to collect the blessings of Heaven. From the cedar of 
 Lebanon down to the violet which perfumes the grove, there 
 was not one but what presented its large goblet, or its tiny 
 cup, conformably to its necessity or its station. 
 
 This adaptation of the leaves of plants in elevated situations, 
 for receiving the descending distillations of the rain, is varied 
 without end ; but the character of it is discernible in most, 
 not only in their concave forms, but likewise in a little canal, 
 scooped out on the pedicle by which they are attached to 
 their branches. It has something of a resemblance to that 
 Nature has traced on the upper lip of man, to receive the 
 humours which descend from the brain. This aqueduct is 
 traced on the pedicle of the smallest leaves of mountain 
 plants ; by means of it Nature has rendered the forms them- 
 selves of aquatic plants susceptible of vegetation in the most 
 parched situations. 
 
 Many leaves, even of the plants of the plains, assume, on 
 their first springing up, this form of a little furrow, or spoon, as 
 those of the violet, and of most gramineous plants. You 
 may perceive in the spring, the young tufts of these raising 
 themselves upright toward heavens, like paws, to catch the 
 falling drops, especially when it begins to rain ; but most 
 plants of the plains lose their gutter as they expand. It has 
 been bestowed on them only during the season when it was 
 necessary to their growth. It is permanent only in the plants 
 of the mountains. It is traced, as has been mentioned, on 
 the pedicle of the leaves, and conducts the rain-water into 
 the tree from the leaf to the branch ; the branch, by the obli- 
 quity of its position, conveys it to the trunk, from whence it 
 descends to the root, by a series of successive dispositions. 
 If you pour water gently over the leaves of a mountain-shrub 
 
238 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 which are the farthest from its stem, you will perceive it pur- 
 sue the progress which I have just indicated, and not a sin- 
 gle drop will be lost on the ground. 
 
 The bark of most mountain trees is equally adapted for 
 conducting the rain-water from the branches to the roots. 
 That of the pine is in large perpendicular ribs ; that of the 
 elm is cleft and chinked longitudinally ; that of the cypress is 
 spongy, like the coat of flax. The plants of mountains and 
 dry grounds have a farther character, which is in general 
 peculiar to them ; that of attracting the water which floats 
 in the air in imperceptible vapours. 
 
 There is not a single vegetable, the leaf of which is dis- 
 posed to receive the rain-water on the mountains, whose seed 
 is not formed in a manner the best adapted to raise itself 
 thither. The seeds of all mountain plants are volatile. 
 Those which appear too heavy for flying, are furnished with 
 other resources. The peas of the balsamine have pods 
 whose elasticity darts them to a considerable distance. Those 
 which have neither tufts, pinions, nor springs, and from their 
 weight seem condemned to remain at the foot of the vegeta- 
 ble which produced them, often travel the farthest. Multi- 
 tudes of berries and shell-fruits resow themselves ; their seeds 
 are enclosed in stony incrustations, not capable of being di- 
 gested ; they are swallowed by the birds, who carry them off, 
 and plant them in the cornices of towers, in the clefts of rocks, 
 on the trunks of trees, beyond rivers, nay beyond oceans. 
 Thus a bird of the Moluccas repeopled with the nutmeg plant 
 the desert islands of that archipelago, in defiance of all the 
 efforts of the Dutch, who destroy those trees in every place 
 where they cannot be subservient to their own commerce. 
 
 On the relations between vegetables and animals, it is 
 sufficient to observe, that most birds resow the vegetable 
 which feeds them. Nay, we find quadrupeds which convey 
 to a great distance the seeds of the grasses. Horses, who 
 do not chew the cud, and whose dung is hurtful to the 
 meadows, for an obvious reason, introduce into them a variety 
 of foreign herbs, as the heath and short furze, the seeds of 
 which they are unable to digest. They resow, besides, many 
 others, which adhere to their hair, by the motion of their tail 
 simply. There are quadrupeds of small size, as the dormouse, 
 hedgehog, and marmot, which convey to the most elevated 
 regions of the mountains, acorns, beech-mast, and chesnuts. 
 
STUDY XI. 239 
 
 It is singularly worthy of remark, that volatile seeds are 
 produced in much greater number than those of other species; 
 and in this we are called upon to admire the intelligence of 
 that Providence which foresaw and arranged every thing 
 accordingly. The elevated situations for which they are 
 destined, were exposed to he speedily stripped of their vege- 
 tables, by the declivity of their soil, and by the rains, which 
 have a continual tendency to lower them. By means of the 
 volatility of grains, they are become of all the places of the 
 earth the most prolific in plants. In the mountains is de- 
 posited the botanist's treasure. 
 
 It cannot be too frequently repeated, The remedies pro- 
 vided by Nature always surmount the obstacles she has 
 opposed ; and her compensations ever exceed her gifts. In 
 truth, if you except the inconveniences of declivity, a moun- 
 tain presents to plants the greatest variety of exposures. In 
 a plain they have the same sun, humidity, soil, and wind ; 
 but every step we take upon a mountain, whether ascending 
 or descending, gives us a change of latitude ; and if we 
 encompass it round and round, of longitude. 
 
 We must proceed farther to observe, and who can do it 
 without profound admiration, that the season of the maturity 
 of volatile seeds takes place towards the commencement of 
 autumn ; and that from an effect of the universal Intelligence, 
 which constrains all the/ parts of Nature to act in concert. 
 Then it is we have the most violent gales of wind, called 
 the equinoctial winds, which blow in all parts of the conti- 
 nents, from the bosom of the seas to the mountains, in cor- 
 respondence with them. Not only do they convey thither 
 the volatile grains, then in a state of maturity, but likewise 
 blend with these thick clouds of dust carried off from lands 
 dried up by the burning heats of summer, and particularly 
 from the shores of the sea. 
 
 Those emanations of dust are so copious, that I could 
 produce many instances of vessels covered with them, as 
 they were crossing gulfs, more than six leagues distant from 
 land. They are so troublesome in the loftier provinces of 
 Asia, that all travellers *who have visited Pekin assure us it 
 is impossible to walk the streets of that city, for a considerable 
 part of the year, without having the face veiled. Thus there 
 are rains of dust, which repair the summits of the mountains, 
 as there are rains of water which feed their sources. Both 
 
240 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the one arid the other issue from the sea, and return to it by 
 the course of the rivers, which are perpetually conveying 
 thither their tribute of waters and sands. The maritime 
 winds unite their efforts towards the autumnal equinox, trans- 
 port from the circumference of the continents, to mountains 
 the most remote from them, the seeds and the manure which 
 had flowed from thence, and sow meadows, groves, and 
 forests, on the sides of precipices, and on the most inaccessible 
 peaks. Thus the leaves, the stems, the seeds, the birds, the 
 seasons, the seas, and the winds, concur, in a most wonderful 
 manner, to keep up the vegetation of the mountains. 
 
 I shall add, on this subject, that so far are mountains from 
 being the productions of a centrifugal force, of fire, of earth- 
 quakes, or water-courses, that I know of at least ten different 
 species, which have a configuration perfectly adapted for 
 keeping up, in every particular latitude, the harmony of the 
 elements relatively to vegetation. Each has vegetables and 
 quadrupeds peculiar to itself, and nowhere else to be found. 
 This proves they are not the work of chance. Finally, 
 among that inconceivable number of mountains which cover 
 the greatest part of the five zones, and especially the torrid 
 and icy zones, there is but one single species, the least con- 
 siderable of all, which presents to the water-courses projecting 
 and retreating angles in correspondence. This however is 
 no more their work than the bason of the seas is itself the 
 work of the ocean. 
 
 With respect to the harmony of aquatic plants, they have 
 dispositions entirely different in their leaves, the bearing of 
 their branches, and, above all, in the configuration of their 
 seeds. Nature, to vary her harmonies, only employs positive 
 and negative characters. She has bestowed an aqueduct on 
 the pedicle of the leaves of mountain plants ; she withdraws 
 it from those which grow by the side of the waters, and trans- 
 forms them into aquatic plants. These, instead of having 
 their leaves hollowed out into gutters, are clothed with leaves 
 smooth and sleek, such as the corn-flag, which bears them 
 in the form of a poniard's blade, or swelling in the middle like 
 a sword blade, as those of the species of reed called typha, 
 that common sort, the stem of which the Jews put into the 
 hand of JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 If the leaves of mountain plants are constructed for col- 
 lecting at their roots the waters of heaven, which they have 
 
STUDY XT. 241 
 
 not always at command ; that of aquatic plants are fre- 
 quently disposed in such a manner as to remove them, be- 
 cause they are destined to grow in the bosom of water, or in 
 its vicinity. The leaves of trees which love the water's side, 
 as the birch, aspen, and poplar, are attached to long and pen- 
 dent tails ; but those which grow entirely under the shade 
 of trees, and have scarcely any roots, as mushrooms, have 
 leaves that so far from pointing toward heaven are turned 
 downward to the earth. There are many numerous species 
 lined with tubes, others are stuffed with sponges ; some whose 
 pedicle is hollow inwardly, and bearing a chapiter at the top, 
 there collect the emanations of their soil as in an alembic. 
 Thus there is not a particle of vapour in the universe goes 
 to waste. 
 
 It is necessary carefully to make a distinction between 
 the elementary and the relative characters of plants. Nature 
 obliges the man who studies her not to hold to external ap- 
 pearances, and in order to form his understanding, she makes 
 him rise from the means which she employs, to the ends she 
 proposes. 
 
 We may certainly deduce this conclusion in favour of our 
 improvements in culture, that in the cultivation of plants, 
 the pedicle of whose leaves presents no impress of a canal, 
 it is necessary to water them copiously ; for in this case they 
 are naturally aquatic. The nasturtium, mint, and sweet- 
 marjoram, consume a prodigious quantity. But when plants 
 are provided with a canal, they must be watered more spar- 
 ingly, for this demonstrates them to be originally natives of 
 the mountains. The deeper this canal is, the less artificial 
 watering do they require. Every gardener knows that if 
 you frequently water the aloes, or the taper of Peru, you kill 
 them. 
 
 The seeds of aquatic plants have forms not less adapted 
 than those of their leaves, to the places where they are des- 
 tined to grow ; they are all constructed in a manner the 
 most proper for sailing off. Some of them are fashioned 
 into the figure of shells, others into boats, rafts, skiffs, single 
 and double canoes, similar to those of the South Seas. I 
 can have no doubt that by an attentive study of this part 
 alone, a great number of very curious discoveries might be 
 made, respecting the art of crossing currents of every sort ; 
 and I am persuaded that the first men, who were much better 
 2F 21 
 
242 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 observers than we are, copied their different methods of trav- 
 elling by water, after those models of Nature, of which we 
 with all our pretensions to discovery are but feeble imitators. 
 
 If the leaves, stems, attitudes, and seeds of aquatic plants 
 are judiciously examined, they will be found in perfect har- 
 mony with each other. The natability of their seed is, un- 
 doubtedly, proportioned to the length of the voyages they 
 have to perform, and the gravity of the waters in which they 
 are to swim. Some float in sea-water and sink in fresh, 
 lighter than sea-water by one thirty-second part : such pre- 
 cision is in the balancing of Nature! In a word, I am so 
 convinced of all the relations Nature has established among 
 her works, as to conclude, that the time when the seeds of 
 aquatic plants drop, is regulated, in most cases, by that of 
 the overflowing of the rivers where they grow. 
 
 It is a speculation well worthy the attention of the philo- 
 sophic mind, to trace those vegetable fleets sailing night and 
 day with the current of the rivulets, and arriving, undirected 
 by any pilot, on unknown regions. Some, by the overflow- 
 ing of the water, now and then lose themselves in the plains. 
 I have seen them sometimes accumulated upon each other, 
 in the bed of torrents, presenting around the pebbles where 
 they had germinated, waves of verdure of the most beautiful 
 sea-green. Others cross the vast ocean, and are driven by 
 the very tempests on the regions they adorn and enrich. 
 Such are the double cocoas of the Sechelles, or Mahe Islands, 
 which the sea carries 400 leagues every year, and lands them 
 on the coast of Malabar: The Indians long believed those 
 annual presents of the ocean must have been the produce of 
 palm-trees that grew under its billows. They called them 
 marine cocoa-nuts, ascribed wonderful virtues to them, and 
 set so high a value upon them, that many have been sold for 
 a thousand crowns a-piece. But the French having discover- 
 ed the island of Mahe, which produces them, imported such 
 quantities to India, that they sunk at once in value and repu- 
 tation; for men in every country prize those things only 
 which are rare and mysterious. 
 
 In every island where the eye of the traveller has been able 
 to contemplate the primordial dispositions of Nature, he has 
 found their shores covered with vegetables, all the fruits of 
 which possess nautical characters. By the course of those 
 nautical seeds, too carelessly observed by modern seamen, 
 
STUDY XI. 243 
 
 the savages formerly discovered the islands to windward of 
 the countries they inhabited. They formed conjectures 
 respecting a tree at a great distance, on seeing its fruit cast 
 upon their shores. By similar indications Christopher Colum- 
 bus acquired the assurance that another world existed. 
 
 There are, besides, vegetables of an amphibious nature, so 
 disposed that one part of their foliage raises itself towards 
 heaven, while the other bends downwards to the ground. 
 Nature has given to their seeds the power of at once flying 
 and swimming. Such is the willow, the seed of which is 
 enveloped in a cobweb down, which the winds transport to a 
 great distance, and which floats along the surface of the 
 water without wetting itself, like the downy feathers of the 
 duck. The same thing holds as to the seeds of the poplar ; 
 but those of the alder, which grows on the banks of rivers, 
 have no plumage, because the current of the stream is de- 
 signed to convey them from place to place. 
 
 This would be the proper place to speak of the roots of 
 vegetables ; but I am little acquainted with what passes 
 under ground. I have no doubt, however, that Nature has 
 established, on this subject, relations, the knowledge of which 
 would be highly useful, and that a cultivator, somewhat ex- 
 perienced, might be able, by inspecting the root of a vege- 
 table, to determine the species of soil best adapted to it. 
 
 There are trees, whose trunks and roots are admirably 
 contrasted with obstacles which appear to us accidental, but 
 which provident Nature foresaw. The cypress of Louisiana 
 grows with its foot in the water, chiefly on the banks of the 
 Mississippi. Nature has given to the trunk of this stately 
 tree a circumference of more than thirty feet, to enable it to 
 resist the ices from the lakes of the north, which discharge 
 themselves into that river ; and to put it beyond a doubt that 
 she designed the thickness of its trunk for withstanding the 
 shock of floating bodies, at the height of six feet she sud- 
 denly diminishes its size at least a third, the full magnitude 
 having then become superfluous : and for the better securing 
 it, she raises out of the root at four or five feet distance, all 
 around, several large stumps from one to four feet high. 
 These are not shoots ; for their head is smooth, without 
 leaves or branches : they are real ice-breakers. 
 
 It must now be apparent of what importance it is to con- 
 nect the study of plants with that of the other works of 
 
244 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Nature. It is possible to ascertain, by their flowers, the ex- 
 posure to the sun best adapted to them ; by their leaves, the 
 quantity of water necessary to vegetation ; by their roots, 
 the most suitable soil ; and by their fruits, the situations they 
 ought to be placed in, together with new relations to the 
 animals which feed upon them. By fruit, I mean, as botan- 
 ists do, seed of every species. 
 
 The fruit is the principal character of the plant, from the 
 care Nature has bestowed on its formation and preservation. 
 It is the ultimate term of her productions. If you examine, 
 in a vegetable, the different envelopes which enclose its 
 leaves, flowers, and fruits, you will perceive a wonderful pro- 
 gression of pains and precautions. The simple leaf-buds are 
 easily distinguishable, from the simplicity of their cases. 
 Nay there are plants which have none at all, as the shoots 
 of the gramineous, which start immediately out of the earth, 
 and need no foreign protection. But the buds which contain 
 flowers are provided with sheaths, or lined with down, as 
 those of the apple-tree ; or cased with glue externally, as 
 those of the great India chesnut ; or are enclosed in bags, as 
 the flowers of the narcissus ; or secured in some way or an- 
 other, so as to be very distinguishable even before their ex- 
 pansion. 
 
 You afterward perceive that the care employed in dressing 
 out the flower was entirely destined to the fecundation of the 
 fruit ; and when this is once formed, Nature redoubles her 
 precautions for its preservation. She gives it a placenta, en- 
 velopes it in pellicles, shells, pulps, pods, capsules, husks, 
 skins, and sometimes in a case of thorns. A mother cannot 
 pay more attention to the cradle of her infant. In process 
 of time, that her grown child may go abroad and look for a 
 settlement in the world, she crowns it with a tuft of plumage, 
 or encloses it in a shell ; furnishes it with wings to fly 
 through the air, or with a bark to sail along the surface of 
 the water. 
 
 To arrest our observation in favour of the fruit, Nature 
 frequently varies the leaves, flowers, stems, and roots of a 
 plant ; but the fruit remains constantly the same, if not in 
 form, at least in its essential substance. I am persuaded that 
 when she was pleased to create a fruit, she gave it the power 
 of reproducing itself on the mountains, in the plains, amidst 
 rocks, in sands, on the brink of waters, and under different 
 
STUDY XI. 245 
 
 latitudes ; and to adapt it to its situation, she varied the 
 watering pot, mirror, prop, attitude, buttress, and fur of the 
 vegetable, correspondingly to the sun, rains, winds, and soil. 
 To this intention, I believe, we ought to ascribe the prodi- 
 gious variety of species in every genus, and the beauty each 
 attains in its natural situation. Thus, in forming the chesnut 
 to reach perfection on the stony mountains of the south of 
 Europe, and to supply the want of corn, which scarcely ever 
 succeeds there, she placed it on a tree which in those regions 
 attains magnificence from its adaptations. 
 
 I have eaten of the fruit of the chesnut-tree of the island 
 of Corsica, as large as small hen's eggs, and excellent food. 
 Nature has granted to this stately vegetable the faculty of 
 collecting, on the steep mountains, the waters of the atmos- 
 phere by leaves formed like so many tongues ; and of pene- 
 trating, by its sturdy roots, down to the very bed of fountains, 
 in despite of lavas and rocks. She has been pleased, else- 
 where, to produce the fruit of this tree with a degree of 
 bitterness, for the use of some animal, no doubt, on the brink 
 of the salt water creeks and arms of the sea in Virginia. It 
 arrives at much greater beauty in India, its native country, 
 than in Europe. The American is the maritime chesnut-tree ; 
 that of Europe the chesnut-tree of the mountains. She has 
 placed, perhaps by a different kind of combination, this fruit 
 on the beech-tree of our hills, the mast of which is evidently 
 a species of chesnut. 
 
 Finally, by means of one of those maternal attentions 
 which have induced her to suspend, even on herbs, the 
 productions of trees, and to serve up the same dishes on the 
 smallest tables, she has placed before us a similar fruit in 
 the grain of the black corn ; at any rate it is certain, that, 
 independent of the mealy substance, we find in the black 
 corn, beech-mast, and chesnut, similar properties, such as 
 that of cooling excessive heat of urine.* 
 
 It was in like manner the intention of Nature to produce 
 the acorn in a great variety of exposures. It is of this the 
 poets speak in celebrating the felicity of the Golden Age, 
 because its fruit then served as an aliment to man. Indeed 
 every genus of vegetable gives, in some one of its species, 
 a substance capable of being converted to his use ; and 
 
 * See Chomel's Treatise on Common Plants. 
 
246 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Nature has been pleased, after making this provision for man, 
 to scatter the other species of the oak over the different soils 
 of America, to supply the necessities of her other creatures. 
 She has preserved the fruit, varying only the other parts of 
 the vegetable. 
 
 It may be necessary to observe, that the place where any 
 species of plant produces the finest fruit, determines its prin- 
 cipal genus. To it, accordingly, Nature has attached the 
 principal relations of the animal kingdom to the vegetable. 
 It was her intention that a mountain animal should find his 
 accustomed fruit in the plains, on the sand, among the rocks, 
 when he is obliged to change his country, and especially on 
 the brinks of rivers, when he descends to quench his thirst. 
 I am not acquainted with a single mountain plant but what 
 has some of its species, with their corresponding varieties, 
 scattered over all situations, but principally on the margin 
 of waters. 
 
 It appears impossible to acquire a knowledge of plants 
 unless by studying their geography and ephemeris. Without 
 this double illumination, which mutually reflects, their forms 
 will be for ever strange to us. Though my observations on 
 the elementary harmonies of plants are but few, I have the 
 confidence to affirm them of high importance to the progress 
 of agriculture. Nature has outrun our wishes where she 
 has been left at liberty to re-establish her own plans. To 
 secure prosperity to ours, we must reduce them into harmony 
 with hers. To ascertain what plants are best adapted for 
 such and such a district, pay attention to the wild plants 
 which thrive there spontaneously, and are distinguishable 
 for their vigour and numbers : then substitute in their place 
 domestic plants with the same kind of flowers and leaves. 
 I am persuaded, by these natural approximations advantage 
 might be derived from the most barren sands and rocks, for 
 there is not a single genus of wild plant but what contains 
 a species fit for food. 
 
 But it was not sufficient for Nature to have established so 
 many harmonies between plants and the vegetative situations, 
 had she not provided means for restoring them, when destroy- 
 ed by the intolerant culture of man. Let a piece of ground 
 be left uncultivated a short time, and it will presently be 
 clothed with vegetables. They grow in such numbers, and 
 so vigorously, that no husbandman can produce an equal 
 
STUDY XI. 247 
 
 quantity on the same spot. Nature, who is always advanc- 
 ing from harmony to harmony, till she attains that perfection 
 she proposes to herself, sows, at first, with grasses and herb- 
 age of different species, all abandoned soils, waiting for an 
 opportunity of exerting her powers, to raise on that very spot 
 vegetables of a higher order. On the rude neglected districts, 
 where barren downs alone meet our eyes, posterity may be- 
 hold stately forests arising. 
 
 The principal means employed by Nature, for securing the 
 
 frowth of plants of every other species, are the thorny plants, 
 lants of this description are the first which appear on lands 
 in fallow, or in forests cut down. They are in truth won- 
 derfully well adapted to promote foreign vegetations, because 
 their boughs leave underneath and around them many inter- 
 vals, through which other vegetables may arise, and find pro- 
 tection from the tooth of most quadrupeds. Nurseries of trees 
 are frequently found in their bosom. Nothing is more com- 
 mon in coppice woods than to see a young oak start out of a 
 tuft of brambles, which enamels the earth all around with 
 its clusters of prickly flowers ; or a young pine arise out of a 
 yellow brake of marine rushes. When these trees have ac- 
 quired a certain degree of growth and size, they stifle by their 
 shade those thorny plants, which subsist no longer, except 
 along the skirts of the wood, where they enjoy air sufficient 
 for their vegetation. But in this situation, such plants are 
 still going on to extend the empire of their superiors from year 
 to year over the plants. Thus the thorny plants are the 
 original cradles of the forests ; and the scourge of the agri- 
 culture of man is the bulwark of that of Nature. 
 
 Nature employs the birds particularly to sow the thorny 
 plants in steep and inaccessible places. They are accus- 
 tomed to retire thither in the night, and deposit with their 
 dung the stony seeds of most thorny shrubs, which are indi- 
 gestible in their stomach. They are not only supplied by 
 those vegetables with food and shelter, but down for lining 
 their nests, as on thistles, and on the cotton tree of America. 
 Independently of the plants proper to each situation, some 
 flit round the earth, caused by several plants shedding their 
 seeds only at the season when certain regular winds blow, or 
 at certain revolutions of the currents of the ocean. I am of 
 opinion, however, that we must rank under this description 
 many plants known to the ancients, but not now to be found. 
 
248 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 It may merit observation, that those vegetable apparitions 
 have been contemporary with several species of flitting birds, 
 which have likewise disappeared. It is well known several 
 classes of birds and fishes migrate incessantly ; some in a cer- 
 tain revolution of days ; others at the end of a certain period 
 of years. Many plants may be subjected to a similar destiny. 
 This law extends even to the heavens, where some new star 
 is from time to time appearing. Nature has always some 
 novelty in reserve, to keep man continually in exercise. She 
 has established, in the duration of the existence of the different 
 beings, concerts of a moment, hour, day, moon, year, of the 
 life of man, the duration of a cedar, and perhaps that of a 
 globe : but this undoubtedly is known to the SUPREME BEING 
 alone. 
 
 I am persuaded, at the same time, that the greatest part 
 of flitting plants must have a principal centre, such as a steep 
 rock, or an island in the sea, from whence they diffuse them- 
 selves over the world. This leads me to deduce, what I con- 
 sider as an irrefragable argument in support of the recent 
 creation of our globe : were it of very remote antiquity, all 
 the possible combinations of the propagation of plants by seed, 
 would have been already completed all over the world. Now 
 it is unquestionably certain, that the radiations of the cocoa- 
 tree and its fruit, the principal foci of which are in the Mal- 
 divia Islands, are not hitherto diffused over all the islands of 
 the Indian Ocean. 
 
 This reflection evidently demonstrates the newness of the 
 world. Were it eternal, and without a Providence, its vege- 
 tables would long since have undergone all the possible com- 
 binations of the chance which resows them. We should find 
 their different species wherever they could grow. From this 
 observation I infer, That the AUTHOR of Nature evidently 
 intended to link mankind together by a reciprocal communi- 
 cation of benefits, the chain of which is yet incomplete. 
 
 VEGETABLE HARMONIES OF PLANTS. 
 
 The verdure of plants, so grateful to the eye, is a harmony 
 of yellow, the colour of the earth, and blue, the colour of the 
 heavens. Had Nature dyed plants yellow, they would have 
 been confounded with the ground ; if blue, with the heavens 
 and the waters. In the first case, all would have appeared 
 earth ; in the second, sea : but their verdure gives them de- 
 
STUDY TCI. 349 
 
 lightful contrasts with the grounds of this magnificent picture, 
 and consonances equally agreeable with the yellow colour of 
 the earth, and the azure of the heavens. 
 
 The green colour possesses this farther advantage, it won- 
 derfully accords with all the others, from its being the har- 
 mony of the two extreme colours. Painters of taste hang 
 their exhibition-rooms with green, that the pictures, of what- 
 ever colours, may detach themselves from that ground with- 
 out harshness, and harmonize upon it without confusion. 
 But though Nature employs but one single colour in arraying 
 so many plants, she varies the tints so endlessly, that each 
 plant has one peculiar to itself, detaching it sufficiently from 
 its neighbour ; and these are varying daily from the com- 
 mencement of spring, when they appear in a bloody verdure, 
 to the last days of autumn, and then they are transformed 
 into various yellows. 
 
 Nature, after having thus harmonized the ground of her 
 picture, has detached from it every vegetable in particular, 
 by means of contrasts. The most beautiful of forms is the 
 spherical ; and the most agreeable contrast it is capable of 
 presenting, is when found in opposition to the radiating form. 
 Indeed, I am persuaded there is not a vegetable but what has 
 its opposite in some part of the earth ; their mutual harmony 
 is the cause of the secret pleasure we feel in wild rural 
 scenes, where Nature is at liberty to combine them. 
 
 The harmonies resulting from contrast are to be found even 
 in the waters. The reed, on the brink of rivers, raises into 
 the air its radiating leaves, and its imbrowned distaff, whereas 
 the nymphaea extends at its feet a broad heart-formed 
 foliage, and roses of yellow gold : the one presents on the 
 waters a continued palisade, the other a platform of verdure. 
 
 I apprehend that the qualities of plants are harmonic as 
 their forms ; that when we find them grouped agreeably and 
 constantly, there must result from the union of their quali- 
 ties for nourishment, health, or pleasure, a harmony as 
 agreeable as the contrast of their figures. 
 
 On the imbrowned angles of the rock, under the shade 
 of ancient beech-trees, the mushroom, white and round as 
 an ivory piece for the chess-board, arises out of a bed 
 of moss of the most beautiful green. It alone presents a 
 multitude of unknown consonances and contrasts, and is the 
 most varied vegetable of our climates. Sebastian le Vail- 
 2G 
 
 
250 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 lant enumerates 104 species in the vicinity of Paris, without 
 reckoning the fungoids, which furnish at least a dozen more. 
 Nature has dispersed them over most shady places, where 
 they form contrasts the most extraordinary. Some thrive 
 only on the naked rock, where they present a forest of small 
 filaments, each supporting its particular chapiter ; some grow 
 on substances the most abject, with forms the most solemn ; 
 such is that which thrives on what falls from the horse, and 
 which resembles a Roman hat, whence its name. Others 
 present agreeable consonances ; as that which grows at the 
 foot of the alder, under the form of a cockle. 
 
 This numerous tribe appears to have its destiny attached 
 to that of the trees, which have each a mushroom appropria- 
 ted to itself, and rarely to be found elsewhere : such are those 
 which grow only on the roots of plum trees and pines. To 
 no purpose does heaven pour down its copious rains ; the 
 mushroom, under covert of its umbrella, receives not a single 
 drop. They derive the whole support of life from the earth, 
 and from the potent vegetable to whose fortune they have 
 united their own. 
 
 Nature has established in the numerous tribes of the vege- 
 table kingdom, a multitude of alliances, the end of which is 
 unknown to us. There are plants, for example, the sexes of 
 which are on different individuals, as in the animal creation. 
 Others whom you always find united in clusters, as if they 
 loved to live in society ; others, on the contrary, are almost 
 always in a state of solitude. I presume that many of 
 these relations are connected with the character of the birds 
 which live on their fruits, and resow them. Nature frequently 
 employs the aerial vapours to give a greater extent to our 
 landscapes. She sometimes withdraws this magic veil from 
 the bottom of the valleys ; and rolling it over the adjacent 
 mountains, on which she tinges it with vermilion and azure, 
 she confounds the circumference of the earth with the vault 
 of heaven : thus employing clouds evanescent as the illusions 
 of human life, to raise us to heaven ; thus expanding over 
 her most profound mysteries, the ineffable sensations of in- 
 finity, she withdraws from our senses the perception of her 
 works, to convey to our minds a more impressive feeling of 
 them. 
 
STUDY XI. 251 
 
 ANIMAL HARMONIES OP PLANTS. 
 
 Nature, after having established on a soil formed of frag- 
 ments insensible and lifeless, vegetables endowed with prin- 
 ciples of life, growth, and generation, accommodated to them 
 animals, which had, besides the power of self-motion, dispo- 
 sitions to inhabit them, passions to derive their nourishment, 
 and an instinct to make a proper choice of them. I shall 
 speak only of their most common relations to plants. 
 
 In an order entirely new, Nature has not changed her laws : 
 she has established the same harmonies and contrasts of ani- 
 mals to plants, as of plants to the elements. It would appear 
 natural to our feeble reason, and consonant to the principles 
 of our sciences, that so many sensible beings produced in the 
 midst of verdure, should be in time affected by it. The im- 
 pressions of their parents, added to those of their own infancy, 
 acquiring in them increasing strength, from generation to 
 generation, by new tints, ought at length to exhibit oxen and 
 sheep as green as the grass on which they pasture. We have 
 observed in the preceding Study, that as vegetables were de- 
 tached from the ground by their green colour, animals which 
 live on verdure distinguish themselves from it by their dusky 
 colours ; and those which live on the dusky bark of trees, or 
 on other dark grounds, are invested with colours brilliant, and 
 sometimes green. 
 
 Many species of Indian birds which live amidst the foliage 
 of trees, as paroquets, many of the colibri, and even turtles, 
 are of the finest green ; but independently of the white, blue, 
 and red marbled spots, which distinguish their tribes on the 
 trees, their brilliant plumage greatly detaches them from the 
 solemn and imbrowried verdure of those southern forests. 
 We have seen that Nature employs this to diminish the 
 reflexes of heat ; but that she might not confound the objects 
 of her picture, if she has darkened the ground of her scene, 
 she has bestowed greater brilliancy on the dresses of the 
 actors. 
 
 Nature has appropriated the species of animals agreeably 
 coloured to that of vegetables whose flowers are least vivid, 
 as a compensation. There are fewer brilliant flowers between 
 the tropics than in the temperate zones ; and, as a compensa- 
 tion, the insects, birds, and even quadrupeds, are there arrayed 
 in the most lively colours. When they rest on their proper 
 
252 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 vegetable, they form with them the most beautiful contrast, 
 the most lively harmonies. An attentive consideration of 
 these oppositions and analogies, would lead us to a discovery 
 of the plant peculiarly adapted to each animal. Naturalists, 
 in their histories of birds, class them according to the feet, 
 bill, and nostrils. They sometimes speak of the seasons of 
 their appearance, but scarcely ever of the trees they frequent; 
 every animal, however, may be referred to its own particular 
 corresponding plant. 
 
 We have divided plants into aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial, 
 as animals themselves are divisible, and we have found in 
 the two extreme classes unvarying harmonies with their 
 elements. They may be farther divided into two classes, 
 into trees arid herbs, as animals likewise are into volatile 
 and quadrupeds. Nature does not associate the two king- 
 doms in consonances, but in contrasts ; and by means of 
 these oppositions she bestows adaptations of protection to 
 the feeble, and of accommodation to the powerful. 
 
 If we observe the relations of grasses to quadrupeds, we 
 shall find that, notwithstanding their apparent contrasts, 
 there is actually between them a multitude of real corres- 
 pondences. The moderate elevation of gramineous plants 
 places them within reach of the jaws of quadrupeds, whose 
 head is in a horizontal position, and frequently inclined 
 towards the ground. Their delicate shoots are suited to 
 their broad and fleshy lips ; their tender stems to be easily 
 snapped by the incisive teeth ; their mealy seeds easily 
 bruised by the grinders. Besides, their bushy tufts, elastic 
 without being ligneous, present soft litter to ponderous bodies. 
 
 If, on the contrary, we examine the correspondences be- 
 tween trees and birds, we shall find that branches of trees 
 may be easily clasped by the four-toed feet of most birds, 
 which Nature has so disposed, that by means of three before 
 and one behind, they may be able to grasp the bough as with 
 a hand. Again, the birds find in the different tiers of the 
 foliage, a shelter against the rain, sun, and cold, towards 
 which the thickness of the trunks farther contribute. The 
 apertures formed in these, and their mosses, furnish situations 
 and materials for building their nests. The round or oblong 
 seeds of trees are suited to their bills. Such as bear fleshy 
 fruits are resorted to by birds which have beaks pointed or 
 crooked like a pickaxe. 
 
STUDY XL 253 
 
 Nature has farther accommodated animals of a third order, 
 which find in the bark, or in the flower of a plant, as many 
 conveniences as the quadruped has in the meadow, or the 
 bird in the whole tree: I mean insects. Tjiis order appears 
 to be particularly appropriated to trees. Pliny observes that 
 ants are fond of the grains of the cypress. He tells us, that 
 they attack the cones which contain them, on their half 
 opening as they arrive at maturity, and plunder them to their 
 very last seed ; and he considers it as a miracle of Nature, 
 that an insect so diminutive should destroy the seed of one 
 of the largest trees in the world. 
 
 I am persuaded there is not a single vegetable but what 
 has connected with it at least one individual of each of the 
 six general classes of insects, acknowledged by naturalists. 
 By referring insects to the different parts of plants, we alone 
 can discern why Nature bestowed on those diminutive ani- 
 mals figures so extraordinary. We should then comprehend 
 the uses of their utensils, hitherto mostly unknown ; and 
 have new occasions to admire the Divine Intelligence, and 
 perfect our own. 
 
 The duration of vegetables is unequal, though subjugated 
 to the influences of the same elements. The oak serves as a 
 monument to the nations ; and the nostotium, which grows 
 at its foot, lives only a single day. All I shall say upon this 
 head in general is, that the period of their decay is by no 
 means regulated by that of their growth; neither is their 
 fecundity proportioned to their weakness, to climates, or to 
 seasons, as some have pretended, but to the demands of ani- 
 mal life. Many plants expire when they have yielded, and 
 committed their seed to the winds. There are some, such as 
 mushrooms, whose existence is limited to a few days, as the 
 species of flies which feed upon them. Others retain their 
 seeds all the winter through, for the use of the birds ; such 
 are the fruits of most shrubs. 
 
 Other plants have relations to animals the more tenderly 
 affecting, in proportion as climates and seasons seem to exer- 
 cise over the animal the greater degree of severity. Were we 
 enabled to investigate these adaptations to the bottom, they 
 would explain all the varieties of vegetation, in every latitude 
 and season. 
 
 There are fruits, as the jaque and mango, which animals 
 can smell at a great distance when the fruit is to windward. 
 
 22 
 
254 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 I believe this property of emitting a powerful perfume is com- 
 mon to such of our fruits as lie concealed under the foliage, 
 apricots, for instance ; other vegetables manifest themselves 
 only in the nighttime. The jalap of Peru, or the belle of the 
 night, opens not her strongly-scented flowers except in the 
 dark. The flower of the nasturtium, a native of the same 
 country, emits in the dark a phosphoric light, first observed 
 in Europe by a daughter of the celebrated Linnaeus. 
 
 The properties of these plants convey a happy idea of those 
 delightful climates where the nights are sufficiently calm and 
 luminous to disclose a new order of society among animals. 
 There is a species of luminous flies, which scatter themselves 
 in the groves of fruit-trees in the darkest nights, darting at 
 once, by beating of their wings, a dozen of fiery streams, 
 which illuminate the foliage and fruits of the trees with a 
 golden and bluish light;* then, all at once repressing their 
 motion, they plunge again into obscurity. 
 
 Were we to study the relations of plants to animals, we 
 should perceive the use of many of the parts, frequently con- 
 sidered as productions of the caprice and confusion of Nature. 
 So widely extended are those relations, that there is not a 
 down upon a plant, an intertexture of a shrub, a cavity, a 
 colour of leaf, or a prickle, but what has its utility. Those 
 wonderful harmonies are especially to be remarked in the 
 lodgings and nests of animals. If in hot countries there are 
 downy plants, it is because there are moths entirely naked, 
 which clip off their fleece and weave it into clothing. On the 
 banks of the Amazon is a species of reed from 25 to 30 feet 
 high, crowned with a large ball of earth, the workmanship of 
 the ants, which retire thither at the time of the rains and 
 inundations of that river : they go up and descend along the 
 cavity of this reed, and live on the refuse then swimming on 
 the surface of the water. 
 
 To furnish similar retreats for small insects, Nature has 
 hollowed the stems of most of our plants of the shore. The 
 valisneria which grows in the Rhone, and carries its flower 
 on a spiral stem, capable of being drawn out in proportion to 
 the rapidity of the sudden swellings of that river, has holes 
 at the basis of its leaves, the use of which is much more ex- 
 traordinary. If you take up this plant by the root, and put 
 
 * Consult Father du Tertre. 
 
STUDY XI. 255 
 
 it into a vessel full of water, you perceive at the basis of its 
 leaves masses of bluish jelly, which insensibly lengthen into 
 pyramids of a beautiful red. These presently furrow them- 
 selves into flutings, which disengage from the summit, invert 
 themselves all around, and present by their expansion very 
 beautiful flowers formed of purple, yellow, and blue rays. 
 By degrees these flowers advance out of their cavity, and 
 withdraw from the plant, remaining however attached to it 
 by a small filament. You then perceive each of the rays 
 composing those flowers assume a motion peculiar to itself, 
 which communicates a circular movement to the water, and 
 precipitates to the centre all the small bodies floating around. 
 If those wonderful expansions are disturbed by any sudden 
 shock, immediately every filament contracts, all the rays 
 close, and the pyramids retire into their cavities ; for those 
 pretended flowers are polypi. 
 
 There are in certain plants parts which may be considered 
 as characters of uncultivated Nature, but which, like all the 
 rest of her works, are evident proofs of the wisdom and 
 providence of her Author ; such as prickles, whose forms 
 are varied without end, especially in hot countries, where it 
 was necessary many of the trees should be armed with 
 thorns, because quadrupeds are there to be found capable of 
 climbing them to eat the eggs and young of birds. 
 
 There are, in the Antilles Islands, trees which have no 
 thorny prickles, but more ingeniously protected than if they 
 had. A plant known there by the name of the prickly 
 thistle, by crossing its branches, forms an enclosure no quad- 
 ruped dares to approach. It likewise produces a fruit grate- 
 ful to the palate. 
 
 In those countries the thorns upon the trees afford pro- 
 tection even to the insects. Bees there carry on their honey- 
 making process in the aged trunks of prickly trees hollowed 
 by the hand of Time. It is very remarkable that Nature, 
 who has provided this resource for the bees of America, has 
 withheld from them a sting, as if those on the trees were 
 sufficient for their defence. I believe that to this reason it 
 may be ascribed, though no attention has been paid to it, 
 that we have never hitherto been able to rear in the Antilles 
 Islands the honey-bees of the country. They refused no 
 doubt to take up their abodes in domestic hives, because they 
 did not consider themselves as there in a state of security ; 
 
256 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 but might perhaps have been induced to make that choice, 
 had the hives to which they were invited been decorated and 
 defended by thorns. 
 
 If Nature employs prickly vegetables for the defence even 
 of flies against the attacks of quadrupeds, she sometimes 
 makes use of the same means for delivering quadrupeds 'from 
 the persecution of common flies. She has in truth bestowed 
 on those most exposed to it manes and tails, armed with long 
 hair, to drive them away; but the multiplication of those 
 insects is so rapid in warm and humid seasons and countries, 
 as to threaten destruction to the whole race of animals. One 
 of the vegetable barriers opposed to them by Nature is the 
 dionaa muscipula. This plant bears on one and the same 
 branch opposite little leaves, besmeared with a sugary liquor 
 resembling manna, and studded with very sharp prickles. 
 When a fly perches on one of those little leaves, they instantly 
 close with a spring, like the jaws of a wolf-trap, and the 
 fly is spitted through and through. 
 
 There is another species of the dionaea which catches those 
 insects with its flower. When a fly attempts to extract its 
 nectareous juices, the corolla, which is tubulous, shuts at the 
 collar, seizes the insect by the proboscis, and thus puts it to 
 death. This plant is cultivated in the Royal Garden. It is. 
 observable that its cup-formed flower is white, radiated with 
 red, and that these two colours universally attract flies, from 
 their natural avidity of milk and of blood. 
 
 But there is no occasion to resort to foreign plants for 
 ascertaining the existence of vegetable relations to animal. 
 The bramble, which affords in every field shelter to the birds, 
 has its prickles formed into hooks ; so that it not only pre- 
 vents the cattle from disturbing the birds' retirement, but 
 frequently lays them under contribution for a flake of wool 
 or hair proper for finishing off their nests. 
 
 Did we know the animal relations of plants, we should 
 possess sources of intelligence respecting the instincts of the 
 brute creation with which we are totally unacquainted. We 
 should know the origin of their friendships and animosities, 
 at least as to those formed in society ; for with regard to such 
 as are innate, I do not believe the cause of them was ever 
 revealed to any man. These are of a different order, and 
 belong to another world. The foundation of all this variety 
 of pleasant and useful knowledge is laid in the study of 
 
STUDY XI. 257 
 
 plants. Each of them is the focus of the life of animals, the 
 species of which there collect in a point, as the rays of a 
 circle at their centre. 
 
 As soon as the sun has given the signal of spring to our 
 hemisphere, the rainy and warm wind of the south takes its 
 departure from Africa ; and when this revolution, known all 
 over the globe by the name of the equinoctial gale, has taken 
 place, in the month of March, the sun revolves night and day 
 around our pole, so that there is not a single point in the 
 whole northern hemisphere that can escape his heat. Every 
 step he advances through the heavens, a new plant appears 
 on the earth. Each arises in succession, and occupies its 
 proper station at the hour assigned to it ; at one and the 
 same instant it receives the light in its flowers and the dew 
 of heaven on its foliage. In proportion to its progress in 
 growth, the insect tribes which thence derive their nourish- 
 ment likewise display their existence and unfold their charac- 
 ters. At this epocha, too, each species of bird resorts to the 
 plant with which she is acquainted, to build her nest, and 
 feed her young with the animal prey it presents, to supply 
 the want of its seeds not yet produced. We presently behold 
 the tribes of birds of passage flock thither in quest of the 
 portion which Nature has provided for them likewise. All 
 these birds feed their young on the insects and reptiles which 
 the newly expanded plants have fostered into life. 
 
 Then, too, the fishes issue in legions from the northern 
 abysses of the ocean, allured to the mouths of rivers by 
 clouds of insects, which are confined entirely to the waters, 
 or expand into life along their banks. They stem the watery 
 current in shoals, and advance skipping and springing up to 
 the very sources of the stream. Quadrupeds themselves then 
 undertake long peregrinations ; some proceed from south to 
 north with the sun, others from east to west ; some coast 
 along the rugged chains of mountains ; others follow the 
 courses of unnavigated rivers. Lengthened columns of black 
 cattle pasture in America along the banks of the Mississippi. 
 Numerous squadrons of horses traverse the rivers and deserts 
 of Tartary, and wild sheep stray bleating amidst its vast 
 solitudes. These flocks have neither overseer nor shepherd 
 to guide them through the desert, but the well-known ex- 
 pansion of herbage determines the moment of their departure, 
 and the limits of their progress ; then each animal inhabits 
 2H 22* 
 
253 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 his natural situation ; then the chains of harmony exert all 
 their force, and all, being animated by consonances or by 
 contrasts, the air, waters, forests, and rocks, seem to be vocal, 
 impassioned, transported with delight. 
 
 But this vast concert can be comprehended by celestial 
 intelligences only. To man it is sufficient, in order to study 
 Nature with advantage, that he limit his researches to one 
 single vegetable, suppose an aged tree in some solitary 
 situation. The characters indicated, a judgment might easily 
 be formed whether it be in its natural position ; but still better 
 from its beauty, and the accessories Nature uniformly places 
 in connexion with it, where man has not interposed to de- 
 range her operations. The student would first observe its 
 elementary relations, and the striking characters of the differ- 
 ent species of the same genus, some of which grow at the 
 sources of rivers, others at the place of their discharge into 
 the ocean. He would afterwards examine its convolvuluses, 
 mosses, mistletoes, scolopendrae, the mushrooms of its roots, 
 nay, the very grasses which grow under its shade. He would 
 perceive in each of its vegetables new elementary relations, 
 adapted to the places they occupy and to the tree which sus- 
 tains or shelters them. 
 
 His attention might next be directed to the various species 
 of animals which resort to it as a habitation, and he would 
 presently be convinced, that from the snail up to the squirrel 
 there is not a single one but what has determinate and char- 
 acteristic relations to the dependences of its vegetation. 
 
 If the tree in question were growing in a forest, itself too 
 of considerable antiquity, it would most probably have in its 
 vicinity the tree which Nature designed should contrast with 
 it in the same site, as for example the birch with the fir. It is 
 farther probable that the accessory vegetables and animals of 
 this last would also form a contrast with those of the first. 
 These two spheres of observation would mutually illuminate 
 each other, and diffuse the clearest light over the manners of 
 the animals which frequent them. Indeed, I am fully con- 
 vinced that, without fatigue, and almost without trouble, cu- 
 rious discoveries might be made. Were we to restrict our 
 inquiries but to one single compartment, we should discover 
 a multitude of enchanting harmonies : but in order to enjoy 
 some imperfect sketches of this kind we must have recourse 
 to travellers. 
 
STUDY XL 259 
 
 There are birds which lodge not upon their favourite plant, 
 but opposite to it. Such is the colibri, which frequently 
 nestles, in the Antilles Islands, on the straw which thatches 
 a cottage, in order to live under the protection of man. In 
 our climates the nightingale constructs his nest under covert 
 of a bush, choosing in preference such situations as repeat an 
 echo, and carefully observing to expose it to the morning sun. 
 Having employed such precautions, he takes his station in 
 the vicinity, against the trunk of a tree ; and there, con- 
 founded with the colour of its bark, and motionless, he be- 
 comes invisible. But he presently animates the obscure re- 
 treat which he has chosen by the divine melody of his song, 
 and effaces all the brilliancy of plumage by the charms of his 
 music. 
 
 But whatever enchantment may be diffused by plants and 
 animals over their situations in Nature, I never can consider 
 a landscape as possessing all its beauty unless I perceive in 
 it at least one little hut. The habitation of man confers on 
 vegetables a new degree of interest or majesty. Our mag- 
 nificent hotels in great cities are the habitation of tradesmen 
 merely : in the country they are transformed into castles, 
 palaces, temples. This is not in truth what I consider as 
 most interesting in rural scenery. To the most ostenta- 
 tious splendour I prefer the view of a hamlet of fishermen, 
 built by the side of a river. With inexpressible delight have 
 I sometimes reposed under the shade of willows and poplars 
 on which were suspended the bow nets composed of their own 
 branches. 
 
 I shall now take a rapid glance of the harmonies of plants 
 with man ; and that I may introduce them in order, shall 
 divide them relatively to man himself, into elementary, vege- 
 table, animal, and human properly so called, or alimentary. 
 
 HUMAN HARMONIES OF PLANTS. 
 
 Elementary Harmonies of Plants relatively to Man. 
 
 If we consider the vegetable order under the simple rela- 
 tions of strength and magnitude, we shall find it divided into 
 three great classes, namely, herbs, shrubs, and trees. In the 
 first place, herbs are of a substance pliant and soft. Had they 
 been ligneous and hard, like the young boughs of trees, to 
 which they ought naturally to have a resemblance, as they 
 
260 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 grow on the same soil, the greatest part of the earth would 
 have been inaccessible to the foot of man till the fire or hatchet 
 had cleared the way for him. It was not by chance, there- 
 fore, that so many grasses, mosses, and herbs, assumed a soft 
 and yielding texture, nor from want of nourishment or the 
 means of expansion ; for some of those herbs rise to a very 
 great height, such as the banana of India, and several feru- 
 laceous plants of our own climates, which attain the stature 
 of a little tree. 
 
 On the other hand, there are ligneous shrubs which do not 
 exceed the generality of herbs in height, but they grow mostly 
 on rugged and steep places, affording man the means of 
 clambering with facility, for they shoot out of the very clefts 
 of the rocks. But as there are rocks without clefts, which 
 present the perpendicularity of a wall, there are likewise 
 creeping plants at their bases, which rise in close cohesion to 
 a height surpassing that of many of the tallest trees : such 
 are the ivy, the virgin-vine, and a great number of the lianne 
 tribe, which mantle along the rocks of the southern regions. 
 
 Were the earth covered with such vegetables, it would be 
 impossible to walk over it. When uninhabited islands were 
 discovered, some were found clothed with forests, others in 
 which there was nothing but herbage and rushes, others car- 
 peted with mosses simply, others, in great number, on which 
 these several vegetables were blended ; but I do not know 
 of a single one found to contain only shrubbery and liannes. 
 Nature has placed this class on places not easily to be scaled, 
 to facilitate access to man. 
 
 As to trees, though replenished with a vegetative force 
 which elevates them to a very considerable height, the greater 
 part do not send out their first branches but at a certain dis- 
 tance from the ground ; so that though they form, on attain- 
 ing a certain degree of elevation, an intertexture impenetrable 
 to the sun, they leave however about their roots avenues suf- 
 ficient to render them accessible, so that the forests may be 
 traversed with ease and expedition. 
 
 Such, then, are the general dispositions of vegetables upon 
 the earth relatively to the occasion which man had to range 
 over it. The herbage serves as a carpet to his feet, the shrub- 
 bery as a scaling-ladder to his hands, and the trees are as so 
 many parasols over his head. Nature, after having established 
 those propositions between them, has distributed them in all 
 
STUDY XI. 261 
 
 the varieties of situation, by bestowing on them qualities the 
 best adapted to minister to the necessities of man, and to com- 
 pensate in his favour the inconveniences of climate. 
 
 Though this manner of studying her works be now held in 
 contempt by most naturalists, to it, however, shall our re- 
 searches be limited. We have just been considering plants 
 according to their shape and size, after the manner of garden- 
 ers ; we proceed farther to examine them as is done by the 
 wood-seller, the huntsman, the carpenter, the fisherman, the 
 shepherd, the sailor, nay, the nosegay-maker. It is of small 
 importance whether we be learned, provided we cease not to 
 be men. 
 
 In the north, and on cold mountains, the pine, the fir, the ce- 
 dar, and most part of resinous trees grow, which shelter man 
 from the snows by the closeness of their foliage, and furnish 
 him in winter with torches and fuel for his fireside. The 
 leaves of those ever-green trees are filiform, and thus adapted 
 for reverberating the heat and resisting the violent winds that 
 beat on elevated situations. 
 
 Mathiola says, no substance is more proper than the char- 
 coal of those trees for promptly melting iron minerals, in the 
 vicinity of which they peculiarly thrive. They are loaded 
 with mosses, some species of which catch fire from the slight- 
 est spark. Being obliged on a certain occasion to pass the 
 night in the lofty mountains of the Strait of Trento, where 
 he was botanizing, he found a great quantity of larchea 
 (larix) bearded all over, and completely whitened with moss. 
 The shepherds, willing to amuse him, set fire to the mosses, 
 which was communicated with the rapidity of gunpowder 
 touched with the match. Amidst the obscurity of night, the 
 flame and sparks seemed to ascend up to the very heavens. 
 They diffused a very agreeable perfume. He adds, that the 
 best agaricum grows upon the larch, and that the arquebusiers 
 of his time made use of it for keeping up fire and making 
 matches. Thus Nature, in crowning cold and ferruginous 
 mountains with those vast vegetable torches, has placed the 
 match in their branches, tinder at their foot, and the steel at 
 their roots. 
 
 To the south, on the contrary, trees present in their foliage 
 fans, umbrellas, parasols. The latanier carries each of its 
 leaves plaited as a fan, attached to a long tail, and similar, 
 when completely displayed, to a radiating sun of verdure. 
 
262 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 The leaf of the banana resembles a long and broad girdle, 
 which undoubtedly procured for it the name of Adam's fig- 
 tree. The magnitude of the leaves of several species of trees 
 increases as we approach the line ; that of the cocoa-tree of 
 the Sechelles Islands is from 12 to 15 feet long and 7 to 8 
 broad : a single one is sufficient to cover a numerous family. 
 
 Nature has provided in those climates parasols for whole 
 villages ; for the fig-tree, denominated in India the fig-tree 
 of the Banians, grows on the very burning sand of the sea- 
 shore, throwing shoots from the extremity of its branches, 
 which drop to the ground, there take root, and form around 
 the principal trunk covered arcades, impervious to the rays 
 of the sun. 
 
 In our temperate climates we experience a similar benevo- 
 lence of Nature. In the warm and thirsty season, she be- 
 stows upon us fruits replenished with refreshing juices, as 
 cherries, peaches, melons ; and as winter approaches, those 
 which warm and comfort by their oils, as the almond and the 
 walnut. She has placed other vegetables in humid and dry 
 situations, the qualities of which are inexplicable on the 
 principles of our physics, but which admirably harmonize 
 with the necessities of the men who inhabit those places. 
 Along the water-side grow the plants and trees which are 
 driest, lightest, and consequently best adapted to the purpose 
 of crossing the stream, as reeds and rushes. It requires but 
 a moderate bundle of rushes to bear the weight of a heavy 
 man upon the water. On the banks of the northern lakes 
 are produced enormous birch-trees, the bark of a single one 
 being sufficient to form a large canoe ; it is similar to leather 
 in pliancy, and so incorruptible by humidity, that in Russia 
 I have seen some of it extracted from under the earth which 
 covered powder magazines, perfectly sound, though it had 
 lain there from the time of Peter the Great. 
 
 If we may depend on the testimony of Pliny and Plutarch, 
 there were found at Rome, 400 years after the death of Numa, 
 the books that great king had commanded to be deposited 
 with his body in the tomb. The body was consumed, but 
 the books on philosophy and religion were in such preserva- 
 tion, that Petilius, the praetor, undertook to read them by 
 command of the senate. On the report he made of their 
 contents, they were ordered to be burned. They were written 
 on the bark of the birch-tree, which consists of an accumula- 
 
STUDY XI. 263 
 
 tion of ten or twelve sheets, white and thin like paper, the 
 place of which it supplied to the ancients. 
 
 Nature presents to man different trajectiles on different 
 shores. On the banks of the rivers of India, the bamboo, 
 an enormous reed, rises sometimes to the height of sixty feet, 
 and swells to the size of a man's thigh ; in the Maldivia 
 Islands, the cocoa-tree, of all others most useful to mariners, 
 grows on the shores of the seas most frequented by men of 
 that description. Before the cocoa-nut comes to perfect 
 maturity, it contains a liquor which is an excellent anti- 
 scorbutic. Is it not then a miracle of Nature that this fruit, 
 replenished with such milk, should come to a perfection on 
 the barren strand, and within the washing of the briny deep 1 
 Nay, it is only on the brink of the sea that the tree which 
 bears it arrives at its highest beauty ; for few are to be seen 
 in the interior of countries. 
 
 The care of Providence in contriving a supply for the 
 thirst of man in sultry places, is no less worthy of admiration. 
 Nature has placed amidst the burning sands of Africa a plant, 
 whose leaf, twisted round like a cruet, is always filled with 
 a large glass-full of fresh water ; the gullet of this cruet is 
 shut by the extremity of the leaf itself, so as to prevent the 
 water from evaporating. She has planted on some parched 
 districts of the same country a great tree, called by the 
 negroes Boa, the trunk of which, of a prodigious bulk, is 
 naturally hollowed like a cistern. In the rainy season it 
 receives its fill of water, which continues fresh and cool in 
 the greatest heats, by means of the tufted foliage which 
 crowns its summit. Finally, she has placed vegetable 
 fountains on the parched rocks of the Antilles. There is 
 commonly found on them a lianne, called the water-lianne, 
 so full of sap, that if you cut a single branch of it, as much 
 water is immediately discharged as a man can drink at a 
 draught : it is perfectly pure and limpid. 
 
 In the swamps of the Bay of Campeachy travellers find 
 relief of another kind. Those swamps are inundated in the 
 rainy season, and become so parched in dry weather, that 
 many huntsmen who miss their way in the forests actually 
 perish with thirst. The celebrated traveller Dampier relates 
 that he several times escaped this calamity by means of a 
 very extraordinary species of vegetation to be found on the 
 trunk of a kind of pine very common ; it resembles leaves 
 
264 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 piled one over another in tiers, and on account of its form, 
 and of the tree on which it grows, he calls it the pine-apple. 
 This apple is full of water, so that on piercing it at the basis, 
 there immediately flows from it a good pint of clear and 
 wholesome water. 
 
 Such are in part the precautions employed by Providence 
 for compensating, in favour of man, the inconveniences of 
 every climate, by opposing to the qualities of the elements 
 contrary qualities in vegetables. I shall pursue them no 
 farther, for I believe the subject to be inexhaustible. I am 
 persuaded every latitude and season has its own appropriate 
 to it, and that every parallel varies them in every degree of 
 longitude. 
 
 Vegetable Harmonies of Plants with J\lan. 
 
 The infinity of vegetable relations of plants to man are 
 the sources of our arts, manufactures, commerce, and enjoy- 
 ments ; we shall but just touch on a few of our natural and 
 direct relations with which man has intermingled nothing of 
 his own. 
 
 To begin with their perfumes, man is the only sensible 
 being affected by these. Animals, it is granted, especially 
 bees and butterflies, have appropriate plants which attract or 
 repel them by their emanations, but these affections seem to 
 be connected with their necessities. Man alone is sensible 
 to the perfume and lustre of flowers, independently of all 
 animal appetite. The domestic dog, who assumes so power- 
 ful a tincture of the manners and tastes of man, appears to- 
 tally insensible to that enjoyment. The impression which 
 flowers make upon us seems connected with some moral 
 affection, some enlivening, while others dispose us to melan- 
 choly, without our being able to assign any other reasons for 
 it than those unfolded in examining some general laws of 
 Nature. 
 
 Instead of distinguishing them as yellow, red, blue, violet, 
 we might divide them into gay, serious, or melancholy : their 
 character is so expressive, that lovers in the east employ their 
 shades to describe the different degrees of their passion. 
 Nature makes frequent use of it relatively to us with the 
 same intention. When she wants to keep us at a distance 
 from a marshy and unwholesome place, she scatters there 
 poisonous plants, of dingy colours and offensive smells ; but 
 
STUDY XI. 265 
 
 their number is of no great extent. The earth is clothed 
 with flowers mostly of pleasing hues and perfumes. The 
 simple aggregation of flowers is a subject so vast, so rich, as 
 to present ample employment for the whole life of the most 
 famous botanist in Europe, by daily discovering to him some 
 new beauty within a league of his own habitation. All the 
 art with which jewellers dispose their gerns disappears before 
 that which Nature displays in the assortment of flowers. 
 
 Walking with J. J. Rousseau one day, I showed him the 
 flowers of different trefoils which I had picked up, some dis- 
 posed in crowns, half-crowns, ears, sheaves, with colours 
 endlessly varied. While yet on their stems they had besides 
 other aggregations, with the plants frequently opposed to 
 them in colours and forms. I asked whether botanists gave 
 themselves any trouble about those harmonies : he told me 
 no, but that he advised a young painter of Lyons to learn 
 botany, with a particular view to study in it the forms and 
 assemblages of flowers, who had thus become one of the 
 most celebrated pattern-drawers in Europe. 
 
 It is remarkable that odoriferous flowers grow at the foot 
 of man, or at least within reach of his hand ; they are placed 
 on herbage, or on shrubbery, as the heliotrope, pink, gilly- 
 flower, violet, rose, and lilac. Nothing similar grows on the 
 lofty trees of our forests ; and if some brilliant flowers are 
 displayed on certain tall trees of foreign countries, they have 
 no very pleasant smell. I may be mistaken in some of my 
 observations, but general consequences deduced from them 
 demonstrate to man the invariable intentions of benevolence 
 in the AUTHOR of Nature. The varieties of their adaptation 
 reflect mutual light ; the means are different, but the end is 
 constantly the same. That goodness which has placed fruit 
 for the nourishment of man within reach of his hand, must 
 have likewise disposed his nosegay with similar attention to 
 his conveniency. 
 
 On the other relations of plants with the habitation of man, 
 from their greatness and attitude, I shall just observe, there are 
 few of them but what are capable of embellishing his field, his 
 roof, or his wall; the vicinity of man is beneficial to many plants. 
 
 Animal Harmonies of Plants with Man. 
 Nature, not satisfied with having given to man a bower, 
 and a carpet, loaded with fruit, furnished him also, in the 
 21 23 
 
266 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 vegetable order itself, with the means of defence against the 
 depredations of wild beasts by night : she has enclosed him 
 with a prickly shrubbery. The farther we advance south- 
 ward we find the greater variety in the species of these ; but 
 we see few, if any, thorny shrubs in the north, there being 
 there no orchards to defend. They seem to be produced in 
 both Indies for all situations. Though I have been only on 
 the selvage, as I may say, of those countries, I have seen 
 many such shrubs, the study of which presented a variety of 
 curious remarks to the naturalist. 
 
 Among others, I particularly noticed one in a garden on 
 the Isle of France, which appeared proper for composing a 
 fence impenetrable to the smallest of quadrupeds. It rises in 
 form of a stake about the thickness of a man's arm, quite 
 straight, without branches, and bearing no verdure except a 
 small bunch of leaves on its summit. Its bark is bristled 
 with very strong and sharp prickles. It attains the height 
 of seven or eight feet, and grows as thick above as below. 
 A series of these shrubs, planted close to each other, would 
 form a real palisado, without the smallest interval. The 
 opuntia and the taper, so common under the torrid zone, are 
 armed with prickles so keen, that they pierce the soles of 
 your shoes if you venture to walk over them. There is not 
 a tiger, lion, or elephant, that dares to approach them. There 
 is another species of thorn in the island of Ceylon, which is 
 employed as a defence against even man himself. Accord- 
 ing to Robert Knox, the avenues of the island of Ceylon are 
 blockaded only with fagots of those thorns. 
 
 In vegetables man finds protection not only against fero- 
 cious animals, but reptiles and insects. Father du Tertre as- 
 serts that he found at the foot of a tree, in Guadaioupe, a 
 creeping plant, the stem of which resembled a serpent ; but 
 he was much more surprised on perceiving seven or eight 
 snakes lying dead around it. He communicated this discov- 
 ery to a medical man, who, by means of it, performed many 
 wonderful cures in cases of persons bitten by those dangerous 
 reptiles. It is generally diffused over the Antilles Islands, 
 and known by the name of snake wood. It is likewise found 
 in the East Indies. Linschoten ascribes to it the same figure 
 and qualities. 
 
 In our climates we have vegetables which present strange 
 correspondences and contrasts with reptiles. Pliny says ser- 
 
STUDY XI. 267 
 
 pents are fond of the juniper and fennel, but are rarely found 
 under the fern, trefoil, ash-weed, or rue, and that betony kills 
 them. Other plants destroy flies, such as certain species of 
 the dionsea. Thevenot assures us that in the Indies grooms 
 defend their horses from flies, by rubbing them every morn- 
 ing with the flowers of the pumpion. The fleabane, which 
 bears black and shining grains resembling a flea, clears the 
 house of that vermin, if Dioscorides is to be credited. The 
 echium, which has its seed formed like the head of a viper, 
 is fatal to those reptiles. It is probable, that from such con- 
 figurations men, in the earlier ages of the world, discovered 
 the relations and oppositions between plants and animals. I 
 am disposed to believe that each genus of insect has its de- 
 structive vegetable with which we are unacquainted. In 
 general, all vermin shun perfume. 
 
 Human or elementary Harmonies of Plants. 
 
 All plants have certain relations to the necessities of man, 
 and serve him either for clothing, shelter, pleasure, medicine, 
 or at least fuel. Some, useless with us, are in high estima- 
 tion in other parts of the world. The Egyptians pray for a 
 plentiful crop of nettles, from the seeds of which they extract 
 an oil, while the stem furnishes them with a thread, which 
 they weave into excellent cloth. 
 
 Corn, the general subsistence of the human race, is not 
 produced by vegetables of lofty stature, but by simple grasses. 
 The principal support of human life is borne on herbage, and 
 exposed to the mercy of every breath of wind. Had we 
 ourselves been intrusted with the safety of crops, we should 
 not have failed to place them on great trees ; but in this, as 
 in every thing else, we are bound to admire Divine Provi- 
 dence, and mistrust our own wisdom. Had our harvests been 
 the produce of forests, in the event of these being destroyed 
 by war, or set on fire through our own imprudence, or rooted 
 up by the winds, or ravaged by inundations, whole ages 
 would have been requisite to reproduce them in a country. 
 Farther, the fruits of trees are much more liable to drop off 
 than the seeds of grasses. The grasses carry their flowers 
 in an ear, in many cases surmounted by little beards, which 
 do not defend their seeds from the birds, as Cicero says, but 
 which serve as so many little roofs to shelter them from rain, 
 which cannot drown them, as it does flowers radiated, in 
 
268 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 disks, roses, and umbels, the forms of which however are 
 adapted to certain places and seasons ; but those of the 
 grasses are adapted to every exposure. 
 
 When borne in flowing- and drooping plumes, as those of 
 most grasses of hot countries, they are sheltered from the 
 heat of the sun, and when collected into an ear, as those of 
 most grasses of cold countries, they reflect his rays on at 
 least one side. Farther, by the suppleness of their stems, 
 strengthened by joints from distance to distance, and by their 
 filiform and capillaceous leaves, they escape the violence of 
 the winds. Their weakness avails them more than strength 
 does the great trees. Like small fortunes, they are resown 
 and multiplied by the very same tempests which lay waste 
 the vast forests. -*, : . 
 
 They farther resist the effect of excessive dry ness by the 
 length of their roots, which go in quest of moisture a great 
 way under ground; and though their leaves are narrow, 
 they have them in such numbers, that they cover the face of 
 the ground with plants endlessly multiplied. At the slight- 
 est shower you see them all rear themselves into the air, at 
 their extremities, as if they were so many claws. They even 
 resist conflagration, which consumes so many trees in the 
 forest. I have seen countries, in which they every year set 
 the herbage on fire in the season of the drought, recover 
 themselves as soon as it rained, with the most lovely verdure. 
 
 Though this fire be so active as frequently to devour, root 
 and branch, the trees which come into contact with it, the 
 roots of herbage sustain no great injury. 
 
 They have, moreover, the faculty of reproducing them- 
 selves in three different ways, by shoots which push a way 
 from their roots, by creeping branches, which they extend to 
 a distance, and by grains extremely volatile or indigestible, 
 which the winds and animals scatter about on every side. 
 The greatest part of trees, on the contrary, naturally gene- 
 rate themselves only by their seeds. Add to the general 
 advantages of grasses, an astonishing variety of characters 
 in their florification and attitudes, which render them more 
 proper than vegetables of any other class to grow in every 
 variety of situation. 
 
 It is in this cosmopolite family, if I may be allowed the ex- 
 pression, that Nature has placed the principal aliment of man ; 
 for the various species of corns, on which so many human 
 
STUDY XI. 269 
 
 tribes subsist, are only so many species of grasses. There is 
 no land on the globe where some kind of corn or another may 
 not be raised. Corn affords an abundant supply to all the 
 necessities of man. With its straw he enjoys the means of lodg- 
 ing, covering, warming himself, and of feeding his sheep, cow, 
 arid horse ; with its grain he can compound aliments and 
 liquors of every flavour. The northern nations brew it into 
 beer, and distil from it strong waters more potent than those 
 from wine ; such are the distillations of Dantzic. The Chinese* 
 extract from rice a wine as agreeable as the best wine of Spain. 
 The Brazilians prepare their ouicou with maize. In a word, 
 with oats torrefied it is possible to compose a cream which 
 shall have the perfume of the vanilla. If we unite with 
 these qualities those of the other domestic plants, most of 
 which likewise grow all over the earth, we shall find in them 
 the savour of the clove, of pepper, of other spiceries ; and 
 without going farther than our own gardens, we shall be 
 able to collect the delicacies scattered over the rest of the 
 vegetable creation. 
 
 Nature having formed in general of a mealy substance the 
 basis of human life, has diffused it over all situations, on 
 different species of grasses ; that afterwards, intending to add 
 to this certain modifications relative to some humours of the 
 human temperament, or to some influence of season or of cli- 
 mate, she has formed other combinations of it, which she has 
 deposited in leguminous plants, such as peas and beans, which 
 the Romans comprehended in the class of corn-plants ; that, 
 finally, she has formed another sort of it, in the fruits of trees, 
 as chesnuts, or in roots, as potatoes and other farinaceous 
 under-ground vegetables. 
 
 Those adaptations of substance to every climate are so 
 infallibly certain, that, in every country, the fruit most com- 
 mon there is the best and most wholesome. Hence I presume 
 she has followed the same flan with respect to medicinal 
 plants ; and that having diffused over various families of 
 vegetables virtues relative to our blood, nerves, or humours, 
 she has modified them in every country conformably to the 
 diseases there generated, and placed them in opposition with 
 the particular characters of those same diseases. From the 
 neglect of these observations, many doubts and disputes have 
 
 * Journey to China, by Isbrand Ides. 
 
270 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 been excited respecting the virtues of plants. A simple, 
 which in one country is an infallible cure for a malady, may 
 sometimes increase it in another. The Jesuits' powder, 
 which is the pounded bark of a species of fresh water mang- 
 lier of Mexico, is a remedy for the fevers of America, peculiar 
 to damp and hot situations, but frequently fails when applied 
 to those of Europe. Every medicine is modified according to 
 the place, just as every malady is. 
 
 I shall pursue this reflection no farther ; but if physicians 
 would pay the attention to it which it merits, they must study 
 more carefully the plants of their own country, arid not prefer, 
 as they generally do, those of foreign climates, which they 
 must modify a thousand different ways, to give them, as 
 chance may direct, an adaptation to local remedies. When 
 Nature has determined a certain savour in any vegetable, she 
 repeats it all over the earth with a variety of modifications, 
 which do not, however, prevent our distinguishing its princi- 
 pal virtue. Thus, having placed the cochlearia (scurvy grass), 
 that powerful antiscorbutic, even on the foggy shores of 
 Spitzbergen, she has repeated its savour and medicinal quali- 
 ties, in the cresses of our brooks and gardens. We find, in 
 like manner, the savour, smell, and medicinal qualities of our 
 garlic, in the woods, barks, and mosses of America.* 
 
 These considerations induce me to believe that the ele- 
 mentary characters of plants, and their entire configuration, 
 are only secondary means, and that their principal character 
 is referable to the necessities of man. It would be useful to 
 ascertain the places to which the origin of each alimentary 
 plant might be referred. I am of opinion, that Nature has 
 placed in islands the species of plants most beautiful, and best 
 adapted to the necessities of man. First, islands are more 
 favourable to the elementary expansions of plants than the 
 interior of continents. Secondly, their particular temperature 
 is so varied, that you find some of them in all the principal 
 points of longitude and latitude. Finally, experience de- 
 monstrates that European fruit-trees become more beau- 
 tiful in some of the islands along the coast, than in the con- 
 tinent. 
 
 * Garlic, the smell of which is so formidable to our fine ladies, is perhaps the 
 most infallible remedy in the world against the vapours, and all the nervous dis- 
 orders to which women are subject. Of this I have had repeated experience. 
 Nay, Pliny says it is a cure for the epilepsy. 
 
STUDY XL 271 
 
 I have spoken of the beauty of the chesnut-trees of Cor- 
 sica and Sicily : but Pliny informs us most of them had been 
 imported from the islands of the Archipelago. He observes 
 that the olive-tree, as well as several other plants, thrive only 
 in the vicinity of the sea. All modern travellers confirm these 
 observations. An anonymous English traveller positively 
 asserts, that nowhere on the continent are there to be found 
 fruit-trees, once to be compared, for magnitude or fertility, 
 with those of the Archipelago, notwithstanding the careless- 
 ness and indolence of the wretched possessors. 
 
 These observations might be extended even to birds and 
 quadrupeds, more beautiful and varied in islands than any- 
 where else. The elephants held in highest estimation in 
 Asia are those of the island of Ceylon. The Indians believe 
 them to be possessed of something divine ; nay, more, they 
 allege that other elephants acknowledge this superiority. 
 One thing is certain, they fetch a higher price all over Asia 
 than any others. In a word, travellers the most worthy of 
 credit assure us, that there is not a shallow in the seas be- 
 tween the tropics, but what is distinguished by some sort of 
 bird, crab, turtle, or fish, nowhere else to be found so varied 
 or in such abundance. I presume Nature has thus scattered 
 her choicest benefits over the islands, to allure men thither, 
 and to pervade the earth. These are only conjectures, I 
 grant, but they rarely deceive us when founded on the wis- 
 dom and goodness of the AUTHOR of Nature. 
 
 The finest species of corn, therefore, which is wheat, might 
 be referred to Sicily, where, in fact, they pretend it was 
 originally found. This much is certain, that corn is nowhere 
 indigenous' but in Sicily, if, however, it still reperpetuates 
 itself there spontaneously, as the ancients affirm. 
 
 After having determined in the same manner the other 
 human accommodations of the grasses to different situations 
 of ground, we might examine the grasses which exhibit 
 marked relations to our domestic animals, the ox, horse, 
 sheep, and dog. We might characterize them by the names 
 of these animals. We should have the gramen bovinwn, equi- 
 num, ovinum, caninum. The different species of these genera 
 might afterwards be distinguished by the names of the places 
 where they are found by the animals ; on the banks of rivers, 
 among rocks, on sands, on mountains ; so that by the addi- 
 tion of the epithets, fluviatile, saxatile, arenosum^ montanum, 
 
272 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 you might supply, in two words, all the verbose phraseology 
 of our botanical composition. 
 
 We might apportion the other grasses to the quadrupeds of 
 our forests, as the stag, hare, wild-boar, and so on. These 
 first determinations would require certain instructive and 
 amusing experiments to be made on the tastes of animals ; 
 they would have no mixture of cruelty, unlike our modern 
 physics, by which the wretched animal is flayed alive, poi- 
 soned, or suffocated, to discover its propensities. Our experi- 
 ments would study their appetites, not their convulsions. 
 Besides, many of those preferred and rejected plants are 
 already well known to our shepherds. One of them showed 
 me, near Paris, a gramineous plant which fattens sheep more 
 in a fortnight than the other species can do in two months. 
 The moment the animals perceive it, they run after it with 
 the utmost avidity. I do not mean, however, to assert that 
 each species of animal limits its appetite to a single species 
 of food. It is sufficient to establish the order I am proposing, 
 that each of them gives, in every genus of plant, a decided 
 preference to some one species ; and this is fully confirmed 
 by experience. 
 
 The great class of the gramineous plants being thus 
 apportioned to man and animals, other plants would present 
 still greater facility in their appropriations, because they are 
 much less numerous. We should have an order simple, 
 easy, agreeable, and extensive, which, passing from men to 
 animals, to vegetables, and to elements, would discover the 
 plants destined to our use, and that of other sensible beings, 
 would render to each its elementary relations, to the earth 
 its vegetable beauty, and replenish the heart of man with 
 admiration and gratitude. This plan appears so much the 
 more conformable to that of Nature, that it is entirely com- 
 prehended in the benediction which its AUTHOR pronounced 
 upon our first parents. Gen. i. 29, 30. This benediction is 
 not confined, as far as man is concerned, to some primordial 
 species in each genus. It is extended to the whole vegetable 
 kingdom, which converts itself into aliment fit for his use 
 by means of the domestic animals. 
 
 I take delight in representing to myself those early ages 
 of the world, when men travelled over the face of the earth 
 attended by their flocks and herds, laying the whole vege- 
 table kingdom under contribution. The sun going before 
 
STUDY XI. 273 
 
 them in spring, invited them to advance to the north, and to 
 return with autumn bringing up his train. His annual course 
 in the heavens seems to be regulated by the progress of man 
 over the earth. It is by regulating themselves according to 
 the annual course of the sun that certain Tartar hordes still 
 travel. 
 
 What a spectacle must the virgin earth have presented to 
 its first inhabitants, while every thing was in its place, and 
 Nature not yet degraded by the injudicious labours or des- 
 perate madness of man ! I suppose them taking their de- 
 parture from the banks of the Indus on a progress northward. 
 They first crossed the snowy mountains of Bember, which, 
 like a rampart, encompass the happy land of Cachemire, and 
 separate it from the burning kingdom of Labor.* They 
 presented themselves to their eyes like vast amphitheatres of 
 verdure, clothed, to the south, with all the vegetables of 
 India, and to the north with all those of Europe. They 
 descended into the vast bason which contains them, and 
 beheld a part of the fruit-trees destined one day to enrich 
 our orchards. The apricots of Media, and the peach-trees 
 of Persia, skirted, with their blossoming boughs, the lakes 
 and brooks of living water which bedew their roots. On 
 leaving the ever-green valleys of Cachemire, they quickly 
 penetrated into the forests of Europe, and reposed under the 
 foliage of the stately beech and tufted elm, which had as yet 
 shaded only the loves of the feathered race. They crossed 
 the boundless meadows washed by the Irtis, resembling 
 oceans of verdure, here and there diversified with long beds 
 of yellow lilies, with stripes of ginseng, and tufts of broad- 
 leaved rhubarb. Following the track of its current, they 
 plunged into the forests of the north, under the majestic 
 branches of the fir, and the moving foliage of the birch. 
 
 What smiling valleys opened to their view along the river's 
 side, and invited them to deviate from the road, by promising 
 them objects still more lovely ! What hills enamelled with 
 unknown flowers, and crowned with ancient and venerable 
 trees, endeavoured to persuade them to proceed no farther ! 
 Arrived on the shores of the Icy Sea, a new order of things 
 arose to view. There was now no more night. The sun 
 encompassed the horizon round and round ; and the mists, 
 
 * Consult Bernier's Description of the Mogul Country. 
 2K 
 
274 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 dispersed through the air, repeated on different planes the 
 lustre of his rays in rainbows of purple, and parhelions of 
 dazzling radiance. But if the magnificence of the heavens 
 was multiplied, desolation covered the face of the earth. 
 The ocean was hoary with mountains of floating ice, which 
 appeared in the horizon like towers and cities in ruin ; and 
 on the land nothing was to be seen, in place of groves, but 
 a wretched shrubbery blasted by the winds ; and instead of 
 verdant meads, rocks clothed with moss. Their flocks must 
 there undoubtedly have perished, had not Nature still made 
 provision for the necessities of man. Those shores were 
 composed of massy beds of coal.* The seas swarmed with 
 fishes, and the lakes with fowls. They must find among 
 the animal tribes servants and assistants : the reindeer 
 appeared in the middle of the mosses ; she presented to 
 those wandering families the services of the horse in her 
 agility, the fleece of the sheep in her fur ; and showing 
 them, like the cow, her four teats, and but one nursling, she 
 seemed to tell them that she was destined, like her, to share 
 her milk with mothers oppressed by a too numerous offspring. 
 
 The eastern part of the globe must first have attracted the 
 attention of mankind. That place of the horizon where the 
 sun arises, undoubtedly fixed their wondering eyes, at a period 
 when no system had interposed to regulate opinion. On 
 seeing that great luminary arising from day to day, in the 
 same quarter of the heavens, they must have been persuaded 
 he there had a fixed habitation, and another where he set, 
 as a place of rest. Such imaginations, confirmed by the 
 testimony of their eyes, were, it must be admitted, natural 
 to men destitute of experience, who had attempted to erect 
 a tower which should reach to heaven, and who, even in 
 more scientific ages, believed, as a point of religion, that the 
 sun was drawn about in a chariot by horses, and retired 
 every evening to repose in the arms of Thetis. I presume 
 they would be determined to go in quest of him rather 
 towards the east than west, under the persuasion that they 
 would greatly abridge their labour by advancing to meet him. 
 
 This conviction, I am disposed to think, left the west long 
 in a deserted state, under the very same latitudes which in 
 the east were swarming with inhabitants, and first sent men 
 
 * Professor Gmelin's Journey to Siberia. 
 
STUDY XI. 275 
 
 in crowds towards the eastern part of our continent, where 
 the earliest and most populous empire of the world, that of 
 China, was formed. What confirms me farther in the belief 
 that the first men who advanced towards the east were 
 engaged in this research, and were in haste to reach their 
 object, is this, that having taken their departure from India, 
 like the founders of other nations, they did not people the 
 earth progressively, as Persia, Greece, Italy, and Gaul, were 
 successively in a westerly direction ; but leaving desert the 
 vast and fertile countries of Siam, Cochin-china, and Tonquin, 
 to this day half barbarous and uninhabited, they never gave 
 up the pursuit till they were stopped by the Eastern Ocean ; 
 and they gave to the islands they perceived at a distance, 
 and on which they did not for a long time acquire the skill 
 to land, the name of Gepuen, now transformed into Japan, 
 and which in the Chinese language signifies Birth of the sun. 
 
 Father Kircher* assures us, that when the first Jesuit as- 
 tronomers arrived in China, and there reformed the calendar, 
 the Chinese believed the sun and the moon to be no bigger 
 than they appear to the eye ; that on setting they retired to 
 a deep cave, from which they issued next day at the time of 
 rising ; and, finally, that the earth was a plane and smooth 
 surface. Tacitus, in his history of Germany, relates the 
 traditions of the western nations, who affirmed that towards 
 the north-west the sun went to bed, and that they could hear 
 the noise he made on plunging into the waves. 
 
 From the east, then, the orb of day first attracted the curi 
 osity of mankind. There were likewise tribes which directed 
 their course towards that point of the globe, taking their de- 
 parture from the southern part of India. These advanced 
 along the peninsula of Malacca ; and, familiarized with the 
 sea, which they coasted most of the way, they were induced 
 to avail themselves of the united accommodation the two 
 elements present to travellers, by navigating from island to 
 island, and thus pervaded that vast belt of islands Nature 
 has thrown into the torrid zone, like a bridge intersected by 
 canals, to facilitate the communication of the two worlds. 
 When retarded by tempests or contrary winds, they drew 
 their barks ashore, cast a few seeds into the ground, reaped 
 the crop, and deferred their re-embarkation till fairer weather, 
 
 * See China illustrated, chap, i.v. 
 
276 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and a season more favourable, encouraged them to venture 
 to sea again. 
 
 Thus it was that the early mariners performed their voy- 
 ages, and that the Phenicians, employed by Necho king of 
 Egypt, made the circuit of Africa in three years, departing 
 by way of the Red Sea, and returning by the Mediterranean, 
 according to Herodotus, book iv. 
 
 The first navigators, when they no longer saw islands in 
 the horizon, paid attention to the seeds which the sea cast 
 upon the shore, and to the flight of the birds withdrawing 
 from it. On the faith of these indications, they directed their 
 course, and discovered numberless islands, all of which in- 
 vited them to land, by presenting some attractive accommo- 
 dation. In these islands, the woods, hills, and downs, main- 
 tained some animal, naturally familiar and gentle, but which 
 becomes savage only from the cruel experience it acquires of 
 man. They saw fluttering around, as they disembarked on 
 their strands, the silken-winged birds of paradise, the blue 
 pigeons, the cacatoes all over white, the lauris all red. Every 
 new island tendered them some new present ; crabs, fishes, 
 shells, pearl-oysters, lobsters, turtles, ambergris ; but the 
 most agreeable, beyond all doubt, were the vegetables. 
 When they discovered a tree laden with unknown fruit, they 
 gathered some branches of it, and ran to meet their com- 
 panions with shouts of joy, exhibiting this new benefit of 
 Nature. 
 
 From those early voyages and ancient customs, has been 
 diffused over all nations the practice of consulting the flight 
 of birds before engaging in any enterprise, and that of going 
 to meet strangers with the branch of a tree in the hand, in 
 token of peace, and of joy at sight of a present from Heaven. 
 These customs still exist among the islanders of the South 
 Sea and the free tribes of America. But not fruit-trees alone 
 fixed the attention of the first men. If some heroic action, 
 or some irreparable disaster, had excited admiration, or in- 
 spired regret, the tree adjoining was ennobled by it. They 
 preferred it, with those fruits of virtue or of love, to such as 
 produced food or perfume. Thus in the islands of Greece 
 and of Italy, the laurel became the symbol of triumph, and 
 the cypress that of eternal sorrow. The oak supplied crowns 
 of undecaying honour to the well-deserving citizen, and 
 simple grasses decorated the brows of the men who had saved 
 
STUDY XI. 277 
 
 their country. O Romans ! ye were a people worthy of the 
 empire of the world, in that you opened to every one of your 
 subjects the career of virtuous exertion, and culled the most 
 common plants of the field to serve as the badge of immortal 
 glory, that a crown for the head of virtue might be found on 
 every spot of the globe. 
 
 By similar attractions, from island to island, the nations of 
 Asia made their way to the New World, where they landed 
 on the shores of Peru. Thither they carried the name of 
 children of that sun whom they were pursuing. This brilliant 
 chimera imboldened them to attempt the passage to America. 
 It was not dissipated till they reached the shores of the Atlan- 
 tic Ocean : but it diffused itself over the whole continent, 
 where most of the chiefs of the nations still assume the title 
 of children of the sun.* 
 
 Mankind, encompassed with so many blessings, continues 
 to be wretched. Animals live in abundance and liberty, the 
 greatest part without labour, all at peace with their species, 
 all united to the objects of their choice, and enjoying the 
 felicity of reperpetuating themselves by their families; where- 
 as more than the half of mankind is doomed to celibacy. 
 The other half curses the bonds which have matched him. 
 The greater part tremble at the thought of rearing a progeny, 
 fearful of being incapable to provide for them ; while many, 
 in order to support themselves, are subjected to painful 
 labours, and reduced to be slaves to their fellow-creatures. 
 Whole nations are exposed to perish by famine ; others, desti- 
 tute of territory, are piled on each other, while the greatest 
 part of the globe is a wilderness. 
 
 There are many lands which never have been cultivated ; 
 but none known to Europeans, which has not been polluted 
 with human blood. The very solitudes of the ocean gulp 
 down into their abysses vessels filled with men, sunk to the 
 bottom by the hands of men. In cities, apparently so flourish- 
 ing by arts and monuments, pride, craft, superstition, impiety, 
 violence, and perfidy, are in a state of incessant warfare, and 
 keep the wretched inhabitants in perpetual alarm. The more 
 
 * I do not mean to affirm, however, that America was peopled only from the 
 islands of the South Sea. I believe that a passage was opened into it likewise 
 by the north of Asia and of Europe. Nature always presents to mankind differ- 
 ent means for the attainment of the same end. But the principal population of 
 the New World came from the islands of the South Sea. 
 
 24 
 
278 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 society is polished in them, the more numerous and cruel are 
 the evils which oppress them. Is the industry of man there 
 most exerted, only because he is there most miserable 1 Why 
 should the empire of the globe have been conferred on the 
 single animal which had not the government of its own pas- 
 sions 1 How comes it that man, feeble and transitory, should 
 be animated by passions at once ferocious and generous, 
 despicable and immortal 1 How is it that, born without 
 instinct, he should have been able to acquire such various 
 knowledge ? He has happily imitated all the arts of Nature, 
 except that of being happy. All the traditions of the human 
 race have preserved the origin of these strange contradictions, 
 but religion alone unfolds to us the cause of them. She 
 informs us that man is of a different order from the rest of 
 animals ; that his reason perverted has given offence to the 
 AUTHOR of the universe ; that as a just punishment he has 
 been left to the direction of his own understanding ; that he 
 is capable of forming his reason only by the study of universal 
 reason, displayed in the works of Nature, and in the hopes 
 which virtue inspires ; that by such means alone he can be 
 enabled to rise above the animal, beneath the level of which 
 he is sunk, and to reascend, step by step, along the steepy 
 declivity of the celestial mountain from which he has been 
 precipitated. 
 
 Happy is he in these days, who, instead of rambling over 
 the world, can live remote from mankind ! Happy the man 
 who knows nothing beyond the circumference of his own 
 horizon, and to whom even the next village is an unknown 
 land ! He has not placed his affections on objects which he 
 must never more behold, nor left his reputation at the mercy 
 of the wicked. He believes that innocence resides in ham- 
 lets, honour in palaces, and virtue in temples. His glory and 
 his religion consists in communicating happiness to those 
 around him. If he beholds not in his garden the fruits of 
 Asia or the shady groves of America, he cultivates the plants 
 which delight his wife and children. He has no need of the 
 monuments of architecture to dignify and embellish his land- 
 scape. A tree, under the shade of which a virtuous man is 
 reclined to rest, suggests to him sublime recollections ; the 
 poplar in the forest recalls to his mind, the combats of Hercu- 
 les ; and the foliage of the oak reminds him of the crowning 
 garlands of the Capitol. 
 
STUDY XII. 279 
 
 STUDY TWELFTH. 
 
 OF SOME MORAL LAWS OF NATURE. 
 
 WEAKNESS OF REASON; OF FEELING; PROOFS OF THE 
 DIVINITY, AND OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, 
 FROM FEELING. 
 
 IT is one of the great calamities of human life, that in pro- 
 portion as we approach the source of truth, it flies away from 
 before us ; and that when by chance we are enabled to catch 
 some of its smaller ramifications, we are unable to remain 
 constantly attached to them. Wherefore has the sentiment 
 which yesterday exalted me to heaven at sight of a new rela- 
 tion of Nature wherefore has it disappeared to-day] Archim- 
 edes did not remain always in an ecstasy from the discovery 
 of the relations of metals in the crown of King Hiero. He 
 after that made other discoveries more congenial to his mind ; 
 such as that of the cylinder circumscribed within the sphere, 
 which he gave directions to have engraved on his tomb. 
 Pythagoras contemplated at length with indifference the 
 square of the hypothenuse, for the discovery of which he had 
 vowed, it is said, a whole hetacomb of oxen to Jupiter. I 
 recollect that when I first became master of the demonstra- 
 tion of those sublime truths, I experienced a delight almost as 
 lively as that of the great men who were the first inventors of 
 them. Wherefore is it extinguished ] Why do I this day 
 stand in need of novelties to procure me pleasure? The 
 mere animal is in this respect happier than we are ; what 
 pleased him yesterday will likewise give him pleasure to- 
 morrow ; he fixes for himself a boundary which he never 
 exceeds ; what is sufficient for him always appears to him 
 beautiful and good. The ingenious bee constructs commo- 
 dious cells, but never dreams of rearing triumphial arches, 
 or obelisks, to decorate her waxen city. A cottage was in 
 like manner sufficient for man, in order to be as well lodged 
 as a bee. What need had he of five orders of architecture, of 
 pyramids, of towers, of kiosques ] 
 
 What then is the versatile faculty called reason, which I 
 employ in observing Nature 1 It is, say the schools, a per- 
 ception of correspondences which essentially distinguishes 
 
280 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 man from the beast. Man enjoys reason, and the beast is 
 merely governed by instinct. B ut if this instinct always points 
 out to the animal what is best adapted to its situation, it is there- 
 fore likewise a reason, and a reason more precious than ours, 
 as being invariable, and acquired without the aid of long and 
 painful experience. To this the philosophers of the last age 
 replied, that the proof of the want of reason in beasts is, that 
 they act always in the same manner ; thus they concluded, 
 from the very perfection of their reason, that they had none. 
 Hence we may see to what a degree great names, salaries, and 
 associations, may give currency to the greatest absurdities ; 
 for the argument of these philosophers is a direct attack on 
 the Supreme Intelligence itself, which is as invariable in its 
 plans as animals are in their instinct. If bees uniformly con- 
 struct their cells of the same figure, it is because Nature 
 always makes bees of the same character. 
 
 I do not mean however to affirm that the reason of beasts 
 and that of man is the same : ours is without dispute much 
 more extensive than the instinct of each animal in particular ; 
 but if man is endowed with a universal reason, must it not 
 be because his wants are universal ] He likewise discerns, it 
 is true, the wants of other animals ; but ma)' it not be rela- 
 tively to himself that he has made this his study 1 If the dog 
 gives himself no concern about the oats of the horse, it is 
 perhaps because the horse is not subservient to the wants of 
 the dog. 
 
 We possess, notwithstanding, natural adaptations peculiar 
 to ourselves, such as the art of agriculture and the use of fire. 
 The knowledge of these undoubtedly would demonstrate our 
 natural superiority, were it not also a proof of our wretched- 
 ness. Animals are under no necessity to kindle fires or to 
 cast seed into the ground, for they are clothed and fed by the 
 hand of Nature. Besides, many of them have faculties far 
 superior to our sciences, which are, to say truth, foreign to us. 
 Another mortifying insufficiency presents itself, when philos- 
 ophy attempts to employ, in combating the Intelligence of 
 Nature, that very reason which can be of no use but to dis- 
 cern it. What plausible arguments are detailed respecting 
 the danger of the passions, the frivolity of human life, the 
 loss of fortune, of honour, of children ! You can easily 
 unhouse me, divine Marcus Aurelius, and you too, skeptical 
 Montagne ; but you have not provided for me another home. 
 
STUDY XII. 281 
 
 You put the staff of philosophy into my hand, and say to 
 me, Walk on intrepidly ; make the tour of the world, begging 
 your bread ; you are just as happy as we in our villas, with 
 our wives, and respected by all around. But here is an evil 
 of which you had no foresight. I have received in my own 
 country calumny only as the reward of all my services ; I 
 have experienced nothing but ingratitude on the part of my 
 friends, and even of my patrons ; I am solitary, and have no 
 longer the means of subsistence ; I am a prey to nervous 
 disorders ; I stand in need of men, but my soul is troubled at 
 the sight of them, while I reflect on the fatal reasons by 
 which they are united, and feel that there is no possibility of 
 interesting them, but by flattering their passions, and by be- 
 coming as vicious as they are. What good purpose does it 
 serve to have studied virtue? It shudders at such recollec- 
 tions, and even without any reflection, merely at the sight of 
 men. The first thing that fails me is that very reason on 
 which you desire me to lean for support. All your fine logic 
 vanishes precisely at the moment when I have most need of 
 it. Death you tell me will cure every thing ; but in order to 
 die I have no occasion for all this reasoning ; besides, I do 
 not drop in the vigour of life into the arms of death, but 
 dying and reasoning no longer, still however feeling and 
 suffering.* 
 
 What is, once more, that reason, of which we boast so 
 triumphantly ? As it is nothing more than the relation of 
 objects to our wants, it is reduced then to mere personal 
 interest. This sublime faculty farther undergoes, from the 
 first moment o its expansion, a shock so violent, that it is 
 rendered in some sort incapable of penetrating into the field 
 of Nature. The maxims instilled into us from infancy, 
 Make a fortune. Be the first, are alone sufficient to subvert 
 our natural reason ; they exhibit to us the just and unjust 
 only as they stand related to our personal interests and ambi- 
 
 * Thus religion has greatly the superiority over philosophy, inasmuch as she 
 supports us not by our reason but by our resignation. She would have us not 
 on foot and stirring about, but stretched on a bed of languishing : not on the 
 theatre of the world, but reposing at the footstool of the Throne of GOD : not 
 tormented with solicitude about futurity, but confident and composed. When 
 books, honours, fortune, and friends forsake us, she presents us with a pillow 
 for our head, not the recollection of our frivolous aud theatrical virtues, but that 
 of our insufficiency ; and instead of the arrogant maxims of philosophy, she 
 demands of us only calmness, peace, and filial confidence. 
 
 2L 24 
 
232 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tion. Good cause we then have to mistrust reason, as from 
 the very first step it misleads us in our researches after truth 
 and happiness. Let us inquire whether there is not in man 
 some faculty more noble, more invariable, and of greater 
 extent. 
 
 Descartes lays down, as the basis of the first natural truths : 
 / think, therefore I exist. As this philosopher has acquired 
 high reputation, merited besides by his knowledge in geome- 
 try, and, above all, by his virtues, his argument in proof of 
 existence has been greatly extolled, and dignified with the 
 title of axiom. But this argument has not the generality of 
 a fundamental principle, for it implicitly follows, that when 
 a man does not think, he ceases to exist, or at least to have 
 a proof of his existence. It follows, farther, that the animal 
 creation, to which Descartes denied the power of thought, 
 had no proof they existed ; and that most beings are in a 
 state of non-existence with respect to us, as they excite 
 simple sensations merely, of forms, colours, and movements, 
 without any reference to thought. Besides, the results of 
 human thought having been frequently employed, from their 
 versatility, to suggest doubts respecting the existence of GOD, 
 and even of our own, as was the case with the skeptic Pyrrho, 
 this reasoning, like all the operations of the human under- 
 standing, falls under well-grounded suspicion. 
 
 I substitute, therefore, in place of the argument of Des- 
 cartes, what appears to me more simple and general : / feel, 
 therefore I exist. It extends to all our physical sensations, 
 which admonish us much more frequently of our existence 
 than thought does. It has for its moving principle an 
 unknown faculty of the soul, which I call sentiment, or 
 mental feeling, to which thought itself must refer ; for the 
 evidence to which we attempt to subject all the operations 
 of our reason is itself simply sentiment. 
 f I shall first make it appear that this mysterious faculty 
 differs essentially from physical sensations, and from the 
 relations presented to us by reason : it invariably blends in 
 every thing we do ; so that it is, if I may be allowed the 
 expression, human instinct. 
 
 As to the difference of sentiment from physical sensation, 
 it is evident Iphigenia at the altar gives us an impression 
 very different from that produced by the taste of a fruit or 
 the perfume of a flower ; and as to that which distinguishes 
 
 
STUDY XIL 283 
 
 it from a process of the understanding, certainly the tears 
 and despair of Clytemnestra excite in us very different emo- 
 tions from those suggested by a satire, a comedy, or even, 
 if you will, by a mathematical demonstration. Not but that 
 reason may sometimes issue in sentiment when it presents 
 itself with evidence ; but the one is only, with relation to the 
 other, what the eye is with relation to the body, that is, an 
 intellectual vision : besides, mental feeling appears to be the 
 result of laws of Nature, as reason is of political laws. 
 
 I shall give no farther definition of this obscure principle, 
 but state an opposition between it and reason. Women, 
 always nearer to Nature, from their very irregularities, than 
 men with their pretended wisdom, never confound these two 
 faculties ; they distinguish the first by the name of sensibility, 
 or sentiment, by way of excellence, because it is the source 
 of our most delicious affections ; they guard against confound- 
 ing, as most men do, the understanding and the heart, reason 
 and sentiment, the one frequently our own work, the other 
 always that of Nature. They differ so essentially from each 
 other, that if you wish to annihilate the interest of a work 
 which abounds in sentiment, you have only to introduce an 
 infusion of reasoning. 
 
 Reason produces many men of intelligence in ages pre- 
 tended barbarous. Reason varies from age to age, and sen- 
 timent is always the same. The errors of reason are local 
 and changeable, but the truths of sentiment are invariable 
 and universal. We frequently stand in need of many combi- 
 nations, for the purpose of bringing to light some concealed 
 reason of Nature ; but the simple and pure sentiments of re- 
 pose, peace, or gentle melancholy, which she inspires, come 
 to us without effort. 
 
 Reason, I grant, procures for us pleasures of a certain kind ; 
 but if she discovers some small portion of the order of the uni- 
 verse, she exhibits also our own destruction attached to the 
 laws of its preservation ; she presents at once evils past and 
 to come ; and furnishes arms to our passions while she is 
 demonstrating their insufficiency. The farther she carries us, 
 the more she convinces us of our own nothingness ; and so 
 far from soothing our pains by her researches, she frequently 
 aggravates them bitterly by the discoveries which she makes. 
 Sentiment, on the contrary, blind in its desires, embraces the 
 monuments of all countries and ages ; it is soothed in the 
 
234 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 midst of ruins, combats, and even death itself, in contempla- 
 ting an indescribable eternal existence ; it pursues the attri- 
 butes of Deity, infinity, extension, duration, power, grandeur, 
 and glory ; it mingles the ardent desires of these with all our 
 passions ; it thus communicates a certain sublime impulse ; 
 and, by subduing our reason, itself becomes the most noble 
 and delicious instinct of human life. 
 
 Sentiment demonstrates much better than reason the 
 spirituality of the soul ; for reason frequently proposes as an 
 end the gratification of our grossest passions, whereas senti- 
 ment is ever pure in its propensities. Besides, many natural 
 effects which escape the one are under the control of the other, 
 such as evidence itself, a mere matter of feeling, and over 
 which reflection exercises no constraint ; such too is our own 
 existence. The proof of it is not in the province of reason ; 
 for why do I exist 1 where is the reason of it 1 But I feel that 
 I exist, and this sentiment is sufficient to produce conviction. 
 I proceed to demonstrate that there are two powers in man, 
 the animal and intellectual, both of an opposite nature, which 
 by their union constitute human life, just as the harmony of 
 every thing on earth is composed of two contraries. 
 
 Certain philosophers have taken pleasure in painting man 
 as a god. His attitude they tell us is that of command. But 
 in order to his having the air of command, others should have 
 that of submission, without which he would find an enemy in 
 every one of his equals. The natural empire of man extends 
 only to animals ; and in the wars he wages with them, or in 
 the care he exercises over them, he is frequently constrained 
 to drop his attitude of emperor to assume that of slave. 
 
 Others represent man as the perpetual object of vengeance 
 to angry Heaven, and have accumulated on his existence all 
 the miseries which can render it odious to him. This is not 
 painting man. He is not formed of a simple nature like 
 animals, but of two opposite natures, each farther subdivided 
 into several passions, which form a contrast. By one of these 
 natures he unites in himself all the wants and passions of 
 animals ; by the other, the ineffable sentiments of the Deity. 
 To this last instinct, more than to his reflective powers, he is 
 indebted for his conviction of the existence of God ; for having 
 the faculty of perceiving the correspondences of Nature, he 
 found out the relations between an island and a tree, a tree 
 and a fruit, a fruit and his own wants ; he would readily feel 
 
STUDY XII. 285 
 
 himself determined, on seeing an island, to look for food upon 
 it : but his reason, in showing him the links of four natural 
 harmonies, would not refer the cause of them to an invisible 
 Author, unless he had the sentiment of it deeply impressed 
 on his heart. 
 
 Considering man as an animal, I know of no one so wretched. 
 First he is naked, exposed to insects, wind, rain, heat, cold, 
 and laid under the necessity in all countries of finding him- 
 self clothing. If his skin acquires sufficient hardness to resist 
 the elements, it is not till after cruel experiments, which some- 
 times flay him from top to toe. He knows nothing natu- 
 rally as other animals do. If he wants to cross a river, he 
 must to learn to swim ; nay, he must in his infancy be taught 
 to walk and speak.* He is obliged everywhere to prepare 
 his food with care and trouble. Suppose him even to have 
 collected every blessing his heart can desire, the love and 
 pleasure which flow from abundance, avarice, thieves, the 
 incursions of the enemy, disturb his enjoyment. He must have 
 laws, judges, magazines, fortresses, confederacies, and regi- 
 ments, to protect his ill-fated corn field. Finally, when it is 
 in his power to enjoy with all the tranquillity of a sage, lan- 
 guor takes possession of his mind ; he must have comedies, 
 balls, masquerades, amusements, to prevent him from reason- 
 ing with himself. 
 
 Reason itself, united to the passions, would only stimulate 
 their ferocity ; for it would supply them with new arguments 
 long after their desires were gratified. It is in most men 
 nothing more than the relation between beings and their 
 wants, that is their personal interest. Let us examine the 
 effect of it, combined with love and ambition, the two tyrants 
 of human life. 
 
 Suppose a state entirely governed by love, I beg leave to 
 ask, Who would be at the trouble of building houses there, 
 and of labouring the ground ? Must not such a country con- 
 tain servants whose industry should compensate the idleness 
 of their masters 1 Will not those servants be obliged to ab- 
 stain from making love, that their masters may be employed 
 in it 1 Besides, how are the old people to pass their time 1 
 A fine spectacle for them truly, to behold their children 
 always indulging in the dalliance of the tender passion ! 
 
 * The very name of infant is derived from the Latin word tn/arw, that ia to 
 say, one who cannot speak. 
 
286 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Would not such a spectacle produce regret, ill-humour, jea- 
 lousy, as in our country 1 Such a government in truth, even 
 in the islands of the South Sea, under groves of the cocoa and 
 bread-fruit trees, where there was nothing to do but to eat 
 and make love, would soon be torn by discord and oppressed 
 with languor. 
 
 If, on the other hand, a nation were under the dominion 
 of ambition solely, it would come still sooner to destruction, 
 either from external enemies or its own citizens. How could 
 it be reduced to form under one legislator, or how can we 
 conceive the possibility of ambitious men voluntarily submit- 
 ting to another man 1 Those who have united them, as 
 Romulus, Mahomet, and all founders of nations, have com- 
 manded attention and obedience only by speaking in the name 
 of the DEITY. But supposing this union accomplished, could 
 such an association ever be happy ? Let historians extol con- 
 quering Rome ever so highly, is it credible that her citizens 
 then deserved the appellation of fortunate ] What, while they 
 were devastating the globe, and causing floods of tears to 
 flow, were there at Rome no hearts oppressed with terror, no 
 eye overflowing for the loss of a son, father, husband, or 
 lover ] Were the slaves, the greatest part of her inhabitants, 
 happy? Was the Roman general himself happy, crowned 
 with laurels and mounted on a triumphal car, around which, 
 by a military law, his soldiers were singing songs in which 
 his faults were exposed, to prevent his waxing proud and 
 forgetting himself] 
 
 This very people, however, so disposed to pursue their own 
 glory through the calamity of others, were obliged, in order 
 to dissemble the horror of it, to veil the tears of the nations 
 with the interest of the gods, as we disguise with fire the 
 flesh of the animals which is to serve for food. Rome, fol- 
 lowing the order of destiny, was to become at length the 
 capital of the world. She armed her ambition with a celes- 
 tial reason, to render her victorious over powers the most for- 
 midable, and to curb the ferocity of her own citizens by 
 inuring them to the practice of sublime virtue. What would 
 they have become had they given themselves up without re- 
 straint to that furious instinct ] They would have resembled 
 the savages of America, who burn their enemies alive, and 
 devour the flesh still streaming with blood. This Rome at 
 last experienced, when her religion presented no longer any 
 
STUDY XII. . 287 
 
 thing to her enlightened inhabitants except unmeaning im- 
 agery. Then were seen the two passions natural to the heart 
 of man, ambition and love, inviting to a residence within her 
 walls the luxury of Asia, the corruptive arts of Greece, pro- 
 scriptions, murders, poisonings, conflagrations, and giving her 
 up a prey to barbarous nations. The Theutates of the Gaula 
 then issuing from the forests of the north, and arriving at 
 the Capitol, made the Roman Jupiter tremble in his turn. 
 
 Our reasons of state are in modern times less sublime, but 
 no less fatal to the repose of mankind. A nation delivered 
 up to its passions, and to simple reasons of state, would speed- 
 ily incur all the miseries incident to humanity ; but Provi- 
 dence has implanted in the breast of man a sentiment to 
 counterbalance the weight of these, by directing his desires 
 far beyond this world ; I mean the sentiment of the existence 
 of the DEITY. Man is not man because he is a reasonable, 
 but a religious animal. 
 
 Cicero and Plutarch have remarked, that, up to their time, 
 not a. single people was known among whom no traces of 
 religion were to be found. The sentiment of DEITY is natu- 
 ral to man. It is that illumination which St. John denom- 
 inates 'the true light, which lighteth every man that corn- 
 eth into the world.' I condemn certain modem authors, 
 some even missionaries, for having asserted that certain na- 
 tions were destitute of all sense of the DEITY. This is the 
 blackest of calumnies with which a nation can be branded, 
 because it entirely strips them of the existence of every vir- 
 tue ; and if such a nation betrays any appearance of virtue, 
 it can only be under the impulse of hypocrisy ; for there can 
 be no virtue distinct from religion. Those writers however 
 furnish the means of refuting this imputation, by acknow- 
 ledging that these very atheistical nations on certain days 
 present homage to the moon, or retire into the woods to per- 
 form certain ceremonies, carefully concealed from strangers, 
 but which clearly demonstrate they have ideas of the DEITY. 
 
 All nations have the sentiment of the existence of GOD; 
 not that they all raise themselves to Him after the manner 
 of a Newton and a Socrates, in contemplation of the general 
 harmony of his works, but by dwelling on those of his 
 benefits which interest them the most. The Indian of Peru 
 worships the sun ; he of Bengal, the Ganges, which fertil- 
 izes hia plains ; the black lolof, the ocean, which cools his 
 
288 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 shores ; the Samoiede of the north, the rein-deer which feeds 
 him. The wandering Iroquois demands of the spirits which 
 preside over the lakes and forests plentiful fishing and hunt- 
 ing seasons. Many worship their kings; but all nations, to 
 endear to men those august dispensers of their felicity, have 
 called -in the aid of some divinity to consecrate their origin. 
 Such are in general the gods of the nations ; but when the 
 passions interpose, and darken this divine instinct, and blend 
 with it either the madness of ambition, or the seduction of 
 voluptuousness, you behold them prostrating themselves be- 
 fore serpents, crocodiles, and other gods too abominable to 
 be mentioned. You behold them offering in sacrifice the 
 blood of their enemies and the virginity of their daughters. 
 The character of a people and its religion are the same. 
 Man feels this celestial impulse so irresistibly, that on ceasing 
 to take the DEITY for his model, he never fails to make one 
 after his own image. 
 
 There are therefore two powers in man, the animal and 
 divine. The first presents the sentiment of his wretchedness, 
 the second that of his own excellence ; and from their conflicts 
 are produced the varieties and contradictions of human life. 
 
 By the sentiment of our wretchedness we become alive to 
 every idea of asylum and protection, of ease and accommoda* 
 tion. Hence most men cherish the thought of calm retreats, 
 of abundance, and all the blessings which bountiful Nature 
 has provided on the earth to supply our wants. This senti- 
 ment gave to Love the chains of Hymen, that man might one 
 day find the companion of his pains in that of his pleasures, 
 and that children might be ensured of the assistance of their 
 parents. This sentiment frequently mingles with the moral 
 affections ; it looks for support in friendship, and for encour- 
 agement in commendation. It renders us attentive to the 
 promises of the ambitious man, and eager to follow him like 
 slaves, seduced by the ideas of protection with which he 
 amuses us. Thus the sentiment of our wretchedness is one 
 of the most powerful bonds of political society, though it 
 attaches us to the earth. 
 
 The sentiment of Deity impels us in a contrary direction.* 
 
 * Whenever any one has lost this first of harmonies, all the others follow it. 
 Does it not well deserve to be remarked, that all the writings of atheists are 
 insufferably dry and uninteresting? They sometimes fill you with astonishment, 
 but never touch the heart ; they exhibit caricatures only, or gigantic ideas ; they 
 are totally destitute of order, of proportion, and of sensibility. 
 
STUDY XII. 289 
 
 This conducted Love to the altar, and dictated to the lips of 
 the lover the first vows of fidelity : this devoted the first chil- 
 dren to Heaven before political law existed ; rendered love 
 sublime and friendship generous ; with one hand it succoured 
 the miserable, and opposed the other to tyrants ; it became 
 the moving principle of generosity and of virtue. Satisfied 
 with the consciousness of having deserved well of mankind, 
 it nobly disdained the recompense of applause. 
 
 When these two sentiments cross each other, that is, when 
 we attach divine instinct to perishable objects, and the animal 
 to things divine, our life becomes agitated by contradictory 
 passions ; hence those frivolous hopes and fears with which 
 men are tormented. My fortune is made, says one, I have 
 enough to last me for ever; and to-morrow he drops into the 
 grave. How wretched am I ! says another, I am undone for 
 ever; and death is at the door to deliver him from all his woes. 
 We are bound down to life, said Montagne, by the merest 
 toys, by a glass; yes, and wherefore] Because the sentiment 
 of immortality is impressed on that glass. If life and death 
 frequently appear insupportable to men, it is because they 
 associate the sentiment of their end with that of death, and 
 the sentiment of infinity with that of life. Mortals, if you 
 wish to live happy, and die in composure, let not your laws 
 offer violence to those of Nature. Consider that at death all 
 the troubles of the animal come to a period ; that all the en- 
 joyments of a moral being commence ; the rewards of virtue, 
 undervalued perhaps or despised by the world, but which 
 approximate us while on the earth to a Being righteous and 
 eternal. 
 
 When these two instincts unite, they confer upon us the 
 highest pleasure of which our nature is susceptible ; for in 
 them our two natures, if I may so express myself, enjoy at 
 once. We now proceed to trace the instinct of Divinity in 
 our physical sensations, by attempting to convey a faint idea 
 of the nature of man. 
 
 OF PHYSICAL SENSATIONS. 
 
 The physical sensations are all testimonies of our misery. 
 Man is so sensible to the pleasure of the touch, because he 
 is naked ; to clothe himself, he must strip the quadruped, 
 plant, and worm. If from vegetables and animals he is 
 supplied with food, he is obliged to employ a great deal of 
 2M 25 
 
290 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 cookery, and many combinations, in preparing his aliments. 
 Nature has treated him with severity, for he is the only 
 animal for whose wants she has made no immediate pro- 
 vision. Our philosophers have not sufficiently studied this 
 perplexing distinction. How ! a worm provided with its 
 auger or file ; the insect enters into life in the midst of a 
 profusion of fruit proper for his subsistence ; he by and by 
 finds in himself the means of spinning and weaving his own 
 garment ; then he transforms himself into a gaudy butterfly, 
 and ranges uncontrolled, abandoning himself to all the de- 
 lights of love, and reperpetuating his species without anxiety 
 or remorse ; whereas the son of a king is born completely 
 naked, amidst tears and groans, standing in need all his life 
 long of the assistance of another ; under the necessity of 
 maintaining an unremitting conflict with his own species, 
 and frequently finding in himself his most formidable enemy ! 
 Of a truth, unless we are all only children of dust, it would 
 be a thousand times better to enter upon existence under the 
 form of an insect, than that of an emperor. But man has 
 been abandoned to the most abject misery only that he may 
 have uninterrupted recourse to the first of powers. 
 
 Of the Sense of Tasting. 
 
 There is no one physical sensation but what awakens in 
 man some sentiment of the DEITY. 
 
 To begin with the grossest of all our senses, that of eating 
 and drinking : all nations, in the savage state, believe the 
 DIVINITY had need to support life by the same means that 
 men do ; hence the origin of sacrifice. Hence also has 
 proceeded in many nations the custom of placing viands on 
 the tombs of the dead. The wives of the American savages 
 extend this mark of solicitude even to infants who die upon 
 the breast. After having bestowed upon them the rite of 
 sepulture, they come once a day for several weeks, and press 
 from the nipple a few drops of milk upon the grave of the 
 suckling. This is positively affirmed by the Jesuit Charlevoix, 
 who was frequently an eye-witness of the fact. Thus the 
 sentiment of DEITY, and that of the immortality of the soul, 
 are interwoven with our affections the most completely ani- 
 mal, and especially with maternal tenderness. 
 
 But man, not satisfied with admitting intellectual beings 
 to a share of his repast, has elevated himself to their rank, by 
 
STUDY XII. 291 
 
 the physical effects of those very aliments. Savage nations 
 have been discovered who scarcely possessed industry to pro- 
 cure food, but not one who had not invented the means of 
 getting drunk. Man is the only animal sensible of that plea- 
 sure. Other animals are content to remain in their sphere : 
 man is making perpetual efforts to get out of his. Intoxica- 
 tion elevates the mind. All religious festivals among savages, 
 and even polished nations, end in feasting, in which men 
 drink till reason is gone : they begin it is true with fasting, 
 but intoxication closes the scene. Man renounces human 
 reason that he may excite in himself emotions that are divine. 
 The effect of intoxication is to convey the soul into the bosom 
 of some deity. You always hear topers celebrating in their 
 eongs Bacchus, Mars, Venus, or the God of Love. It is 
 remarkable that men do not abandon themselves to blas- 
 phemy till they arrive at a state of intoxication ; for it is an 
 instinct as common to the soul to cleave to the Deity when 
 in its natural state, as to abjure him when corrupted by vice. 
 
 Of the Sense of Smelling. 
 
 The pleasures of smell are peculiar to man ; for I do not 
 comprehend under it the olfactory emanations by which he 
 forms a judgment of his aliments, common to him with most 
 animals. Man alone is sensible to perfumes, and employs 
 them to give energy to his passions. Mahomet said that this 
 elevated his soul to Heaven. Whatever may be in this, the 
 use of them has been introduced into the religious ceremo- 
 nies and political assemblies of many nations. The Brazil- 
 ians, and the savages of North America, never deliberate on 
 any object of importance without smoking tobacco in a calu- 
 met. The habit of using tobacco has now become so power- 
 ful, that a person who has acquired it will rather forego bread 
 for a day than his tobacco. The plant is nevertheless a real 
 poison ; it affects at length the olfactory nerves and sometimes 
 the sight. But man is disposed to impair his physical consti- 
 tution, provided he can strengthen in himself the intellectual 
 sentiment. 
 
 Of the Sense of Seeing. 
 
 What has been said in detailing certain general laws of 
 Nature, harmonies, conformities, contrasts, and oppositions, 
 refers principally to the sense of seeing. I do not speak of 
 
292 ' STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 adaptation or correspondence ; this belongs to the sentiment 
 of reason, and is entirely distinct from matter. The other 
 relations are in truth founded on the reason itself of Nature, 
 which communicates delight by means of colours and forms 
 generative and generated, and inspires melancholy by those 
 which announce decomposition and destruction. But with- 
 out entering upon that vast and inexhaustible subject, I shall 
 at present confine myself to certain optical effects, which 
 involuntarily excite in us the sentiment of some of the 
 attributes of Deity. 
 
 One of the most obvious causes of the pleasure we derive 
 from the sight of a great tree, arises from the sentiment of 
 infinity kindled in us by its pyramidical form. The decrease 
 of its different tiers of branches and tints of verdure, always 
 lighter at the extremities of the tree than in the rest of its 
 foliage, give it an apparent interminable elevation. We 
 experience the same sensations in the horizontal plan of land- 
 scapes, in which we frequently perceive successive hilly ele- 
 vations flying off one behind another till the last melt away 
 into the heavens. Nature produces the same effect in vast 
 plains by means of the vapours which rise from the banks of 
 the lakes, or channels of the brooks and rivers that wander 
 through them ; their contours are multiplied in proportion to 
 the extent of the plain ; they present themselves on different 
 plans ; sometimes they stand still, like curtains drawn along 
 the skirts of the forests; sometimes they mount into columns 
 over the brooks of the meadows ; sometimes they are quite 
 gray, at others illuminated and penetrated by the rays of the 
 sun. Under all these aspects, they display, if I may use the 
 expression, several perspectives of infinity in infinity itself. 
 
 I say nothing of the delightful spectacle the heavens some- 
 times present in the disposition of the clouds. I do not know 
 of any philosopher who has even suspected their beauties 
 were subjected to law. It is certain, however, that no ani- 
 mal which lives in the light is insensible to their effects ; but 
 the harmonies of heaven are to be felt only by the heart of 
 man. All nations, struck by their ineffable language, raise 
 their hands and eyes to heaven in the involuntary motions of 
 joy or grief. 
 
 Reason, however, tells them GOD is everywhere. How 
 comes it that no one stretches out his arms towards the earth 
 or the horizon in the attitude of invocation ? Whence comes 
 
STUDY XII. 293 
 
 the sentiment which whispers to them, God is in heaven ? 
 Is it because heaven is the place where light dwells ? Is it 
 because the light itself which discloses all objects to us, not 
 being like our terrestrial substances, liable to be divided, cor- 
 rupted, destroyed, and confined, seems to present something 
 celestial in its substance 1 It is to the sentiment of infinity 
 which the sight of the heavens inspires, that we must ascribe 
 the taste of all nations for building temples on the summit of 
 a mountain, and the invincible propensity the Jews felt to 
 worship upon high places. There is not a mountain on the 
 islands of the Archipelago but what has its church, nor a 
 hill in China without its pagoda. If, as some philosophers 
 pretend, we never form a judgment of the nature of things 
 but from the mechanical results of a comparison with our- 
 selves, the elevation of mountains ought to humiliate our 
 insignificance. But the truth is, these sublime objects, by 
 elevating us towards heaven, direct thither the soul of man 
 by the sentiment of infinity; and disjoining us from things 
 terrestrial, waft us to the enjoyment of beauties of much 
 longer duration. 
 
 The works of Nature frequently present several kinds of 
 infinity at once : thus, for example, a great tree, with a tPunk 
 cavernous and covered with moss, conveys the sentiment of 
 infinity as to time and elevation ; it exhibits a monument of 
 ages past. If to this is added infinity of extension, as when 
 we perceive through its solemn branches objects prodigiously 
 remote, our veneration increases. Go on, and add to these 
 the different ridges of its mass, in contrast with the profundity 
 of the valleys and level of the plains ; its venerable half- 
 lights, which play with the azure of the heavens ; and the 
 sentiment of our own wretchedness, which it relieves by 
 ideas of the protection it affords in the thickness of its trunk 
 and in its august summit agitated by the winds, the majestic 
 murmurs of which seem to sympathize with our distress : a 
 tree, with all these harmonies, seems to inspire an inexpres- 
 sible religious awe. Pliny, in conformity to this idea, says, 
 trees were the first temples of the gods. 
 
 The sublime impression they produce becomes still more 
 profound when they recall some sentiment of virtue, as the 
 recollection of those who planted them, or whose tombs they 
 shade. It is from an effect of this sentiment that the moun- 
 tains of Greece and Italy appear more respectable than those 
 
 25* 
 

 294 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 of the rest of Europe, though of no higher antiquity, because 
 their monuments, in ruins as they are, call to mind the virtues 
 of the persons who inhabited them. 
 
 In general,, the different sensations of infinity increase by 
 the contrasts of the physical objects which produce them. Our 
 painters would give a powerful effect to their back-ground 
 scenery, if they opposed to it the frontispiece, not only in 
 colours and forms, as they sometimes do, but in nature. The 
 great art of moving is to oppose sensible objects to intellec- 
 tual. The soul there takes a daring flight. It soars from 
 the visible to the invisible, and enjoys, if I may be allowed 
 the expression, in its own way, by extending itself into the 
 unbounded fields of sentiment and of intelligence. Among 
 certain Tartar tribes, when a great man dies, his groom after 
 the interment leads out the horse which his master was ac- 
 customed to ride, places the clothes which he wore on the 
 horse's back, and walks him, in profound silence, before 
 the assembly, who by that spectacle are melted into tears. 
 
 In all scenes of passion, where the intention is to produce 
 strong emotions, the more the principal object is circum- 
 scribed, the more extended is the intellectual sentiment 
 resulting from it. Such is the nature of the human soul ; so 
 far from being material, it lays hold only of correspondences. 
 The less you display to it physical objects, the more you 
 awaken in it intellectual feelings. 
 
 Of the Sense of Hearing. 
 
 Plato calls hearing and seeing the senses of the soul. I 
 suppose he qualifies them particularly by this name, because 
 vision is affected by light, which is not properly speaking a 
 substance ; and hearing by the modulations of the air, which 
 are not of themselves bodies. Besides, these two senses 
 convey only the sentiment of correspondences and harmonies, 
 without involving us in matter, as smelling does, which is 
 affected only by the emanations from bodies ; tasting by 
 their fluidity ; and touching by their solidity, softness, heat, 
 and other physical qualities. Though hearing and seeing 
 be the direct senses of the soul, we ought not, however, 
 thence to conclude that a man born deaf and blind must be 
 an idiot. The soul sees and hears by all the senses. 
 
 The sense of hearing is the immediate organ of intelligence : 
 it is adapted to the reception of speech, a faculty peculiar to 
 
STUDY XII. 295 
 
 man, which, by its infinite modulations, is the expression of 
 all the correspondences of Nature and feelings of the human 
 heart. But there is another language appertaining still more 
 particularly to this first principle of ourselves, to which we 
 have given the name of sentiment : I mean music. 
 
 This science possesses the incomprehensible power of 
 rousing and quieting the passions, in a manner independent 
 of reason ; and of kindling sublime affections disengaged 
 from all intellectual perception. It is so natural to man, 
 that the first prayers addressed to the DEITY, and the original 
 laws among all nations, were set to music. Man loses a 
 taste for it only in polished society, the very languages of 
 which at length lose their accentuation. The fact is, that 
 a multitude of social relations destroy in a state of refinement 
 the correspondences of Nature. In that state we reason much, 
 but scarcely feel any longer. 
 
 The AUTHOR of Nature has deemed the harmony of sounds 
 to be so necessary to man, that every situation upon the earth 
 has its singing bird, and all over the globe they discover an 
 instinct which attracts them to the habitation of man. If 
 there be but a single hut in a forest, all the song-birds of the 
 vicinity come and settle round it. Nay, none are to be found 
 except in places which are inhabited. 
 
 The melodies of song-birds have similar relations to the 
 sites they occupy, and even to the distances which they live 
 from our habitations. The lark, who nestles among our corn, 
 and delights in soaring perpendicularly till we lose sight of 
 him, makes his voice to be heard in the air when no longer 
 perceptible to the eye. The swallow, who grazes the walls 
 of our houses as he flies, and reposes on our chimneys, has 
 a small gentle chirping voice, which does not stun the ear, 
 as that of the songsters of the grove would do ; but the 
 solitary nightingale makes himself heard at the distance of 
 more than half a league. He mistrusts the vicinity of man ; 
 nevertheless always places himself within the reach of his 
 ear. He chooses, for this effect, places which are the best 
 conductors of sound, that their echoing may give more action 
 to his voice. Having stationed himself in his orchestra, he 
 warbles an unknown drama, which has its exordium, exposi- 
 tion, recitative, and catastrophe, intermingled sometimes with 
 the most extravagant bursts of joy, sometimes with bitter and 
 plaintive notes of recollection, expressed by long and deep 
 
296 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 sighg. He raises his song at the commencement of that 
 season which renews the face of Nature, and seems to present 
 man with a representation of the restless career which lies 
 before him. 
 
 Every bird has a voice adapted to the times and stations of 
 its destination, and relative to the wants of man. The loud 
 clarion of the cock calls him up to labour at the dawn of day. 
 The brisk and lively song of the lark invites the swains and 
 shepherdesses to the dance ; the voracious thrush, which ap- 
 pears only in autumn, summons the rustic vine-dresser to the 
 vintage. Man alone is attentive to the accents of the feather- 
 ed race. Never will the deer, who sheds tears copiously over 
 his own misfortunes, sigh over those of the complaining 
 Philomel. Never did the laborious ox, when led to the 
 slaughter after all his painful services, turn his eyes toward 
 her, and say : ' Solitary bird, behold in what manner man 
 rewards his servants !' 
 
 Nature has diffused these distractions and consonances of 
 fortune over volatile beings, that our soul, susceptible of every 
 wo, finding occasions of extending that susceptibility, might 
 be enabled to alleviate the pressure. She has rendered insen- 
 sible bodies themselves capable of these communications. 
 She presents frequently, in scenes which pain the eye, others 
 which delight the ear, and sooth the mind with interesting 
 recollections. Thus from the bosom of forests she transports 
 us to the brink of waters, by the rustling of the aspens and 
 poplars. At other times she conveys, when we are by the 
 side of the brook, the noise of the. sea, and manoeuvres of 
 navigation, in the murmuring of reeds shaken by the wind. 
 When she can no longer seduce our reason by foreign 
 imagery, she lulls it to rest by the charm of sentiment : she 
 calls forth from the bosom of the forests, meadows, and val- 
 leys, sounds ineffable, which excite pleasing reveries, and 
 plunge us into profound sleep. 
 
 Of the Sense of Touching. 
 
 I shall make but few reflections on the sense of touching. 
 It is the most obtuse of all our senses, and nevertheless is in 
 some sort the seal of our intelligence. To no purpose is an 
 object exposed to the examination of the eye, in every possible 
 position ; we cannot be persuaded that we know it, unless 
 we are permitted to put it to the touch. This instinct pro- 
 
STUDY XII. 297 
 
 ceeds, perhaps, from our weakness, which seeks in those ap- 
 proximations points of protection. The sense in question, 
 however, blunt as it is, may be made to communicate intel- 
 ligence, as is evident from the example adduced by Chardin, 
 of the blind men of Persia, who traced geometrical figures 
 with their fingers, and formed a very accurate judgment of 
 the goodness of a watch by handling the parts of the move- 
 ment. 
 
 Wise Nature has placed the principal organs of this sense, 
 diffused over the whole surface of our skin, in our hands and 
 feet, members the best adapted to judge of the quality of 
 bodies. But that they might not lose their sensibility by 
 frequent shocks, she has bestowed on them a great degree of 
 pliancy, by dividing them into several fingers and toes, and 
 these again into several joints ; farther, she has furnished 
 them, on the points of contact, with elastic half-pincers, 
 which present at once resistance in their callous and promi- 
 nent parts, and an exquisite sensibility in the retreating. 
 
 It astonishes me, however, that Nature should have diffused 
 the sense of touching over the whole human body, thence 
 exposed to variety of suffering, while no considerable benefit 
 seems to result from it. Man is the only animal laid under 
 the necessity of clothing himself. Some insects, indeed, 
 make cases for themselves, as the moth ; but they are pro- 
 duced in places where their clothing is, if I may say so, 
 ready made. This necessity, become an inexhaustible source 
 of human vanity, is one of the most humiliating proofs of our 
 wretchedness. Man alone is ashamed of appearing naked. 
 This is a feeling of which I do not discern the reason in Na- 
 ture, nor the similitude in the instinct of other animals. 
 Besides, independently of all sense of shame, he is constrained 
 by powerful necessity to clothe himself in every variety of 
 climate. 
 
 It is, I believe, on account of the troublesomeness of the 
 flies common and verymecessary in the marshy and humid 
 places of hot countries, that Nature has placed but .few quad- 
 rupeds with hair on their shores, but quadrupeds with scales, 
 upon which the flies have not the means of fastening. It is, 
 perhaps, also for this reason that hogs and wild boars, which 
 frequent such places, are furnished with hair, long, stiff, and 
 bristly, which keep volatile insects at a distance. Nature 
 has not employed, in this respect, any one precaution in 
 2 N 
 
298 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 behalf of man. Of a truth, on contemplating the beauty 
 of his form, and complete nakedness, it is impossible not to 
 admit the ancient tradition of our origin. Nature, in placing 
 him on the earth, said to him : * Go, degraded creature, ani- 
 mal destitute of clothing, intelligence without light ; go and 
 provide for thy own wants ; it shall not be in thy power to 
 enlighten thy blinded reason, but by directing it continually 
 towards heaven, nor to sustain thy miserable life without the 
 assistance of beings like thyself.' And thus out of the misery 
 of man sprung up the two commandments of the law. 
 
 OF THE SENTIMENTS OP THE SOUL. 
 
 Mental Affections. 
 
 I shall speak of mental affections chiefly to distinguish them 
 from the sentiments of the soul ; for example, the pleasure 
 comedy bestows is widely different from that of which tra- 
 gedy is the source. The emotion which excites laughter is 
 an affection of the mind, or of human reason ; that which 
 dissolves us into tears is a sentiment of the soul. Not that I 
 Would make of the mind and soul two powers of a different 
 nature ; but it seems that the one is to the other what sight 
 is to the body ; mind is a faculty, soul the principle of it : the 
 soul is as it were the body of our intelligence. I consider 
 the mind as an intellectual eye, to which may be referred 
 the other faculties of the understanding, as the imagination, 
 which apprehends things future ; memory, which contem- 
 plates those that are past ; and judgment, which discerns their 
 correspondences. The impression of these different acts of 
 vision sometimes excites in us a sentiment denominated 
 evidence ; and in that case this last perception belongs imme- 
 diately to the soul, as it sometimes excites in us a delicious 
 emotion ; but, raised to that, it is no longer in the province of 
 mind ; because when we begin to feel we cease to reason ; 
 it is no longer vision, it is employment. 
 
 As our education and manners direct us toward our per- 
 sonal interest, hence the mind employs itself only about social 
 conformities, and that reason, after all, is but the interest of 
 our passions ; but the soul, left to itself, pursues the conformi- 
 ties of Nature and our sentiment is always the interest of 
 mankind. 
 
 Thus, I repeat it, mind is the perception of the laws of 
 
STUDY XII. 299 
 
 society, sentiment that of the laws of Nature. Those who 
 display the conformities of society, as comic writers, satirists, 
 epigrammatists, and even the greatest moralists, are men of 
 wit. Those who discover the conformities of Nature, as 
 tragic and other poets of sensibility, the inventors of arts, 
 great philosophers, are men of genius. The first class belong 
 to one age, season, nation, or junto ; the others to posterity 
 and mankind. 
 
 We shall be still more sensible of the difference between 
 mind and soul, by tracing their affections in opposite pro- 
 gresses. Whenever the perceptions of the mind are carried 
 up to evidence, they are exalted into a source of exquisite 
 pleasure, independently of every particular relation of inter- 
 est ; because they awaken a feeling within us. But when 
 we analyse our feelings, and refer them to the examination 
 of the mind, or reasoning power, these sublime emotions 
 vanish ; for we then refer them to some accommodation of 
 society, fortune, system, or some other personal interest, 
 whereof our reason is composed. Thus, in the first case, we 
 change our copper into gold ; and in the second, our gold into 
 copper. 
 
 Again, nothing can be less adapted ultimately to the study 
 of Nature, than the reasoning powers of man ; for though 
 they may catch here and there some natural conformities, 
 they never pursue the chain to any great length : besides, 
 there is a much greater number which the mind does not 
 perceive, because it always brings back every thing to itself, 
 and to the little social or scientific order within which it is 
 circumscribed. As it refers every thing to its own reason, 
 and seeing no reason for existence but on earth, it then con- 
 cludes that in fact it shall not in that case exist. To be con- 
 sistent, it ought equally to conclude that it does not exist 
 now ; for it certainly can discover neither in itself nor in any 
 thing around an actual reason for its existence. 
 
 We are convinced of our existence by a power greatly 
 superior to our mind, which is sentiment, or intellectual feel- 
 ing. We shall carry this natural instinct with us into our 
 researches respecting the existence of the DEITY, and the 
 immortality of the soul ; subjects on which our versatile rea- 
 son has so frequently engaged, sometimes on this, sometimes 
 on the other side of the question. Though our insufficiency 
 be too great to admit of launching far into this unbounded 
 
300 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 career, we presume to hope that our perceptions, nay, our 
 very mistakes, may encourage men of genius to enter upon 
 it. These sublime and e-ternal truths seem so deeply im- 
 pressed on the human hea/t, as to become the principles of 
 our intellectual feeling, and to manifest themselves in our most 
 ordinary affections, as in the wildest excesses of our passions. 
 
 Innocence. 
 
 The sentiment of innocence exalts us towards the DEITY, 
 and prompts us to virtuous deeds. The Greeks and Romans 
 employed little children to sing in their religious festivals, 
 and to present their offerings at the altar, in the view of ren- 
 dering the gods propitious to their country by the spectacle 
 of infant innocence. The sight of infancy calls men back 
 to the sentiments of Nature. When Cato of Utica resolved 
 to put himself to death, his friends concealed his sword ; and 
 upon his demanding it with expressions of violent indigna- 
 tion, they delivered it by the hand of a child : but the cor- 
 ruption of the age had stifled in his heart the sentiment 
 which innocence ought to have excited. 
 
 Pity. 
 
 The sentiment of innocence is the native source of compas- 
 sion ; hence we are more deeply affected by the sufferings of 
 a child than by those of an old man. The reason is not, as 
 certain philosophers pretend, because the resources and hopes 
 of the child are inferior ; for they are in truth greater than 
 those of the old man, frequently infirm, and hastening to 
 dissolution, whereas the child is entering into life ; but the 
 latter has never offended ; he is innocent. This sentiment 
 extends even to animals, which in many cases excite our 
 sympathy more than rational creatures do, from this very 
 consideration, that they are harmless. 
 
 Thus the sentiment of innocence develops, in the heart of 
 man, a divine character, that of generosity. It bears not on 
 the calamity abstractedly considered, but on a moral quality, 
 which it discerns in the unfortunate being who is the object 
 of it. It derives increase from the view of innocence, and 
 sometimes still more from that of repentance. Man alone is 
 susceptible of it ; not by a secret retrospect of himself, as some 
 enemies of the human race have pretended ; for were that 
 the case, on stating a comparison between a child and an old 
 
STUDY XII. 301 
 
 man, both unfortunate, we ought to be more affected by the 
 misery of the old man, considering we are removing from the 
 wretchedness of childhood, and drawing nearer to that of old 
 age : the contrary, however, takes place, in virtue of the 
 moral sentiment which I have alleged. 
 
 When an old man is virtuous, the moral sentiment of his 
 distress is excited with redoubled force ; a proof that pity in 
 man is by no means an animal affection. The sentiment of 
 innocence is a ray of the Divinity. It invests the unfortunate 
 person with a celestial radiance which falls on the human 
 heart, and recoils, kindling it with generosity, that other 
 flame of divine original. It alone renders us sensible to the 
 distress of virtue, by representing it as incapable of doing 
 harm ; for otherwise we might be induced to consider it as 
 sufficient for itself. In this case it would excite rather admi- 
 ration than pity. 
 
 Love of Country. 
 
 This sentiment is still farther the source of love of country, 
 because it brings to recollection the gentle and pure affections 
 of our earlier years. It increases with extension, and ex- 
 pands with time, as a sentiment of a celestial and immortal 
 nature. They have in Switzerland an ancient and simple 
 musical air, called the rans des vaches. The music of this air 
 produces an effect so powerful, that the playing of it was pro- 
 hibited in Holland and France before the Swiss soldiers, 
 whom it caused to desert. I imagined that the rans des 
 vaches must imitate the lowing and bleating of the cattle, the 
 repercussion of the echoes, and other associations, which 
 made the blood boil in the veins of those poor soldiers, by re- 
 calling to their memory the valleys, lakes, and mountains of 
 their country,* the companions of their early life, their first 
 loves, the recollection of their indulgent grandfathers, and 
 the like. 
 
 The love of country strengthens in proportion as it is inno- 
 cent and unhappy. For this reason savages are fonder of 
 their country than polished nations ; and those who inhabit 
 
 * I have been told that Poutaveri, the Indian of Otaheite, who was some 
 years ago brought to Paris, on seeing, in the royal garden, the paper-mulberry- 
 tree, the bark of which is in that island manufactured into cloth, he exclaimed : 
 Jlh ! tree of my country ! Though physical sensations attach us so strongly to 
 country, moral sentiments alone can give them a vehement intensity. Time, 'I 
 which blunts the former, gives only a keener edge to the latter. 
 
302 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 regions rough and wild, than those who live in fertile coun- 
 tries and fine climates. Never could the court of Russia 
 prevail on a single Samoiede to leave the shores of the frozen 
 ocean, and settle at Petersburg. Some Greenlanders were 
 brought in the course of the last century to Copenhagen, 
 where they were most kindly entertained, but soon fretted 
 themselves to death. Several were drowned in attempting 
 to return home in an open boat. They beheld the magnifi- 
 cence of the court of Denmark with extreme indifference ; 
 but there was one in particular who wept whenever he saw 
 a woman with a child in her arms ; hence it was conjectured 
 this unfortunate man was a father. The gentleness of do- 
 mestic education, undoubtedly, thus attaches those poor peo- 
 ple to the place of their birth. 
 
 In nations whose infancy is rendered miserable, and cor- 
 rupted by irksome, ferocious, and unnatural education, there 
 is no more love of country than of innocence. This is one 
 cause why so many Europeans ramble over the world, and 
 accounts for our having so few modern monuments in Europe, 
 because the next generation never fails to destroy the monu- 
 ments of that which preceded it. Hence our books, fashions, 
 customs, ceremonies, and languages, become obsolete so soon, 
 and are entirely different in this age from what they were in 
 the last; whereas all these particulars continue the same 
 among the sedentary nations of Asia for a long series of ages 
 together ; because children brought up in Asia, in the habita- 
 tions of their parents, and treated with much gentleness, 
 remain attached to the establishments of their ancestors out 
 of gratitude to their memory, and to the places of their birth, 
 from the recollection of their happiness and innocence. 
 
 OF THE SENTIMENT OF ADMIRATION. 
 
 The sentiment of admiration transports us immediately 
 into the bosom of DEITY. If it is excited by an object 
 inspiring delight, we convey ourselves thither as to the 
 source of joy ; if terror is roused, we flee thither for refuge. 
 In either case, admiration exclaims in these words, Ah, my 
 God ! This, we are told, is the effect of education merely, 
 in the course of which frequent mention is made of the name 
 of God ; but mention is still more frequently made of our 
 father, of the king, of a protector, of a celebrated literary 
 character. How comes it, then, that when we feel ourselves 
 
STUDY XII. 303 
 
 standing in need of support, in such unexpected concussions, 
 we never exclaim, Ah, my king ! or, if science were con- 
 cerned, Ah, Newton ! 
 
 If the name of God be frequently mentioned in the progress 
 of our education, the idea is quickly effaced in affairs of this 
 world; why then have we recourse to it in extraordinary 
 emergencies 1 This sentiment of Nature is common to all 
 nations, many of whom give no theological instruction to 
 their children. The inhabitants of all countries, under ex- 
 traordinary emotions of surprise or admiration, make, in their 
 own language, the same exclamation which we do, and lift 
 up their eyes and hands to Heaven. * 
 
 Of the Marvellous. 
 
 The sentiment of admiration is the source of the instinct 
 which men have in every age discovered for the marvellous. 
 We seek it continually, and diffuse it principally over the com- 
 mencement and close of human life ; hence the cradles and 
 tombs of so great a part of mankind have been enveloped in 
 fiction. It is the perennial source of our curiosity ; it dis- 
 closes itself from early infancy, and is long the companion 
 of innocence. Whence could children derive the taste for 
 the marvellous 1 They must have fairy tales ; and men 
 must have epic poems and operas. The marvellous consti- 
 tutes one grand charm of the antique statues of Greece and 
 Rome, representing heroes or gods, and contributes to our 
 delight in the perusal of the ancient history of those countries. 
 There is a marvellous in the religion of the ancients which 
 consoles and elevates human nature, whereas that of the 
 Gauls terrifies and debases it. The Greek and Roman gods 
 were patriots, like their great men. Minerva had given them 
 the olive, Neptune the horse ; deities who protected the city 
 and the people. But those of the ancient Gauls were tyrants, 
 like their barons, and afforded protection only to the Druids. 
 They must be glutted with human sacrifices. 
 
 As admiration is an involuntary movemeiTt of the soul 
 towards Deity, consequently sublime, several modern authors 
 have strained to multiply this kind of beauty in their produc- 
 tions, by an accumulation of surprising incidents ; but Nature 
 employs them sparingly in hers, because man is incapable of 
 frequently undergoing concussions so violent. She discloses 
 by little and little the light of the sun, the expansion of 
 
304 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 flowers, the formation of fruits. She gradually introduce? 
 our enjoyments by a long series of harmonies ; she treats us 
 as human beings ; that is, as machines feeble and easily 
 deranged ; she veils Deity from our view that we may be 
 able to support his approach. 
 
 The Pleasure of Mjstery. 
 
 This is the reason that mystery possesses so many charms. 
 Pictures placed in the full glare of light, avenues in straight 
 lines, roses fully blown, women in gaudy apparel, are far 
 from being the objects which please us most. But shady 
 valleys, paths winding through the forests, flowers scarcely 
 half opened, and timid shepherdesses, excite the sweetest 
 and most lasting emotions. The loveliness and respectability 
 of objects are increased by their mysteriousness. Sometimes 
 by antiquity, which renders monuments venerable ; some- 
 times by distance, which diffuses charms over objects in the 
 horizon ; sometimes by names. Hence the sciences retaining 
 Greek names, though they frequently denote only the most 
 ordinary things, impose more respect than those with only 
 modern ones, though these may be more ingenious and 
 useful. The construction of ships, and the art of navigation, 
 for example, are more lightly prized by our modern literati, 
 than other physical sciences of the most frivolous nature, but 
 dignified, by Greek names. Admiration, accordingly, is not 
 a relation of the understanding, or a perception of reason, 
 but a sentiment of the soul, arising from a certain unde- 
 scribable instinct of Deity, at sight of extraordinary and 
 mysterious objects. This is so indubitably certain, that 
 admiration is destroyed by the science which enlightens us. 
 If I exhibit to a savage an eoliple darting out of a stream of 
 inflamed spirit of wine, I throw him into an ecstasy of 
 admiration ; he feels himself disposed to fall down and 
 worship the machine ; he venerates me as the god of fire, 
 as long as he comprehends it not ; but no sooner do I explain 
 the nature of the process, than his admiration ceases, and he 
 looks upon me as a cheat. 
 
 The Pleasures of Ignorance. 
 
 From an effect of these ineffable sentiments and universal 
 instincts of Deity, ignorance is become the inexhaustible 
 source of delight to man. We must not confound, as all 
 
STUDY XII. 305 
 
 our moralists do, ignorance and error. Ignorance is the work 
 of Nature, and often a blessing to man ; whereas error is 
 frequently the fruit of our pretended sciences, and always an 
 evil. Let political writers boast of our wonderful progress in 
 knowledge, and oppose to it the barbarism of past ages ; it 
 was not ignorance which then set all Europe on fire, and 
 inundated it with blood, in settling religious disputations. 
 A race of ignorants would have been quiet ; the mischief 
 was done by persons under the power of error, who then 
 vaunted their superior illumination, as we now do ours, and 
 into whom the European spirit of education had instilled this 
 error of early infancy, Be the First. 
 
 How many evils does ignorance conceal, which we are 
 doomed to encounter in the course of human life, beyond the 
 possibility of escaping ; the inconstancy of friends, the revo- 
 lutions of fortune, calumnies, and the hour of death itself, so 
 tremendous to most men. The knowledge of ills like these 
 would mar all the comfort of living. How many blessings 
 does ignorance render sublime ! the illusions of friendship, 
 and of love, the perspectives of hope, and the very treasures 
 which science unfolds. The sciences inspire delight only 
 when we enter upon the study of them, at the period when 
 the mind, in a state of ignorance, plunges into the great 
 career. The point of contact between light and darkness 
 presents to the eye the most favourable state of vision : the 
 harmonic point of admiration is when we begin to see clearly; 
 but it lasts only an instant. It vanishes together with igno- 
 rance. The elements of geometry may have impassioned 
 young minds, but never the aged, unless in certain illustrious 
 mathematicians who proceeded from discovery to discovery. 
 Those sciences and passions only, subjected to doubt and 
 chance, form enthusiasts at every age of life, as chymistry, 
 avarice, play, and love. 
 
 For one pleasure science bestows, and causes to perish in 
 the bestowing, ignorance presents a thousand which flatter 
 us infinitely more. You demonstrate to me that the sun is 
 a fixed globe, the attraction of which gives to the planets one 
 half of their movements. Had they who believed it to be 
 conducted round the world by Apollo an idea less sublime ? 
 They imagined at least that the attention of a God pervaded 
 the earth, together with the rays of the orb of day. It is 
 Science which has dragged down the chaste Diana from her 
 2 26* 
 
306 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 nocturnal car : she has banished the Hamadryads from the 
 antique forests, and the gentle Naiads from the fountains. 
 Ignorance had invited the gods to partake of its joys and its 
 woes ; to man's wedding, and to his grave : Science discerns 
 nothing in either, except the elements merely. She haa 
 abandoned man to man, and thrown him upon the earth as 
 into a desert. 
 
 It is not to the illumination of science the Deity commu- 
 nicates the most profound sentiment of his attributes, but to 
 our ignorance. Night conveys to the mind a much grander 
 idea of infinity than all the glare of day. In the daytime I 
 see but one sun ; during the night I discern thousands. The 
 sun discovers only a terrestrial infinity, the night discloses an 
 infinity altogether celestial. O, mysterious ignorance, draw 
 thy hallowed curtain over those enchanting spectacles ! Per- 
 mit not human science to apply to them its cheerless com- 
 passes. Let not virtue be reduced henceforth to look for her 
 reward from the justice and the sensibility of a globe ! Per- 
 mit her to think that there are, in the universe, destinies far 
 different from those which fill up the measure of wo upon 
 this earth. 
 
 Science is continually showing us the boundary of our 
 reason, and ignorance is for ever removing it. In my solitary 
 rambles I do not ask the name and quality of the person who 
 owns the distant castle ; the history of the master frequently 
 disfigures that of the landscape. It is not so with the his- 
 tory of Nature ; the more her works are studied the more is 
 our admiration excited. The knowledge of the works of men 
 is agreeable only when the monument we contemplate has 
 been the abode of goodness. What little spire is that which 
 I perceive at Montmorency ** It is that of St. Gratian, where 
 Catinat lived the life of a sage, and under which his ashes 
 were laid to rest. My soul, circumscribed within the precincts 
 of a small village, takes its flight, and ranges over the capa- 
 cious sphere of the age of Louis XIV. and hastens thence to 
 expatiate through a sphere more sublime than that of the 
 world, the sphere of virtue. Thanks to my ignorance, I can 
 give the reins to the instinct of my soul. I plunge into infinity. 
 I prolong the distance of places by that of ages ; and to com- 
 plete the illusion, I make that enchanted spot the habitation 
 of virtue. 
 
STUDY XII. 307 
 
 OF THE SENTIMENT OP MELANCHOLY. 
 
 Beneficent Nature converts all her phenomena into so 
 many sources of pleasure to man ; and if we attend to her 
 procedure, it will be found that her most common appear- 
 ances are the most agreeable. I enjoy pleasure, for example, 
 when I see old mossy walls dripping, and hear the whistling 
 of the wind, mingled with the clattering of rain. These 
 melancholy sounds, in the night-time, throw me into a soft 
 and profound sleep. 
 
 I cannot tell to what physical law philosophers may refer 
 the sensations of melancholy ; I consider them as the most 
 voluptuous affections of the soul. Melancholy is dainty ; it 
 proceeds from its gratifying at once the body and the soul ; 
 the sentiment of our misery and of our excellence. 
 
 In bad weather, the sentiment of my human misery is 
 tranquillized by seeing it rain, while I am under cover ; by 
 hearing the wind blow violently, while I am comfortably in 
 bed. I, in this case, enjoy a negative felicity. With this 
 are afterwards blended some of those attributes of the Divin- 
 ity, the perceptions of which communicate such exquisite 
 pleasure to the soul. It looks as if Nature were then con- 
 forming to my situation, like a sympathizing friend. She is 
 besides at all times so interesting, under whatever aspect she 
 exhibits herself, that when it rains I think I see a beautiful 
 woman in tears. She seems to me more beautiful the more 
 that she wears the appearance of affliction. In order to be 
 impressed with these sentiments, which I venture to call 
 voluptuous, I must have no project in hand of a pleasant 
 walk, of visiting, of hunting, which perhaps would put me 
 into bad humour to enjoy bad weather ; the soul must be 
 travelling abroad, and the body at rest. From the harmony 
 of those two powers of our constitution, the most terrible 
 revolutions of Nature frequently interest us more than her 
 gayest scenery. 
 
 The Pleasure of Ruin. 
 
 I for some time believed man had an unaccountable taste 
 for destruction. If a monument is within reach of the popu- 
 lace, they are sure to destroy it. I have seen at Dresden, 
 beautiful statues of females, mutilated by the Prussian sol- 
 diery, when in possession of that city. The common people 
 
308 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 have a turn for slander, and lake pleasure in levelling the 
 reputation of all that is exalted. This malevolent instinct 
 is not of Nature ; it. is infused by the misery of individuals, 
 whom education inspires with an ambition interdicted by 
 society, and which throws them into a negative ambition. 
 Incapable of rising, they are impelled to lay every thing 
 low. This taste for ruin is not natural, but simply the exer- 
 cise of the power of the miserable. Man in a savage state 
 destroys the monuments only of his enemies ; he preserves 
 those of his own nation ; he is naturally much better than 
 man in a state of society, for he never slanders his compatriots. 
 The passive taste for ruin is, however, universal. Our 
 voluptuaries embellish their gardens with artificial ruins ; 
 savages delight in melancholy repose by the brink of the 
 sea, especially during a storm, or in the vicinity of a cascade 
 surrounded by rocks. Magnificent destruction presents new 
 picturesque effects ; and this curiosity, combined with cruelty, 
 impelled Nero to set Rome on fire, to enjoy the spectacle of 
 a vast conflagration. This kind of affection, by no means 
 connected with our physical wants, has induced certain phi- 
 losophers to allege, that our soul, being in a state of agitation, 
 took pleasure in all extraordinary emotions ; but they have 
 advanced their axiom as slightly as many others with which 
 their works abound. First, the soul takes pleasure in rest as 
 in commotion ; it is a harmony very gentle, and easily dis- 
 turbed by violent emotions ; and granting it to be in its own 
 nature a movement, I do not see that it ought to take pleas- 
 ure in those which threaten it with destruction. Lucretius 
 has come much nearer to the truth, when he says, tastes of 
 this sort arise from the sentiment of our own security, height- 
 ened by the sight of danger to which we are not exposed. 
 It is a pleasant thing, says he, to contemplate a storm from 
 the shore. From this reference to self, it is, that the common 
 people delight in relating, by the fire-side, during the winter 
 evenings, frightful stories of ghosts, of men losing themselves 
 by night in the woods, of highway robberies. From the 
 same sentiment, also, the better sort take pleasure in the rep- 
 resentations of tragedies, the descriptions of battles, of ship- 
 wrecks, and of the crash of empire. The security of the 
 snug tradesman is increased by the danger to which the sol- 
 dier, the mariner, the courtier, is exposed. Pleasure of this 
 kind arises from the sentiment of our misery. 
 
STUDY XII. S09 
 
 But there is a more sublime sentiment within us, which 
 derives pleasure from ruin independently of all picturesque 
 effect, and every idea of personal security ; it is that of Deity, 
 which ever blends itself with our melancholy affections, and 
 constitutes their principal charm. 
 
 The heart of man is so naturally disposed to benevolence, 
 that the spectacle of a ruin which brings to recollection only 
 the misery of our fellow-men, inspires us with horror, what- 
 ever may be the picturesque effect it presents. It is not so 
 with ruins effected by time. These give pleasure by launch- 
 ing us into infinity ; they carry us several ages back, and 
 interest us in proportion to their antiquity. Hence the reason 
 why the ruins of Italy affect us more than those of our own 
 country ; the ruins of Greece more than those of Italy ; and 
 the ruins of Egypt more than those of Greece. The ruins in 
 which Nature combats with human art inspire a gentle 
 melancholy. In these she discovers to us the vanity of 
 our labours, and the perpetuity of her own. A fine style of 
 architecture always produces beautiful ruins, the plans of art, 
 in this case, forming an alliance with the majesty of those of 
 Nature. The interest of ruin, however, is greatly heightened 
 when some moral sentiment is blended with it. 
 
 The Pleasure of Tombs. 
 
 No monuments are more interesting than the tombs of 
 men, especially those of our own ancestors. Every nation, 
 in a state of Nature, and even many of those which are civil- 
 ized, have made the tombs of their forefathers the centre of 
 their devotions, and an essential part of their religion, those 
 whose fathers rendered themselves odious to their children 
 by a gloomy and severe education excepted. The tombs of 
 progenitors are all over China among the principal embellish- 
 ments of the suburbs of their cities, and of the hills in the 
 country. They form the most powerful bonds of patriotic 
 affection among savage nations. When the Europeans have 
 sometimes proposed to these a change of territory, this was 
 their reply : ' Shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, 
 and accompany us to a foreign land?' They always con- 
 sidered this objection as insurmountable. 
 
 Tombs have furnished to the poetical talents of Young and 
 Gesner imagery the most enchanting. Our voluptuaries, J 
 who sometimes recur to the sentiments of Nature, have fac- 
 
310 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 titious monuments erected in their gardens. These are not, 
 it must be confessed, the tombs of their parents. But whence 
 could they have derived this sentiment of funereal melan- 
 choly, in the very midst of pleasure ? Must it not have been 
 from the persuasion that something still subsists after we are 
 gone 1 Did a tomb suggest to their imagination the idea of a 
 corpse merely, the sight of it would shock rather than please 
 them. How afraid are most of them at the thought of death ! 
 To this physical idea then some moral sentiment must un- 
 doubtedly be united. The voluptuous melancholy resulting 
 from it arises, like every other attractive sensation, from the 
 harmony of two opposite principles ; the sentiment of our 
 immortality ; which unite on beholding the last habitation 
 of mankind. A tomb is a monument erected on the confines 
 of the two worlds. 
 
 It first presents the end of the vain disquietudes of life, and 
 the image of everlasting repose : it afterwards awakens in the 
 confused sentiment of a blessed immortality, the probabilities 
 of which strengthen in proportion as the person whose memory 
 is recalled was a virtuous character. There our veneration 
 fixes. This is so unquestionably true, that though the dust 
 of Nero and of Socrates is the same, no one would grant a 
 place in his grove to the remains of the Roman emperor, were 
 they deposited even in a silver urn ; whereas, every one 
 would exhibit those of the philosopher in the most honourable 
 place of his best apartment, were they contained in a vase of 
 clay. 
 
 It is from this intellectual instinct in favour of virtue, that 
 the tombs of great men inspire us with a veneration so affect- 
 ing. From the same sentiment too, those which contain ob- 
 jects once lovely excite so much pleasing regret ; the attrac- 
 tions of love arising out of the appearances of virtue. Hence 
 we are moved at the sight of a little hillock which covers the 
 ashes of an amiable infant, from the recollection of -its inno- 
 cence ; and melted into tenderness on contemplating the 
 tomb of a young female, by her virtues the delight and hope 
 of her family. To render such monuments interesting, 
 bronzes, marbles, and gildings are unnecessary. The more 
 simple they are, the more energetic is the sentiment of melan- 
 choly. They produce a more powerful effect when poor than 
 rich, antique than modern, with details of misfortune than 
 titles of honour, with the attributes of virtue than those of 
 

 STUDY XII. 311 
 
 power. In the country principally their impression is most 
 felt. A simple unornamented grave there, causes more tears 
 to flow than the gaudy splendour of a cathedral interment. 
 There grief assumes sublimity, ascends with the aged yews 
 in the church-yard, extends with the surrounding hills and 
 plains, and allies itself with all the effects of Nature. 
 
 Oppressive labour and humiliation are incapable of extin- 
 guishing the impression of this sentiment in the breasts of 
 even the most miserable. ' For two years,' says Father du 
 Tertre, in his History of the Antilles, ' our negro Dominick, 
 after the death of his wife, never failed, when he returned 
 from his employment, to take the little boy and girl he had 
 by her to the grave of the deceased, over which he sobbed 
 and wept for more than half an hour together, while the. poor 
 children frequently caught the infection of his sorrow.' What 
 a funeral oration for a wife and a mother ! This man, how- 
 ever, was nothing but a wretched slave. 
 
 There results from the view of ruins another sentiment, 
 independent of all reflection, that of heroism. Great generals 
 have employed their sublime effect to exalt the courage of 
 their soldiers. Alexander persuaded his army, loaded with 
 the spoils of Persia, to burn their baggage ; and that instant 
 they were ready to follow him all over the world. William, 
 Duke of Normandy, on landing his troops in England, set 
 fire to his own ships, and the conquest of the kingdom was 
 effected. 
 
 No ruins excite sentiments so sublime as those of Nature. 
 They represent this vast prison of the earth subject itself to 
 destruction, and detach us at once from passion and prejudice, 
 as from a momentary theatrical exhibition. When Lisbon 
 was destroyed by an earthquake, its inhabitants on escaping 
 from their nouses embraced each other ; high and low, friends 
 and enemies, Jews and Inquisitors, known and unknown, 
 each shared his clothing and provisions with those who had 
 none. I have seen something similar to this on board a ship 
 on the point of perishing in a storm. The first effect of ca- 
 lamity, says a celebrated writer, is to strengthen the soul, the 
 second to melt it down ; because the first emotion in man, 
 under the pressure of calamity, is to rise up toward the 
 DEITY; the second, to fall back into physical wants. This 
 last effect is that of reflection, but the moral and sublime 
 

 312 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 sentiment almost always takes possession of the heart at sight 
 of a magnificent destruction. 
 
 Ruins of Nature. 
 
 When predictions of the approaching dissolution of the 
 world spread over Europe some ages ago, many persons 
 divested themselves of their property ; and the same thing 
 would perhaps happen at this day should similar opinions be 
 propagated with effect. But such sudden and total ruins are 
 not to be apprehended in the infinitely sage plans of Nature ; 
 under them nothing is destroyed but what is by them repaired. 
 
 The apparent ruins of the globe, as the rocks which 
 roughen its surface, have their utility. These appear as 
 ruins in our eyes, because they are neither square nor polish- 
 ed, like the stones of our monuments ; but their anfractuosi- 
 ties are necessary to the vegetables and animals destined to 
 find in them nourishment and shelter. Only for beings vege- 
 tative and sensitive has Nature created the fossil kingdom ; 
 and when man raises useless masses out of it to these objects 
 on the surface of the earth, she applies her chisel, to employ 
 them in the general harmony. 
 
 If we attend to the origin and end of our works, those of 
 the most renowned nations will appear frivolous. It is un- 
 necessary that potentates should rear enormous masses of 
 stone to inspire me with respect from their antiquity. A little 
 flinty pebble of the brook is more ancient than the pyramids 
 of Egypt. If I feel disposed to blend some moral sentiment 
 with the monuments of Nature, I can say to myself on seeing 
 a rock, * Here, perhaps, the good Fenelon reposed while 
 meditating the plan of his divine Telemachus.' Thus I em- 
 brace at once the past and future at sight of an insensible 
 rock, and which, in consecrating it to virtue, by a simple 
 inscription, I render infinitely more venerable than by deco- 
 rating it with the five orders of architecture. 
 
 Of the Pleasure of Solitude. 
 
 Melancholy renders solitude attractive. Solitude flatters 
 our animal instinct by inviting us to a retreat so much more 
 tranquil as the agitations of our life have been more restless ; 
 and it extends our divine instinct, by opening perspectives of 
 natural and moral beauties with all the attraction of senti- 
 ment From the effect of these contrasts, and this double 
 
STUDY XII. 313 
 
 harmony, no solitude is more soothing than that adjoining to 
 a great city, and no popular festivity more agreeable than 
 when enjoyed in the bosom of a solitude. 
 
 OP THE SENTIMENT OF LOVE. 
 
 If love were only a physical sensation, I would leave two 
 lovers to reason and act conformably to the physical laws of 
 the body, were my object to disgust the grossest libertine. 
 Its principal act is accompanied with the sentiment of shame 
 in the men of all countries. No nation permits public 
 prostitution ; and though enlightened navigators may have 
 advanced that the inhabitants of Otaheite conformed to 
 this infamous practice, observers more attentive have since 
 adduced proof that, as to the island in question, it was 
 chargeable only to young women in the lowest rank of 
 society, but that the other classes there preserved the modesty 
 common to all mankind. 
 
 Independently of the particular causes of shame, which 
 are unknown to me, I think I discern one in the two powers 
 which constitute man. The sense of love being, if I may so 
 express myself, the centre to which all the physical sensa- 
 tions converge, there results a powerful opposition to that 
 other intellectual power from which are derived the senti- 
 ments of divinity and immortality. Their contrast is the 
 more collisive, that the act of the first is in itself animal and 
 blind, and the moral sentiment which usually accompanies 
 love more expansive and sublime. The lover, accordingly, 
 to render his mistress propitious, never fails to make this take 
 the lead, and employs every effort to amalgamate it with the 
 other sensation. Thus shame arises from the combat of 
 these two powers. Children naturally have it not, because 
 love is not yet unfolded in them ; young persons have a 
 great deal of it, because those two powers are acting in them 
 with all their energy ; and most old people have none at all, 
 because they are past the sense of love, from a decay of 
 nature, or have lost its moral sentiment, from the corruption 
 of society ; or, which is a common case, from the effect of 
 both together, by the concurrence of these two causes. 
 
 As Nature has assigned to the province of this passion, 
 
 designed to be the means of reperpetuating human life, all 
 
 the animal sensations, she has likewise united in it all the 
 
 sentiments of the soul : so that love presents to two lovers 
 
 2P 27 
 
314 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 not only the sentiments of our wants and the instinct of our 
 misery, as those of protection, assistance, confidence, support, 
 repose, but all the sublime instincts besides which elevate 
 man above humanity. In this sense Plato defined love to be 
 an interposition of the gods in behalf of young people. 
 
 Whoever would wish to be acquainted with human nature 
 has only to study that of love ; he would perceive springing 
 out of it all the sentiments I have spoken of, and many others 
 I have neither time nor talents to unfold. We shall remark, 
 that this natural affection discloses its principal character by 
 giving it all the advantage of a complete extension. It is in 
 the season when each plant reperpetuates itself by its flowers 
 and fruit, that it acquires all its perfection and the characters 
 which invariably determine it. It is in the season of love 
 that the birds of song redouble their melody, and that those 
 which excel in beauty of colour array themselves in their 
 finest plumage, the various shades of which they delight to 
 display. It is then the lusty bull presents his forehead, and 
 threatens with the horn ; the nimble courser frisks along the 
 plain ; the ferocious animals fill the forests with their roaring; 
 and the tigress, exhaling the odour of carnage, makes the 
 solitudes of Africa resound with her hideous yells. 
 
 It is likewise in the season of loving that all the affections 
 natural to the heart of man unfold themselves. Then inno- 
 cence, candour, sincerity, modesty, generosity, heroism, holy 
 faith, are expressed with grace ineffable in the attitude and 
 features of two young lovers. Love assumes in their souls 
 all the characters of religion and virtue. They quit the 
 tumultuous assemblies of the city and the corruptive paths 
 of ambition, to seek some sequestered spot, where they may 
 be at liberty to mingle and exchange the tender vows of 
 everlasting affection. Lost at times in a religious intoxication, 
 they consider each other as beings of a superior order. In 
 the widely extended universe they behold no other felicity 
 but that of living and dying together, or rather they have 
 lost all sight of death. Love transports them into ages of 
 infinite duration, and death seems to them only the transition 
 to eternal union. 
 
 But should cruel destiny separate them, neither prospects 
 of fortune nor friendship can afford consolation under the loss. 
 They had reached heaven, they languish on earth ; they are 
 hurried in despair into a cloister, to employ the remaining 
 
STUDY XH. 315 
 
 dregs of life in redemanding of GOD the felicity of which 
 they enjoyed but one transient glimpse. Nay, long after 
 their separation, when age has frozen up the current of sense, 
 after having been distracted by numberless anxieties foreign 
 to the heart, the bosom still palpitates at sight of the tomb 
 which contains the object once so tenderly beloved. They 
 had parted with it in the world, they hope to see it again in 
 heaven. Unfortunate Heloisa ! what sublime emotions were 
 kindled in thy soul by the ashes of thy Abelard ! Such 
 celestial emotions cannot possibly be the effect of a mere 
 animal act. Love is not a slight convulsion, as Marcus 
 Aurelius calls it. To the charms of virtue and the sentiment 
 of her divine attributes love is indebted for all that enthusi- 
 astic energy. Vice itself, in order to please, must borrow its 
 looks and language. 
 
 All the forms of organized beings express intellectual 
 sentiments, not only to the eyes of man, who studies Nature, 
 but to those of animals, instructed at once by their instinct. 
 An animal expresses in its features some ruling passion, as 
 cruelty, sensuality, cunning, stupidity. But man alone, 
 unless debased by the vices of society, bears upon his coun- 
 tenance the impress of a celestial origin. Every trait of 
 beauty may be referred to some virtue; as to innocence, 
 candour, generosity, modesty, and heroism. It is to their 
 influence man is indebted for the respect and confidence of 
 the brute creation, unless they have been forced out of Nature 
 by unrelenting persecution on the part of man. 
 
 However charming the harmony of the colours and forms 
 of the human figure, there is no visible reason why its physi- 
 cal effect should exert an influence over animals, unless the 
 impress of some moral power were combined with it. Plump- 
 ness of form, or freshness of colouring, ought rather to excite 
 the appetite of ferocious animals than their respect or love. 
 Finally, if we distinguish their impassioned character, they 
 also can distinguish ours, and form a very accurate judgment 
 as to our being cruel or pacific. The game birds, which fly 
 the sanguinary fowler, gather confidently around the harm- 
 less shepherd. 
 
 Beauty is said to be arbitrary ; but this opinion has been 
 already refuted by an appeal to matter of fact. The mutila- 
 tions of the negroes are the effects of superstition or of a 
 faulty education. Ferocious animals themselves are struck 
 
316 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 at sight of these deformities. All travellers agree that when 
 lions or tigers are famished, which rarely happens, and 
 thereby compelled to attack caravans in the night, they fall 
 first upon the beasts of burden, and next upon the Indians 
 or the black people. The European figure, with its sim- 
 plicity, has a much more imposing effect than when dis- 
 figured by African or Asiatic characters. 
 
 When not degraded by the vices of society, the expression 
 of the human face is sublime. A Neapolitan, J. B. Porta, 
 tried to trace in it relations to the figures of beasts, and com- 
 posed a book embellished with engravings representing the 
 human head under the forced resemblance of various animals. 
 His system favours certain modern opinions, and is allied to 
 the hideous changes which the passions produce in the human 
 form. There is not, however, a single beautiful touch in a 
 figure but what may be allied to some moral sentiment rela- 
 tive to virtue and to Deity. Ugliness might be also referred 
 to some vicious affection, as jealousy, avarice, gluttony, or 
 rage. Our philosophers are wide of the mark when they 
 attempt to make the passions the only moving principles of 
 human life : could they be presented with the expression of 
 all the passions collected in one single head, it would appear 
 more horrid than that of Medusa ; it would be a likeness of 
 Nero. 
 
 Every passion has an animal character, as J. B. Porta ex- 
 cellently observed. But every virtue too has its animal char- 
 acter ; and never is a physiognomy more interesting than 
 when you distinguish in it a celestial affection conflicting 
 with an animal passion. Nay, I do not know whether it be 
 possible to express a virtue otherwise than by a triumph of 
 this kind. Hence modesty appears so lovely on the face of 
 a young female, because it is the conflict of the most power- 
 ful of animal passions with a sublime sentiment. The ex- 
 pression of sensibility likewise renders a face extremely 
 interesting, because the soul then shows it is suffering, and 
 this sight excites a virtue in ourselves, namely, the sentiment 
 of compassion. If the sensibility of the figure in question 
 is active, that is, if it contemplates the misery of another, it 
 strikes us still more, as it then becomes the divine expression 
 of generosity. 
 
 The most celebrated statues and pictures of antiquity owe 
 much of their high reputation to the expression of the har- 
 
STUDY XII. 317 
 
 mony of the two opposite sentiments of passion and virtue. 
 For example, an affecting piece from the pencil of Aristides 
 of Thebes represented Biblis languishing to death of the love 
 she bare to her own brother. In it there must have been dis- 
 tinctly represented the sentiment of virtue repelling a crimi- 
 nal passion, and that of fraternal friendship recalling the 
 heart to love under the very appearances of virtue. These 
 cruel consonances ; despair at the thought of being betrayed 
 by her own heart, the desire of dying to conceal her shame, 
 that of life to enjoy the sight of the beloved object, health 
 wasting away under the pressure of conflicts so painful, must 
 have expressed, amidst the languors of death and life, con- 
 trasts the most interesting on the countenance of that ill- 
 fated maid. 
 
 In another picture of the same Aristides was represented 
 to admiration a mother, wounded in the breast during the 
 siege of a city, giving suck to her infant. She seemed afraid, 
 says Pliny, lest it should draw in her blood with her milk. 
 Alexander prized it so highly, that he had it conveyed to 
 Pella, the place of his birth. What emotions must have 
 been excited, in contemplating a triumph so exalted as that 
 of maternal affection absorbing all sense of personal suffering ! 
 
 The most powerful effects of love arise out of contradictory 
 feelings melting into each other, just as those of hatred are 
 frequently produced from similar sentiments which happen 
 to clash. Hence no feeling can be more agreeable than to 
 find a friend in a man we considered as an enemy ; and no 
 mortification so poignant as meeting an enemy in the man 
 whom we depended upon as a friend. These harmonic 
 effects often render a slight and transient kindness more es- 
 timable than a continued series of good offices, and a momen- 
 tary offence more outrageous than the declared enmity of a 
 whole lifetime ; because in the first case feelings diametrically 
 opposite graciously unite ; and in the second, congenial feel- 
 ings violently clash. Hence too a single blemish in a man 
 of worth frequently appears more offensive than all the vices 
 of a libertine who displays only a solitary virtue, because from 
 the effect of contrast these two qualities become more promi- 
 nent, and eclipse the others in the two opposite characters. 
 It proceeds likewise from the weakness of the human mind, 
 which attaching itself always to a single point of the object 
 which it contemplates, fixes on the most prominent quality 
 
 27* 
 
318 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 in framing its decisions ; hence we are every day falling into 
 innumerable errors for want of studying these elementary 
 principles of Nature. 
 
 I could multiply without end proofs of the two powers by 
 which we are governed. Enough has been said on the sub- 
 ject of a passion the instinct of which is so blind, to evince 
 that we are attracted to it, and actuated by it, from laws 
 widely different from those of digestion. Our affections de- 
 monstrate the immortality of the soul, because they expand 
 in all the circumstances in which they feel the attributes of 
 Deity, such as that of infinity, and never dwell with delight 
 on the earth, except on the attractions of virtue and inno- 
 cence. 
 
 OF SOME OTHER SENTIMENTS OF DEITY, AND AMONG OTHERS, 
 OF THAT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 There are besides these many sentimental laws, not in my 
 power at present to unfold, as those which suggest presenti- 
 ments, omens, dreams, the reference of events fortunate and 
 unfortunate to the same epochs, and the like. Their effects 
 are attested among all nations, by every man who attends to 
 the laws of Nature. These communications of the soul with 
 an order of things invisible are rejected by the learned of 
 modern times ; but how many things exist, not reducible to 
 the plans of our reason, or even perceived by it ! 
 
 There are particular laws which demonstrate the imme- 
 diate action of Providence on the human race, although oppo- 
 site to the general laws of physics. For example, the prin- 
 ciples of reason, passion, and sentiment, the organs of speech 
 and hearing, are the same in men of all countries, yet the 
 language of nations differs all the world over. How is speech 
 so various among beings who have all the same wants, chang- 
 ing from father to son in such a degree, that we modern French 
 no longer understand the language of the Gauls, and that 
 the day is coming when our posterity will be unable to com- 
 prehend ours ? The ox of Bengal bellows like that of the 
 Ukraine, and the nightingale pours out the same melodious 
 strains to this day in our climates as those which charmed 
 the ear of the Bard of Mantua by the banks of the Po. 
 
 It is impossible to maintain, though alleged by certain 
 writers, that certain languages are characterized by climates ; 
 were they subjected to influence of this kind, they would not 
 
STUDY XII. 319 
 
 vary where the climate is invariable. The language of the 
 Romans was at first barbarous, afterwards majestic, and is 
 become at last soft and. effeminate. They are not rough 
 to the north, and soft to the south, as J. J. Rousseau pre- 
 tends, who in treating this point has given far too great exten- 
 sion to physical laws. The language of the Russians is soft, 
 being a dialect of the Greek ; and the jargon of the southern 
 provinces of France is harsh arid coarse. The Laplanders 
 speak a language grateful to the ear, and the Hottentots cluck 
 like India cocks. The language of the Indians of Peru is 
 loaded with strong aspirations and consonants of difficult 
 pronunciation. Any one, without going out of his closet, may 
 satisfy himself that the harshness or softness of a language 
 has no relation whatever to latitude. 
 
 Other observers have asserted that the languages of nations 
 have been determined and fixed by their great writers. Those 
 of the age of Louis XIV. however, already begin to be anti- 
 quated among ourselves. If posterity fixes the character of 
 a language to the age which has been productive of great 
 writers, it is because the writings of those great men sparkle 
 with maxims of virtue, and present a thousand perspectives 
 of the Deity. The sublime sentiments which inspired them, 
 illuminate them still in the order and disposition of their 
 works, seeing they are the sources of all harmony. From 
 this results the unalterable charm which renders the perusal 
 of them so delicious at all times, and to men of all nations. 
 The moral goodness of a period characterizes a language, and 
 transmits it unaltered to the generation following; but these 
 reasons do not explain the diversity of language which sub- 
 sists between nations. It must ever appear to me altogether 
 supernatural that men who enjoy the same elements, and are 
 subjected to the same wants, should not employ the same 
 words in expressing them. One sun illuminates the whole 
 earth, and he bears a different name in every different land. 
 
 I beg leave to suggest a farther effect of a law but little 
 attended to ; that there never arises any one man eminently 
 distinguished, in whatever line, but there appears at the same 
 time, either in his own country or some neighbouring nation, 
 an antagonist possessing talents and a reputation in complete 
 opposition. This balancing of illustrious characters will not 
 appear extraordinary, as it is a consequence of the general 
 law of contraries which governs the world, and from which 
 
320 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 all the harmonies of Nature result ; it must therefore particu- 
 larly manifest itself in the human race, the centre of the 
 whole, and actually discovers itself, in the wonderful equi- 
 librium of the two sexes, born in equal numbers. It does 
 not fix on individuals in particular, for we see families con- 
 sisting wholly of daughters, others all sons ; but whatever 
 inequality of sex there may exist in the variety of births in 
 families, the equality is constantly restored in the aggregate 
 of the people. 
 
 There is another equilibrium no less wonderful. As many 
 men perish in war, in sea-voyages, and by painful and dan- 
 gerous employments, it would follow that the number of 
 women would daily increase in proportion. Supposing there 
 perishes annually one-tenth part more of men than women, 
 the balancing of the sexes must become still more unequal. 
 Social ruin must increase from the very regularity of natural 
 order. This however does not take place ; the two sexes are 
 always very nearly equally numerous : their occupations are 
 different, but their destiny the same. The women, who fre- 
 quently impel men to engage in hazardous enterprises to 
 support their luxury, or who foment animosities and even 
 kindle wars among them to gratify their vanity, are carried 
 off in the security of pleasure and indulgence, by maladies 
 to which men are not subject, but which frequently result 
 from the moral, physical, and political pains which men un- 
 dergo in consequence of them. Thus the equilibrium of 
 birth between the sexes is re-established by the equilibrium 
 of death. 
 
 Nature has multiplied those harmonic contrasts in all her 
 works relatively to man ; for the fruits which minister to our 
 necessities frequently possess in themselves opposite qualities, 
 which serve as a mutual compensation. 
 
 These effects are not the mechanical results of climate, to 
 the qualities of which they are frequently in opposition. All 
 the works of Nature have the wants of man for their end, 
 as all the sentiments of man have Deity for their principle. 
 The final intentions of Nature have given to man the know- 
 ledge of all her works, as it is the instinct of Deity which 
 has rendered man superior to the laws of Nature. This in- 
 stinct, differently modified by the passions, engages the Rus- 
 sians to bathe in the ices of the Neva during the winter, and 
 the nations of Bengal in the waters of the Ganges ; which, 
 
STUDY XII. 321 
 
 under the same latitudes, has rendered women slaves in the 
 Philippine Islands, and despots in the island of Formosa ; 
 which makes men effeminate in the Moluccas, and intrepid 
 in Macassar ; and which forms, in the inhabitants of one and 
 the same city, tyrants, citizens, and slaves. 
 
 The sentiment of Deity is the first mover of the human 
 heart. Examine a man in those unforeseen moments, when 
 the secret plans of attack and defence with which social man 
 continually encloses himself are suppressed, not on the sight 
 of a vast ruin, which totally subverts them, but simply on 
 seeing an extraordinary plant or animal : 'Ah, my God !' 
 exclaims he, ' how wonderful this is !' and he invites the first 
 person who happens to pass by to partake of his astonishment. 
 His first emotion is a transport of delight which raises him to 
 GOD ; the second a benevolent disposition to communicate 
 his discovery to men ; but the social reason quickly recalls 
 him to personal interest. When spectators are assembled 
 round the object of his curiosity, c It was I,' says he, * who 
 observed it first ;' and, if he be a scholar, he fails not to apply 
 his system to it. By and by he begins to calculate how much 
 this discovery will bring him in, and employs the whole 
 credit of his junto to puff it off, and to persecute whoever 
 presumes to differ from him in opinion. Thus every natural 
 sentiment elevates us to GOD, till the weight of our passions 
 and of human institutions brings us back again to self. J. J. 
 Rousseau was accordingly right when he said that man was 
 good, but men were wicked. 
 
 The instinct of Deity first assembled men together, and 
 became the basis of their religion and laws. On this Virtue 
 found support, in proposing the imitation of the Divinity, not 
 only by the exercise of the arts and sciences, but in the result 
 of the divine power and intelligence, beneficence. It gave to 
 man the sentiment of his own excellence, inspired him with 
 the contempt of terrestrial and transient enjoyments, and a 
 desire after things celestial and immortal. This sublime 
 attraction exalted courage to the rank of a virtue, and made 
 man advance intrepidly to meet death amidst so many anxie- 
 ties to preserve life. 
 
 The instinct of Deity constitutes the charm of the perform- 
 ances we peruse with most delight. Writers to whom we 
 always return with pleasure are not those who abound most 
 in the social reason which endures but for a moment, but 
 2Q 
 
322 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 those who render the action of Providence continually present 
 to us. Hence Homer, Virgil, Xenophon, Plutarch, Fenelon, 
 and most of the ancient writers, are immortal, and please all 
 nations. Books of travels, though written artlessly, and de- 
 cried by multitudes, who discern in them an indirect censure 
 of their own conduct, are, nevertheless, the most interesting 
 part of modern reading ; not only by disclosing new benefits 
 of Nature, as the fruits and animals of foreign countries, but 
 because of the dangers their authors have escaped, frequently 
 beyond all reasonable expectation. Finally, it is because 
 we love still more to hear the fictions of Deity blended with 
 the history of men, than to reason of men in the history of 
 Deity. 
 
 This sublime sentiment inspires man with a taste for the 
 marvellous ; it balances in him the sentiment of his misery, 
 which attaches him to the pleasures of habit, and exalts his 
 soul by the desire of novelty. It is the harmony of human 
 life, and the source of every thing delicious and enchanting 
 in the progress of it. With this the illusions of love ever veil 
 themselves, always representing the beloved object as some- 
 thing divine ; and to ambition it opens perspectives without 
 end. A peasant appears desirous only of becoming the 
 churchwarden of his village. Be not deceived in the man ! 
 open a career to him without impediment he is groom, be- 
 comes highwayman, captain of the gang, a commander-in- 
 chief of armies, a king, and never rests till he is worshipped 
 as a god. 
 
 With the sentiment of Deity, every thing is great, noble, 
 beautiful, invincible, in the most contracted sphere of human 
 life ; without it, all is feeble, displeasing, and bitter, in the 
 very lap of greatness. This conferred empire on Rome and 
 Sparta, by showing to their poor and virtuous inhabitants the 
 gods as their protectors and fellow-citizens ; by the destruction 
 of it they were given, when rich and vicious, to slavery. To 
 no purpose does a man surround himself by the gifts of for- 
 tune ; when this sentiment is excluded from his heart, languor 
 takes possession of it. If its absence is prolonged, he sinks 
 into sadness, into profound and settled melancholy, and 
 finally into despair. If this state of anxiety becomes perma- 
 nent, he lays violent hands on himself. Man is the only 
 sensible being which destroys itself in a state of liberty. 
 Human life, with all its pomp and delights, loses even the 
 

 STUDY XII. 323 
 
 semblance of life when it ceases to appear immortal and 
 divine. 
 
 Whatever be the disorders of society, this celestial instinct 
 is ever amusing itself with the children of men. It inspires 
 the man of genius, by disclosing itself to him under eternal 
 attributes. It presents to the geometrician the ineffable pro- 
 gressions of infinity; to the musician rapturous harmonies ; 
 to the historian, the immortal shades of virtuous men. It 
 sheds a lustre on the unfortunate days of the labouring poor. 
 Amidst the luxury of Paris, it extracts a sigh from the 
 humble native of Savoy for the sacred covering of the snows 
 upon his mountains. It expatiates along the ocean, and 
 recalls from the gentle climates of India the European mari- 
 ner to the stormy shores of the west. It bestows a country 
 on the wretched, and fills with regret those who have lost 
 nothing. It covers our cradles with the charms of innocence, 
 and the tombs of our forefathers with the hopes of immor- 
 tality. It reposes in the midst of tumultuous cities, on the 
 palaces of mighty kings, and on the august temples of reli- 
 gion. It frequently fixes its residence in the desert, and 
 attracts the attention of the universe to a rock. Thus are 
 you clothed with majesty, venerable ruins of Greece and 
 Rome ! and you too, mysterious pyramids of Egypt ! This 
 is the object we are invariably pursuing ; but the moment it 
 discovers itself in some unexpected act of virtue, or in one 
 of those indescribably sublime emotions, called sentimental 
 touches by way of excellence, it first kindles in the breast an 
 ardent movement of joy, and then melts us into tears. The 
 soul, struck with this divine light, enjoys a glimpse of the 
 heavenly country, and sinks at the thought of being exiled 
 from it. 
 
 With wandering eyes explor'd the heavenly light, 
 Then sigh'd, and sunk into the shades of night. 
 
324 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 STUDY THIRTEENTH. 
 
 APPLICATION OP THE LAWS OF NATURE TO THE DISORDERS 
 OF SOCIETY. 
 
 I HAVE exposed in this work the errors of human opinion, 
 and the mischief resulting from them, as affecting morals and 
 social felicity. But this would, in my own opinion, prove 
 vain and unprofitable, unless I employed it in attempting to 
 discover some remedies for the disorders of society. 
 
 Men who can turn the distresses of their country to their 
 own private emolument, will reproach me with being its 
 enemy, in the hackneyed observation, that things have always 
 been so, and that all goes on very well, because all goes on 
 well for them. Persons who discover and unveil the evils 
 under which she labours are not her enemies ; those who 
 flatter her are most to be feared. 
 
 God forbid that I should attempt to disturb, much less 
 destroy, the orders of the state. I would only wish to bring 
 them back to the spirit of their natural institution. Would 
 to God that the clergy would endeavour to merit by their 
 virtues the distinction attached to the sacredness of their 
 functions ; that the nobility would protect the citizens, and 
 be formidable only to the enemies of the people ; that finan- 
 ciers, directing public treasure into the channels of agricul- 
 ture and commerce, would open to merit the road which leads 
 to useful and honourable employment ; that woman, ex- 
 empted by her feebleness from most of the burdens of society, 
 would fulfil the duties of her gentle destination, those of wife 
 and mother, thus cementing the felicity of one family ; that, 
 invested with grace and beauty, she would consider herself 
 as a flower in that wreath of delight by which Nature has 
 attached man to life ; and while she proved a joy and a 
 crown to her husband in particular, the complete chain of 
 her sex might indissolubly compact all the other bonds of 
 national felicity ! 
 
 The joy of the people involuntarily inspires me with joy, 
 and their misery wrings my heart. I do not reckon my ob- 
 ligation to them acquitted when I have paid a pecuniary 
 consideration for their services. It is a maxim of the hard- 
 
STUDY XIII. 325 
 
 hearted rich man, That artisan and I are quit ; I have paid 
 him.' The money which I give to a poor fellow for a ser- 
 vice he has rendered me, creates nothing new for his use ; 
 that money would equally circulate, and perhaps more advan- 
 tageously for him, had I never existed. If I deprive a poor 
 workman of part of his subsistence, I force him, in order to 
 make up the deficiency, to become a beggar or a thief ; if I 
 seduce a plebeian young woman, I rob that order of a vir- 
 tuous matron ; if I manifest in their eyes a disregard to reli- 
 gion, I enfeeble the hope which sustains them under the 
 pressure of their labours. Besides, religion lays me under 
 an express injunction to love them. I am bound, therefore, 
 to contribute my warmest wishes at least toward their feli- 
 city. I am able to demonstrate that their moral goodness is 
 the firmest support of government, and that, notwithstanding 
 their own necessities, to them our soldiery are indebted for 
 the supplement to their miserable pittance of pay, and that 
 to them the innumerable poor with whom the kingdom 
 swarms owe a subsistence wrung from penury itself. 
 
 SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX ESTO, said the ancients: let 
 the safety of the people be the paramount law, because their 
 misery is the general misery. This axiom ought to be so 
 much the more sacred in the eyes of legislators and reform- 
 ers, that no law can be of long duration, and no plan of reform 
 reduced into effect, unless the happiness of the people is pre- 
 viously secured. Out of their miseries abuses spring, are 
 kept up, and renewed. It is from want of having reared the 
 fabric on this sure foundation, that so many illustrious re- 
 formers have seen their political edifice crumble into ruins. 
 If so many efforts towards reform, on the subject of the clergy 
 and army, of finance, courts of justice, commerce, and con- 
 cubinage, have failed, it is because the misery of the people 
 reproduces the same abuses. 
 
 I have never seen a more flourishing country than Holland. 
 The capital contains at least 180,000 inhabitants. An im- 
 mense commerce presents a thousand objects of tempta- 
 tion, yet no robbery is committed; they do not even employ 
 soldiers for mounting guard. I was there in 1762, and for 
 eleven years previous to that period no person had been pun- 
 ished capitally. The laws however are very severe, but the 
 people, who possess the means of easily earning a livelihood, 
 are under no temptation to infringe them. Though they 
 
 28 
 
326 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 have gained millions by printing all our extravagances in 
 morals, politics, and religion, neither their opinions nor con- 
 duct have heen affected by it, because the people are con- 
 tented with their condition. Crimes spring up only from the 
 extremes of indigence and opulence. 
 
 When at Moscow, I was informed, that since they had 
 opened to the people various channels of subsistence, sedi- 
 tions, assassinations, robberies, and wilful fires had become 
 less frequent than they used to be. The police at Paris 
 prevents very alarming irregularities; but the tranquillity 
 of the common people is to be accounted for from their 
 finding there readier means of subsistence than in other 
 cities of the kingdom. 
 
 The first step towards relieving the indigence of the com- 
 monalty is to diminish the excessive opulence of the rich. 
 It is not by them that the people live, as modern politicians 
 pretend. To no purpose do they institute calculations of the 
 riches of a state, the mass is undoubtedly limited ; and if it 
 is confined to a small number of citizens, it is no longer in 
 the service of the multitude. Wealthy men infer it to be 
 more advantageous for the kingdom that a revenue of a 
 hundred thousand crowns should be in the possession of a 
 single person than portioned out among a hundred families, 
 because, say they, the proprietors of large capitals engage in 
 great enterprises. Here they fall into a pernicious error. 
 The financier who possesses them only maintains a few 
 footmen more, and extends the rest of his superfluity to 
 objects of luxury and corruption : moreover, every one being 
 at liberty to enjoy in his own way, should he be a miser this 
 money is altogether lost to society, while a hundred families 
 of respectable citizens could live comfortably on the same 
 revenue, rear a numerous progeny, and furnish the means 
 of living to many other families of the commonalty, by arts 
 that are really useful, and favourable to good morals. 
 
 Unbounded opulence should therefore be checked, and an 
 end put to the venality of employments, which confers them 
 all on that portion of society which needs them least: a 
 plurality of offices held by one person should also be done 
 away. This abolition would destroy that moneyed aristocracy, 
 which, by interposing an insurmountable barrier between the 
 prince and his subjects, becomes in process of time the most 
 dangerous of all governments. The dignity of employments 
 
STUDY XIII. 327 
 
 would thus be greatly enhanced, and rise in estimation when 
 considered solely as the reward of merit ; that respect for 
 gold, which has corrupted every moral principle, would be 
 diminished ; that which is due to virtue would be heightened, 
 and the career of public honour laid open to all the orders of 
 the state. 
 
 Our princes have been taught to believe that it was safer 
 to trust to the purses than to the probity of their subjects. 
 Hence the origin of venality in the civil state : but this 
 sophism disappears when we reflect that it subsists not in 
 either the ecclesiastical or military order ; these great bodies 
 being, as to the individuals which compose them, the best 
 ordered of any in the state. 
 
 The court employs frequent change of fashions, to enable 
 the poor to live on the superfluity of the rich. This palliative 
 is so far good, though subject to dangerous abuse : it ought 
 to be fully converted to the profit of the poor, by prohibiting 
 every article of foreign luxury in France ; every piece of 
 calico we import from Bengal prevents an inhabitant of our 
 own islands from furnishing the raw material, and a family 
 in France from spinning and weaving it into cloth. Another 
 political and moral obligation ought to be enforced, that of 
 giving back to the female sex the occupations which properly 
 belong to them, as midwifery, millinery, linen-drapery, trim- 
 ming, and the like, which require only taste and address, 
 in order to rescue great numbers of them from idleness and 
 prostitution, in which so many seek the means of supporting 
 a miserable existence. 
 
 A vast channel of subsistence to the people might be open- 
 ed by suppressing the exclusive privileges of commercial and 
 manufacturing companies. These companies, we are told, 
 provide a livelihood for a whole country. Their establish- 
 ments, I admit, on the first glance, present an imposing ap- 
 pearance, especially in rural situations. They display great 
 avenues of trees, vast edifices, courts within courts, palaces; 
 but while the undertakers are riding in their coaches, the rest 
 of the village are walking in wooden shoes. I never beheld 
 a peasantry more wretched than in villages where privileged 
 manufactures are established. Such exclusive privileges con- 
 tribute more than is generally imagined to check the industry 
 of a country. The villages of the Pais de Caux are in a very 
 flourishing state, and the peasantry are rich, because there 
 
328 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 are no exclusive privileges in that part of the country. The 
 privileged undertaker having no competitor in a country, set- 
 tles the workman's wages at his own pleasure. They have a 
 thousand devices besides to reduce the price of labour as low 
 as they can go. They give them, for example, a trifle of 
 money in advance, and having thereby inveigled them into 
 a state of insolvency, have them thenceforward at their mer- 
 cy. I know a considerable branch of the salt-water fishery 
 almost totally destroyed, in one of our seaports, by means of 
 this underhand species of monopoly. The tradesmen of that 
 town at first bought the fish of the fishermen to cure it for 
 sale. They then built vessels proper for the trade, and ad- 
 vanced money to the fishermen's wives, during the absence 
 of their husbands. These were obliged, on their return, to 
 become hired servants to the merchant, to discharge the debt. 
 He having thus become master of the boats, fishermen, and 
 commodity, regulated the trade as he pleased. Most of the 
 fishermen, disheartened by the smallness of their profits, 
 quitted the employment ; and the fishery, formerly a mine of 
 wealth to the place, is now dwindled to almost nothing. 
 
 On the other hand, if I object to a monopoly which would 
 engross the means of subsistence bestowed by Nature on every 
 order of society, and on both sexes, much less would I con- 
 sent to a monopoly that should grasp at those which she has 
 assigned to every man in particular. For example, the au- 
 thor of a book, a machine, or any invention, whether useful 
 or agreeable, ought to be at least as well secured in a per- 
 petual right over those who sell his book, or avail themselves 
 of his invention, as a feudal lord is to exact the right of fines 
 of alienation, from persons who build on his grounds, and even 
 from those who resell the property of such houses. If the 
 public suddenly lays hold of a useful invention, the state 
 becomes bound to indemnify the author of it, to prevent the 
 glory of his discovery from proving a pecuniary detriment to 
 him. Did a law so equitable exist, we should not see a score 
 of booksellers wallowing in affluence at the expense of an 
 author who did not know, sometimes, where to find a dinner. 
 
 Immense landed property is still more injurious than money 
 or employments, because it deprives other citizens, at once, 
 of social and natural patriotism. It comes also in process of 
 time into the possession of those who have employments and 
 money ; it reduces all the subjects of the state to dependence 
 
STUDY XIII. 309 
 
 upon them, and leaves no resource for subsistence but the 
 cruel alternative of degrading themselves by a base flattery 
 of the passions of the great, or of going into exile. These 
 three causes combined, the last especially, precipitated the ruin 
 of the Roman empire, from the reign of the emperor Trajan. 
 
 Modern politics have advanced another very gross error, in 
 alleging that riches always find their level in a state. When 
 the indigent are once multiplied in it to a certain point, a 
 wretched emulation is produced, who shall give himself away 
 the cheapest. Whilst the rich man, teazed by his famished 
 compatriots for employment, overrates the value of his money, 
 the poor, to obtain a preference, let down the price of their 
 labour, till at length it becomes inadequate to their subsist- 
 ence. Hence, in the best countries, agriculture, manufac- 
 tures, and commerce, expire. Consult Brydone's Tour to 
 Italy, respecting the luxury and extreme opulence of the 
 Sicilian nobility and clergy, and the abject misery of the 
 peasantry ; and you will perceive whether money has found 
 its level in that island or not. 
 
 In Nature it is that we are to look for the subsistence of a 
 people, and in their liberty the channel in which it is to flow. 
 The spirit of monopoly has destroyed many of the branches 
 of it among us, which are pouring in tides of wealth upon our 
 neighbours ; the Dutch, for instance, to whom the herring 
 fishery has been a mine of wealth, and who hold out propor- 
 tional encouragement to the citizens engaged in it. They 
 erected a statue to the man who first discovered the method 
 of smoking them, and of making what they call red-herring. 
 They thought, and justly, that the citizen who procures for 
 his country a new source of subsistence, a new branch of 
 commerce, deserves to rank with those who enlighten or de- 
 fend it. From such attention? as these, we see with what 
 vigilance they watch over everything capable of contributing 
 to public abundance. The felicity of the inhabitants presents 
 a spectacle still more interesting. I never saw all over the 
 country so much as one beggar, nor a house in which there 
 was a single brick or a single pane of glass deficient. But 
 the 'Change of Amsterdam is the great object of admiration. 
 Most of the good people who there assemble are dressed in 
 brown, and without ruffles. This contrast appeared so much 
 the more striking, that only five days before I happened to be 
 upon the Palais Royal at Paris, at the same hour of the day, 
 2R 28* 
 
330 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 then crowded with people dressed in brilliant colours, with 
 gold and silver laces, and prating about nothings, the opera, 
 literature, kept mistresses, and such contemptible trifles, and 
 who had not, the greatest part of them at least, a single crown 
 in their pocket which they could call their own. 
 
 We must not suffer ourselves to be dazzled by the illusions 
 of a prodigious commerce ; here our politics have frequently 
 misled us. Trade and manufactures, we are told, introduce 
 millions into a state ; but the fine wools, dye-stuffs, gold and 
 silver, and other preparatives, imported from foreign countries, 
 are tributes which must be paid back. The people would not 
 have manufactured the less of the wools of the country on 
 their own account ; and if its cloths had been of the lowest 
 quality, they would at least have been converted to their use. 
 What does it avail a people to clothe all Europe with their 
 woollens, if they themselves go naked ; to collect the best 
 wines in the world, if they drink nothing but water ; and to 
 export the finest of flour, if they eat only bread made of bran 1 
 Examples of such abuses might easily be adduced from Po- 
 land, from Spain, and from other countries, which pass for 
 the most regularly governed. 
 
 In agriculture chiefly France ought to look for the principal 
 means of subsistence for her inhabitants ; it is the great sup- 
 port of morals and religion ; it renders marriages easy, neces- 
 sary, and happy ; it contributes towards raising a numerous 
 progeny, which it employs, almost as soon as they can crawl, 
 in collecting the fruits of the earth, or tending the flocks and 
 herds ; but it bestows these advantages only on small landed 
 properties. Great landed properties expose the state to another 
 inconvenience, hitherto almost unknown. The lands thus 
 cultivated lie in fallow one year at least in three, and in many 
 cases once every other year. It must happen, as in every 
 thing left to chance, that sometimes great quantities of such 
 lands lie fallow at once, and at other times very little. In 
 those years, undoubtedly, when the greatest part of those 
 lands is lying fallow, much less corn must be reaped than in 
 other years. This source of distress is one of the causes of 
 that dearth, or unforeseen scarcity of grain, which from time 
 to time falls heavily, not on France only, but on the different 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 Nature has parcelled out the administration of agriculture 
 between man and herself. To herself she has reserved the 
 
STUDY XIII. 331 
 
 management of the winds, the rain, the sun, the expansion 
 of plants ; and she is wonderfully exact in adapting the ele- 
 ments conformably to the seasons : but she has left to man 
 the adaptation of vegetables, of soils, the proportions which 
 their culture ought to have to the societies to be maintained 
 by them, and all the other cares and occupations which their 
 preservation, distribution, and police demand. I consider 
 this remark as of sufficient importance to evince the necessity 
 of appointing a particular minister of agriculture. If he could 
 not prevent chance combinations in the lands which might 
 be in fallow all at once, he would be able to prohibit the 
 transportation of the grain in those years when the greatest 
 part of the land was in full crop, for it is clear that the fol- 
 lowing year the general produce will be so much less, as a 
 considerable proportion of the lands will then of course be in 
 fallow. Small farms are not subjected to *ch vicissitudes; 
 they are every year productive, and almost at all seasons, 
 while an endless variety of delight results from the labours 
 of the happy families who cultivate them. 
 
 O ye rich ! who wish to encompass yourselves with elysian 
 scenery, let your park walls enclose villages blest with rural 
 felicity. What deserted tracts of land over the whole king- 
 dom might present the same spectacle ! Our agricultural 
 companies, which there to no purpose employ their large 
 ploughs of new construction, have pronounced the heaths of 
 Britanny to be smitten with perpetual sterility ; but these 
 heaths discover, by the ancient divisions of the fields, and the 
 ruins of old huts and fences, that they were formerly culti- 
 vated. They are at this day surrounded by farms in a 
 thriving condition. I repeat an assertion already hazarded : 
 It is not on the face of vast domains, but into the basket of 
 the vintager, and the apron of the reaper, that GOD pours 
 down from heaven the precious fruits of the earth. 
 
 It would be necessary, to increase the national subsistence, 
 to restore to the plough great quantities of land now in pas- 
 ture. There is hardly a meadow in all China, a country so 
 extremely populous. The Chinese sow everywhere corn and 
 rice, and feed their cattle with the straw. They say it is better 
 that the beasts should live with man than man with beasts. 
 The German horses, the most vigorous of animals, feed en- 
 tirely on straw cut short, with a small mixture of barley or 
 oats. Our farmers are every day adopting practices directly 
 
332 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 contrary to this economy. They turn, in many provinces, a 
 great deal of land which formerly produced corn into small 
 grass-farms, to save the expense of cultivation, and especially 
 to escape the tithes, which their clergy do not receive from 
 pasture lands. The following anecdote was told me, on my 
 taking notice of an ancient tract of corn land which had 
 undergone a metamorphosis of this sort. The rector, vexed 
 at losing part of his revenue, without having it in his power 
 to complain, said to the owner of the land, by way of advice: 
 ' Master Peter, in my opinion, if you would remove the stones 
 from that ground, dung it well, plough it thoroughly, and 
 sow it with corn, you might still raise very excellent crops.' 
 The farmer, an arch, shrewd fellow, perceiving the drift of his 
 tithing-man, replied : * You are in the right, good Mr. Rector, 
 if you will take the ground, and do all this to it, I shall ask 
 no more of you than the tithe of the crop. 
 
 Our agriculture will never attain its wonted activity, unless 
 restored to its native dignity. Easy and idle burghers, who 
 vegetate in our small cities, ought therefore to go and live 
 in the country. To determine them to this, husbandmen 
 ought to be exempted from tallage, seignorial exactions, and 
 even the military service, to which they are at present sub- 
 jected. The state must undoubtedly be served when neces- 
 sity requires ; but wherefore affix characters of humiliation 
 to the services she imposes 1 Why not accept a commutation 
 in money 1 Besides, the more inhabitants that are scattered 
 over a country, the lighter will fall the burden on those who 
 are assessable. A man would rather suffer in his purse than 
 in his self-love. 
 
 By what fatal contradiction have we subjected the lands 
 of France to soccage tenures, and ennobled those of the 
 New World ] The same husbandman who in France must 
 pay tallage, and labour on the high road, may introduce his 
 children into the king's household, if an inhabitant of the 
 West India islands. This injudicious dispensation of nobility 
 has proved no less fatal to those foreign possessions than to 
 the mother country. Nature invited to the wildernesses of 
 America the overflowings of European nations : she had 
 there disposed everything with an intention truly maternal, 
 to indemnify Europeans for the loss of their country. In 
 those regions a man need not scorch himself in the sun while 
 he reaps his grain, nor be benumbed with cold while tending 
 
STUDY XIII. 333 
 
 his flocks, nor cleave the stubborn earth with the clumsy 
 plough to make it produce aliment for him, nor rake into its 
 bowels to extract iron, stone, clay, and the first materials of 
 his house and furniture. Kind Nature has there placed on 
 trees, in the shade, and within the reach of the hand, all 
 that is necessary and agreeable to human life ; she has 
 scattered about, for the purposes at once of delight and of 
 commerce, along the rivers, in the bosom of rocks, and in 
 the very bed of torrents, the maize, sugar-cane, chocolate-nut, 
 and tobacco-plant, with many other useful vegetables ; and 
 from the resemblance of the latitudes of this New World to 
 that of the different countries of the Old, she promised its 
 future inhabitants to adopt, in their favour, the coffee-plant, 
 the indigo, and the other most valuable productions of Africa 
 and Asia. Wherefore has the ambition of Europe inundated 
 those happy climates with the tears and blood of the human 
 race 1 Ah, had liberty and virtue collected and united their 
 first planters, how many charms would French industry have 
 added to the natural fecundity of the soil, to the happy tem- 
 perature of the tropical regions ! 
 
 What delicious retreats might our poor soldiers and pos- 
 sessionless peasants find in those fortunate islands ! What 
 expense in garrisons might there have been spared ! What 
 petty seignories might there have become the recompense 
 either of gallant officers, or of virtuous citizens ! What 
 nurseries of excellent seamen might be formed by the turtle 
 fishery, or by the still more extensive and profitable cod fishery 
 on the banks of Newfoundland ! It would not have cost 
 Europe much more than the expense of the settlement ot 
 the first families. With what facility might they have been 
 extended to the most remote distances, by forming them, 
 after the manner of the Caraibs themselves, one after another, 
 and at the expense of the community ! Undoubtedly, had 
 this natural progression been adopted, our power would at 
 this day have extended to the very centre of the American 
 continent, and bidden defiance to every attack. 
 
 Government has been taught to believe that the inde- 
 pendence of our colonies would be a necessary consequence 
 of their prosperity, and the case of the Anglo-American 
 colonies has been adduced in proof. But these colonies were 
 not lost to Great Britain because she had rendered them too 
 happy ; it was, on the contrary, because she oppressed them. 
 
334 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 Britain was besides guilty of great error, by introducing too 
 great a mixture of strangers among her colonists. There is 
 a remarkable difference between the genius of the English 
 and ours. The Englishman carries his country with him 
 wherever he goes : if he is making his fortune abroad, he 
 embellishes his habitation in the place where he has settled, 
 introduces the manufactures of his own nation into it, there 
 he lives and dies ; or if he returns to his country, fixes his 
 residence near the place of his birth. All the Frenchmen 
 whom I have seen in the islands consider themselves as 
 strangers there. During a twenty years' residence in one 
 habitation, they will not plant a single tree before the door 
 of the house, for the benefit of enjoying its shade : to hear 
 them talk, they are on the wing to depart next year at 
 farthest. If they happen to acquire a fortune, away they go, 
 and on their return home settle, not in their native province 
 or village, but at. Paris. This natural aversion to the place 
 of birth, and predilection in favour of the capital, is an effect 
 of several moral causes, and among others of education ; and 
 this turn of mind will alone for ever prevent the independence 
 of our colonies. The expense of preserving them, and the 
 facility with which they are captured, ought to have cured 
 us of this prejudice. 
 
 We have had insurrections in our colonies, owing to the 
 injudicious choice of the persons sent thither, who have at 
 all times rendered them the seat of discord. How could it 
 be expected that citizens who had disturbed the tranquillity 
 of a long-established state of society, should concur in pro- 
 moting the peace and prosperity of a rising community? 
 The Greeks and Romans employed the flower of their youth, 
 and most virtuous citizens, in the plantation of their colo- 
 nies, and they became kingdoms and empires. What harm 
 would have ensued had shoots from the tree of France borne 
 lilies in America, and shaded the New World with their ma- 
 jestic branches] Let the truth be frankly acknowledged, 
 Few men admitted to the councils of princes take a lively 
 interest in the felicity of mankind. When sight of this great 
 object is lost, national prosperity and the glory of the sove- 
 reign quickly disappear. Our politicians, by introducing into 
 the colonies the slavery of the negroes, have formed a con- 
 nexion between them and Africa, and broken asunder that 
 which ought to have united them to their poor fellow-citizens. 
 
STUDY XIII. 335 
 
 By giving them perpetually new civil and military rulers, 
 who keep them under a severe yoke men, in a word, eager 
 to accumulate fortune they have betrayed ignorance of the 
 French character, and have accordingly succeeded neither in 
 forming colonists for America nor patriots for France : they 
 have mistaken at once the interests of their nation and of 
 the sovereigns whom they meant to serve. 
 
 These abuses are not yet beyond the power of remedy ; 
 there are still lands in the New World on which a change 
 may be attempted in the nature of our establishments. There 
 are only two methods of cure ; the first, to extinguish divi- 
 sion, the second, to multiply and increase the motives to 
 union. 
 
 In general, the real spirit of patriotism, the first sentiment 
 of humanity, is very rare in Europe. When we read rela- 
 tions of the customs and manners of the nations of Asia, we 
 are touched with humanity, which among them attracts 
 men to each other. If, for example, an Asiatic on a journey 
 stops to enjoy his repast, his servants place themselves at his 
 table. Should a stranger pass by, he too sits down, and after 
 having made an inclination of the head to the master of the 
 family, and given GOD thanks, rises and goes on his way, 
 without being interrogated who he is, whence he comes, or 
 whither he goes. This hospitable practice is common to the 
 different nations of Asia, Africa, and America. In those 
 countries man is still dear to man. 
 
 At Paris, on the contrary, if you go into the dining-room 
 of a tavern, where a dozen tables are spread, should twelve 
 persons arrive one after another, each takes his place apart 
 at a separate table, without uttering a syllable. For some 
 time a profound silence prevails, till some thoughtless fellow, 
 put into good humour by his dinner, and pressed by an incli- 
 nation to talk, takes upon him to begin the conversation. 
 If he has the air of a person of consequence, that is rich, 
 they give him the hearing ; but if his appearance displays 
 no mark of extraordinary distinction, had he delivered senti- 
 ments worthy of a Socrates, he is immediately contradicted ; 
 the conversation then becomes general and noisy ; sarcasms, 
 perfidious insinuations, gross abuse, conclude the sitting, and 
 each of the guests retires well pleased with himself, but with 
 a hearty contempt for the rest. The same scenes are acted 
 in our coffee-houses and public walks. Men go thither to 
 
336 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 hunt for admiration, or to criticise. It is not the spirit of 
 society which allures us toward each other, but the spirit of 
 division. 
 
 Our public spectacles farther increase the spirit of division 
 among us. Our most celebrated comedies usually represent 
 tutors cozened by their pupils, fathers by their children, hus- 
 bands by their wives, masters by their servants. These 
 instruct them to undervalue morals and magistrates. Spec- 
 tacles draw together bodies of the citizens, and alienate their 
 minds. 
 
 Comedy teaches us to laugh at another, and nothing more. 
 No one says, when the representation is over, the portrait of 
 this miser resembles myself, but instantly discerns in it the 
 image and likeness of his neighbour. But on the supposi- 
 tion that a man should perceive himself in the dramatic repre- 
 sentation, I do not perceive how the reformation of vice would 
 ensue. If my vice is held up as an object of ridicule, the 
 laugh, so far from disgusting, plunges me in the deeper. I 
 employ every effort to conceal it ; I become a hypocrite ; 
 without taking into the account, that the laugh is much more 
 frequently levelled against virtue than against vice. 
 
 I do not deny that spectacles, such as tragedies, may have 
 a tendency to unite the citizens. The Greeks employed 
 them to this effect; but by adopting their dramas we deviate 
 from their intention. Their theatrical representations did not 
 exhibit the calamities of other nations, but those which they 
 themselves had endured, and events borrowed from the his- 
 tory of theii own country. Our tragedies excite a compassion 
 whose object is foreign to us. 
 
 Such means as these, though more powerful than drafts 
 for the militia, and than either pressing or tricking men into 
 the service, are still insufficient to form real citizens. We are 
 accustomed by them to love virtue and our country only when 
 our heroes are applauded on the theatre. They delight, are 
 applauded, powdered, and perfumed ; but were we to meet 
 with one pouring out his blood in some obscure corner, and 
 perishing in unmerited ignominy, we would not acknowledge 
 him to be a hero. 
 
 The soldiery ought to be united more intimately with the 
 nation, and their condition rendered more happy. The King 
 of Prussia has contrived to inspire his soldiers, riot with the 
 spirit of corps, which divides, but the spirit of country, which 
 
STUDY XIII. 337 
 
 unites them. This he has accomplished by conferring 1 on 
 them most of the civil employments in his kingdom, as a 
 recompense of military services. The Russians employ only 
 one, still more powerful, I mean religion. A Russian sol- 
 dier believes that to serve his sovereign is to serve GOD. He 
 marches into the field of battle, in the full persuasion that if 
 he falls in it he will go directly to Paradise. If the soldiery 
 are sometimes guilty of irregularities, to our military institu- 
 tions the blame must be imputed. I have seen others under 
 better discipline, but know of none more generous. A sol- 
 dier's profession is a perpetual exercise of virtue, from the 
 necessity to which it constantly subjects the man to submit 
 to privations innumerable, and frequently to expose his life. 
 It has religion therefore for its principal support. 
 
 It is our wretched political constitution which produces in 
 the state so many different centres. There was a time when 
 we talked of our being republicans. Verily, if we had not a 
 king, we should live in perpetual discord. Nay, how many 
 sovereigns do we make of one single and lawful monarch ! 
 Every corps has its own, who is not the sovereign of the na- 
 tion. Amidst these various conflicts of paramount authority, 
 nothing is executed. The real king, the king of the people, 
 is not served. 
 
 The same spirit of division prevails in the religion of Europe. 
 What mischief has not been practised in the name of God ! 
 All acknowledge the One Supreme Being, who created the 
 heavens and the earth, and man ; but each kingdom has its 
 own, who must be worshipped according to a certain ritual. 
 In his name it was that the poor Americans were extermi- 
 nated. The God of Europe is clothed with terror, and devoutly 
 adored. But where are the altars of the GOD of Peace, of the 
 Father of Mankind, of Him who proclaims the glad tidings 
 of the Gospel ] Let our modern politicians trumpet their own 
 applause on the happy fruits of those divisions, and of an 
 education dictated by ambition. Human life, so fleeting and 
 wretched, passes away in this unremitting strife ; and while 
 the historians of every nation, well paid for their trouble, are 
 extolling to heaven the victories of their kings and pontiffs, 
 the people are addressing themselves in tears to the GOD of 
 the Human Race, and asking of him the way in which they 
 ought to walk, to reach his habitation at length, and live a 
 life of virtue and happiness upon the earth. 
 
 2 S 29 
 
338 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 OF PARIS. 
 
 The greatest part of Frenchmen who acquire fortune in 
 foreign countries, on their return settle at Paris. This upon 
 the whole is no great injury to the state. The slighter their 
 attachment to their country, the easier it is to fix them at 
 Paris. One single point of union is necessary to a great na- 
 tion. I am fond of. Paris. Next to a rural situation, such as 
 I like, I prefer Paris to anything I have ever seen in the world. 
 I love that city for its happy situation, because all the accom- 
 modations of human life are there collected, from its being 
 the centre of all the powers of the kingdom, and because it 
 is the asylum of the miserable. There provincial ambitions, 
 prejudices, aversions, and tyrannies, are annihilated ; there 
 a man may live in obscurity and liberty; there it is possible 
 to be poor without being despised. The afflicted person is 
 there decoyed out of his misery by the public gayety ; and 
 the feeble there feels himself strong in the strength of the 
 multitude. Time was when I looked upon that city as too 
 great ; I am now far from thinking it sufficiently majestic to 
 be the capital of so flourishing a kingdom. 
 
 I could wish, our seaports excepted, there were no city in 
 France but Paris ; that our provinces were covered only with 
 hamlets and villages, and subdivided into small farms ; and 
 that, as there is but one centre in the kingdom, there might 
 likewise be but one capital. Would to GOD it were that of 
 all Europe, nay of the whole earth ; and that, as men of all 
 nations bring thither their industry, passions, wants, and mis- 
 fortunes, it should give them back, in fortune, enjoyment, 
 virtues, and sublime consolations, the reward of that asylum 
 which they resort thither to seek ! 
 
 Of a truth, our mind, now illuminated with such various 
 knowledge, wants the nobly comprehensive grasp which 
 distinguished our forefathers. They entertained the idea, 
 I believe, of rendering it the capital of Europe. The traces 
 of this design are visible in most of their establishments, as 
 the Scottish College, the Irish, that of the Four Nations, and 
 in the foreign names of the royal household troops. Behold 
 that noble monument of antiquity, the church of Notre Dame, 
 built more than 600 years ago, when Paris did not contain 
 the fourth part of its present inhabitants j it is more vast and 
 majestic than anything of the kind which has been since 
 
STUDY XIII. 339 
 
 reared. Men of every nation are welcome there for their 
 money ; our enemies themselves may live quietly in it, in 
 the very midst of war, provided they are rich ; but above all, 
 I could wish to render her good and propitious to her own 
 children. I do not know of any advantage a Frenchman 
 derives from having been born within her walls, unless it be, 
 when reduced to beggary, that of having it in his power to 
 die in one of her hospitals. Rome bestowed very different 
 privileges on her citizens ; the most wretched among them 
 enjoyed privileges and honours more ample than were com- 
 municated even to kings in alliance with the republic. 
 
 Pleasure attracts strangers to Paris ; and if we trace those 
 vain pleasures up to their source, we shall find they proceed 
 from the misery of the people, and from the easy rate at 
 which it is there possible to procure productions which 
 minister to luxury. These means have been highly extolled 
 by modern politicians. I do not deny that they occasion a 
 considerable influx of money into a country ; but at the 
 long run, neighbouring nations imitate them ; the money of 
 strangers disappears, but their debauched morals remain. 
 
 The noblest spectacle which any government can exhibit, 
 is that of a people laborious, industrious, and content. We 
 are taught to be well read in books, pictures, algebra, and 
 heraldry, but not in men. Connoisseurs are wrapt with 
 admiration at sight of a Savoyard's head painted by Greuze, 
 but the Savoyard himself is at the corner of the street, 
 speaking, walking, almost frozen to death, and no one minds 
 him. That mother with her children around her form a 
 charming group ; the picture is invaluable : the originals 
 are in a neighbouring garret without a farthing whereupon 
 to subsist. Behold that general officer mounted on his 
 prancing courser, reviewing a body of troops : see, the heads, 
 shoulders, and feet of his soldiers, arranged in the same 
 straight line ; the whole corps has but one look, one move- 
 ment. He makes a sign, and in an instant a thousand 
 bayonets gleam in the air ; he makes another, and a thou- 
 sand fires start from that rampart of iron. He gallops round 
 those smoke-covered regiments, at the sound of drums and 
 fifes, and you have the image of Jupiter's eagle armed with 
 the thunder, and hovering round Etna. A hundred paces 
 from thence behold an insect among men. Look at that 
 puny chimney-sweeper, with his lantern, cymbal, and leathern 
 
340 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 greaves ; he resembles a black beetle. This child, those 
 soldiers, and that general, are equally men ; and while birth, 
 pride, and the demands of social life, establish infinite differ- 
 ences among them, religion places them on a level ; she 
 humbles the head of the mighty, by showing them the vanity 
 of their power ; and raises up the head of the unfortunate, 
 by disclosing to them the prospects of immortality : she thus 
 brings back all men to the equality established by Nature at 
 their birth, and which the order of society had disturbed. 
 
 Had I been blessed with but a moderate degree of fortune, 
 I would have procured for myself in Paris an endless succes- 
 sion of new enjoyments. I would have hired lodgings in 
 different parts of the city and suburbs, to be found, undoubt- 
 edly, at an easy rate, but it may not be so easy to find per- 
 sons of probity for hosts and neighbours. There is much 
 depravity among the lower orders, but various methods may 
 be employed to find out such as are good and honest, and 
 with them I commence my researches after pleasure. A new 
 Diogenes, I am set out in search of men. As I look only for 
 the miserable, I have no occasion to use a lantern. I get up 
 at day-break, and partake of a first mass in a church still 
 but half illumined by the day-light ; there I find poor me- 
 chanics come to implore God's blessing on their day's labour. 
 Piety, exalted above all respect to man, is one assured proof 
 of probity ; cheerful submission to labour is another. I per- 
 ceive in raw and rainy weather a whole family squat on the 
 ground, weeding the plants of a garden : here again are good 
 people. The night itself cannot conceal virtue. Towards 
 midnight, the glimmering of a lamp announces, through the 
 aperture of a garret, some poor widow prolonging her noc- 
 turnal industry, to bring up by the fruits of it her little ones 
 sleeping around her. These shall be my neighbours and my 
 hosts. I announce myself to them as a wayfaring man, 
 who wishes to breathe a little in that vicinity. I beseech 
 them to accommodate me with part of their habitation, or to 
 look out for an apartment that will suit me in their neigh- 
 bourhood. I offer a good price, and am domesticated pres- 
 ently. 
 
 I am carefully on my guard, in the view of securing the 
 attachment of those honest people, against giving them 
 money for nothing, or by way of alms ; I know of means 
 much more honourable to gain their friendship. I order more 
 
STUDY XIII. 341 
 
 provision than is necessary for my own use, and the overplus 
 turns to account in the family; I reward the children for any 
 little services which they render me : I carry the whole house- 
 hold of a holyday into the country, and dine with them upon 
 the grass ; the father and mother return to town in the eve- 
 ning well refreshed, and loaded with a supply for the rest of 
 the week. In winter I clothe the children with good woollen 
 stuffs, and their little warmed limbs bless their benefactor, 
 because my vain-glorious bounty has not frozen their heart. 
 The less closely you twist the bands of gratitude, the more 
 firmly do they contract of themselves. 
 
 I enjoy not only the pleasure of doing good, but of amusing 
 and instructing myself. We admire in books the labours of 
 the artisan, but books rob us of half our pleasure and of the 
 gratitude which we owe them. Besides, there is more know- 
 ledge in the head of an artisan than in his art, and more intel- 
 ligence in his hands than in the language of the writer who 
 translates him. Objects carry their own expression upon them: 
 Rem verba sequuntur, (words follow things.) The man of the 
 commonalty has more than one way of observing and of 
 feeling, which is not a matter of indifference. While the 
 philosopher rises into the clouds, the other keeps contentedly 
 at the bottom of the valley, and beholds very different per- 
 spectives in the world. Calamity forms him at length as 
 well as another man. His language purifies with years ; and 
 I have frequently remarked very little difference, in point of 
 accuracy, perspicuity, and simplicity, between the expressions 
 of an aged peasant and an old courtier. Time effaces from 
 their language and manners the rusticity and refinement so- 
 ciety had introduced. Old age, like infancy, reduces all men 
 to a level, and gives them back to Nature. 
 
 In one of my stations I have a landlord who has made the 
 lour of the globe. He has been seaman, soldier, bucanier. 
 He is as sagacious as Ulysses, but more sincere. When at 
 table with me, he gives me a relation of his adventures. He 
 knows a multitude of anecdotes. How many times was he 
 on the very point of making his fortune, but failed ! He is 
 a second Ferdinand Mendez Pinto ! He has now got a good 
 wife, and lives contented. 
 
 Another of my landlords has lived a very different life ; 
 he scarcely ever was beyond the walls of Paris, and but 
 seldom from his shop. But though he has not travelled, he 
 
 29* 
 
342 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 has had his share of calamity. He was at ease, and had laid 
 up fifty good louis-d'or, when one night his wife and daugh- 
 ter eloped with his treasure. He almost died with vexa- 
 tion. Now, he says, he thinks no more about it ; and cries 
 as he tells me the story. I compose his mind by talking 
 kindly to him ; I give him employment ; he tries to dissi- 
 pate his chagrin by labour ; his industry is an amusement to 
 me : I sometimes pass complete hours in looking at him, as 
 he bores and turns pieces of oak as hard as ivory. 
 
 Now and then I stop in the middle of the city before the 
 shop of a smith, and am transformed into the Lacedemonian 
 Liches, at Tegeum, attending to the processes of forging and 
 hammering iron. The moment the man perceives me atten- 
 tive to his work, I will soon acquire his confidence. I am 
 not, as Liches was, looking for the tomb of Orestes, but I 
 have occasion to employ a smith, if not for myself, for the 
 benefit of some one else. I order this honest fellow to manu- 
 facture some solid articles of household furniture, which I 
 intend to bestow as a monument to preserve my memory in 
 some poor family. I wish besides to purchase the friendship 
 of an artificer ; I am sure the attention he sees I pay to his 
 work will induce him to exert his utmost skill in executing 
 it. I thus hit two marks with one stone. A rich man, in 
 similar circumstances, would give alms, and confer no obli- 
 gation on any one. 
 
 J. J. Rousseau told me a little anecdote of himself relative 
 to the subject in hand. c One day,' said he, { I was at a village 
 festival in a gentleman's country seat, not far from Paris. 
 After dinner the company walked up and down the fair, and 
 amused themselves with throwing pieces of small money among 
 the peasantry, to have the pleasure of seeing them scramble 
 and fight in picking them up. For my own part, following the 
 bent of my solitary humour, I walked apart in another direc- 
 tion. I observed a little girl selling apples. To no purpose 
 did she extol the excellence of her goods, no customer ap- 
 peared to cheapen them. How much do you ask for all your 
 apples ? said I to her. All my apples 1 replied she, and at the 
 same time began to reckon with herself. Three-pence, Sir, 
 said she. I take them at that price, returned I, on condition 
 you will go and distribute them among those little Savoyards 
 whom you see there below : this was instantly executed. 
 The children were quite transported with delight at this un- 
 

 STUDY XIII 343 
 
 expected regale, as was likewise the little merchant at bring- 
 ing her wares to so good a market. I should have conferred 
 much less pleasure on them had I given them the money. 
 Every one was satisfied, and no one humbled.' The great 
 art of doing good consists in doing it judiciously. Religion 
 instructs us in this important secret, in recommending to us to 
 do to others what we wish should be done to us. 
 
 I sometimes betake myself to the great road, like the 
 ancient patriarchs, to do the honours of the city to strangers 
 who arrive. I recollect when I myself was a stranger in 
 strange lands, and the kind reception which I met with when 
 far from home. I have frequently heard the nobility of 
 Poland and Germany complain of our grandees. They 
 allege that French travellers of distinction are treated in 
 those countries with unbounded hospitality and attention ; 
 but that they, on visiting France in their turn, are almost 
 entirely neglected. They are invited to one dinner on their 
 arrival, and to another when preparing to depart; and this is 
 the whole amount of our hospitality. For my own part, in- 
 capable of acquitting the obligations of this kind which I 
 lie under to the great of foreign countries, I repay them to 
 their commonalty. 
 
 I perceive a German travelling on foot ; I accost him, in- 
 vite him to stop, and repose a little at my habitation. Sup- 
 per and a glass of good wine dispose him to communicate 
 the occasion of his journey. He is an officer ; he has served 
 in Prussia and in Russia; he has been witness to the parti- 
 tion of Poland. I interrupt him to make my inquiries after 
 certain illustrious officers. Most of them are dead, he tells 
 me ; the rest superannuated. Oh ! how melancholy it is, I 
 exclaim, to make acquaintance with estimable men abroad 
 whom we are never to see more ! Oh ! how rapid a career 
 is human life ! Happy the man who has it in his power to 
 employ it in doing good ! My guest favours me with a short 
 detail of his adventures. He is under misfortunes ; he has 
 come to France to implore the Queen's protection ; he hopes 
 a great deal from her goodness. I confirm his hopes. I am 
 pouring the balm of consolation, he tells me, into his heart. 
 Full of emotion, he presses my hand. My cordial reception 
 of him is a happy presage of the rest ; he could have met 
 with nothing so friendly even in his own country. Oh ! what 
 
344 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 pungent sorrow may be soothed to rest by a single word, and 
 by the feeblest mark of benevolence ! 
 
 I remember that one day I found, at the entrance into the 
 Elysian Fields, a young woman sitting with a child in lier 
 lap, on the brink of a ditch. She was handsome, if that 
 epithet may be applied to a female overwhelmed in melan- 
 choly. I walked into the sequestered alley where she was : 
 the moment she perceived me she looked the other way ; her 
 timidity and modesty fixed my eyes on her. I remarked that 
 she was decently dressed, and wore very white linen ; but 
 her gown and neck handkerchief were so completely darned 
 over, that you would have said the spiders had spun the 
 threads. I approached her with the respect due to the mis- 
 erable ; I bowed, and she returned my salute with an air of 
 gentility, but with reserve. I then endeavoured to engage 
 her in conversation, by talking of the wind and the weather : 
 her replies consisted of monosyllables only. At length I 
 ventured to ask if she had come abroad for the pleasure of 
 enjoying a walk in the country : upon this she began to sob 
 and weep without uttering a single word. I sat down by 
 her, and insisted, with all possible circumspection, that she 
 would disclose to me the cause of her distress. She said, 
 ' Sir, my husband has just been involved in a bankruptcy at 
 Paris, to the amount of five thousand livres (2081. 6s. 8d.) ; 
 I have been convoying him as far as Neuilly : he is gone, on 
 foot, a journey of sixty leagues hence, to try to recover a 
 little money which is due to us. I have given him my rings 
 and other little trinkets, to defray the expense of his jour- 
 ney ; and all I have left in the world, to support myself and my 
 child, is a single shilling piece.' * What parish do you belong 
 to, madam T said I. ' St. Eustache,' replied she. ' The rec- 
 tor,' I subjoined, ' passes for a charitable, good man.' * Yes, 
 sir,' said she, * but you need not to be informed that there is 
 no charity in parishes for us miserable Jews.' At these words 
 her tears flowed more copiously, and she arose to depart. I 
 tendered her a small pittance towards her present relief, which 
 I besought her to accept at least as a mark of my good- will. 
 She received it, and returned more reverences and thanks, 
 and loaded me with more benedictions, than if I had re-estab- 
 lished her husband's credit. How many delicious banquets 
 might that man enjoy who would in this way lay out three 
 or four hundred pounds a year ! 
 
STUDY Xm. 345 
 
 My different establishments variegate my life most inno- 
 cently and agreeably. In winter I reside in that which is 
 completely exposed to the noon-day sun ; in summer, I re- 
 move to that which has a northern aspect, and hangs over the 
 cooling stream. To-day I sup under an acacia, and am in 
 America ; to-morrow I shall dine in the midst of a kitchen 
 garden, under an arbour shaded with lilac, and I shall be in 
 France. 
 
 But, I shall be asked, is there nothing to be feared in such 
 a style of living ? May I meet the final period of my days 
 while engaged in the practice of virtue ! I have heard many 
 a history of persons who perished in hunting matches, in par- 
 ties of pleasure, but never in performing acts of beneficence. 
 Gold is a powerful commander of respect with the common- 
 alty. I display wealth sufficient to secure their attention, 
 but not enough to tempt any one to plunder me. I am very 
 circumspect in the choice of my hosts; and if I perceive 
 that I have been mistaken in my selection, the rent of my 
 lodging is paid beforehand, and I return no more. 
 
 On this plan of life I have not the least occasion for the 
 encumbrances of furniture and servants. With what tender 
 solicitude am I expected in each of my habitations ! What 
 satisfaction does my arrival inspire ! What attention and 
 zeal do my entertainers express to outrun my wishes! I 
 enjoy among them the choicest blessings of society, without 
 feeling any of the inconveniences. No one sits down at my 
 table to backbite his neighbour, and no one leaves it with a 
 disposition to speak unkindly of me. I have no children, but 
 those of my landlady are more eager to please me than their 
 own parents. I have no wife : the most sublime charm of 
 love is to devise and accomplish the felicity of another. I 
 assist in the formation of happy marriages, or in promoting 
 the happiness of those which are already formed. I thus 
 dissipate my personal languor, I put my passions upon the 
 right scent, by proposing to them the noblest attainments at 
 which they can aim upon the earth. I have drawn nigh to 
 the miserable with an intention to comfort them, and from 
 them perhaps I shall derive consolation in my turn. 
 
 Thus might you live, O ye great ones of the earth ! and 
 
 multiply your fleeting days in the land through which you 
 
 are merely travellers. Thus you may learn to know men ; 
 
 thus issuing, from your palaces, encircled by happy vassals, 
 
 2T 
 
346 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 you might present the image of the ancient patricians, a name 
 so dear to the Roman people. You are every day looking out 
 for some new spectacle ; no one possesses so much the charm 
 of novelty as the happiness of mankind. You wish for in- 
 teresting objects ; there is no one more interesting than the 
 sight of the families of the poor peasantry, diffusing fruit- 
 fulness over your vast and solitary domains, or superan- 
 nuated soldiers, who have deserved well of their country, 
 seeking refuge under the shadow of your wings. Your 
 compatriots are surely much better than tragedy heroes, more 
 interesting than the shepherds of the comic opera. 
 
 The indigence of the commonalty is the first cause of the 
 physical and moral maladies of the rich. It is the business 
 of administration to provide a remedy. As to the maladies 
 of the soul resulting from indigence, I could wish some pal- 
 liatives at least might be found. We have, I grant, confes- 
 sors and preachers, for whom the sublime function of com- 
 forting the miserable seems to be reserved. But confessors 
 are not always of the same disposition with their penitents, 
 especially when the penitent is poor and not much known to 
 them. The point is not to pronounce absolution to the man 
 who confesses his sins, but to assist him in bearing up under 
 those of another, which lie much heavier upon him. 
 
 As to preachers, their sermons are usually too vague, and 
 too injudiciously applied to the various necessities of their 
 hearers. They will declaim against avarice to a prodigal, 
 or against profusion to a miser. They will expatiate on the 
 dangers of ambition to a young man in love ; and on those 
 of love to an ancient female devotee. They will inculcate 
 the duty of giving alms on the persons who receive them, 
 and the virtue of humility on a poor water-porter. We have 
 no sermons calculated to cure languor, sorrow, scrupulous- 
 ness of conscience, melancholy, chagrin, and so many other 
 distempers which prey upon the soul. It is no easy matter 
 to find out, in a soul wounded and oppressed with timidity, 
 the precise point of its grief, and to apply the balm and the 
 hand of the good Samaritan to the sore. This is an art known 
 only to minds endowed with sensibility, who have themselves 
 suffered severely, and not always the attainments of the vir- 
 tuous only. Ah ! if men who have themselves been ac- 
 quainted with grief, would unite in 'presenting to the sons 
 and daughters of affliction their experience and sensibility, 
 
STUDY XIII. 347 
 
 more than one illustrious sufferer would draw from them 
 those consolations, which all the preachers, and books, and 
 philosophy in the world, are incapable to administer. All 
 that the poor man needs in many cases, in order to sooth his 
 wo, is a person into whose ear he can pour out his com- 
 plaint. 
 
 The people might farther be inspired with a relish for 
 morality, without the use of much expensive cookery. Nay, 
 every appearance of disguise renders truth suspected by them. 
 I have many a time seen plain mechanics shed tears at read- 
 ing some of our good romances, or at the representation of a 
 tragedy. They afterwards demanded if the story which had 
 thus affected them was really true ; and on being informed 
 that it was imaginary, they valued it no longer, and were 
 vexed to think that they had thrown away their tears. 
 The rich must have fiction to render morality palatable, 
 and morality is unable to render fiction palatable to the poor, 
 because the poor man still expects his felicity from truth, 
 and the rich hope for theirs only from illusion. The moral 
 principle therefore must be purified and directed in man. 
 Religion prescribes to us the practice of virtue, seeing it is 
 the road to happiness both in this world and that which is 
 to come. 
 
 Should I have been so happy as to suggest a single good 
 idea to one more enlightened than myself; should I have 
 contributed to prevent one poor wretch in despair from going 
 to drown himself, or in a fit of rage from knocking out his 
 enemy's brains, or in the lethargy of languor from going to 
 squander his money and his health away among loose women, 
 I shall not have scribbled in vain. 
 
 Paris presents many a retreat to the miserable, known by 
 the name of hospitals. May heaven reward the charity of 
 those who have founded them, and the still greater virtue of 
 those persons of both sexes who superintend them ! But 
 an adept in the science of finance having undertaken to 
 furnish the plan of a receptacle for the sick, found on calcu- 
 lation that the expense of each of them would not ^exceed 
 eight-pence halfpenny a day ; that they might be much better 
 provided on these terms, and at an easier rate, than in the 
 hospitals. For my own part, I am clearly of opinion that 
 these same pence, distributed daily in the house of a poor 
 eick man, would produce a still farther saving, by contributing 
 
348 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 to the support of his wife and children. A sick person of the 
 commonalty needs little more than good broths ; his family 
 might partly subsist on the meat of which they were made. 
 
 But hospitals are subject to many other inconveniences. 
 Maladies of a particular character, sufficiently known, are 
 there generated, frequently more dangerous than those which 
 the sick carry in with them. Besides these, evils of a much 
 more serious nature, which affect morals, are there communi- 
 cated. I could wish, therefore, that so far from crowding 
 together the miserable, they might be provided for, under 
 the inspection of their own relations, or intrusted to the care 
 of poor families. 
 
 Public prisons are necessary, but it is surely desirable that 
 the unhappy creatures there immured should be less miser- 
 able while under confinement. Justice, undoubtedly, in de- 
 priving them of liberty, proposes not only to punish, but to 
 reform their moral character. Excess of misery and evil 
 communications can change it only from bad to worse. 
 Experience farther demonstrates, that there it is the wicked 
 acquire the perfection of depravity. One who went in only 
 feeble and culpable comes out an accomplished villain. On 
 this subject I shall briefly observe, that the only way to 
 reform men is to render them happier. How many who were 
 living a life of criminality in Europe, have recovered their 
 character in the West India islands, to which they were 
 transported! They are become honest men there, having 
 found more liberty and happiness than they enjoyed in their 
 native country. 
 
 Another class of mankind still more worthy of compassion, 
 because innocent, are persons deprived of their reason. They 
 are shut up, and seldom fail, of consequence, to become more 
 insane than before. I do not believe there is through all 
 Asia, China excepted, a single place of confinement for luna- 
 tics. The Turks treat them with singular respect ; whether 
 it be that Mahomet himself was subject to mental derange- 
 ment, or from a religious opinion, that as soon as a madman 
 sets his foot into a house, the blessing of GOD enters it with 
 him. They delay not a moment to set food before him, and 
 caress him in the tenderest manner. There is not an instance 
 known of their having injured any one. Our madmen, on 
 the contrary, are mischievous, because they are miserable. 
 
 The number of insane persons under confinement with us 
 
STUDY XIII. 349 
 
 is enormously great. There is not a provincial town of any- 
 considerable magnitude but what contains an edifice destined 
 to this use. Their treatment in these is surely an object of 
 commiseration, and loudly calls for the attention of govern- 
 ment, considering that if, after all, they are no longer citizens, 
 they are still men, and innocent men too. I shall relate an 
 instance of the treatment of these miserable beings still fresh 
 in my memory. 
 
 Some years ago, happening to pass through 1'Aigle, in 
 Normandy, I strolled out about sunset to enjoy a little fresh 
 air. I perceived on a rising ground a convent most delight- 
 fully situated. A monk, who stood porter, invited me in to 
 see the house. He conducted me through an immense court, 
 in which the first thing that struck my eye was a man of 
 about forty years old, with half a hat on his head, who ad- 
 vanced directly upon me, saying, ' Be so good as stab me to 
 the heart ; be so good as stab me to the heart.' The monk 
 said to me, c Sir, don't be alarmed ; he is a poor captain, who 
 lost his reason on account of an unmilitary preference that 
 passed upon him in his regiment.' 
 
 ' This house, then, said I to him, ' serves as a receptacle for 
 lunatics.' c Yes,' replied he, ' I am superior of it.' He walked 
 me from court to court, and conducted me into a small enclo- 
 sure, in which were several little cells of mason-work, where 
 we had heard persons talking with much earnestness. There 
 we found a canon in his shirt, with his shoulders quite exposed, 
 conversing with a man of a fine figure, seated by a small table 
 in front of one of those little cells. The monk went up to the 
 poor canon, and with his full strength applied a blow of his 
 fist to the wretch's naked shoulder, ordering him to turn out. 
 His comrade instantly and emphatically said to the monk : 
 * Man of blood, you are guilty of a very cruel action. Do not 
 you see that this poor creature has lost his reason ?' The 
 monk, struck dumb for the moment, bit his lips, and threat- 
 ened him with his eyes. But the other, without being dis- 
 concerted, said to him : * I know I am your victim ; you may 
 do with me whatever you please.' Then, addressing himself 
 to me, he showed me his two wrists, galled to the quick by 
 the iron manacles with which he had been confined. 
 
 You see, sir,' said he to me, ' in what manner I am 
 treated!' I turned to the monk with an expression of 
 indignation at a conduct so barbarous. He coolly replied : 
 
 30 
 
350 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 ' Oh ! I can put an end to all his fine reasoning in a moment.* 
 I addressed, however, a few words of consolation to the unfor- 
 tunate man, who, looking at me with an air of confidence, 
 said, ' I think, sir, I have seen you at St. Hubert, at the house 
 of M. the Mareschal de Broglio.' ' You must be mistaken, 
 sir,' replied I, c I never had the honour of being at the 
 Mareschal de Broglio's.' Upon that he instituted a process 
 of recollection respecting the different places where he thought 
 he had seen me, with circumstances so accurately detailed, 
 and clothed with such appearances of probability, that the 
 monk, nettled at his well -merited reproaches, and at the 
 good sense which he displayed, thought proper to interrupt 
 his conversation, by introducing a discourse about marriage, 
 the purchase of horses, and so on. The moment the chord 
 of his insanity was touched, his head was gone. On going 
 out, the monk told me that this poor lunatic was a man of 
 very considerable birth. Some time afterwards I had the 
 pleasure of being informed that he had found means to 
 escape from his prison, and had recovered the use of his 
 reason. 
 
 Many physical remedies are employed for the cure of 
 madness ; but it frequently proceeds from a moral cause, for 
 it is produced by chagrin. Might there not be a possibility 
 to employ, for the restoration of reason to those disordered 
 beings, means directly opposed to those which occasioned 
 the loss of reason ; I mean mirth, pleasure, and above all, 
 the pleasures of music ? We see, from the instance of Saul, 
 what influence music possesses for re-establishing the har- 
 mony of the soul. With this ought to be united treatment 
 the most gentle, and care to place the unhappy patients, 
 when visited with paroxysms of rage, not under the restraint 
 of fetters, but in an apartment matted round, where they 
 could do no mischief either to themselves or others. I am 
 persuaded that by employing such humane precautions, 
 numbers might be restored, especially if they were under 
 the charge of persons not interested in perpetuating their 
 derangement. It would likewise be proper, in my opinion, 
 to commit the care of men disordered in their understanding 
 to females, and that of females to men, on account of the 
 mutual sympathy of the two sexes with each other. 
 
 After having rendered the capital a resort of happiness and 
 improvement to our own nation, I would allure to it the men 
 
STUDY XIII. 351 
 
 of foreign nations from every corner of the globe. O ye 
 women ! who regulate our destiny, how much ought you to 
 contribute towards uniting mankind, in a city where your 
 empire is unbounded ! In ministering to your pleasures do 
 men employ themselves over the face of the whole earth. 
 While you are engrossed wholly in enjoyment, the Laplander 
 issues forth in the midst of storm and tempest to pierce with 
 his harpoon the enormous whale, whose beard is to serve for 
 stuffing to your robes : a man of China puts into the oven 
 the porcelain out of which you sip your coffee, while an 
 Arabian of Mocha is busied in gathering the berry for you : 
 a young woman of Bengal, on the banks of the Ganges, is 
 spinning your muslin, while a Russian, amidst the forests of 
 Finland, is felling the tree which is to be converted into a 
 mast for the vessel that is to bring it home to you. 
 
 The glory of a great capital is to assemble within its walls 
 the men of all nations who contribute to its pleasures. I 
 could wish that Paris were as large, and of a population as 
 much diversified, as those ancient cities of Asia, such as 
 Nineveh and Suza, whose extent was so vast that it required 
 three days to make the tour of them, and in which Ahasuerus 
 beheld two hundred nations bending before his throne. I 
 could wish that every people on the face of the earth kept up 
 a correspondence with that city, as the members with the 
 heart in the human body. What secret did the Asiatics pos- 
 sess to raise cities so vast and populous ] They are in all 
 respects our elder brothers. They permitted all nations to 
 settle among them. Present men with liberty and happiness, 
 and you will attract them from the ends of the earth. 
 
 The good Henry IV. had formed the celestial project of 
 engaging all Europe to live in peace ; but his project was not 
 sufficiently extensive to support itself: war must have fallen 
 upon Europe from the other quarters of the world. Our par- 
 ticular desiinies are connected with those of mankind. This 
 is a homage which the Christian religion justly challenges, 
 and which it alone merits. Nature says to you, Love thyself 
 alone ; domestic education says, Love your family ; the na- 
 tional, Love your country ; but Religion says, Love mankind 
 without exception. She is better acquainted with our interests 
 than our natural instinct is, or our parentage, or politics. 
 Human societies are not detached from each other like those 
 of animals. The beea of France are not in the least affected 
 
353 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 by the destruction of the hives in America; but the tears of 
 mankind, shed in the New World, cause streams of blood to 
 flow in the ancient continent. The religion which condemns 
 love of ourselves, and enjoins the love of mankind, is not self- 
 contradictory, as certain sophists have alleged ; she exacts 
 the sacrifice of our passions only to direct them towards the 
 general felicity ; and by inculcating upon us the obligation 
 of loving all men, she furnishes us with the only real means 
 of loving ourselves. 
 
 I could wish, therefore, that our political relations with all 
 the nations of the world, might be directed towards a gracious 
 reception of their subjects in the capital of the kingdom. 
 Were we to expend only a part of what we lay out on foreign 
 communications, we should be no great losers. The nations 
 of Asia send no ambassadors out of their country, unless on 
 very extraordinary occasions ; and all nations of the earth 
 seek to them. It is not by sending ambassadors in great state 
 to neighbouring nations, that we conciliate or secure their 
 friendship. The point, is to give a kind reception to their sub- 
 jects, properly so called ; the weak, persecuted, and miserable. 
 Our French refugees were the men who conveyed part of our 
 skill and power to Prussia and Holland. How many unseen 
 relations of commerce and national benevolence have been 
 formed upon such graciousness of reception ! 
 
 After having rendered the city of men wonderfully happy, 
 I would direct my attention to the embellishment and com- 
 modiousness of the city of stones. I would rear in it a multi- 
 tude of useful monuments : I would extend along the houses, 
 arcades as in Turin, and a raised pavement as in London, for 
 the accommodation of foot-passengers ; in the streets, where 
 it was practicable, trees and canals as in Holland, for the 
 facility of carriage ; in the suburbs caravansaries, as in the 
 cities of the east, for the entertainment, at a moderate expense, 
 of travellers from foreign lands ; towards the centre of the 
 city, markets of vast extent, and surrounded with houses six 
 or seven stories high, for the reception of the poorer sort, who 
 will soon be at a loss for a place where to lay their head. I 
 would introduce a great deal of variety into their plans and 
 decorations. In the circular surrounding space I would dis- 
 pose temples, halls of justice, public fountains ; the principal 
 streets should terminate in them. I would erect in the centre 
 the statue of a good king ; for it is impossible to place it in a 
 
STUDY XIII. 353 
 
 situation more honourable to his memory, than in the midst 
 of the abundance enjoyed by his subjects. 
 
 I know of no one thing 1 which conveys a more precise idea 
 of the police of a city, and the felicity of its inhabitants, 
 than the sight of its markets. I should like to see the most 
 perfect harmony prevailing among our merchants, and the 
 most complete contrasts among their wares. By removing 
 the rivalities of commerce in the same sort of goods, those 
 jealousies which produce so many quarrels would be pre- 
 vented. It would give me pleasure to behold abundance 
 there pouring out the treasure of all her horns pell-mell. 
 Permission should be granted to sell there every sort of goods ; 
 'and this privilege alone would destroy various species of 
 monopoly. 
 
 I would erect but few temples ; these however should be 
 august, immense, with galleries on the outside and within, 
 and capable of containing on festival days the third part of 
 the population of Paris. The more that temples are multi- 
 plied in a state, the more is religion enfeebled. This has the 
 appearance of a paradox ; but look at Greece and Italy cov- 
 ered with church-towers, while Constantinople is crowded 
 with Greek and Italian renegadoes. Independently of the 
 political and even religious causes which produce these na- 
 tional depravations, there is one founded in Nature, the effects 
 of which we have already recognised in the weakness of the 
 human mind. It is this, That affection diminishes in pro- 
 portion as it is divided among a variety of objects. The 
 Jews, so astonishingly attached to their religion, had but one 
 single temple, the recollection of which excites their regret 
 to this day. 
 
 I would have amphitheatres constructed at Paris like those 
 at Rome, for assembling the people, and of treating them 
 from time to time with days of festivity. What a superb 
 site for such an edifice is presented in the rising ground at 
 the entrance into the Elysian Fields ! How easy would it 
 have been to hollow it down to the level of the plain in form 
 of an amphitheatre, disposed into ascending rows of seats 
 covered with green turf simply, having its ridge crowned 
 with great trees, exalted on an elevation of more than four- 
 score feet : what a magnificent spectacle would it have been 
 to behold an immense people ranged round and round, like 
 
 2U 30* 
 
354 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 one great family, eating, drinking, and rejoicing in the con- 
 templation of their own felicity ! 
 
 All these edifices should be constructed of huge blocks of 
 stone, such as the ancients employed, and as becomes a city 
 that is to last for ever. The streets and public squares should 
 be planted with great trees of various sorts. Trees are the 
 real monuments of nations. Time, which speedily impairs 
 the works of man, only increases the beauty of those of Na- 
 ture. To the trees our favourite walk the Boulevards is 
 indebted for its principal charm. They delight the eye by 
 their verdure ; they elevate the soul to heaven by the lofti- 
 ness of their stems ; they communicate respect to the monu- 
 ments which they shade by the majesty of their forms. They 
 contribute, more than we are aware of, to rivet our attach- 
 ment to the places we have inhabited. Our memory fixes 
 on them as on points of union which have secret harmonies 
 with the soul of man. They possess a commanding influ- 
 ence over the events of our life, like those which rise by the 
 shore of the sea, and frequently serve as a direction to the 
 pilot. The trees of our natal soil have a farther and most 
 powerful attraction, when they are blended, as was the case 
 among the ancients, with some religious idea, or with the 
 recollection of some distinguished personage. Whole nations 
 have attached their patriotism to this object. 
 
 A city, were it built completely of marble, would have to 
 me a melancholy appearance, unless I saw in it trees and 
 verdure : on the other hand a landscape, were it Arcadia, 
 were it along the banks of the Alpheus, or did it present the 
 swelling ridges of Mount Lyceum, would appear to me a 
 wilderness if I did not see in it at least one little cottage. 
 The works of Nature and of man mutually embellish each 
 other. The spirit of selfishness has destroyed among us a 
 taste for Nature. Our peasantry see no beauty in our plains 
 but where they see the return of their labour. I one day met 
 in the vicinity of the Abbey de la Trappe, on the flinty road 
 of Notre Dame d'Apre, a countrywoman walking along with 
 two large loaves of bread under her arm. It was in the 
 month of May, and the weather inexpressibly fine. * What 
 a charming season it is!' said I. ' How beautiful are those 
 apple-trees in blossom ! How sweetly those nightingales 
 sing in the woods !' ' Ah !' replied she, ' I do n't mind nose- 
 gays, nor these little squallers ! It is bread that we want.* 
 
STUDY XIII. 355 
 
 Indigence hardens the heart of the country people, and shuts 
 their eyes. But the good folks of the town have no greater 
 relish for Nature, because the love of gold regulates all their 
 other appetites. If some of them set a value on the liberal 
 arts, it is not because those arts imitate natural objects, but 
 from the price to which the hand of great masters raises their 
 productions. These know that it is not Nature but their own 
 skill which is prized, their great aim is to display themselves. 
 Hence they introduce a profusion of rich accessories into 
 most of our monuments, while they frequently omit alto- 
 gether the principal object. 
 
 Our populace we are told is destitute of patriotism. I can 
 easily believe it, for everything is done that can be done to 
 destroy this principle in them. For example, on the pedi- 
 ment of the beautiful church of St. Genevieve, an adoration 
 of the cross is represented. You see indeed the patroness of 
 Paris in bas-reliefs under the peristyle, in the midst of cardi- 
 nals ; but would it not have been more in character to exhibit 
 to the people their humble patroness in her habit of shep- 
 herdess, in a little jacket and cornet, with her scrip, her crook, 
 her dog, her sheep, her moulds for making cheese, and all 
 the peculiarities of her age and condition, on the pediment of 
 the church dedicated to her memory ] To these might have 
 been added a view of Paris, such as it was in her time. From 
 the whole would have resulted contrasts and objects of com- 
 parison of the most agreeable kind. The people at sight of 
 this rural scenery would have called to memory the days of 
 old. They would have conceived esteem for the obscure 
 virtues which are necessary to their happiness, and would 
 have been stimulated to tread in the rough paths of glory 
 which their lowly patroness trod before them, whom it is now 
 impossible for them to distinguish in her Grecian robes, and 
 surrounded by prelates. 
 
 The French Academy would be much more successful, if 
 it aimed at fixing, by the charms of eloquence, the attention 
 of the nation on our great men ; did it attempt less, in the 
 eulogiums which it pronounces to panegyrize the dead, than 
 to satirize the living. In order to paint virtue, it is neces- 
 sary to bring forward defects and vices, that conflict and 
 triumph may be rendered conspicuous. The style employed 
 in it is full of pomp and luxuriance. This kind of eloquence, 
 vague and indecisive as it is, suits no one great man in par- 
 
356 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tieular, because it may be applied in general to all those who 
 have run the same career. If you only change a few proper 
 names in the eulogium of a general, you may comprehend in 
 it all generals past and future. You will never find an aca- 
 demical eulogium in the hands of one of the common people. 
 You might see them perhaps turning over those of Fontenelle, 
 and a few others, if the persons celebrated in them had paid 
 attention to the people while they lived ; but the nation takes 
 pleasure in reading history. 
 
 Walking some time ago towards the quarter of the military 
 school, I perceived at some distance, near a sand-pit, a thick 
 column of smoke. I bent my course that way to see what 
 produced it. I found, in a very solitary place, a good deal 
 resembling that which Shakspeare makes the scene where 
 the three witches appear to Macbeth, a poor woman sitting 
 upon a stone. She was deeply engaged in reading an old 
 book, close by a great pile of herbage which she had set on 
 fire. I first asked her for what purpose she was burning 
 those herbs ? She replied, that it was for the sake of the 
 ashes, which she gathered up and sold to the laundresses ; 
 that for this end she bought of the gardeners the refuse plants 
 of their grounds, and was waiting till they were entirely 
 consumed, that she might carry off the ashes, because they 
 were liable to be stolen in her absence. After having thus 
 satisfied my curiosity, she returned to her book, and read on 
 with deep attention, Eagerly desirous to know with what 
 book she filled up her hours of languor, I took the liberty to 
 ask the title of it. * It is the life of M. de Turenne,' she 
 replied. ' Well, what do you think of him T said I. ' Ah !' 
 replied she with emotion, ' he was a brave man, who suffered 
 much uneasiness from a minister of state, while he was alive.' 
 I withdrew, filled with increased veneration for the memory 
 of M. de Turenne, who served to console a poor old woman 
 in distress. It is thus that the virtues of the lower classes 
 of society support themselves on those of great men, as the 
 feeble plants, which, to escape being trampled under foot, 
 cling to the trunk of the oak. 
 
 OF NOBILITY. 
 
 The ancient nations of Europe imagined that the most 
 powerful stimulus to the practice of virtue was to ennoble 
 the descendants of their virtuous citizens. They involved 
 
STUDY XIII. 357 
 
 themselves by this in very great inconveniences. For in 
 rendering nobility hereditary, they precluded to the rest of 
 the citizens the paths which lead to distinction. As it is the 
 perpetual exclusive possession of a certain number of families, 
 it ceases to be a national recompense, otherwise a whole 
 nation would consist of nobles at length : which would pro- 
 duce a lethargy fatal to arts and handicrafts; and this is 
 actually the case in Spain, and part of Italy. 
 
 Many other mischiefs necessarily result from hereditary 
 noblesse, the principal of which is the formation, in a state, 
 of two several nations, which at length have nothing in 
 common between them ; patriotism is annihilated, arid both 
 hasten to a state of subjection. Such has been, within our 
 recollection, the fate of Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and even 
 part of the provinces of our own kingdom, such as Britanny, 
 where a nobility, insufferably lofty, and multiplied beyond 
 all bounds, formed a class absolutely distinct from the rest 
 of the citizens. It is well worthy of being remarked, that 
 these countries, though republican, though so powerful, in 
 the opinion of our political writers, from the freedom of their 
 constitution, have been very easily subjected by despotic 
 princes, who were the masters they tell us of slaves only. 
 The reason is, that the people in every country prefer one 
 sovereign to a thousand tyrants, and that their fate always 
 decides that of their lordly oppressors. The Romans softened 
 the unjust and odious distinctions between patricians and 
 plebeians, by granting to these last privileges and employ- 
 ments of the highest respectability. 
 
 Means still more effectual were employed by that people 
 to approximate the two -classes of citizens ; particularly the 
 practice of adoption. How many great men started up out 
 of the mass of the people to merit this kind of recompense, 
 as illustrious as those which country bestows, and still more 
 addressed to the heart ! Thus did the Catos and the Scipios 
 distinguish themselves, in hope of being ingrafted into patrician 
 families. I do not know, but perhaps I am only betraying my 
 own ignorance, that adoption ever was in use among us, unless 
 between certain great lords, who from the failure of heirs of 
 blood, were at a loss how to dispose of their vast possessions. 
 I consider adoption as much preferable to nobility conferred 
 by the state. It might be the means of reviving illustrious 
 families, whose descendants are now languishing in abject 
 
353 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 poverty. It would endear the nobility and people to each 
 other. The privilege of bestowing the rights of adoption 
 should be rendered a species of recompense to the noblesse 
 themselves. Thus, for example, a poor man of family, who 
 had distinguished himself, might be empowered to adopt one 
 of the commonalty, who should acquire eminence. A man 
 of birth would be on the look-out for virtue among the people ; 
 and a virtuous man of the commonalty would go in quest of 
 a worthy nobleman as a patron. Such political bonds of 
 union would be more powerful, more honourable, than mer- 
 cenary matrimonial alliances, which, by uniting two indi- 
 vidual citizens of different classes, frequently alienate their 
 families. Nobility thus acquired would appear far preferable 
 to that which public employments confer ; for these being 
 purchasable, from that very circumstance lose their respecta- 
 bility, and consequently degrade the nobility attached to 
 them. 
 
 But taking it at the best, one disadvantage must ever ad- 
 here to hereditary nobility, namely, the eventual excessive 
 multiplication of persons of that description. A remedy for 
 this has been attempted among us, by adjudging nobility to 
 various professions, such as maritime commerce. It may be 
 a question, Whether the spirit of commerce can be perfectly- 
 consistent with the honour of a gentleman ? Besides, What 
 commerce shall he carry on who has got nothing ? Must not 
 a premium be paid to the merchant for admitting a young 
 man into his counting-house to learn the first principles of 
 trade 1 And where should so many poor men of noble birth 
 find the means, who have not wherewithal to clothe their 
 children ] I have seen some of them in Britanny, the descend- 
 ants of the most ancient families of the province, so reduced 
 as to earn a livelihood by mowing down the hay of the peas- 
 antry for so much a day. 
 
 Would to GOD that all conditions were nobilitated, the pro- 
 fession of agriculture in particular ! for it is that, above all 
 others, of which every function is allied to virtue. To be a 
 husbandman there is no need to deceive, flatter, degrade one's 
 self, or do violence to another. He is not indebted for the 
 profits of his labour to the vices or luxury of his age, but to 
 the bounty of Heaven. He adheres to his country, at least 
 by the little corner of it which he cultivates. If the condi- 
 tion of the husbandman were ennobled, many benefits to the 
 
STUDY XIII. 359 
 
 inhabitants of the kingdom would result from it. Nay, it 
 would be sufficient were it not considered as ignoble. 
 
 OF AN ELYSIUM. 
 
 The hereditary transmission of nobility is subject to a far- 
 ther inconvenience ; namely, that man who sets out with 
 the virtues of a Marius finishes the career loaded with all his 
 vices. To distinguish superior worth, let the rewards of vir- 
 tue be withheld till after death. 
 
 Death affixes the last seal to the memory of man. It is 
 well known of what weight the decisions were which the 
 Egyptians pronounced upon their citizens after life was ter- 
 minated. Then too it was that the Romans sometimes exalted 
 theirs to the rank of demigods, and sometimes threw them 
 into the Tiber. The people, in default of priests and magis- 
 trates, still exercise among us a part of this priesthood. I 
 have often stood still of an evening, at sight of a magnificent 
 funeral procession, not so much to admire the pomp of it, as 
 to listen to the judgment pronounced by the populace on the 
 prince whose obsequies were celebrating. I have heard the 
 question asked, Was he a good master ? Was he fond of his 
 wife and children ? Was he a friend to the poor 1 The 
 people insist particularly on this last question, because, being 
 principally influenced by the call of Nature, they distinguish 
 in the rich hardly any other virtue than beneficence. I have 
 heard this reply given : Oh ! he never did good to any one ; 
 he was an unkind relation, a harsh master.' 1 have heard them 
 say, at the interment of a farmer-general, who left behind 
 him more than half a million sterling : * He drove away the 
 country poor from his castle with fork and flail.' On such 
 occasions the spectators cursed the memory of the deceased. 
 
 Death alone can ensure reputation, and nothing short of 
 religion can consecrate it. Our grandees are abundantly 
 aware of this. Hence the sumptuousness of their monuments 
 in our churches ; on which, as many imagine, their virtues 
 are portrayed in brass and marble. But, thanks to the alle- 
 gorical representations of our artists, to the Latin inscriptions 
 of our literati, the people know nothing about the matter ; 
 and their only reflection at sight of them is, that all this must 
 have cost an enormous sum of money, which might have been 
 employed to much better advantage. 
 
 Religion alone can consecrate the memory of virtue. The 
 
360 
 
 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 celebrated Frederic of Prussia did not overlook this. As the 
 Protestant religion, the general profession of his kingdom, 
 excludes from the churches the images of the saints, he sup- 
 plied their place with the portraits of distinguished officers 
 who had fallen in his service. The first time I looked into 
 the churches at Berlin, I was not a little astonished to see the 
 walls adorned with the portraits of officers in their uniform. 
 Beneath, there was an inscription indicating their names, 
 their age, the place of their birth, and the battle in which 
 they had been killed. There is likewise subjoined, if my 
 recollection is accurate, a line or two of eulogium. The 
 military enthusiasm kindled by this sight is inconceivable. 
 
 I would have it made a rule that no citizen should be 
 interred in the church. Cyrus, the sovereign of the greatest 
 part of Asia, ordered that his body should be interred in the 
 open country, so that the elements of it might be quickly 
 united to those of Nature, and contribute anew to the forma- 
 tion of her beautiful works. This sentiment was worthy of 
 the sublime soul of Cyrus. Tombs in every country, espe- 
 cially those of great kings, are the most endeared monuments 
 of nations. The savages consider those of their ancestors as 
 titles to the possession of the lands which they inhabit. 
 c This country is ours,' say they ; ' the bones of our fathers 
 are here laid to rest.' When forced to quit it, they dig them 
 up with tears, and carry them off with every token of respect. 
 
 The Turks erect their tombs by the side of the highways, 
 as the Romans did. The Chinese make theirs enchanted 
 spots, which inspire a profound and delicious melancholy, not 
 only from the natural effect of their decorations, but from the 
 moral sentiment excited in us by tombs, which are monu- 
 ments erected on the confines of two worlds. 
 
 Our great ones then would lose nothing of the respect 
 which they wish to attach to their memory, were they to be 
 interred in public receptacles of the dead adjoining to the 
 capital. A magnificent sepulchral chapel might be construct- 
 ed in the midst of the burying-ground, devoted solely to 
 funereal obsequies, the celebration of which frequently dis- 
 turbs the worship of GOD in parish churches. Artists might 
 give full scope to their imagination in the decorations of such 
 a mausoleum ; and the temples of humility and truth would 
 no longer be profaned by the vanity and falsehood of monu- 
 mental epitaphs. 
 
STUDY XIII. 361 
 
 While each citizen should be left at liberty to lodge him- 
 self, agreeably to his own fancy, in this last and lasting 
 abode, I would have a large space selected, not far from Paris, 
 consecrated by every solemnity of religion to be a general 
 receptacle of the ashes of such as may have deserved well 
 of their country. 
 
 The services which may be rendered to our country are 
 infinite and various. We hardly acknowledge any but what 
 are derived from formidable qualities, such as valour. We 
 revere that only which terrifies us. The tokens of our 
 esteem are frequently testimonies of our weakness. We are 
 brought up to a sense of fear only, and not of gratitude. 
 
 I have often felt astonishment at our indifference about the 
 memory of those of our ancestors who introduced useful trees in 
 the country, the fruits and shade of which are to this day so de- 
 licious. The names of those benefactors are almost unknown ; 
 their benefits are however perpetuated from age to age. The 
 Romans did not act in this manner. Pliny tells us, that of 
 the eight species of cherry known at Rome in his time, one 
 was called the Plinian, after the name of one of his relations, 
 to whom Italy was indebted for it. He informs us that it 
 was Lucullus who transplanted from the kingdom of Pontus 
 the first cherry-trees into Italy, from whence they were prop- 
 agated in less than 120 years all over Europe, England not 
 excepted, which was then peopled with barbarians. They 
 were perhaps the first means of the civilization of that island, 
 for the first laws always spring up out of agriculture ; and 
 for this very reason it is that the Greeks gave to Ceres the 
 name of Legislatrix. Assuredly, if I wished to have my name 
 perpetuated, I would rather have it affixed to a fruit in 
 France than to an island in America. The people in the 
 season of that fruit would recall my memory with tokens of 
 respect. My name, preserved in the baskets of the peasantry, 
 would endure longer than if it were engraved on columns 
 of marble. 
 
 The benefit of a useful plant is, in my opinion, one of the 
 most important services a citizen can render to his country. 
 Foreign plants unite us to the nations from whence they come ; 
 they convey to us a portion of their happiness and of their 
 genial suns. I would begin then with erecting the first 
 monuments of public gratitude to those who have introduced 
 among us the useful plants ; for this purpose I would select 
 2V 31 
 
362 
 
 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 one of the islands of the Seine, in the vicinity of Pans, to be 
 converted into an Elysium. I would plant this extensive 
 district with the trees, shrubbery, and herbage, with which 
 France has been enriched for ages past. Under their shade, 
 and amidst carpets of variegated verdure, should be reared 
 the monuments of those who transplanted them into France. 
 There too should be displayed the urn of the unknown trav- 
 eller, who adorned to endless generations the humble win- 
 dow of his obscure habitation with the brilliant colours of 
 Aurora, by transplanting thither the nun of Peru.* 
 
 On advancing into this delicious spot, we should behold 
 under domes and porticoes the ashes and busts of those who, 
 by the invention of useful arts, have taught us to avail our- 
 selves of the productions of Nature, and who by their genius 
 have spared us the necessity of long and painful labours. 
 There would be no occasion for epitaphs. The figures of the 
 implements employed in weaving stockings; of those used in 
 the twisting of silk, and in the construction of the windmill, 
 would be monumental inscriptions as august, and as expres- 
 sive, on the tombs of their inventors, as the sphere inscribed 
 in the cylinder on that of Archimedes. There might one day 
 be traced the aerostatic globe on the tomb of Mongolfier ; but 
 it would be proper to know beforehand whether that strange 
 machine, which elevates men into the air by means of fire, 
 or gas, shall contribute to the happiness of mankind ; for the 
 name of the inventor of gunpowder himself, were we capable 
 of tracing it, could not be admitted into the retreats of the 
 benefactors of humanity. 
 
 On approaching the centre of this Elysium, we should 
 meet with monuments still more venerable, of those who by 
 their virtue have transmitted to posterity fruits far more deli- 
 cious than those of the vegetables of Asia, and who have call- 
 ed into exercise the most sublime of all talents. There should 
 be placed the monuments and the statues of the generous 
 Duquesne, who himself fitted out a squadron, at his sole ex- 
 pense, in the defence of his country ; of the sage Catinat, 
 equally tranquil in the mountains of Savoy and in the hum- 
 
 * I would contemplate the monument of that man, were it but a simple tile, 
 with more respect than the superb mausolea which have been reared in many 
 places of Europe and of America, in honour of the inhuman conquerors of 
 Mexico and Peru. More historians than one have given us their eulogium, but 
 divine Providence has done them justice. They all died a violent death, and 
 most of them by the hand of the executioner. 
 
STUDY XIIL 363 
 
 ble retreat of St. Gratian ; and of the heroic Chevalier <TAs- 
 sas, sacrificing himself by night for the preservation of the 
 French army in the woods of Klosterkam. 
 
 There should be the illustrious writers, who inflamed their 
 compatriots with the ardour of performing great actions. 
 There we should see Amyot leaning on the bust of Plutarch ; 
 and thou, who hast given at once the theory and the example 
 of virtue, divine author of Telemachus ! we should revere thy 
 ashes and thy image, in an image of those Elysian fields 
 which thy pencil has delineated in such glowing colours. 
 
 I would likewise give a place to the monuments of eminent 
 women, for virtue knows no distinction of sex. There should 
 be reared the statues of those who, with all the charms of 
 beauty, preferred a laborious and obscure life to the vain 
 delights of the world ; of matrons who re-established order in 
 a deranged family ; who, faithful to the memory of a husband 
 frequently chargeable with infidelity, preserved inviolate the 
 conjugal vow, even after death had cancelled the obligation, 
 and devoted her youth to the education of the dear pledges 
 of a union now no more : and finally, the venerable effigies 
 of those who attained the highest pinnacle of distinction by 
 the very obscurity of their virtues. Thither should be trans- 
 ported the tomb of a lady of Lamoignon, from the poor church 
 of Saint Giles, where it remains unnoticed : its affecting epi- 
 taph would render it still more worthy of occupying this 
 honourable station than the chisel of Girardon, whose master- 
 piece it is : in it we read that a design had been entertained 
 to bury her in another place ; but the poor of the parish, to 
 whom she was a mother all her life long, carried it off by force, 
 and deposited it in their church : they themselves would un- 
 doubtedly transport, the remains of their benefactress, and 
 resort to this hallowed spot to display them to the public 
 veneration. 
 
 Here patriot-bands, who for their country bled ; 
 Priests, who a life of purest virtue led ; 
 Here bards sublime, fraught with ethereal fire, 
 Whose heavenly strains outvied Apollo's lyre ; 
 Divine inventors of the useful arts ; 
 All those whose generous and expansive hearts, 
 By goodness sought to purchase honest fame, 
 And dying left behind a deathless name. 
 
 There I would have, scattejed about, monuments of every 
 kind, apportioned to various degrees of merit : I would not 
 
364 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 have them crowded together, as in a repository, but disposed 
 with taste : neither would I have them all of white marble, 
 as if they came out of the same quarry, but of marbles and 
 stones of every colour. There would be no occasion, through 
 the whole extent of this vast enclosure, for the application of 
 the line, for digging up the ground, for grass-plots, for trees 
 cut into shape, and fantastically trimmed, nor anything 
 resembling what is to be seen in our gardens. For a similar 
 reason, I would have no Latin inscriptions, nor mythological 
 expressions, nor anything that savoured of the academy.* 
 Still less would I admit of dignities or honours, which call 
 to remembrance the vain ideas of the world ; I would retrench 
 from them all the qualities which are destroyed by death ; 
 no importance should there be assigned but to good actions, 
 which survive the man and the citizen, and are the only 
 titles that posterity cares for, and that GOD recompenses. 
 The inscriptions should be simple, and naturally suggested 
 by each particular subject. The living should not uselessly 
 talk to the dead, and to inanimate objects, as is the case in 
 our epitaphs ; but the dead should speak to the living for 
 their instruction, as among the ancients. These corres- 
 pondences of an invisible to a visible nature, of a time remote 
 to the time present, convey to the soul the celestial extension 
 of infinity, and are the source of the delight which ancient 
 inscriptions inspire. 
 
 I would insist that in the figures introduced there should 
 be displayed no air of insolence ; no dishevelled locks flying 
 about in the wind, like those of the angel sounding the 
 resurrection trumpet, no theatrical grief, and no violent 
 tossing of the robes ; no mythological attributes, which 
 convey nothing instructive to the people. Every personage 
 should there appear with his appropriate badge of distinction. 
 
 These statues of virtuous citizens ought to be fully as 
 respectable as those of the gods of paganism, and unques- 
 
 * Had St. Pierre, in the course of his travels, come over to this island, and 
 visited Stowe, he would have found his idea of an Elysium anticipated, and 
 upon no mean scale, by the great Lord Cobham, who has rendered every spot 
 of that terrestrial paradise sacred to the memory of departed excellence. What 
 would have given our author peculiar satisfaction, the parish church stands in 
 the centre of the garden ; hence the people have unrestrained access to it. The 
 monuments are for the most part patriotic, without regard to the distinctions of 
 rank and fortune, except as allied to virtue ; and the best inscriptions are in 
 plain English, and humble prose. 
 
STUDY XIII. 
 
 tionably more interesting than that of the antique grinder or 
 gladiator. But our artists should study to convey, as the 
 ancients did, the characters of the soul in the attitude of the 
 body, and in the traits of the countenance, such as penitence, 
 hope, joy, sensibility, innocence. These are peculiarities of 
 Nature which never vary, and always please, whatever be 
 the drapery. Nay, the more contemptible the occupations 
 and garb of such personages are, the more sublime will the 
 expression of their virtues appear. 
 
 There should be on those tombs no skeletons, no bats' 
 wings, no Time with his scythe, none of those terrifying 
 attributes which inspire us with horror at the thought of 
 death, that last benefit of Nature : but we should contem- 
 plate on them symbols which announce a happy and immortal 
 life ; vessels shattered by the tempest arriving safe in port ; 
 doves taking their flight towards heaven, and the like. 
 
 The sacred effigies of virtuous citizens, crowned with 
 flowers, with the characters of felicity, of peace, and of con- 
 solation in their faces, should be arranged towards the centre 
 of the island, around a vast mossy down, under the trees of 
 the country. From the middle of that down should ascend 
 a magnificent temple in form of a rotunda. It should be 
 surrounded with a peristyle of majestic columns, as was 
 formerly at Rome the Moles Adriani. But I could wish it 
 to be much more spacious. On the frieze these words might 
 appear : 'To the love of the human race.' 
 
 In the centre I would have an altar simple and unorna- 
 mented, at which, on certain days of the year, divine service 
 might be celebrated. No production of sculpture nor of 
 painting, no gold nor jewels, should be deemed worthy of 
 decorating the interior of this temple ; but sacred inscriptions 
 should announce the kind of merit which there received the 
 crown. All those who might repose within the precincts 
 undoubtedly would not be saints. But over the principal 
 gate, on a tablet of white marble, these divine words might 
 meet the eye : ( Her sins, which were many, are forgiven ; 
 for she loved much.' 
 
 On another part of the frieze, the following inscription, 
 unfolding the nature of our duties, might be displayed : 
 'Virtue is an effort made upon ourselves, for the good of men, 
 in the view of pleasing God only.' 
 
 To this might be subjoined the following, very much cal- 
 
 31* 
 
366 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 culated to repress our ambitious emulation : * The smallest 
 act of virtue is of more value than the exercise of the greatest 
 talents.' 
 
 On other tablets might be inscribed maxims of trust in the 
 divine Providence, extracted from the philosophers of all 
 nations, such as the following, borrowed from the modern 
 Persians : ' When affliction is at the height, then we are the 
 most encouraged to look for consolation. The narrowest 
 part of the defile is at the entrance of the plain.'* 
 
 And that other of the same country : c Whoever has cor- 
 dially devoted his soul to GOD, has effectually secured himself 
 against all the ills which can befal him, both in this world 
 and in the next.' 
 
 There might be inserted some of a philosophic cast, on the 
 vanity of human things, such as the following : ' Esti- 
 mate each of your days by pleasures, by loves, by treas- 
 ures, and by grandeurs ; the last will accuse them all of 
 vanity.' 
 
 Or that other, which opens to us a perspective of the life 
 to come : * He who has provided light for the eye of man, 
 sounds for his ear, perfumes for his smell, and fruits for his 
 palate, will find the means of one day replenishing his heart, 
 which nothing here below can satisfy.' 
 
 And that other, which inculcates charity towards men from 
 the motives of self-interest : ( When a man studies the 
 world, he prizes those only who possess sagacity ; but when 
 he studies himself, he esteems only those who exercise indul- 
 gence.' 
 
 I would have the following inscribed round the cupola in 
 letters of antique bronze : ' A new commandment I give 
 unto you, that ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that 
 ye also love one another.' 
 
 To decorate this temple externally with a becoming dig. 
 nity, no ornament would be necessary except those of Nature. 
 The first rays of the rising and the last of the setting sun 
 would gild its cupola, towering above the forests : in the day 
 time the fires of the south, and by night the lustre of the 
 moon, would trace its majestic shadow on the spreading 
 down : the Seine would repeat the reflexes of its flowing 
 stream. In vain would the tempest rage around its enormous 
 
 * Chardin's Palace of Ispahan. 
 
STUDY XIIL 367 
 
 vault ; and when the hand of Time should have bronzed it 
 with moss, the oaks of the country should issue from its 
 antique cornices, and the eagles of heaven, hovering round 
 and round, would resort thither to build their nests. 
 
 Neither talents, birth, nor gold, should constitute a title to 
 the honour of a monument in this patriotic and holy ground. 
 But it will be asked, Who is to judge and to decide the 
 merits of the persons whose ashes are to be there deposited ] 
 The king alone should have the power of decision, and the 
 people the privilege of reporting the cause. It should not be 
 sufficient for a citizen to obtain this kind of distinction, that 
 he had cultivated a new plant in a hot-house, or even in his 
 garden ; but it should be requisite to have it naturalized in 
 the open field, and its fruit carried to the public market. It 
 ought not to be deemed sufficient that the model of an inge- 
 nious machine was preserved in the collection of an artist, 
 and approved by the Academy of Sciences ; it should be re- 
 quired to have the machine itself in the hands of the people, 
 and converted to their use. The merit of a naval or military 
 commander should be ascertained, not by the report of ga- 
 zettes, but by the suffrages of the sailors or soldiery. 
 
 The people, in truth, distinguish hardly any other virtue 
 in the citizen except beneficence : they consult only their own 
 leading want ; but their instinct on this article is conformable 
 to the Divine Law : for all the virtues terminate in that, even 
 those which appear the most remote from it ; and supposing 
 there were rich men who meant to captivate their affections 
 by doing them good, that is precisely the feeling with which 
 we purpose to inspire them. They would fulfil their duties, 
 and the lofty and the low conditions of humanity would be 
 reduced to a state of approximation. From an institution of 
 this kind would result the re-establishment of one of the laws 
 of Nature, of all others the most important to a nation ; I 
 mean an inexhaustible perspective of infinity, as necessary to 
 the happiness of a whole nation as to that of an individual. 
 What an august tribunal might be formed of bishops eminent 
 for their piety, of upright magistrates, of celebrated command- 
 ers of armies, to examine their several pretensions ! What 
 memoirs might one day appear, proper to create an interest 
 in the minds of the people, who see nothing in their library 
 but the sentences of death pronounced on illustrious criminals, 
 or the lives of saints which are far above their sphere ! This 
 
368 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 establishment, which might be formed undoubtedly in a man- 
 ner very superior to the feeble sketch I have presented of it, 
 would serve to bring the higher conditions of life into contact 
 with the lower ; it would allure foreigners to the capital, by 
 holding out to them the right of a citizenship illustrious and 
 immortal. It would unite, in a word, religion to patriotism, 
 and patriotism to religion, the mutual bonds of which are on 
 the point of being torn asunder. It would be attended with 
 no expense to the state, but might be reared and kept up by 
 the revenue of some rich abbey, thus consecrated to religion 
 and to the rewards of virtue. It should not become, like the 
 monuments of modern Rome, and even many of our own 
 royal monuments, an object of filthy lucre to individuals, who 
 sell the sight of them to the curious. Particular care would 
 be taken not to exclude the people, because meanly habited ; 
 nor to hunt out of it, as from our public gardens, poor and 
 honest artisans in jackets, while well-dressed courtezans 
 flaunt about with effrontery in their great alleys : the lowest 
 of the commonalty might enter it at all seasons. To you, O 
 ye miserable of all conditions, the sight of the friends of 
 humanity should of right appertain ; and your patrons are 
 henceforth nowhere but among the statues of virtuous men ! 
 There, a soldier at sight of Catinat would learn to endure 
 calumny. There, a girl of the town, sick of her infamous 
 profession, would with a sigh cast her eyes on the ground, 
 on beholding the statue of modesty approached with honour 
 and respect : but at sight of that of a female of her own con- 
 dition reclaimed to the paths of virtue, she would raise them 
 toward Him who preferred repentance to innocence. 
 
 It may be objected, that our poorer sort would soon spread 
 destruction over all those monuments ; and it must indeed be 
 admitted, they seldom fail to treat in this manner those which 
 do not interest them, but respect monuments destined to their 
 use. They would soon take the elysium of their country 
 under their protection, and watch over it with zeal much 
 more ardent than that of military guards. Besides, methods 
 might be devised to render that spot respectable and dear to 
 them. It ought to be rendered an inviolable asylum to the 
 unfortunate ; for example, to fathers who have incurred the 
 debt of the month's nursing of a child ; and to those who 
 have committed venial and inconsiderate faults ; no personal 
 arrest should take place there, except by an express warrant 
 
STUDY XIII. 369 
 
 from the king. Laborious families out of employment might 
 here be directed to address themselves. There ought to be a 
 strict prohibition to make it a place of alms-giving, but an 
 unbounded permission to do good in it. Persons of virtue 
 would resort thither in quest of proper objects in whose behalf 
 they might employ their credit ; others, from respect to the 
 memory of some illustrious personage, would give a repast at 
 the foot of his statue to a family of poor people. There the 
 rich would be instructed really to practise virtue, and the 
 people to know it. The nation would learn their great duties, 
 and be assisted in forming a just idea of true greatness. They 
 would behold the homage presented to the memory of virtu- 
 ous men, and the offerings tendered to the DEITY, ultimately 
 applied to the relief of the miserable. 
 
 Such repasts would recall to our remembrance the love- 
 feasts of the primitive Christians, and the saturnalia of death, 
 toward which 'every day is carrying us forward, by speedily 
 reducing us all to an estate of equality, -will efface every 
 other difference but that of the good we shall have done in life. 
 
 OP THE CLERGY. 
 
 If our poor are sometimes partakers of some wretched 
 ecclesiastical distribution, the relief they thence derive, so far 
 from delivering them out of their misery, only serves to con- 
 tinue them in it. What landed property, however, has been 
 bequeathed to the church expressly for their benefit ! Why 
 then are not the revenues distributed in sums sufficiently 
 large to rescue annually from indigence at least a certain 
 number of families 1 The clergy allege that they are the 
 administrators of the goods of the poor ; but the poor are nei- 
 ther idiots nor madmen to stand in need of administrators. 
 I shall push this reflection no farther ; priests are by divine 
 right the agents of the poor, but the king alone is the na- 
 tural administrator. As indigence is the principal cause of 
 the vices of the people, opulence may produce, in its turn, 
 irregularities in the clergy ; and this has been abundantly 
 proved. 
 
 The world at this day looks on most priests with an eye 
 of envy ; shall I say of hatred ? But they are the children 
 of their age, just like other men. The vices which are laid 
 to their charge belong partly to their nation, partly to the 
 times in which they live, to the political constitution of the 
 2W 
 
370 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 state, and to their education. Ours are Frenchmen like our- 
 selves ; they are our kinsmen, frequently sacrificed to our 
 own fortune through the ambition of our fathers. Were we 
 charged with the performance of their duties, we should fre- 
 quently acquit ourselves worse than they do. I know of none 
 so painful, none so worthy of respect, as those of a good eccle- 
 siastic. 
 
 I do not speak of those of a bishop, who exercises a vigilant 
 care over his diocese, who institutes judicious seminaries of 
 instruction, who maintains regularity and peace in communi- 
 ties, who resists the wicked and supports the weak, who is 
 always ready to succour the miserable, and who, in this age 
 of error, refutes the objections of the enemies of the faith by 
 his own virtues. He has his reward in the public esteem. 
 I say nothing of those of a parish minister, which, from their 
 importance, sometimes attract the attention of kings ; nor of 
 those of a missionary advancing to the crown -of martyrdom. 
 The conflicts of this last frequently endure but for a single 
 day, and his glory is immortal. But I speak of those of a 
 simple and obscure parish drudge, to whom no one pays the 
 least attention. He must sacrifice the pleasures and the 
 liberty of his juvenile days to irksome and painful studies ; 
 he is obliged to support all his life the exercise of continency 
 on a thousand occasions which endanger the loss of it. The 
 world honours theatrical virtues only, and the victories of a 
 single moment. But to combat day after day an enemy 
 lodged within the fortress, and who makes his approaches 
 under the disguise of a friend ; to repel incessantly, without 
 a witness, without glory, without applause, the most impet- 
 uous of passions and the gentlest of propensities this is 
 not easy. 
 
 Conflicts of another kind await him from without. He is 
 daily called upon to expose his life to the attack of epidemical 
 distempers. He is obliged to confess, with his head on the 
 same pillow, persons attacked with the small-pox, with the 
 putrid and purple fever. This obscure fortitude is far superior 
 to the courage of a soldier. The military man combats in 
 the view of armies, animated with the noise of cannon and 
 drums ; he presents himself to the stroke of death as a hero. 
 But the priest devotes himself to it as a victim. What for- 
 tune can this last promise himself from his labours 7 In 
 many cases, a precarious subsistence at most ! Besides, sup- 
 
STUDY XIII. 371 
 
 posing him to have acquired wealth, he cannot transmit it to 
 his descendants. He beholds all his temporal hopes expire 
 with him. What indemnification does he receive from men 1 
 To be called upon many a time to administer the consolations 
 of religion to persons who do not believe it ; to be the refuge 
 of the poor, with nothing to give them ; to be sometimes 
 persecuted for his very virtues ; to see his conflicts treated 
 with contempt, his best intentioned actions misinterpreted 
 into artifice, his virtues transformed into vices, his religion 
 turned into ridicule. Such are the duties imposed, and such 
 the recompense which the world bestows on the men whose 
 lot it envies. 
 
 This is what I have assumed the courage to propose, for 
 the happiness of the people, and of the principal orders of the 
 state, in so far as I have been permitted to submit my ideas 
 to the public eye. Should some great minister, animated 
 with a noble ambition to procure for us internal happiness, 
 and to extend our power externally, have the courage to 
 undertake a re-establishment of things, he must in his course 
 of procedure imitate that of Nature. She acts in every case 
 slowly, and by means of reactions. I repeat it, the cause 
 of the prodigious power of gold, which has robbed the people 
 at once of their morality and subsistence, is in the venality 
 of public employments ; that of the beggary of seven mil- 
 lions of subjects consists in the enormous accumulation of 
 landed and official property ; that of female prostitution is to 
 be imputed, on the one hand, to extreme indigence ; and on 
 the other, to the celibacy of two millions of men : the pre- 
 judices of the nobility are kept alive by the resentments of 
 those who want the advantage of birth ; and all other evils, 
 physical and intellectual, spring up out of the misery of the 
 people. It is the indigence of the people which produces 
 such swarms of players, courtezans, highwaymen, incen- 
 diaries, licentious scholars, calumniators, flatterers, hypocrites, 
 mendicants, kept mistresses, quacks of all conditions, and 
 that infinite multitude of corrupted wretches, who, incapable 
 of coming to anything by their virtues, endeavour to procure 
 bread and consideration by their vices. In vain will you 
 oppose to these plans of finance, projects of equalization of 
 taxes and tithes, of ordonnances of police, of arrets of par- 
 liament ; all your efforts will be fruitless. The indigence of 
 the people is a mighty river, which is every year collecting 
 
372 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 an increase of strength, sweeping 1 away before it every oppo- 
 sing mound, and which will issue in a total subversion of 
 order and government. 
 
 To this physical cause of our distresses must be added an- 
 other, purely moral ! I mean our education. If it be the 
 most important of our abuses, it is the most easily suscepti- 
 ble of reformation ; and this reform appears to me so abso- 
 lutely necessary, that without it all the rest goes for nothing. 
 
 STUDY FOURTEENTH. 
 
 OF EDUCATION. 
 
 To what higher object,' says Plutarch,* ' could Numa 
 have directed his attention, than to the culture of early in- 
 fancy, and to uniformity in the treatment of young persons ; 
 in the view of preventing the collision of different manners, 
 and the turbulency of spirit arising from diversity of nature ? 
 Thus he proposed to harmonise the minds of men, in a state 
 of maturity, from their having be entrained in childhood in the 
 same habits of order, and casrt into the same mould of virtue. 
 This, independently of other advantages, greatly contributed 
 likewise to the support of the laws of Lycurgus ; for respect 
 to the oath, by which the Spartans had bound themselves, 
 must have produced a much more powerful effect, from his 
 having by early instruction and nurture dyed in the wool, if 
 I may use the expression, the morals of the young and made 
 them suck in with the milk from their nurse's breast the love 
 of his laws and institutions.' 
 
 Here is a decision which completely condemns our mode 
 of education, by pronouncing the eulogium of that of Sparta. 
 I do not hesitate to ascribe to our modern education, the rest- 
 less, ambitious, spiteful, pragmatical, and intolerant spirit of 
 most Europeans ; its effects are visible in the miseries of the 
 nations ; and those which have been most agitated inter- 
 nally and externally are precisely the nations among which 
 our boasted style of education has flourished the most. The 
 truth of this may be clearly ascertained by stepping from 
 
 * Comparison of Numa and Lycurgus. 
 
STUDY XIV. 373 
 
 country to country, from age to age. Politicians have ima- 
 gined that they could discern the cause of public misfortunes 
 in the different forms of government. But Turkey is quiet, 
 and England is frequently in a state of agitation. All politi- 
 cal forms are indifferent to the happiness of a state, provided 
 the people are happy ; we might have added, and provided 
 the children are so likewise. 
 
 The philosopher Laloubere, envoy from Louis XIV. to Siam, 
 says, in the account he gives of his mission, that the Asia- 
 tics laugh us to scorn when we boast to them of the excel- 
 lence of the Christian religion, as contributing to the happi- 
 ness of states. They ask, on reading our histories, How is it 
 possible that our religion should be so humane, while we wage 
 war ten times more frequently than they do ? What would 
 they say, then, did they see our perpetual lawsuits, the mali- 
 cious censoriousness and calumny of our societies, the jealousy 
 of corps, the quarrels of the populace, the duels of the better sort, 
 and our animosities of every kind, nothing similar to which 
 is to be seen in Asia, in Africa, among the Tartars or savages, 
 on the testimony of missionaries themselves ? I can discern 
 the cause of all these particular and general disorders in our 
 ambitious education. When a man has drunk, from infancy 
 upward, into the cup of ambition, the thirst of it cleaves to 
 him throughout life, and degenerates into a burning fever at 
 the very feet of the altars. This is not assuredly occasioned 
 by religion. 
 
 There are but two passions in the heart of man, love and 
 ambition. Civil laws denounce the severest punishment 
 against the excesses of the first ; but these same laws meet 
 the second more than half way ; they everywhere propose 
 to it prizes, rewards, and honours. Thus the world forms its 
 judgments ; but religion, ever conformable to Nature, pro- 
 nounces a very different decision on the characters of these 
 two passions. JESUS invites the communications of the frail 
 Samaritan woman, he pardons the adulteress, he absolves the 
 female offender who bathed his feet with her tears ; but, in 
 Luke xi. 43, &c. he inveighs against the ambitious. He 
 declares, that notwithstanding their empty honours in this 
 world, harlots should go before them into the kingdom of 
 GOD. He cautions us, in many places, to be on our guard 
 against them, and intimates that we should know them by 
 their fruits. In pronouncing decisions so different from ours, 
 
374 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 He judges our passions according to their natural adaptation. 
 The first involves the distress of only two guilty persons, but 
 the second affects the happiness of mankind. 
 
 Virtue and ambition are absolutely incompatible. The 
 glory of ambition is to mount, that of virtue to descend. 
 Observe how JESUS CHRIST reprimands his disciples, when 
 they asked him who should be the first among them. He 
 takes a little child, arid places him in the midst. Ah ! when 
 He recommends the humility so suitable to our frail and 
 miserable condition, it is because He did not consider that 
 power, even supreme, was capable of constituting our happi- 
 ness in this world ; He did not confer the superiority over 
 the rest on the disciple whom he loved the most ; but as a 
 reward to the love of him who had been faithful unto death, 
 He bequeathed to him, with his dying breath, his own mother 
 as a legacy. 
 
 A pretended emulation instilled into children renders them 
 for life intolerant, vainglorious, tremblingly alive to the 
 slightest censure, or to the meanest token of applause. They 
 are trained to ambition, we are told, in order to their pros- 
 pering in the world ; but the cupidity natural to the human 
 mind is more than sufficient for the attainment of that object. 
 Those who are incapable of rising by their talents, endeavour 
 to insinuate themselves into the good graces of their masters 
 by flattery, and to supplant their equals by calumny. If 
 these means succeed not, they conceive an aversion for the 
 objects of their emulation, which, to their comrades, has all 
 the value of applause, and becomes to themselves a perpetual 
 source of depression, chastisement, and tears. 
 
 This is the reason that so many grown men endeavour to 
 banish from their memory the times and the objects of their 
 early studies, though it be natural to the heart of man to 
 recollect with delight the epochs of infancy. I have no doubt 
 that those disgusts of early education extend a most baleful 
 influence to that love with which we ought to be animated 
 towards religion, because its elements, in like manner, are 
 displayed only through the medium of gloom, pride, and 
 inhumanity. 
 
 The plan of most masters consists above all in composing 
 the exterior of their pupils. They form, on the same model, 
 a multitude of characters which Nature had rendered essen- 
 tially different. One will have his disciples to be grave and 
 
STUDY XIV. 375 
 
 stately, as if they were so many little presidents ; others, 
 and they are the most numerous, wish to make theirs alert 
 and lively. One of the great burdens of the lesson is an 
 incessant fillip of : * Come on, make haste, don't be lazy.' 
 To this impulsion* simply I ascribe the general giddiness of 
 our youth, and of which the nation is accused. It is the 
 impatience of the master which in the first instance produces 
 the precipitancy of the scholars. It afterwards acquires 
 strength in the commerce of the world, from the impatience 
 of the women. But, through the progress of human life, is 
 not reflection of much higher importance than promptitude ? 
 How many children are destined to fill situations which 
 require seriousness and solemnity 1 Is not reflection the 
 basis of prudence, temperance, wisdom, and of most of the 
 other moral qualities'? For my own part, I have always 
 seen honest people abundantly tranquil, and rogues always 
 alert. 
 
 A child influenced by the emulation of schools, must re- 
 nounce it on his entry into the world, if he means to be sup- 
 portable to his equals, and to himself 1 If he aims only at 
 his own advancement, will he not be afflicted at the prosperity 
 of another 1 Will he not be liable to have his mind torn 
 with aversions, jealousies, and desires, which must deprave it, 
 both physically and morally 1 Do not philosophy and reli- 
 gion impose on him the necessity of daily exertion, to eradi- 
 cate those faults of education ] The world itself obliges him 
 to mask their hideous aspect. Here is a fine perspective 
 opened to human life, in which we are constrained to employ 
 one half our days in destroying, with a thousand painful 
 efforts, what had been raising up in the other with so many 
 tears and so much parade. 
 
 It was Charlemagne, we are told, who instituted our course 
 of studies ; and some say it was in the view of dividing his 
 subjects, and of giving them employment. He has succeeded 
 in this to a miracle. Seven years devoted to humanity or clas- 
 sical learning, two to philosophy, three to theology, twelve years 
 of languor, of ambition, and of self-conceit ; without taking 
 into the account the years which well-meaning parents 
 double upon their children, to make sure work of it, as they 
 allege. I ask whether, on emerging thence, a student is, 
 according to the denomination of those respective branches of 
 study, more humane, more of a philosopher, and believes more 
 
376 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 in GOD, than an honest peasant who has not been taught to 
 read ? What good purpose then does all this answer to the 
 greatest part of mankind 1 What benefit do the majority 
 derive from this irksome course, on mixing with the world, 
 towards perfecting their own intelligence, and even towards 
 purity of diction. We have seen, that the classical authors 
 themselves have borrowed their illumination only from Na- 
 ture, and that those of our own nation who have distin- 
 guished themselves the most in literature and in the sciences, 
 such as Descartes, Montagne, Rousseau, and others, have 
 succeeded only by deviating from the track which their 
 models pursued, and frequently by pursuing the directly op- 
 posite path. 
 
 I acknowledge it is a fortunate circumstance for many 
 children who have wicked parents, that there are colleges ; 
 they are less miserable there than in their father's house. The 
 faults of masters, being exposed to view, are in part repressed 
 by the fear of public censure ; but it is not so as to those of 
 their parents. Is it credible, that in society, the men of which 
 all moralists allow to be corrupted, in which the citizens main- 
 tain their ground only by the terror of the laws, or by the 
 fear which they have of each other, feeble and defenceless 
 children should not be abandoned to the discretion of tyranny 1 
 Nothing can be conceived so ignorant, and conceited, as the 
 greatest part of tradesmen ; among them it is that folly shoots 
 out spreading and profound roots. You see a great many of 
 this class, both men and women, dying of apoplectic fits, from 
 a too sedentary mode of life ; from eating beef, and swallow- 
 ing strong broths, when indisposed, without suspecting for 
 a moment that such a regimen was pernicious. The regi- 
 men of their unfortunate children resembles that which 
 they employ where their own health is concerned ; they form 
 them to melancholy habits ; all that they make them learn, 
 up to the Gospel itself, is with the rod over their head ; they 
 fix them in a sedentary posture all the day long, at an age 
 when Nature is prompting them to stir about, for the purpose 
 of expanding their form. Be good children, is the perpetual 
 injunction ; and this goodness consists in never moving a 
 limb. A woman of spirit, who was fond of children, took 
 notice one day, at the house of a shopkeeper in St. Denis 
 Street, of a little boy and girl who had a very serious air. 
 ' Your children are very grave,' said she to the mother. 'Ah ! 
 
STUDY XIV. 377 
 
 Madam,' replied the sagacious shopdame, * it is not for want 
 of whipping if they are not so.' 
 
 Children rendered miserable in their sports and studies, 
 become hypocritical and reserved before their fathers and 
 mothers. At length however they acquire stature. The 
 daughter commits an imprudence, and is driven from her 
 father's house ; the son enlists for a soldier. The parents 
 are ready to go distracted. We spared nothing, say they, to 
 procure them the best of education. Fools ! you forget the \ 
 essential point ; to teach them to love you. 
 
 They justify their tyranny by that cruel adage : Children 
 must be corrected; human nature is corrupted. They do not 
 perceive that they themselves, by their excessive severity, 
 stand chargeable with the corruption, and that in every 
 country where fathers are good, the children resemble them. 
 
 I could demonstrate, by a multitude of examples, that the 
 depravation of our most notorious criminals began with the 
 cruelty of their education. If human nature were corrupted, 
 as is alleged by those who arrogate to themselves the power 
 of reforming it, children could not fail to add a new corrup- 
 tion to that which they find already introduced into the 
 world, upon their arrival in it. Human society would accord- 
 ingly speedily reach the term of its dissolution. But chil- 
 dren, on the contrary, protract and put off that fatal period, 
 by the introduction of new and untainted souls. It requires 
 a long apprenticeship to inspire them with a taste for our 
 passions and extravagances. 
 
 On examining the nest of a bird, we find in it not only the 
 nutriments most agreeable to the young, but, from a multitude 
 of other precautions, it is easy to discern that those who con- 
 structed it collected around their brood all the intelligence 
 and benevolence of which they were capable. The father 
 too sings at a little distance from their cradle, prompted 
 rather, as I suppose, by the solicitudes of paternal affection 
 than those of conjugal love ; for this last sentiment expires 
 in most as soon as the process of hatching begins. Were 
 we to examine under the same aspect the schools of the 
 young of the human species, we should have a very indiffer- 
 ent idea of the affection of their parents. .Rods, whips, 
 stripes, cries, tears, are the first lessons given to human life : v 
 
 we have here and there, it is true, a glimpse of reward amidst \ 
 
 so many chastisements ; but, symbol of what awaits them 
 2X 32* 
 

 378 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 in society, the pain is real and the pleasure only ima- 
 ginary. 
 
 Of all sensible beings, the human species is the only one 
 whose young are brought up and instructed by dint of blows. 
 I would not wish for any other proof of an original deprava- 
 tion of mankind. The European brood, in this respect, sur- 
 passes all the nations of the globe, as they likewise do in 
 wickedness. We have already observed with what gentle- 
 ness savages rear their children, and what affection the chil- 
 dren bear to their parents in return. 
 
 The Arabs extend their humanity to the very horses : they 
 never beat them ; they manage them by means of kindness 
 and caresses, and render them so docile, that there are no 
 animals of the kind in the whole world once to be compared 
 with them in beauty and in goodness. They do not fix them 
 to a stake in the fields, but suffer them to pasture at large 
 around their habitation, to which they come running the 
 moment that they hear the sound of their master's voice. 
 Those tractable animals resort at night to their tents, and 
 lie down in the midst of the children, without ever hurting 
 them in the slightest degree. If the rider happens to fall 
 while coursing, his horse stands still instantly, and never 
 stirs till he has mounted again. These people, by the irre- 
 sistible influence of a mild education, have acquired the aft 
 of rendering their horses the first coursers of the universe. 
 
 It is impossible to read without being melted into tears, 
 what is related on this subject by the virtuous Consul d'Her- 
 vieux, in his journey to Mount Lebanon. The whole stock 
 of a poor Arabian of the desert consisted of a most beautiful 
 mare. The French consul at Said offered to purchase her, 
 with an intention to send her to his master, Louis XIV. The 
 Arab, pressed by want, hesitated a long time, but at length 
 consented, on condition of receiving a very considerable sum, 
 which he named. The consul, not daring without instruc- 
 tions to give so high a price, wrote to Versailles for permission 
 to close the bargain on the terms stipulated. Louis XIV. gave 
 orders to pay the money. The consul immediately sent notice 
 to the Arab, who soon after made his appearance, mounted 
 on his magnificent courser, and the gold which he had de- 
 manded was paid down to him. The Arab, covered with a 
 miserable rug, dismounts, looks at the money ; then, turning 
 his eyes to the mare, he sighs, and thus accosts her : * To 
 
STUDY XIV. 379 
 
 whom am I going to yield thee up ? To Europeans, who will 
 tie thee close, who will beat thee, who will render thee 
 miserable : return with me, my beauty, my darling, my 
 jewel ! and rejoice the hearts of my children !' As he pro- 
 nounced these words, he sprung upon her back, and scam- 
 pered off towards the desert. 
 
 If with us fathers beat their children, it is because they 
 love them not ; if they send them abroad to nurse, as soon 
 as they come into the world, it is because they love them 
 not ; if they place them, as soon as they have acquired a 
 little growth, in boarding-schools and colleges, it is because 
 they love them not ; if they procure for them situations out 
 of their state, out of their province, it is because they love 
 them not ; if they keep them at a distance from themselves, 
 at every epoch of life, it must undoubtedly be because they 
 look upon them as their heirs. 
 
 The parental apathy is to be imputed to the disorderly 
 state of our manners, which has stifled the sentiments of 
 Nature. Among the ancients, and even among savages, the 
 perspective of social life presented a series of employments, 
 from infancy up to old age, which among them was the era 
 of the higher magistracies and priesthood. The hopes of 
 their religion, at that period, interposed to terminate an 
 honourable career, and concluded with rendering the plan of 
 their life conformable to that of Nature. Thus they always 
 kept up in the soul of their citizens that perspective of infinity 
 so natural to the heart of man. But venality and debauched 
 manners having subverted among us the order of Nature, the 
 only age of human existence which has preserved its rights, 
 is that of youth and love. This is the epoch to which all the 
 citizens direct their thoughts. Among the ancients the aged 
 bare rule, but with us young people assume the government. 
 The old are constrained to retire from all public employment. 
 Their dear children then pay them back the fruits of the 
 education they had received from them. 
 
 Hence with us a father and mother, restricting the epoch 
 of their felicity to the middle period of life, cannot without 
 uneasiness behold their children approaching towards it, just 
 in proportion as they themselves are withdrawing from it. 
 As their faith is almost, or altogether extinguished, religion 
 administers to them no consolation. They behold only death 
 closing their perspective, and this renders them sullen, harsh, 
 
380 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and frequently cruel. Hence the reason that parents do not 
 love their children, and that our old people affect so many 
 frivolous tastes, to bring themselves nearer to a generation 
 which is repelling them. 
 
 Another consequence of this state of manners is, that we 
 are destitute of the spirit of patriotism. The ancients, on the 
 contrary, had a great deal of it. The highest ambition of the 
 Romans was to see their own age honoured and distinguished 
 above every other age of the republic. Those among us who 
 have any ambition that regards futurity, restrict it to the 
 being themselves distinguished by the age in which they live. 
 In this nearly terminates our natural ambition, directed as it 
 is by our mode of education. 
 
 The ancients employed their thoughts in prognosticating 
 the character and condition of their posterity, and we revolve 
 what our ancestors were. They looked forward, and we look 
 backward. If posterity is taken up with the ancients, it is 
 because the ancients laboured for posterity ; but if we do 
 nothing for ours, assuredly they will pay no attention to us. 
 They will talk as we do about the Greeks and the Romans, 
 without wasting a single thought upon their fathers. Instead 
 of falling into raptures over Greek and Roman medallions, 
 half devoured by time, would it not be fully as agreeable, and 
 much more useful, to direct our views to the subject of our 
 fresh, lively, plump children, and to try to discover in their 
 several inclinations who are to be the future co-operators in 
 the service of their country 1 Those who in their childish 
 sports are fond of building, will one day rear her monuments. 
 Among those who take delight in managing their boyish 
 skirmishes, will be formed the Epaminondases and the Scipios 
 of future times. Those who are seated upon the grass, the 
 calm spectators of the sports of their companions, will in due 
 time become excellent magistrates and philosophers, the 
 complete masters of their own passions. Those who in their 
 restless course love to withdraw from the rest, will be noted 
 travellers and founders of colonies, who shall carry our man- 
 ners and language to the savages of America, or into the 
 interior of Africa itself. 
 
 If we are kind to our children, they will bless our memory, 
 and transmit, unaltered, our customs, fashions, education, 
 government, and everything that awakens the recollection 
 of us, to the latest posterity. We shall be to them beneficent 
 
STUDY XIV. 381 
 
 deities, who have wrought their deliverance from Gothic bar- 
 barism. We should gratify the innate taste of infinity still 
 better, by launching our thoughts into a futurity of two thou- 
 sand years, than into a retrospection of the same distance. 
 This manner of viewing, more conformable to our divine 
 nature, would fix our benevolence on sensible objects which 
 do, and still are to exist. We should secure to ourselves, as a 
 support to an old age of sadness and neglect, the gratitude of 
 the rising generation ; and, by providing for their happiness, 
 and our own, we should promote the good of our country. 
 
 To contribute my little mite towards so blessed a revolu- 
 tion, I shall hazard a few more hasty ideas. I suppose then 
 I am empowered to employ usefully a part of the twelve 
 years which our young people spend at schools and colleges. 
 I reduce the whole time of their education to three epochs of 
 three years each. The first should commence at the age of 
 seven years, as among the Lacedemonians, and even earlier : 
 a child is susceptible of a patriotic education as soon as he is 
 able to speak and to walk. The second with the period of 
 adolescence; and the third end with it, towards the age of 
 sixteen, an age when a young man may begin to be useful 
 to his country, and to assume a profession. 
 
 I would begin with disposing in a central situation in Paris, 
 a magnificent edifice, constructed internally in form of a 
 circular amphitheatre, divided into ascending rows. The 
 masters to be intrusted with the charge of the national 
 education should be stationed below, in the centre ; and 
 above, I would have several rows of galleries, in order to 
 multiply places for the auditors. On the outside, and quite 
 round the building, I would have wide porticoes, story above 
 story, for the reception and accommodation of the people. 
 On a pediment over the grand entrance these words might 
 be inscribed : 
 
 "NATIONAL SCHOOLS." 
 
 I need not mention, that as the children pass three years 
 in each epoch of their education, one of these edifices would 
 be requisite for the instruction of the generation of the year, 
 which restricts to nine the number of monuments destined 
 to the general education of the capital. Round each of these 
 amphitheatres there should be a great park, stored with the 
 plants and trees of the country, scattered about with artificial 
 
382 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 arrangement, as in the fields and the woods. The bowers 
 of innocence should be no less interesting than the tombs of 
 virtue. 
 
 If I have expressed a wish to have monuments raised to 
 the glory of those by whom our climate has been enriched 
 with exotic plants, it is not that I prefer these to the plants 
 of our own country, but in the view of rendering to the 
 memory of those citizens a part of the gratitude we owe to 
 Nature. Besides, the most common plants in our plains, 
 independent of their utility, are those which recall to us the 
 most agreeable sensations. The feathered sphere of the 
 dandelion brings to my recollection the places where, seated 
 on the grass with children of my own age, we endeavoured 
 to sweep off by one whiff of breath all its plumage, without 
 leaving a single tuft behind. Fortune in like manner has 
 blown upon us, and has scattered abroad our downy-pinioned 
 circles over the face of the whole earth. I call to remem- 
 brance, on seeing certain gramineous plants in the ear, the 
 happy age when we conjugated, on their alternate ramifica- 
 tions, the different tenses and moods of the verb aimer (to love). 
 We trembled at hearing our companions finish, after all the 
 various inflexions, with Je ne vous aime plus, (I no longer love 
 you.) The finest flowers are not always those for which we 
 conceive the highest affection. The moral sentiment deter- 
 mines at length all our physical tastes. 
 
 The plants of our country recall the idea of it in a manner 
 still more affecting than its monuments ; I would spare no 
 cost, therefore, to collect them around the children of the 
 nation. I would make their school a spot charming as their 
 tender age, that when the injustice of their patrons, friends, 
 relations, or fortune, may have crushed in their hearts all 
 ties of country, the place in which their childhood had enjoyed 
 felicity might still be their capital. I would present them 
 with pictures after religious subjects ; not such as are terrify- 
 ing and excite man to repentance, but those calculated to 
 encourage innocence. Such would be that of the Virgin 
 holding the infant JESUS in her arms ; that of JESUS himself 
 in the midst of children displaying in their attitudes and 
 features the simplicity and confidence of their age. Beneath 
 might be inscribed these words of JESUS CHRIST himself : 
 ' Suffer little children to come to me.' 
 
 Were it necessary to represent in this school any act of 
 

 STUDY XIV. S83 
 
 justice, there might be a painting of the fruitless fig-tree 
 withering away at his command. It would exhibit the 
 leaves of that tree curling up, its branches twisting, its bark 
 cracking, and the whole plant, struck with terror, perishing 
 under the maledictions of the AUTHOR of Nature. 
 
 There might be inserted some simple and short inscription 
 from the Gospel, such as this : ' Love one another.' 
 
 Or this : ' Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest.' 
 
 And that maxim already necessary to the infant mind : 
 'Virtue consists in preferring the public good to our own.' 
 
 And that other : ' In order to be virtuous, a man must 
 resist his propensities, his inclinations, his tastes, and maintain 
 an incessant conflict with himself.' 
 
 Our name is the first and last possession at our own dis- 
 posal ; it determines from the days of infancy our inclina- 
 tions ; it employs our attention through life, nay, transports 
 us beyond the grave. I have still a name left, is the reflec- 
 tion. It is a name that ennobles or dishonours the earth. I 
 could wish, therefore, to have children distinguished by 
 interesting names. A lad fathers himself upon his name. If 
 it inclines toward any vice, or furnishes matter for ridicule, 
 his mind takes a bias from it. Bayle remarks, that a certain 
 inquisitor named Torre Cremada, or the Burnt Tower, had 
 in his lifetime condemned many heretics to the flames. There 
 is a farther absurdity in giving to children, destined to 
 peaceful occupations, turbulent and ambitious names, and 
 still more dangerous to give them ridiculous ones. I have 
 seen poor boys so tormented on this account by their com- 
 panions, and even by their own parents, from the silly circum- 
 stance of a baptismal name, which implied some idea of sim- 
 plicity and good nature, that they insensibly acquired an op- 
 posite character of malignity and ferociousness. 
 
 Government therefore ought to interpose in the business of 
 giving names to children, as they have an influence so tre- 
 mendous on the characters of the citizens. I could wish 
 likewise that to their baptismal name might be added a sur- 
 name of some family rendered illustrious by virtue, as the 
 Romans did ; this species of adoption would attach the little 
 co the great, and the great to the little. 
 
 I would not make use in this school of noisy bells to an- 
 nounce the different exercises, but of the sound of flutes, of 
 
384 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 hautboys, and of bagpipes. Every thing they learned should 
 be versified and set to music. The influence of these two 
 arts united is beyond all conception. If music and poetry 
 had the power, at Sparta, to recall corrupted men to the prac- 
 tice of virtue, and afterwards to govern them, what influence 
 would they not have over our children in the age of inno- 
 cence 1 Who could ever forget the sacred laws of morality, 
 were they set to enchanting music 1 
 
 These arrangements being made, the first branch of the 
 education of children should be religion. I would begin with 
 engaging them to fear and love GOD, but to fear Him not as 
 an object of terror. Terrifying views of an amiable and 
 good GOD generate superstition, and inspire horrible appre- 
 hensions of death. The first precept of religion is to love 
 GOD. Love, and do what you will, was the saying of a saint. 
 We are enjoined by religion to love Him above all things ; 
 we are encouraged to address ourselves to Him as to a 
 Father. If we are commanded to fear Him, it is only with 
 relation to the love which we owe Him, because we ought to 
 be afraid of offending the person whom we are bound to 
 love. Besides, I am very far from thinking that a child is 
 incapable of having any idea of GOD before fourteen years 
 of age, as has been advanced by a writer whom in other 
 respects I love. Do we not convey to the youngest children 
 sentiments of fear and aversion, for metaphysical objects 
 which have no existence ] Wherefore should they not be 
 inspired with confidence and love for the Being who fills 
 universal nature with his beneficence ? Children have not 
 the ideas of GOD such as are taught by systems of theology 
 and philosophy ; but they are perfectly capable of having 
 the sentiment of Him, which as we have seen is the rea- 
 son of Nature. Would to God I had preserved the senti- 
 ment of the existence of the Supreme Being, and of his 
 principal attributes, as pure as I had it in my earliest years ! 
 It is the heart still more than the understanding that religion 
 demands. And which heart, I beseech you, is most filled 
 with the DEITY, and the most agreeable in his sight, that of 
 the child who, elevated with the sentiment of Him, raises 
 his innocent hands to Heaven as he stammers out his prayer, 
 or of the schoolman who pretends to explain His Nature 1 
 
 It is very easy to communicate to children ideas of GOD 
 and of virtue. The daisies springing up among the grass, 
 
r 
 
 STUDY XIV. 385 
 
 the fruits suspended on the trees of their enclosure, should be 
 their first lessons in theology, arid their first exercises of absti- 
 nence and obedience to the laws. Their minds might be fixed 
 on the principal object of religion, by the pure and simple 
 recitation of the life of JESUS CHRIST in the Gospel. They 
 would learn in their Creed all that they can know of the na- 
 ture of GOD, and in the Pater-noster everything that they 
 can ask of Him. 
 
 Of all the sacred books, there is no one which children take 
 in with so much facility as the Gospel. It would be proper 
 to habituate them betimes to perform what is there enjoined, 
 without vain-glory, or respect to human observation or ap- 
 plause. They ought to be trained up, therefore, in the habit 
 of preventing each other in acts of friendship, in mutual 
 deference, and in good offices of every kind. 
 
 All the children of citizens should be admitted into this 
 national school. I would insist only on the most perfect 
 cleanliness, were they dressed but in patches sewed together. 
 There you might see the child of a man of quality, attended 
 by his governor, arrive in an equipage, and take his place by 
 the side of a peasant's child leaning on his little stick, dressed 
 in canvass in the very middle of winter, and carrying in a 
 satchel his little books, and his slice of brown bread for the 
 provision of the whole day. Thus they would both learn to 
 know each other before they came to be separated for ever. 
 The child of the rich man would be instructed to impart of 
 his superfluity to him who is frequently destined to support 
 the affluent out of his own necessary pittance. These chil- 
 dren of all ranks, crowned with flowers, and distributed into 
 choirs, would assist in our public processions. Their age, 
 order, songs, and innocence, would present in these a spec- 
 tacle more august than the lackeys of the great bearing the 
 coats-of-arms of their masters pasted to wax-tapers, and 
 beyond all contradiction much more affecting than the hedges 
 of soldiers and bayonets with which, on such occasions, a 
 God of Peace is encompassed. 
 
 In this school children might be taught to read and cipher. 
 Ingenious men have for this effect contrived boards, and 
 methods simple, prompt, and agreeable. If you wish chil- 
 dren to learn quickly to read, put a sugar-plumb over each 
 of their letters ; they will soon have their alphabet by heart, 
 and if vou multiply or diminish the number of them, they 
 2 y 33 
 
386 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 will soon have become arithmeticians. They shall have 
 profited wonderfully, however, in this school of their country, 
 should they leave it without having learned to read, write, 
 and cipher ; but deeply penetrated with this one truth, that to 
 read, write, and cipher, and all the sciences in the world, are 
 mere nothings ; but that to be sincere, good, obliging, to love 
 GOD and man, is the only science worthy of the human heart. 
 
 At the second era of education, about the age of from ten 
 to twelve, when their intellectual powers restlessly stir and 
 press forward to the imitation of everything that they see 
 done by others, I would have them instructed in the means 
 which men employ in making provision for the wants of 
 society ; and subservient to the first necessities of human life, 
 of the arts we denominate mechanical, and that of building 
 houses. To these I would join the elements of the natural 
 sciences, of geometry, and experiments of natural philosophy. 
 
 I would have them made acquainted with the liberal arts, 
 as architecture and fortification, to show them how their 
 habitation is constructed and their country defended, I would 
 make them observe, as an antidote to the vanity of the sciences, 
 that man, amidst such a variety of arts and operations, has 
 imagined no one thing, but has imitated, in all his produc- 
 tions, either the skill of the animal creation, or the operations 
 of Nature ; I would make them sensible of these relations of 
 the truths of religion to those of Nature, and thus dispose 
 them to love the class of useful men who provide for their 
 wants. 
 
 I would endeavour to make the exercises of the body 
 go hand in hand with those of the mind. While they were 
 acquiring a knowledge of the useful arts, I would have them 
 taught Latin. I would not teach it metaphysically and 
 grammatically, but they should learn it practically. The 
 Polish peasantry acquire it thus, and speak it fluently and in- 
 telligibly, though they have never been at college. Two years 
 at most are sufficient for the children of the national school 
 to learn the Latin by practice, especially if in the lectures 
 extracts were given from the lives of great men, written in 
 good Latin, and well explained. 
 
 In the third period of education, nearly about the age when 
 passions begin to take flight, I would show to ingenuous 
 youth the pure and gentle language of them, in the eclogues 
 and georgics of Virgil ; the philosophy of them in some of 
 
STUDY XIV. 387 
 
 the odes of Horace ; and pictures of their corruption, taken 
 from Tacitus and Suetonius. I would finish the painting of 
 the hideous excesses into which they plunge mankind, by 
 exhibiting passages from historians of the lower empire. I 
 would make them remarks how talents, taste, knowledge, 
 and eloquence sunk at once among the ancients, together 
 with manners and virtue. I would be very careful not to 
 fatigue my pupils with reading of this sort ; I would point 
 out to them only the more poignant passages, in order to ex- 
 cite in them a desire to know the rest. My aim should be 
 not to lead them through a course of Virgil, of Horace, and 
 of Tacitus, but a real course of classical learning, by uni- 
 ting in their studies whatever men of genius have considered 
 as best adapted to the perfecting of human nature. 
 
 I would have them practically instructed in the Greek, 
 now on the decline among us. 1 would endeavour to make 
 them sensible how at all times talents, virtues, great men, 
 and states flourished together with confidence in the Divine 
 Providence. But, to give greater weight to these eternal 
 truths, I would intermingle with them the enchanting studies 
 of Nature, of which they had hitherto only seen some faint 
 sketches. 
 
 I would make them remark the disposition of this globe, 
 suspended in a most incomprehensible manner upon nothing, 
 with an infinite number of different nations in motion over 
 its solid and liquid surface. I would' point out in each cli- 
 mate the principal plants useful to human life ; the animals 
 which stand related to those plants, and to their soil, without 
 extending farther. I would then show them the human race, 
 who alone of all sensible beings are universally dispersed, 
 mutually to assist each other, and to gather at once all the 
 productions of Nature. I would speak of the laws of nations, 
 and lead them to an acquaintance with those of their own 
 country. I would give them an idea of the principal religions 
 which divide the earth, and demonstrate to them how highly 
 preferable Christianity is to all the political laws and religions 
 of the world, because it alone aims at the felicity of the whole 
 human race. I would make them sensible that the Christian 
 religion prevents the different ranks of society from hurting 
 themselves by mutual collision, and gives them equal power 
 of bearing up under the pressure of unequal weights. From 
 these sublime considerations, the love of their country would 
 
388 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 be kindled in those youthful hearts, and acquire an increasing 
 ardour from the very spectacle of her calamities. 
 
 I would intermix these affecting speculations with exercises, 
 useful, agreeable, and adapted to the vivacity of their time of 
 life. I would have them taught to swim, not so much by way 
 of security from danger in the event of suffering shipwreck, 
 as in the view of assisting persons who may happen to be in 
 that dreadful situation. Whatever advantage they might 
 derive from their studies, I would never propose any other 
 end but the good of their fellow-creatures. They should be 
 instructed in military exercises, with a view of bringing into 
 disrepute the art of fencing, useless and even hurtful in war, 
 and which keeps up the murderous spirit of duelling among us. 
 The pupils trained in the national schools should be taught 
 to entertain a very different idea of courage : and in the 
 course of their studies should be instructed in their duty 
 towards a fellow-citizen and towards an enemy. 
 
 The season of youth would thus glide away agreeably 
 and usefully ; the mind and body would expand together. 
 The natural talents, frequently unknown in most men, would 
 manifest themselves at sight of different objects. The attain- 
 ment of all this various knowledge, I shall be told, will require 
 a length of time ; but if we take into consideration that which 
 is squandered away in our colleges, in the tiresome repetitions 
 of lessons, in the grammatical decompositions and explications 
 of the Latin tongue, which do not communicate to the scholar 
 so much as facility in speaking it, and in the dangerous com- 
 petitions of a vain ambition, it is impossible not to admit that 
 we have been proposing to make a much better use of it. 
 
 In the national schools everything would go on after the 
 academic manner of the Greek philosophers. The pupils 
 should there pursue their studies, sometimes seated, some- 
 times standing; sometimes in the fields, at other times in 
 the amphitheatre, or in the part which surrounded it. There 
 would be no occasion for pen, ink, or paper ; every one would 
 bring with him only the classical book containing the subject 
 of the lesson. I have had frequent experience that we forget 
 what we commit to writing. This does not take place with 
 regard to the impressions of conversation, especially if it be 
 accompanied with striking circumstances. 
 
 The pupils should not be oppressed with an unprofitable 
 and prattling science. Sometimes they should defend among 
 
STUDY XIV. 389 
 
 themselves the cause of a citizen, sometimes deliver their 
 opinion respecting a public event. They should pursue the 
 process of an art through its whole course. Their eloquence 
 would be a real eloquence, and their knowledge a real 
 knowledge. They should employ their minds on no abstruse 
 science, in no useless research, usually the fruit of pride. 
 In the studies I propose, everything should bring us back to 
 society, concord, religion, and nature. These several schools 
 should be decorated correspondently to their use ; the exterior 
 should serve as walking places and asylums to the people, 
 especially during the winter. There they should every day 
 behold spectacles proper to inspire them with virtuous senti- 
 ments and with the love of their country. 
 
 Among those young people there should be no such thing 
 as reward, nor punishment, nor emulation, and consequently 
 no envy. The only punishment there inflicted should be to 
 banish from the society the person who should disturb it, and 
 even that only for a time proportioned to the fault of the 
 offender ; and this should rather be an act of justice than a 
 punishment, for I would have no manner of shame attach 
 to that exile. But if you wish to form an idea of such an 
 assembly, conceive, instead of our young collegians, pale, 
 pensive, jealous, trembling about the fate of their unfortunate 
 compositions, a multitude of young persons, gay, content, 
 attracted by pleasure to vast circular halls, in which are 
 erected here and there the statues of the illustrious men of 
 antiquity and of their own country : behold them all attentive 
 to the master's lessons, assisting each other in comprehending 
 and retaining them, and in replying to his unexpected ques- 
 tions. One, tacitly suggests an answer to his neighbour; 
 another makes an excuse for the negligence of his absent 
 comrade. 
 
 Represent to yourself the rapid progress of studies eluci- 
 dated by intelligent masters, and drunk in by pupils who are 
 mutually assisting each other in fixing the impression of 
 them. Figure to yourself science spreading among them, 
 as the flame in a pile, all the pieces of which are nicely ad- 
 justed, communicates from one to another, till the whole 
 becomes one blaze. Observe among them, instead of a vain 
 emulation, union, benevolence, friendship, for little services 
 rendered and repaid. The recollection of those early inti- 
 macies will farther unite them in the world, notwithstanding 
 
 33* 
 
 
390 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 the prejudices of their various conditions ; for at this tender 
 age gratitude and resentment become engraved for the rest 
 of life as indelibly as the elements of science and religion. 
 
 Before we could pretend to establish those national schools, 
 we must have men formed to preside in them. I would not 
 have them chosen from among those who are most powerfully 
 recommended. The more powerful recommendations they 
 might have, the more would they be given to intrigue, and 
 consequently the less would be their virtue. The inquiry 
 made among them, ought not to be, Is he a wit, a bright 
 man, a philosopher? But, is he fond of children? Does 
 he frequent the uufortunate rather than the great ? Is he a 
 man of sensibility? Does he possess virtue ? In persons of 
 such a character we should have masters proper for conduct- 
 ing the public education. A titled magistrate should preside 
 every day in each school. It would be very becoming that 
 the magistrates should cause to be trained up, under their 
 own eyes, to justice and to the laws, the children whom they 
 are one day to judge and to govern as men. No revenue 
 should be annexed to this sublime duty, and the only honour 
 that could possibly be claimed should be that of presiding. 
 
 Would to GOD it were in my power to conciliate the edu- 
 cation of women to that of men, as at Sparta ! But our 
 manners forbid it. There could not, however, be any great 
 inconvenience in associating in early life the children of both 
 sexes. Their society communicates mutual grace ; besides, 
 the first elements of civil life, religion, and virtue, are the 
 same for both. This first epoch excepted, young women 
 should learn nothing of what men ought to know ; not that 
 they are to remain always in ignorance of it, but that they 
 may receive instruction with increased pleasure, and one day 
 find teachers in their lovers. There is this moral difference 
 between man and woman, that the man owes himself to his 
 country, and the woman is devoted to the felicity of one man 
 alone. A young woman will never attain this end but by 
 acquiring a relish for the employments suitable to her sex. 
 To no purpose would you give her a complete course of the 
 sciences, and make her a theologian or a philosopher ; a hus- 
 band does not love to find either a rival or an instructor in 
 his wife. Books and masters with us blight betimes, in a 
 young female, virgin ignorance, that flower of the soul which 
 a lover takes such delight in gathering. They rob a husband 
 
STUDY XIV. 391 
 
 of the most delicious charm of their union, of those inter- 
 communications of amorous science, and native ignorance, 
 so proper for filling up the long days of married life. They 
 destroy those contrasts of character which Nature has estab- 
 lished between the sexes, in order to produce the most lovely 
 of harmonies. 
 
 I could wish, therefore, that our young people might have 
 it in their power to cultivate the sentiment of love in the 
 midst of their labours, as Jacob did.* No matter at what age ; 
 when capable of feeling, we are so of loving. Honourable 
 love suspends pain, banishes languor, saves from prostitution, 
 from the errors and the restlessness of celibacy : it fills life 
 with delicious perspectives, by displaying in futurity the most 
 desirable of union : it augments, in the hearts of two youthful 
 lovers, a relish for study and a taste for domestic employments. 
 What pleasure must it afford a young man, transported with 
 the science which he has derived from his masters, to repeat 
 the lessons of it to the fair one whom he loves ! What delight 
 to a young and timid female to see herself distinguished 
 amidst her companions, and to hear the value and the graces 
 of her little skill and industry exalted by the voice of her 
 lover ! 
 
 A young man, destined one day to repress on the tribunal 
 the injustice of men, is enchanted, amidst the labyrinths of 
 of law, to behold his mistress embroidering for him the flowers 
 which are to decorate the asylum of their union, and to pre- 
 sent him with an image of the beauties of Nature, of which 
 the gloomy honours of his station are going to deprive him for 
 life. Another, devoted to conduct the flame of war, attaches 
 himself to the gentle spirit of his female friend, and flatters 
 himself with the thought that the mischief he may do to 
 mankind shall be repaired by the blessings she bestows on 
 the miserable. Friendships multiply in families ; of the friend 
 to the brother who introduces him, and of the brother to the 
 sister. The kindred are mutually attracted. The young 
 folks form their manners ; and the happy perspectives which 
 their union discloses cherish in them the love of their several 
 duties, and of virtue. 
 
 If a happy revolution is to be hoped for in our country, it 
 is to be effected only by calling back the women to domestic 
 
 * Genesis, chap. six. ver. 20. 
 
392 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 manners. Whatever satire may have been levelled against 
 them, they are less culpable than the men. They are charge- 
 able with hardly any vices except those which they receive 
 from us; and we have many from which they are free. 
 What must have become of a state of society abandoned to 
 all the absurdities of our education, to all the prejudices of 
 our various conditions, and to the ambitions of each contend- 
 ing party, had not the women crossed us upon the road ] 
 These, thrown out of their natural state by our unjust man- 
 ners, laugh at and destroy everything, the great fortunes, 
 pretensions of pride, and prejudices of opinion. Women have 
 only one passion, which is love, and this passion only one 
 object ; whereas men refer everything to ambition, which 
 has thousands. A provincial, and even a Parisian tradesman, 
 hardly behaves with kindness to his children when somewhat 
 grown up ; but he bends with profound reverence before those 
 of strangers, provided they are of rich or of high quality : his 
 wife is regulated in her behaviour to them by their figure. 
 If they are homely, she neglects them ; but will caress a 
 peasant's child if it is beautiful ; she will pay more respect 
 to a low-born man with gray hairs arid a venerable head, 
 than to a counsellor without a beard. Women attend only to 
 the gifts of Nature, and men to those of fortune. Thus the 
 women amidst all their irregularities still bring us back to 
 Nature, while we, with our affectation of superior wisdom, 
 are in a constant tendency to deviation from her. 
 
 As well as ourselves, women will never find happiness 
 except in the practice of virtue. In all countries where the 
 empire of virtue is at an end, they are most miserable. They 
 were formerly happy in the virtuous republics of Greece and 
 Italy, where they decided the fate of states : at this day, 
 reduced to the condition of slaves in those very countries, 
 the greatest part of them submit to prostitution for the sake 
 of a livelihood. Ours ought not to despair of us. They 
 possess over man an empire absolutely inalienable ; we know 
 them only under the appellation of the sex, to which we have 
 given the epithet of fair by way of excellence. But how 
 many descriptive epithets, still more interesting, might be 
 added to this, such as those of nutritive, consolatory ! They 
 receive us on our entrance into life, and they close our eyes 
 when we die. Not to beauty, but religion, are our women 
 indebted for their influence ; the same Frenchman who in 
 
RECAPITULATION. 393 
 
 Paris sighs at the feet of his mistress, holds her in fetters, 
 and under the discipline of the whip, in St. Domingo. The 
 Christian religion alone contemplates the conjugal union in 
 the order of Nature : it is the only religion which presents 
 woman to man as a companion ; every other abandons her 
 to him as a slave. To religion alone do European women 
 owe the liberty they enjoy : and from the liberty of women 
 that of nations has flowed, accompanied with the proscription 
 of many inhuman usages diffused over all the other parts of 
 the world, such as slavery, seraglios, and eunuchs. O charm- 
 ing sex ! in your virtue your power consists. Save your 
 country, by recalling to the love of domestic manners your 
 lovers and husbands, from a display of your gentle occupa- 
 tions. Envy not the other sex their authority, their talents, 
 their vainglory ; but in the midst of your weakness, sur- 
 rounded with your wools and your silks, give thanks to the 
 AUTHOR of Nature for having conferred on you alone the 
 power of being always good and beneficent. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 I HAVE presented in this work the different paths of Nature 
 I proposed to pursue, in forming an idea of the order which 
 governs the world. I first brought forward the objections 
 raised in all ages against a Providence, and exhibited them 
 as applied to the several kingdoms of Nature, one after 
 another; which furnished me with an opportunity, in refuting 
 them, of displaying views entirely new respecting the disposi- 
 tion and the use of the different parts of this globe. In the 
 next place, I have refuted in order the objections raised on 
 the subject of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, by demon- 
 strating that these kingdoms were no more governed by 
 mechanical laws than the fossil kingdom is. I have farther 
 demonstrated, that the greatest part of the ills which oppress 
 the human race are to be ascribed to the defects of our politico] 
 institutions, and not to those of Nature ; that man is the only 
 being who is abandoned to his own providence, as a punish- 
 ment for some original transgression ; but that the i 
 DEITY who had given him up to the direction of his own 
 2Z 
 
394 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 intelligence, still watched over his destination ; that he 
 caused to recoil on the governors of the nations the miseries 
 with which they overwhelm the little and the weak ; and I 
 have demonstrated the action of a Divine Providence from 
 the very calamities of the human race. Such is the subject 
 of my first part. 
 
 In the opening of my second, I have attacked the princi- 
 ples of our sciences, by evincing that they mislead us, either 
 by the boldness of those same principles, from whence they 
 would soar up to the nature of the elements which elude their 
 grasp, or by the insufficiency of their methods, which are capa- 
 ble of catching only one law of Nature at once, because of 
 the weakness of our understanding and of the vanity inspired 
 by our education, whereby we are betrayed into the belief that 
 the little paths in which we tread are the only roads leading 
 to knowledge. I afterwards set out in quest of a faculty better 
 adapted to the discovery of truth than our reason, which after 
 all is nothing but our personal interest merely. I flatter my- 
 self I have found it in that sublime instinct called sentiment, 
 which is in us the expression of natural laws, and is invaria- 
 ble among all nations. By means of it I have observed the 
 laws of Nature, not by tracing them up to their principles, 
 known to GOD only, but by descending into their results, des- 
 tined to the use of man. I have had the felicity, in pursuance 
 of this track, to perceive certain principles of the correspon- 
 dences and harmonies which govern the world. The an- 
 cient Egyptians studied Nature in Nature herself, and not 
 by piecemeal and with machines. Hence they formed a most 
 wonderful science under the name of magic. The elements 
 of this science are now unknown ; its name alone remains, 
 and is at this day given to operations the most stupid in which 
 the error and depravity of the human heart can be employed. 
 This was not the character of the magic of the ancient Egyp- 
 tians, so much celebrated by the most respectable authors of 
 antiquity, and by the sacred books themselves. 
 
 Though my incapacity is very great, these harmonic princi- 
 ples are so luminous, that they have presented to me not only 
 dispositions of the globe entirely new, but have furnished me 
 with the means of distinguishing the characters of plants on 
 the first inspection, so as to be able to say at once, This is a 
 native of the mountains, That an inhabitant of the shores. 
 By them I have demonstrated the use of the leaves of plants, 
 
RECAPITULATION. 395 
 
 and determined by the nautical or volatile form of their grains 
 their relations to the places where they are destined to grow. 
 Finally, I have indicated their relations to animals and to 
 man to such a degree, that I am confident to affirm, I have 
 demonstrated there is not a single shade of colour impressed 
 by chance through the whole extent of Nature. 
 
 By prosecuting these views, I have supplied the means of 
 forming complete chapters of natural history, from having 
 evinced that each plant was the centre of the existence of 
 an infinite number of animals, which possess correspondences 
 with it to us still unknown. Their harmonies might un- 
 doubtedly be extended much farther ; for many plants seem 
 to have relations not only to the sun, but to different constel- 
 lations. It is not always such an elevation of the sun above 
 the horizon which elicits the vegetative powers of plants. 
 Such a one flourishes in the spring which would not put out 
 the smallest leaf in autumn, though it might then undergo 
 the same degree of heat. The same thing is observable with 
 respect to their seeds, which germinate and shoot at one sea- 
 son and not at another, though the temperature may be the 
 same. These celestial relations were known to the ancient 
 philosophy of the Egyptians and of Pythagoras. We find 
 many observations on this subject in Pliny, Virgil, and Lin- 
 naeus ; but we have indicated vegetable harmonies still more 
 interesting, by demonstrating that the time of the expansion 
 of every plant, of its flowering, and of the maturity of its fruit, 
 was connected with the expansions and the necessities of the 
 animal creation, and especially with those of man. There 
 is not a single one but what possesses relations of utility to 
 us, direct or indirect ; but this immense and mysterious part 
 of the history of man will perhaps never be known. 
 
 My third part presents the application of these harmonic 
 principles to the nature of man himself. In it I have shown, 
 that he is formed of two powers, the physical and the intel- 
 lectual, which affect him perpetually with two contrary sen- 
 timents, that of his misery and of his excellence. I have 
 demonstrated, that these two powers were most happily grat- 
 ified in the different periods of the passions, ages, and occu- 
 pations to which Nature has destined man, such as agricul- 
 ture, marriage, the settlement of posterity, and religion. 
 
 I have dwelt principally on the affections of the intellectual 
 power, by rendering it apparent that everything delicious 
 

 396 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 and transporting in our pleasures arose from the sentiment of 
 infinity, or some other attribute of DEITY, which discovered 
 itself as the termination of our perspective. I have demon- 
 strated, on the contrary, that the source of our miseries and 
 errors might be traced up to this, That in the social state we 
 frequently cross those natural sentiments by the prejudices of 
 education and society ; so that, in many cases, we make the 
 sentiment of infinity to bear upon the transient objects of this 
 world, and that of our frailty and misery upon the immortal 
 plans of Nature. I have only glanced at this rich and sublime 
 subject ; but I assert with confidence, that by pursuing this 
 track simply, I have sufficiently proved the necessity of vir- 
 tue, and indicated its real source, not where our modern 
 philosophers seek for it, namely, in our political institutions, 
 often diametrically opposite to it, but in the natural state of 
 man, and in his own heart. 
 
 I have afterwards applied the action of these two powers 
 to the happiness of society, by showing, first, that most of the 
 ills we endure are only social reactions, all of which have 
 their grand origin in overgrown property, in employments, in 
 honours, in money, and in land. I have proved that those 
 enormous properties produce the physical and moral indigence 
 of a nation ; that this indigence generated in its turn swarms 
 of debauched men, who employed all the resources of craft 
 and industry to make the rich refund the portion which their 
 necessities demand ; that celibacy, and the disquietudes with 
 which it is attended, were in a great many citizens the effects 
 of that state of penury and anguish to which they found 
 themselves reduced; and that their celibacy produced, by- 
 repercussion, the prostitution of women of the town. From 
 these principles I have deduced a variety of important con- 
 sequences. 
 
 I have finally demonstrated, That no inconsiderable part 
 of our physical and moral maladies proceeded from the chas- 
 tisements, the rewards, and the vanity of our education. 
 
 I have hazarded sundry conjectures, in the view of furnish- 
 ing to the people abundant means of subsistence and of 
 population, and of reanimating in them the spirit of religion 
 and of patriotism, by presenting them with certain perspec- 
 tives of infinity, without which the felicity of a nation, like 
 that of an individual, is negative, and quickly exhausted, 
 were we to form plans in other respects the most advantage- 
 
RECAPITULATION. 397 
 
 ous, of finance, commerce, and agriculture. Provision must 
 be made at once for man, as an animal and as an intelligent 
 being. I have terminated those different projects, by present- 
 ing the sketch of a national education, without which it is 
 impossible to have any species of legislation or of patriotism 
 that shall be of long duration. I have endeavoured to unfold 
 in it at once the two powers, physical and intellectual, of 
 man, and to direct them towards the love of country and of 
 religion. 
 
 I must no doubt have frequently gone astray in pursuing 
 paths so new and so intricate. I must have many a time 
 sunk far below my subject, from the construction of my plans, 
 from my inexperience, from the very embarrassment of my 
 style ; but, I repeat it, provided my ideas shall suggest supe- 
 rior conceptions to others, I am well satisfied. At the same 
 time, if calamity be the road to truth, I have not been desti- 
 tute of means to direct me towards her. Were I to publish 
 the memoirs of my own life, I could wish for no stronger proof 
 of the contempt which the glory of this world merits, than 
 to hold up to view the objects of it. At the time when, un- 
 conscious of having committed the slightest injury to any 
 one, after an infinity of fruitless voyages, services, and la- 
 bours, I was preparing in solitude these last fruits of my 
 experience and application, my secret enemies found means 
 to intercept a gratuity which I annually received from the 
 beneficence of my sovereign. It was the only source of sub- 
 sistence to myself, and the only means I enjoyed of assisting 
 my family. To this catastrophe were added the loss of health, 
 and domestic calamities which baffle all the powers of descrip- 
 tion. Had I reposed in GOD that confidence which I put in 
 men, I should always have enjoyed undisturbed tranquillity : 
 the proofs of his Providence as affecting myself, in the past, 
 ought to set my heart at rest about futurity. But from a 
 fault of education the opinions of men still exercise too much 
 dominion over me ; but if I have reason to flatter myself that 
 this work is contributing to multiply marriages, to render 
 them more happy, and to soften the education of children, I 
 shall consider my own family as perpetuated in them, and I 
 shall look on the wives and children of my country as in 
 some sense mine. 
 
 Nothing is durable, virtue alone excepted. Personal beauty 
 passes quickly away ; fortune inspires extravagant inclina- 
 
 34 
 
398 
 
 STUDIES OF NATURE. 
 
 tions ; grandeur fatigues ; reputation is uncertain ; talents, 
 nay, genius itself, are liable to be impaired : but virtue is ever 
 beautiful, ever diversified, ever equal, and ever vigorous, be- 
 cause it is resigned to all events, to privations as to enjoy- 
 ments, to death as to life. 
 
 Happy, then, happy beyond conception, if I have been 
 enabled to contribute one feeble effort towards redressing 
 some of the evils which oppress my country, and to open to 
 it some new prospect of felicity ! Happy, if I have been 
 enabled to wipe away, on the one hand, the tears of some 
 unfortunate wretch, and to recall, on the other, men misled 
 by the intoxication of pleasure, to the DIVINITY, towards 
 whom Nature, the times, our personal miseries, and our secret 
 affections, are attracting us with so much impetuosity ! 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
TU ' 
 
 M141225 
 
 Biz 
 
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