:^
•M-
* 1 :-	
	
	
	
"'.-.. ■".*j.'V^ -v?	
'» ■ J.*' " "/»'■.	
;t:*tei>.>vi	
 
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE




          Bethesda, Maryland
^ 
[  MICHAEL F. MILLS.
i
 
 
MICHAEL  F. MILLS. 
 
 
 
                  STUDIES

                       OF

             NATURE.

                       BY
JAMES-HENRY-BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.
..MISERIS SUCCURRERE DISCO.
                      TRANSLATED BY

               HENRY HUNTER, D. D.

         MINISTER OF THE SCOTS CHURCH, LONDON-WALL.


                WITH THE ADDITION OF NUMEROUS

    ORIGINAL NOTES AND  ILLUSTRATIONS,

             BY BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON, M. D.
 President of the Philadelphia Linnean Society, and Professor of Materia Medica, Natural History
               and Botany, in the University of Pennsylvania.


                 IN THREE VOLUMES.


                        VOL.  II.


                  PHILADELPHIA:

               PRINTED BY ABRAHAM SMALL,

FOR BIRCH & SMALL,  M. CAREY, C. & A. CONRAD & CO. W. W. WOODWARD,
  JACOB JOHNSON, AND KIMBER AND  CONRAD, IN PHILADELPHIA;
   THOMAS AND ANDREWS, BOSTON ;  CAMPBELL AND MITCHELL,
        NEW-YORK ; AND BACKUS AND WHITING, ALBANY.
1808. 
 
CONTENTS.
                               VOL. II
                                                               PAGE
EXPLANATION of the Plates.
      Flowers.  Plate III.                                           Hi
      Volatile Grains.  Plate IV.                      -               v
      Aquatic Grains.  Plate V.         •         »         ■           vii

  SEQUEL TO
STUDY X.........Of the Human Figure        .....1
                Of Concerts.......20
                Of some other Laws of Nature hitherto imperfectly
                  known        -         -        -        -       30
STUDY XI.........Application of some general Laws of Nature to Plants    53
                Elementary Harmonies of Plants                     63
                  Elementary Harmonies of Plants -with the  Sun, by the
                    Floviers   ....     -         .     {&
                  Elementary Harmonies of Plants -with the Water and
                     the Air, by means of their leaves and tlteir fruits     83
                Vegetable Harmonies of Plants     -     -    -    -   126
                Animal Harmonies of Plants    ....     13Q
                Human Harmonies of Plants    ...     iqq
                  Elementary Harmonies of Plants, relatively to Man    ib.
                   Vegetable Harmonies of Plants-with Man     -    -  168
                  Animal Harmonies of Plants-with Man    -         173
                  Human, or Elementary Harmonies of Plants         1J5
Srt'DY XH...........Of some Moral Laws of Nature      -       -       200
                  Weakness of Reason, of Feeling;  Proofs of  the 1)1
                    vinity,  and of tJie Immortality of the  Soul from
                    Feeling      -      -       -       -       -      ib
                Of Physical Sensations            -       -    -    222
                  Of the Sense ofTastmg      ■ .     -      -      22.'
                  Of the Sense of Smelling             -     -       224
                  Of the Sense of Seeing    -    -       -      -     225
                  Of the Sense of Hearing    -      -       -       231
                  Of the Sense ofTouchitig         -     ■      -     234
                Of the Sentiments of the Soul, and first,
                  Of mental Affections    ....     .    237
                Of the Sentiment of Innocence    -              -   239
                  Of Pity      -      -                           240
                  Of the Love of Country.....242
                Of the Sentiment of Admiration      -              244
                  Of the Marvellous      •      •            -       ib.
                  The Pleasure of Jfyury    -                     240
                  The pleasure of Ignore'■"•"         -                •f*
  Vol. II.                     :. 
ii                           CONTENTS.
                                                              PAGE,
                Of the Sentiment of Melancholy    -    -     -      250
                  The Pleasure of Ruin    ....     -    252
                  The Pleasure of Tombs    ...      -      258
                  Ruins of Nature      -      -     -      -        261
                  The Pleasure of Solitude    ...    -      26j
                Of the Sentiment of Love       -        -      -      *'*■
                Of some other Sentiments of Deity, and, among others,
                  of that of Virtue     -      -      -               278
STUDY XIII ...Application of the Laws of Nature to the Disorders of
                  Society        -.....291
                Of Paris........338
                Of Nobility    .-:----      374
                Of an Elysium    -    -       ....    377
                Of the Clergy       ......      398
STUDY XIV. ...Of Education.......402
                National Schools      -          ...      418
                Recapitulation.......442
                Sequel to the Studies of Nature    -    -     -      462 
EXPLANATION  OF THE PLATES
                  FLOWERS.   PLATE III.


                      VOLUME II....PAGE 73.

    AS the explanation of this Plate is inserted in the text, all I shall say of
Tt here is this, that the forms of flowers, which have a direct relation to the
Sun, may all be reduced to those five primary patterns of flowers, to rever-
berated, perpendicular, conic, spheric, elliptic, and plane or parabolic ; and
flowers which have negative relations to the Sun, to the five other patterns of
flowers in parasol, which are here represented in contrast with the first.. At
(lie same time, though these last be of forms much more diversified than re-
verberated flowers,  all their negative species may be referred to those five
positive forms.
  I am of opinion, that if there were added to those five positive, or primor-
dial forms, a certain number of accents, to express the modification of them,
we  should have the  true characters of the florification, and an alphabet of
that agreeable part of vegetation.   I likewise presume that by means of this
alphabet, it might be possible to characterize, on geographical Charts, the
different sites of the vegetable kingdom.  It would be sufficient to apply the
signs  of them to the  forests which are there represented;  for on s eing in
the Chart, for the  sake of supposition, that of the reverberated perpendicular,
expressed by an ear of corn, or a prominent cone, we should instantly distin-
guish in it the forests of the North, or those of cold and lolly mountains.
Particular accents, superadded to this character of prominent cone, woidd
distinguish from each other the pine, the cpicea, the laryx, and  the cedar ;
and rays  issuing from these modified characters, would indicate the extent
nf the kingdoms of those different specie s of tit is.   The thing is not so diffi-
cult as may be imagined.   Geography  easily represents  forests upon  maps;
all that would be  farther requisite, therefore, is to affix to them certain signs,
in order to ascertain their species, and those signs might likewise character-
ize, as we have seen, the latitude, or the elevation of the soil.  Besides, we
should leave out of such botanical Charts  a multitude of political divisions,
i he names of which, in large characters, uselessly fill up a great deal of room.
We should represent them in the domains of Nature only,  and not those of
men.   Thus In means of these botanical signs, we might distinguish, at a
single glance, on  a  map, the productions natural to each soil,  the forests
with their different species of trees, nay, the meadows loo with the varieties
of their herbage.  There might be farther  conveyed the humidity or the dry -
ncss of the territory,  by adding to the signs of the flow rs, the characters of 
IV
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.
the leaves and seeds of vegetables.  To these might afterwards be affixed,
on the cities and villages represented, ciphers expressing the number of fami-
lies which inhabit them, as I have seen in Turkish maps : thus we should
have Charts really geographic, presenting at the first glance, an image of the
richness and of the temperature of the temtory, and of the number of it's
inhabitants.  After all, this is not a plan which I presume to prescribe, but
ideas which I have ventured to suggest, to be pursued, improved, and brought
to perfection. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE*.
V
            VOLATILE GRAINS.   PLATE  IV.

                      VOLUME H.......PAGE 93.

  HERE is presented, on the one hand, the spartha, or rush of the Spanish
mountains, hollowed into a gutter, for the purpose of receiving the rain wa-
ter ;  and, on the other, the cylindric or full rush of the marshes.  The grain
of this last resembles in it's state of expansion the eggs of a lobster.   I have
not been able to procure any of the grains of the spartha ; but I have no
doubt that, in opposition to those of the rush of the marshes, it must have a
volatile character.   I do not so much as know whether the spartha fructifies
in our climate.  Messrs. Thouin, the principal gardeners of the Royal Garden
at Paris, could easily have gratified my curiosity in this respect.  To these
gentlemen I stand indebted for furnishing me with most of the  grains and
leaves which I have got engraved for this Work, among otliers the cone of
the cedar of Lebanon; but accustomed  in my solitary studies to  investigate
in Nature alone the solution of the difficulties which she throws in my way, I
did not make application to them, though their hearts are replete with libe-
rality and complaisance  toward the ignorant as well as the  learned.
  Whatever the case may be as to this, it is to the fruit that Nature attaches
the character of volatility; and it is by the leaf that she indicates the nature of
the site in which the vegetable is destined to grow. Accordingly we perceive
in this plate the cone of the cedar to be composed of thin flakes, like the ar-
tichoke.   Every flake carries it's kernel;  such is the one here- represented
detached from the cone ; and each of them, as the fruit comes to maturity,
flies  off", by the help of the winds, toward the summit of the lofty mountains
to which it is destined.  Remark likewise that the leaves of the cedar arc
filiform ; in order to resist the winds, which are  violent on lofty mountains,
and they are aggregated into clusters resembling pencils, for the purpose of
collecting in the air the vapours which float about in it.  Each leaf of this
tree  has moi*e than one aqueduct traced  in it lengthwise ; but being extreme-
ly minute, it was  impossible to express it in the engraving.  Farther,  that
filiform  and capillaceous shape, so well  adapted to resisting the winds, as
well as that which is of the sword  blade  form, is common to  vegetables of
the mountains, such as pines, larches, cedars,  palm-trees ; it is likewise frc
quently found on the edge of waters equally exposed to violent winds, as in
rushes, reeds, the leaves of the willow : but the foliage of these  last differs
essentially from that of the first, in that there is no aqueduct in it, whereas
the leaves of mountain vegetables have one ;  neither is  their aggregation
similar.
  The dandelion grows like the cedar,  in dry and elevated situations.  It's
grains are suspended to a complete sphere of shuttle-cocks, which forms out
wardly a very regular polycdron, having a multitude of hexagonal or pentu
gonal faces.  These faces arc not expressed in the print, because  it has been
copied after that of a highly valued botanical Work, but which, like books ir
every department  of literature, collects onlv the characters which make for r 
VI
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.
favourite system.  The leaf of the dandelion particularly determines it's na-
tural site ;  it is broad and fleshy, because  expanding  itself close to  the
ground, on which it forms stars of verdure,  it has nothing to fear from the
winds :  it is deeply indented, like the teeth of a saw, for the purpose of open-
ing a passage to the grasses; and it's  indentings are bent inward to catch
the rain-water,  and convey it to the roots.  Thus Nature adapts  the  means
to each subject, and  redoubles  her attention in proportion to it's weakness.
The sphere of the dandelion  is  more artfully formed than the cone of the
cedar, and  beyond all contradiction much more volatile.  It requires  a tem-
pest to carry the seeds of the cedar to any considerable distance ; but the
breath of the  zephyr  is sufficient to resow those of the dandelion.  A Leba-
non is likewise necessary for planting the first; but the second needs only a
mole-hill.  This small vegetable is likewise more useful in the World than
the cedar;  it serves for food  to  a great many quadrupeds, and to a variety
of small birds, which fatten on it's grains.  It is very salutary to  the human
species, especially  in the  Spring season. We  accordingly find great numbers
of poor people at that time picking  up it's young shoots in the fields.   It is
moreover the only plant which Nature presents gratuitously to Man in  our
Climates.  It universally thrives in dry places, and even in'the  seams of the
pavement.  It frequently carpets the court;-yards of Hotels, the masters of
which are not over-burthened with vassals, and seems to invite the miserable
to walk in.  It's gold coloured flowers very agreeably enamel the foot of the
walls, and it's feathered sphere, raised upon a long shaft, in the  bosom of a
if ar of verdure, is by no means destitute of beauty.
  It is the leaf then which particularly determines the natural site of a vege-
table ; for as  we have seen there are aquatic plants which  have their grains
volatile, because they grow on the brink of lakes or marshes which have no
currents, such as the willow and the reed -, but their leaves in that case have
no ..queduct.   Nay, there are some which have a pendent direction, and
which from that attitude  refuse to admit the water from Heaven. The ma-
ple of Virginia, which delights in the brinks of lakes,  marshes, and creeks,
has grains attached to membraneous wings, resembling those of a fly,  as the
seeds of  the mountain maple represented in the plate.  But there is this re-
markable difference between them, that the broad leaf of the first is pendent,
und attached  to a long tail; that this tail, so far from being furnished with
an aqueduct has a ridge ; and that the leaf of the mountain maple, which is
■if a moderate size, angular and barky, for resisting the winds, rises almost
■'VrtiealJy, and bears an aqueduct on it's tail, to receive the waters  of Heaven. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.
VI1
             AQUATIC GRAINS.   PLATE  V.

                       VOLUME n......PAGE 105.

  AQUATIC GRAINS have characters entirely opposite to those which are
produced on  the mountains; if we except, as has been  said, those which
thrive on the brink of stagnant waters ;  but even these possess at once vola-
tile and nautical characters, for they are amphibious.  They swim along the
surface of the water, and they fly through the air; such is that of the willow
and several others.   It is the leaf which determines the site, as we have ob-
served, for aquatic plants never have any  aqueduct  on their leaves.  Nay,
most of them repel the water.  The leaves of the nymphsea and of the reed
are never wet.  It  is likewise so with those  of the  nasturtium, which  are
never humid, however copiously the rain may fall, though that plant is ex-
cessively fond of the water;  for the culture of it consumes an incredible
quantity. I am persuaded that if a morass were sown with plants of this sort,
it would be speedily dried up.  The leaf of the martinia of Vera Cruz, which
is here represented among aquatic plants, is, on the contrary, always humid.
It lias even  in  it's  first expansion a fluting on it's tail.  I rom  this double
mountain  character I am disposed to  suspect that the martinia  naturally
grows on the parched and sandy shores of the Sea ; for Nature,  in the view
of varying her harmonies, extends very dry places along the  brink of the wa-
ters, just as she deposits sheets of water and morasses in the bosom of moun-
tains.  But from the form of the pod of the martinia, which resembles a hook
for fisliing gilt-heads, I believe it to be destined to grow in situations exposed
to inundations of  the Sea, as is in fact the case with the territory of Vera
Cruz, from whence this species originally is.   I presume therefore that when
the shores of Vera Cruz are overflowed by high tides, you  must see fishes
caught by this plant, for the stem of it's pod is not easily  broken off;  it's
two crotchets are pointed  like  fishing-hooks, are  elastic,  and hard as horn.
Besides when it is soaked in water, it's furrows, shaded with black, shine as
if they were  filled with globules of quick-silver.  Now the  lustre of this light
is a farther bait to  attract the fishes.  I present these merely as conjectures ;
but I  found  them on a principle which  is indubitably certain, namely, That
Nature has made nothing in vain 
 
STUDIES OF NATURE.
                SEQUEL TO STUDY X.

                  OP THE HUMAN FIGURE.

ALL the harmonic expressions are combined in the  Human
Figure.   In treating this article, I shall confine myself to the
examination of some of those  which compose the head of Man.
Observe it's form in an approximation to  the spherical, which,
as we have seen, is the form by way of excellence.   I do not be-
lieve that  this configuration is  common to  it with that of any
animal whatever.   On it's anterior part is traced the oval of the
face, terminated by the triangle of the nose, and encompassed
by the radiations of the hair.   The head  is, besides, supported
by a neck  of considerably less diameter than itself, which de-
taches it from the body by a concave part.
  This slight sketch presents  to us at first glance the five har-
monic 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 geometri-
cal manner, but imperceptibly  run into each other, and mutually
blend as the parts of the same whole ought to do.  Thu  .he
hair does  not  fall in straight  lines, but in flowing ringlet, ;nd
harmonizes with the oval of the  face.  The triangle of the nose
is neither  acute, nor does it present a right angle ;  but, by the
undulatory swelling of the nostrils, presents a harmony with the
heart-form of the mouth, and  sloping  toward the forehead,
melts away  into the cavities of the eyes.   The spheroid of the
  Vol. II.                     A 
STUDIES OF NATURE.
head in like manner amalgamates 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 fore-
head, of the cheeks, of the chin, of the neck, that is, portions of
the most beautiful of harmonic expressions, namely the sphere.
  There are farther several remarkable proportions which form
with each other very pleasing harmonies and contrasts : such is
that of the forehead, which presents a quadrilateral form in op-
position to the triangle, composed of the eyes and the  mouth ;
and that of the ears, formed of very ingenious acoustic curves,
such as are not to  be met with' in the auditory organ of animals,
because in the case of mere  animals the ear is not intended to
collect, like that of a Man, all the modulations of speech.
  But I must be permitted to expatiate somewhat more at large
on the charming forms assigned by Nature to the eyes  and the
mouth,  which she has placed in the full  blaze of evidence,  be-
cause they are the two active  organs  of the soul.  The mouth
consists of two lips, of which the upper is moulded into  the
shape of a heart, that form so lovely as to have become prover-
bial for it's beauty;  and the under is rounded into a demi-cylin-
dric segment.  In  the  opening between the lips we have a
glimpse of the quadrilateral  figure of the teeth,  whose  perpen-
dicular 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 su-
premely 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 expressions -y
as it  was  fit the chief of all the organs  should  do.  They are
two  globes fringed on the lids with eye-lashes, radiating with
divergent pencil-strokes, which form with them a most delight-
ful contrast, and present a  striking consonance with the  Sun, af-
ter which they seem to have been modelled, having like that orb
a spherical figure, encircled  with  divergent rays in  the  eye-
lashes ; having a  movement of self-rotation, and possessing the
power,  like him,  of  veiling  themselves  in  clouds by means of
<heir lids. 
STUDY X.
       The  same  elementary harmonies may be traced in the co-
    lours of the head, as well as in its forms ;  for we have in the
    face the pure white exhibited in the teeth and in the eyes ; then
    the shades of yellow which dissolve into it's carnation, as the
    Painters well  know ; after that the red, the eminently excel-
    lent colour, which glows on the lips  and on the cheeks. You
    farmer  remark the blue of the veins, and sometimes that of the
    eye-balls ;  and finally the black of the hair, which by it's opposi-
    tion gives relief to the colours of the face, as the vacuum of the
    neck detaches the forms of the head.
       You  will please to observe, that Nature employs not, in de*
    corating 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 the yellow, and there
    into the red.  The blue of the veins has a greenish cast.   The
    hair is  rarely  of a jet black ; but brown, chesnut, flaxen, and in
    general of a colour into which a slight tint of the carnation en-
    ters, in order to prevent a violently harsh opposition.   You will
    farther observe, that as she employs spherical segments in form-
    ing the  muscles  which \inite the organs, and in order particularly
    to distinguish these veiy organs, she makes use of red for the
    same purpose.  She has accordingly extended a slight shade of
    it to the forehead, which she has strengthened upon the cheeks,
    and which she  has applied pure and unmixed  to the mouth,
    that organ of the heart, where it forms a most agreeable con-
    trast 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 red colour strengthens, except in the eyes.
       As the eyes are the principal organs of the soul, they are  des-
    tined to express all it's 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 two most opposite
    of colours, the white of the orbit and the black'of the iris, and
    sometimes of the ball, whjch form a very harsh opposition, when
    the  globes of  the  eyes are displayed in the full extent  of their
    diameter; but by means of the  eye-lids, which Man can con-
•   tract or dilate at pleasure, he is enabled to give them the expres-
    sion of all the passions from love to fun*- 
4
STUDIES  OF NATURE.
   Those eyes whose balls are blue are naturally the softest, be-
cause the opposition in this case is less harsh with the adjacent
white ; but they are the most terrible of all when animated with
rage, and this from a moral contrast which constrains us to con-
sider those as  the  most formidable of all objects, that menace
evil, after having encouraged us to expect good.  Persons there-
fore who are thus distinguished, ought  to be carefully on their
guard against treachery to that character of benevolence bestow-
ed on them by Nature; for blue eyes express by their colour
something enchantingly celestial.
   As to the movements of the muscles of the face, it would be
extremely difficult to describe them, though I am fully persuad-
ed it might be possible to explain their Laws.   Whoever shall
attempt this, must of necessity refer them to the  moral affec-
tions.   Those of joy are horizontal, as if the soul, in the enjoy-
ment 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.  Into  such an explanation of the
Laws of muscular motion must likewise enter the alterations of
colours, and the contractions of  forms, and in these at least we
shall discover the truth  of the  principle which we. have  laid
down, that the expression of pleasure is in the harmony  of con-
traries blending with each other in colours, forms, and motions ;
and that the expression of pain  consists in the violence of their
oppositions.  The eyes alone have motions ineffable  and it  is
remarkable, that under the influence of very 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
forms by means of radiated forms; and their  shining colours by
means of dusky tints.  Thus the bright organ of vision is con-
trasted by the eye-brows; those of  smell and taste by the mus-
taches ; the organ of hearing by that part of the hair called the
favourite lock, which separates the ear  from  tKe face; and the
face itself is distinguished from the  rest of the head bv the
beard and by the  hair.        • 
STUDY X.
  We shall not here examine the other proportions of the  hu-
man figure in the cylindric  form of the neck, opposed  to the
spheroid of the head, and to the plane surface of the breast; the
hemispherical forms of the paps, which contrast with the flatness
of the chest; as well as the cylindrical pyramids of the arms and
fingers with the omoplate of the shoulders; the consonances of
the fingers with the arms, by means of three similar articula-
tions, with a multitude of other curvatures and of other harmo-
nies, which hitherto have not so much as a name in any language,
though they are in every country the all-powerful expression of
beauty.
  The human body is the only one which unites  in  itself the
modulations and the concerts, inexpressibly agreeable, of the five
elementary forms and of the five primordial colours, without ex-
hibiting any thing of the harsh  and rude oppositions perceptible
in the brute creation, such as the prickles of the hedgehog, the
horns of  the  bull, the tusks of the wild-boar, the fangs of the
lion, thejuarbled skin of the dog, and the livid and disgusting
colours of venomous animals.   It is  the only one of which the
first touch  i^  perceptible, and which you can  see completely;
other animals being disguised under hair, or feathers, or scales,
which conceal their limbs, their shape, their skin.   Farther, it is
the only form which, in it's perpendicular attitude, displays all
it's positions and directions  at once; for you can hardly perceive
more of a quadruped, of a  bird, of a fish, than one half, in the
horizontal position which is proper to •'them, because  the upper
part of their body conceals the under.
   We must likewise remark, that 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  movement the most harmonic, as  his  figure is of
forms and of colours the most delightful.*

  * It has been maintained by certain celebrated  Authors, that the Negroes
consider their own colour as more beautiful than that of the whites ; but it is
a mistake.  I have put many a question on this subject to black people who
were in my own service in the Isle of France, and who were at perfect liberty
to tell what they really thought, especially on a subject so indifferent to slaves
as the beauty of the whites.  I sometimes asked  them whether of the two
they would prefer, a black wife or a white ? They never hesitated an instant
in declaring their preference of tl.c white women.  Nay,  I have seen a Ne-
gro who had been almost flayed alive by the whip,, in one of our plantations,
« 
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   The more that the multiplied consonances of the human figure
are agreeable, the more disgusting are it's dissonances.   This
is the reason that, on the face of the Earth, there is nothing so


express the highest delight when the scars of his sores began to whiten, be-
cause it suggested the hope that he was thereby going to change colour, and
to be negro no longer.  The pbor wretch would gladly have parted with his
whole hide to become white. This preference we shall be told is, in that case
the effect of the superiority which they are obliged to ascribe to the Europe-
ans.   But the tyranny of their masters ought rather to inspire abhorrence of
the colour. Besides, the black men and women of our colonies express the
same tastes that our peasantry at home do, for stuffs of lively and glaring
colours. Their supreme luxury in dress is a red handkerchief tied round the
head.  Nature has bestowed no other tints on the roses of Africa than upon
those of Europe.
  If the judgment of black slaves is considered as a suspicious authority on
the subject, we may refer the decisions to the Sovereigns of Africa, who are
under no temptation to dissemble.  They fairly acknowledge that in this, as
well as in  many other respects, they have been more hardly dealt with than
the Europeans.  African Princes have made frequent  application to the  Go-
vernors of the English, Dutch, and French settlements on the coasifor white
women, under a promise of very ample privileges in return.  Lamb, an Eng-
lish agent at Ardra, when prisoner to the King of Dahomay, in the year 1724,
sent word to the Governor of the English fort of Juida, that if he could send
a white man, or even a mulatto, to this Prince, she might acquire anjanbound-
ed influence over his mind.  ( General History of Voyages, by the Abbe Prevost,
book viii. page 96.)
  Another King, on a different part of the coast of Africa, promised one day
to a Capuchin Missionary, who was preaching the Gospel in his presence, to
dismiss his seraglio,  and embrace Christianity, if he would procure him a
white woman to wife.  The zealous Missionary immediately repaired to *.he
nearest Portugueze settlement; and having enquired whether there might not
be among them some pure and virtuous damsel, such as might suit his pur-
pose, he was informed of such a person, the niece of a decayed man of family,
who lived in a state of great privacy.  He waited for her one Sunday morning
at the door of the church, as she was returning from mass with her kinsman ;
and addressing himself to the uncle before all the people, charged him, in the
name of God,  and as he valued the interests of religion, that he would bestow
his niece  in marriage on the Negro King. The gentleman and his niece hav-
ing given their consent, the black Prince married her, after having dimissed
all his other women, and received public baptism.   (History  of Ethiopia, by
Labat.)
  The best informed travellers relate many such anecdotes of a similar pre-
ference expressed by the black Sovereigns of Africa,  and of southern Asia.
Thomas Roive, Ambassador from England at the Court of the Mogul Selim-
Scha, relates, that a very cordial reception was given by this powerful Mo-
narch to certain Portugueze Jesuits, who had come as missionaries into his
dominions, with a view to obtain, through their means, some women of the:*: 
STUDY X.
7
beautiful as  a handsome  man,  nothing  so shocking as a very
ugly one.
   This farther suggests a reason why it  will be  forever impos-
sible 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 combination of
those which  are of a different nature.  For example, the  Pain-


country to recruit his seraglio. He began with conferring on them singular
privileges; had apartments provided for them in the vicinity of his  palace,
and admitted them to his must  intimate familiarity : but perceiving that those
good fathers discovered no great inclination to gratify his desires, he practised
a very ingenious artifice to draw them into compliance.   He expressed an
extreme partiality to the Christian Religion ; and pretending that he was re-
strained wnerely by reasons of State from openly embracing it, he gave strict
orders to two of his nephews to attend punctually on the catechetical instruc-
tions of the missionaries. When the young men had acquired a competent de-
gree of knowledge, he enjoined them to get themselves baptized, and this be-
ing complied with, he thus addressed them:" It is now no longer in your power
" to marry pagan women, and of this country ; for you have made profession
" of Christianity. It is the duty  of the fathers who  baptized you to procure you
'' wives. Tell them they must send to Portugal for women  to be your brides."
 The young proselytes did not fail to make this demand on the good fathers ;
who suspecting that the Mogul's real  intention,  in marrying his nephews to
Portugueze wives, was to procure a supply of white women for his seraglio,
refused to engage in this negociation.  Their refusal highly incensed Selim-
Scha, and exposed them to much persecution : he  immediately commanded
his nephews  to renounce Christianity.  (Memoirs of Thomas Roive, Thevenot's
Collection.)
   The black colour of the skin is, as we shall presently see, a blessing from
Heaven to the Nations of the South, because it  absorbs  the reflexes of the
burning Sun under which they  live.  But the men of those Nations do  not the
less on that account consider white women as more beautiful than the black,
for the same reason that they think the day more beautiful than the night, be-
cause the harmonics of colours and of lights render themselves perceptible hi
the complexion of the whites, whereas they almost  entirely disappear  in that
of the blacks, who can pretend to no competition with the others in point of
beauty, except as to form and stature.
  The proportions of the human figure having been taken, as we  have just
seen, from the  most beautiful forms of Nature, are become in their turn mo-
dels of beauty  for Man. If we attend to this, we  shall find  that the forms
which please us most in works of art, as those of antique vases, and the rela-
tions of height  and breadth in monuments, have been taken from the human
figure.  It is well known that the Ionic column, with it's capital and it's flut-
Sngs, was imitated after the shape, the head-dress, and the drapery  of  th j
Grecian young women 
8               STUDIES OF NATURE.

ter may succeed tolerably in imitating the colours of  the face,
and the Sculptor in expressing it's forms. But were an attempt
made to unite the harmony of colours and of forms in a single
bust, such a production will  be very inferior to a mere picture,
or to a mere piece of sculpture, because it will combine particu-
lar dissonances  of  colours and of forms, besides their general
dissonance, which is still more strongly marked.   If to these it
were farther attempted to add the harmony of movements, as in
the case of an automaton, this would only aggravate the incon-
gruity.  Were art to continue it's effort, and try to bestow the
gift of speech likewise, this must produce a fourth dissonance,
which would be absolutely  hideous ;  for here the intellectual
system would clash frightfully with the physical system.   It is
accordingly matter of no surprize to me that St.  Thomas Aquinas
was so shocked  at the speaking head, in constructing which, his
master Albert the Great had employed so many years, that under
the influence of horror he instantly broke it to shivers.  It must
have produced  on him  the  same  impression  which he would
have felt had he heard an articulate voice issuing out of a dead
man's  mouth.  Such labours  in general do the Artist 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.
   All this proves the truth of the principle which we have laid
down, namely, that harmony results from the union of two con-
traries, and discord from their collision : and the more agreeable
that the harmonies  of an object are, the more disgusting are it's
discordances.   This is the real origin of pleasure and of dis-
like in physics as in morals, and the reason why the same object
so frequently excites affection and  aversion.
   A great variety of very interesting reflections remain to be
made on the human figure, especially by connecting with it the
moral  sensations, which alone give expression to  the features.
We shall  introduce some of these in the sequel of this Work,
when we  come to speak of sentiment.  Be it  as  it  may, the
physical  beauty of Man is so  striking in the  eyes even of the
animal creation, that to it principally must be ascribed the em-
pire which he excercises over them in every part of the Earth, 
STUDY X.                     9
The feeble flee for refuge under  his protection, and  the most
powerful tremble  at sight of him.  Mathiola relates, that the
lark will save herself amidst troops of men when she perceives
the bird of prey hovering over her.  The reality of this instinct
was confirmed to me by an officer who was once an eye-witness
of one in such circumstances, fleeing for safety among a very dis-
tinguished  squadron of cavalry in which he then served ; but the
trooper whose particular protection she sought, trampled her to
death under his horse's feet; a  most barbarous action, which
drew on him, and justly, the indignation of every good man in
the corps.
  I myself have seen a stag, when run  down by  the hounds,
appeal with sobs for relief to the compassion of persons acciden-
tally passing that way. Pliny relates a similar fact, and it is con-
sistent with my own experience when I was in the Isle of France*
which I have detailed in the journal of my Voyage to that Is-
land.  I have seen in the farm yards the India hens, under the
impulse of love, go and throw themselves chuckling at the  feet
of the  country people.   If we meet less frequently with instan-
ces of the  effect of animal  confidence in Man, it is because of
the noise of our fowling pieces scaring them incessantly, and of
the continual other persecutions which  they  are doomed to un-
dergo.
   It is well known with what familiarity the monkeys, and fowls
of all kinds, approach travellers in the forests of India.* I have
seen at the Cape of Good-Hope, in Cape-town itself the shores
of the Sea  swarming with water-fowls, which perched confident-
ly on the shallops, and a large wild pelican playing close by the
custom-house with a great  dog, whose  head she took into her
enormous  beak.   This  spectacle conveyed to me from the  mo-
ment of my arrival, a most  powerful impression in favour of the
happiness of that country, and of the humanity of it's inhabitants:
nor did my conjecture deceive me.
   But dangerous animals on the contrary are seized with terror
at the  sight of  Man, unless they be driven from their natural
bias by some pressing necessity.   An Elephant will suffer him-
self to be led about in Asia  by a little child.  The African lion
retires growling from the cabin of the Hottentot; surrenders up

                     See /'< '•,;.< ,■ and Mandesto.
   Vol. II.                   B 
  10            STUDIES OF NATURE.

  to him the possessions of his ancestors, and seeks for himself.,<
  kingdom far remote, in forests and among rocks  untrodden by
  the foot of Man.   The immense whale, amidst his native ele-
  ment, trembles and flees away before the puny bark of the Lap-
  lander.   And  thus to this day is executed that all  potent Law
  which  secured empire   to  Man, though sunk into  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 tho
 *' fishes of the  sea; into your hand are they delivered."*
    It is singularly remarkable, that through the whole extent of
  Nature there is no animal whatever, nor plant, nor fossil, nor
 even globe, but what has it's consonance and it's contrast out of
 itself, Man excepted.  No one visible being enters into society
 with him but either as his servant or as his slave.
   We must undoubtedly reckon among the human proportions;
 that Law so universal, and so wonderful, which produces males
 and  females  in equal  numbers.  Did  chance  preside  over
 the generation 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, and others wholly of women ; but all oyer the Globe the
 two sexes  are born, within  the  same space of time, equal in
 number.  A consonance so  regular clearly demonstrates that a
 Providence is continually watching over the affairs of Mankind,
 notwithstanding the  absurdity and  disorder of human  institu-
 tions. This may be considered as a standing testimony to the
 truth of our religion, which likewise 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.1  It may fairly be concluded on the contrary, that a re-
 ligion which permits  or connives at a plurality of wives must be
 erroneous.'
   Ah! how little acquainted  are they with the Laws of Nature
 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 of  it's  fruit. The  fair sex!  this is the
phrase of our men of pleasure ; women are known to  ihom v,n-
' G'T.c-is. chap iv ver. ? 
STUDY X.
n
der no other idea.   But the sex is fair only to persons who have
no other faculty except that of eye-sight. 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; and the cherishing
sex, which suckles  and tends him in infancy. It is  the  pious
sex, which conducts him to the altar while he is 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  fre-
quently 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
his strength; if his robust  hands  are able to subdue iron and
brass,  those of the women, more  dextrous and more usefully
employed, can spin  into threads the flax and the fleeces  of the
sheep.   The one encounters gloomy care with the maxims of
philosophy ; the other banishes it by sportiveness and gaiety.
The one opposes to external evils the force of his reason; the
other far happier, eludes them by the mobility of her's.   If the
man sometimes considers  it as his glory to bid defiance to dan-
ger 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 crea-
ted 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 proceed,  and to re-
frain from pursuing my reflections  on subjects so interesting as
the marriage and the  beauty of Man and Woman. I must how-
ever hazard some farther observations extracted from my store,
in order to induce others  to dive into this rich mine, wich the:
additional value of novelty.
   All Philosophers who have made Man their particular study
are agreed, and with  good reason, that he is the most wretched

  k This culogium on the female is a very impressive one.  It is, evidently, the
effusion of a feeling heart; the reflection of a mind practically acquainted with
the genuine  features of the two sexes. The tranquillity and resignation of the
women on their death bed are daily attested by physifcians. But this tranquilli-
ty, this resignation, are seldom spoken of, v.Iule weTatch with eager solici-
tude, the dying words of the prouder man, or hardier •philosopher, who with
difficulty tells us, v.h*>  his fc:it<ires tco it. qucntiy contradict, "that it is ea-v
" to die "—II. S. B 
STUDIES OF NATURE.
of all animals.  Most of them appear to have been sensible that
an associate was necessary to him to relieve his burthens, and
they have made his happiness in part to consist  of friendship.
This is an evident demonstration of human weakness and mise-
ry ; for were man naturally strong he would stand in no need of
either associate or assistance.  Elephants and lions live solitary
in the forests. They need no friends, because Nature has made
them  strong.
   It is very remarkable that when the Ancients give us a repre-
sentation  of perfect friendship, it is always restricted to  two,
whatever  may be  the extent of human  weakness ;  for  man i9
frequently reduced to the necessity of deriving his felicity from
the concurring interposition of many beings similar to himself.
Several reasons may be assigned for this restriction, the  princi-
pal of which are deducible from the nature of the human heart,
which from it's verv weakness  is capable of attaching itself to
only one object at  once ; and which being compounded  of op-
posite passions that maintain a perpetual counterpoise, is in some
sense  both active and passive, and stands in need of loving and
of being Ixloved,  of comforting and of being comforted, of ho-
nouring and of being honoured, and so on. Accordingly all the
friendships celebrated in the historic page existed only between
two persons ; such as those of  Castor and Pollux ; of Theseus
and Perithous ; of Hercules and Iolas ; of Orestes and Py lades v
of Alexander and  Hephestion, and many others.
  It is farther to  be remarked that those singular friendships
have  ever been associated with virtuous  and heroic actions ;
but whenever 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: such was that of the triumvirate
-among the Roman?.  In cases when the associates in such alli-
ances were still more  numerous,  the mischief which they did
was always in  proportion to the greatness  of the number of
which they consisted.  Thus the tyranny of the Decemviri at
Rome exhibited a violence still more, cruel than that of the Tri-
umviri, for it spread destruction, we may venture to sav, with-
out passion and in cold blood.
   There  are likewise  triummillvirates  and decemmillvirates:
^hese are  your various  descriptions of Corps.  With good rea- 
STUDY  X.
13
son have they obtained the appellation of Corps;  for they fre-
quently have a center distinct from their jCountry, of which they
ought only to be members.  They have likewise views distinct
from those of their Country, a distinct ambition and distinct in-
terests.  They are with relation to the rest of the citizens, in-
constant, detached, destitute of an object, and frequently desti-
tute also of the spirit of patriotism :  they are  that, in a word,
which  regular troops  are with relation to light troops.  They
will not suffer them to  appear  in  an avenue  along wb'ch they
themselves  are advancing,  and  dispossess  them  of  the  posts
which  they may have occupied the whole length of their route.
How many revolutions have been effected in Russia by the Stre-
litzes ; in Rome by the Pretorian guards ; at Constantinople by
the Janizaries ; and  elsewhere by Corps still more political ?
Thus,  by a just re-action of Providence, the spirit of Corps has
been as fatal to Countries as the spirit of Country has itself been
to Mankind.
   If the heart of Man admits of but a single object, what judg-
ment  shall we form of our modern  friendships,  embracing as
they do such a multiplicity ? Undoubtedly  if a man has thirty
friends, he can bestow on each of them only the thirtieth part of
his affection, and can receive in return no greater proportion of
theirs.  He must of necessity therefore deceive them ;  for no
one is disposed to be a  friend by fractions.
   But if the truth maybe told, such friendships are merely con-
federacies of ambition ; relations interested and purely political,
employed entirely in  practising mutual illusion, in the view  of
aggrandizing themselves at the expense of society ; and which
would be productive  of unspeakable  mischief, were they more
closely united among themselves,  and unless they are counter-
balanced by opposite confederacies.  Almost all our  general
associations accordingly issue in intestine wars.   On the other
hand,  I  do not speak of the inconveniencies which result from
particular  unions  rather too  intimate.  The  most celebrated
friendships of Antiquity have not been  in this respect wholly
exempt from suspicion, though I  am persuaded they were as
virtuous as the persons who were the objects of them.
   The Author of Nature has  given to each of us in our own
species a natural friend, completely adapted to all the demands
of human life, capable of supplying all the affections of the heart, 
'.4
STUDIES OF NATURE.
and all the restlessness of temperament.  He says from the be-
ginning of the World : " It is not good that the man should be
:' alone : I will make him an help meet for him ;—and the Lord
" God made Woman, and brought her unto the Man."*  Wo-
man pleases all our senses by her form and by her graces. She
has in her  character every thing that can interest  the heart of
Man, and at every stage of human life.  She merits by the long
and painful solicitudes which she exercises over our infancy, our
respect^as a mother, and our gratitude as a nurse ;  afterward as
Man advances to youth, she attracts all his love as a mistress ;
and in the  maturity of manhood, all his tenderness as a wife,
his confidence as a faithful steward, his protection as being fee-
ble ; and  even in old age she  merits our highest consideration
as the source of posterity, and our intimacy as a friend who has
been the companion of our good and bad fortune through life.
Her gaiety, nay her very caprices, balance, at all  seasons, the
gravity  and the over-reflective constancy of  Man,  and acquire
reciprocally a preponderancy over him.
  Thus the defects of the one sex and the excess of the other
are in exact mutual compensation.  They are formed, if I may
use the expression, to  be  grooved into each other, like the cor-
responding pieces  of  carpenters-work, the  prominent and re-
treating parts of which constitute a vessel fit to  launch on the
stormy ocean of life, and to attain additional strength from the
very bnffetings  of the tempest.   Had we not been  informed  by
a sacred tradition, that Woman was  extracted from the side of
Man ; and though this great  truth were not every day mani-
fested 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  contrast there  is in their characters, the more complete
union there is  in their harmonies.  It is, as we have already
briefly hinted, from their oppositions in talents, in tastes, in for-
tunes, that the  most  intense and the most  durable affection is
produced.  Marriage  is therefore the frj^idship of Nature, and
the only real union which is not exposed, like those which exist
among men, to estrangement, to rivalship, to jealousies, and to
the changes which time is effecting in our inclinations.

                  * Genesis, chap. ii. ver.  18, ?£ 
STUDY X.
15
   But wherefore are there so few happy marriages among us ?
I answer, because with us the sexes  have divested themselves
each of it's proper nature, and assumed the other. It is 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 of the talents peculiar to their
sex, by  the masters, the sciences, the customs, the occupations
of men.   There is no way left save one, but that is infallible, to
bring both back  to Nature ;  it is to inspire  them with a taste
for Religion.  By Religion, I do not mean attachment to cere-
monies, or systems of Theology ; but the religion of the heart,
pure, simple,  unostentatious ; such  as it  is so beautifully de-
picted in the Gospel.
   Religion will restore  to  the  two  sexes not only their moral
character, but  their physical beauty.   It is not climate, it is not
aliment, it is  not 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 exer-
cise no doubt  contribute greatly  to the magnitude  and the ex-
pansion of the body ; but they have  no manner of influence on
the beauty of  the  face, which is the true  physiognomy of the '
soul.   It is by no means uncommon to see persons tall and ro^
bust disgustingly ugly ;  with the stature of a giant and the face
■ >f a monkey.
   Beauty of face is to such  a degree the expression of the bar
monies of the  soul, that in every country those classes of citi-
zens who are, from their condition, obliged to live with others in
a state of constraint, are  sensibly the homeliest of the society.
The truth of this observation may  be ascertained, particularl)
among the noblesse of many of our provinces, who live  witl"
each other in the perpetual jealousy of rank, and with their neigh-
bours of an inferior order in a state of unremitting hostility, fo;
the maintenance of theii* prerogatives.  Most of those Noble•-•
present  a complexion billious and parched.  They are meagre.
1 ulky, and perceptibly uglier than the other  inhabitants of the
same  district,  though they breathe the same air, live on the same-
aliments,  and in general  enjoy  a superior degree of  fortune.
Accordingly, they are far from being  gentlemen both in name
and in fact.  Nay, there is  a Nation bordering upon ours, tha
•vubjects o( which  are a?  much  celebrated  all over Europe foi 
 16             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 their pride  as for their homeliness.  All  those men are ren
 dered hard-favoured from the same causes that  most of our
 children degenerate in look; who,  however amiable  in early
 life, become ugly on going*to college, from the miseries and
 irksomeness of these institutions.  I say nothing of their natu-
 ral character, which undergoes the same revolution  with their
 physiognomy; this last being always a consequence of the other.
   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 as they do, in good understand-
 ing among themselves, and wTith their compatriots, are in general
 the handsomest 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 ge-
 nerally meet with models  so exquisite in their statues and me-
 dallions.   They were beautiful, because they were happy ; they
 lived in cordial  union with their equals, and in the enjoyment
 of popular favour  with the  citizens at large.  Besides, there
 were among them no melancholy, moping, monkish institutions,
 Similar to those of our colleges, contrived to disfigure the whole
 vouth of a Nation at once.   The descendants of those same
 Nations are  at this day far from exhibiting a resemblance to
 their ancestors, though the climate of their country is not in the
 smallest degree changed.
   It is farther to moral causes that we must refer the singularly
dignified physiognomies of the great Lords of the Court of Louis
 XIV. as  is  visible in  their portraits.   In  general, persons of
quality being by their rank elevated above  the  rest of the Na-
tion, do not live continually at daggers drawing with each other,
 and with the other subjects of the State, as is the  case of most
 of our  small country-gentlemen,  besides they  are  usually
 educated under the  paternal  roof, that  is, under the  blessed
influence of  domestic enjoyment, and far remote  from jea-
 lousy and  strife.   But those  of the age of Louis  XIV.
had  this  distinguished advantage over their posterit), that
they  were  taught to  value  themselves  on beneficence, and
 popular  affability,  and  on  bestowing  their patronage  upon
talents and virtue wherever they  found  them.  There is not, 
                         STUDY X.                      17

 perhaps, a great family of that period, but what has the honour
 to boast of having brought forward and raised into distinction,
 some one man of obscure birth, or of the inferior Nobility, who
 afterwards  rendered himself illustrious,  by means of such sup-
 port, in arts, in literature, in the church, or in the army.
   These grandees  acted thus,  in  imitation of the Sovereign, or
 perhaps from a remainder of the spirit of the magnificence of the
 feudal government, which  then expired.  Be  this  as  it may,
 they were handsome, because they were contented and happy ;
 and this noble emotion of soul toward beneficence, has impres-
 sed on their physiognomy a majestic character, which will ever
 distinguish  them from the men of preceding ages, and still more
 from that which has succeeded.
   Observations  of this  kind  are not  an  object  of curiosity
 merely: they  are  of much more importance than is generally
 apprehended ;  for it follows as a necessary consequence, that in
 order to form  in a  Nation beautiful children, and of course
 handsome men,  in both  the physical and moral  sense  of the
 word, it is not necessary,  according  to the doctrine of -certain
 medical men, to subject the human species to regular purgation
 and under particular aspects of the Moon.  Children restricted
 t»o a rigid regimen of this sort, as are most of those of our Phv-
 sicians and  Apothecaries, all present wan pasteboard figures;
 and when grown up, pale complexions and bilious temperaments
 like their fathers.
   In order to render children beautiful, you  must render them
 physically, but  above all morally happy. You must prevent every
 possible occasion ;of vexation to them, not by kindling in their
 breasts dangerous  and headstrong passions, as  in the case of
 spoiled children, but on the contrary by teaching them to curb
 such as they have  from  Nature, and which society is ever ex-
 citing into a state of fermentation ; and  especially by guarding
 against  the  communication of every thing unnatural, such  as
 useless and  irksome tasks,  emulations, rivalship,  and the like.
 But we shall resume this  important subject at greater length
 hereafter.
   The ugliness of  a child  is to be imputed, in almost every
 case, to his nurse or to his preceptor.   I have some times observ-
 ed, among so many classes of society more,or less disfigured bv
our  institutions, some families singularlv beautiful.  On en-
   Voj, II.                     C 
IS              STUDIES OF NATURE.

quiring into  the cause of this, I have found that those families,
though of the commonalty, were happier in a moral respect thai*
those of other citizens ;  that the mothers had suckled their own
children; that the young  people  had learned their occupations
under the paternal  roof and  inspection; that they  have been
treated with much tenderness and indulgence ; that their parents
were fondly  attached to each other; that they all lived  toge-
ther, notwithstanding the  hardships of their low condition, in a
state of liberty and  cordiality, which rendered them  good, hap-
py, and satisfied.*
  I  have thence deduced this  other consequence : That we fre-
quently make a false estimate  of  the  happiness of human life,
On seeing here a Gardener with the port of a Roman  Emperor ;
and  there a great  Lord  with the mask of a slave, I imagined at
first that  Nature  had committed a mistake.   But  experience
demonstrates, that the great Lord in question is, from the hour
of his birth  to that of his death, placed in a series of positions,
which permit him not to gratify his own inclination three  times
a year.   For he  is under the necessity, from  his infancy up-
ward, to do  the will, first of his  preceptors and masters;  in
more advanced life, that of his prince,.of ministers of state, 01
his rivals, nay frequently that  of  his  enemies.  Thus he finds
fetters innumerable in  his very dignities.  Our  Gardener, on
the other hand, passes his whole  life without being exposed to
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, together with an  accu-

  * Mr. C. Quillet has published a work  entidtd La Callipsdie, or the Art ol
forming beautiful children.   I have  not seen this work, and am not, there.
fore,  prepared to say, how far the sentiments of the author are in harmony
with those of Saint Pierre.  The following is a part of the dedication of this
work to the Society of medicine, &c, at Brussels,  by Mr. Cailleau, the trans.
iator  of Quillet's book.  " The  author (he says) in an admirable work,  and
with  a title apparently frivolous, which, however, fulfils allots promises, has
sung in the language of the gods, and always in the presence of the  august
Minerva, after the example of Homer, and the vetran of Ascra, the most ami-
able and useful of sciences, the art of rendering the human species perfect;
and of ijniting a beautiful soul with a beautiful body."—-B. S. B 
STUDY X.
19
tnulation of honours ; and in the meanest of human conditions
we frequently find the possession of the most unbounded empire/
  Besides, persons who have been disfigured by the corruptive
impression of vicious education and habits have it in their pow-
er to reform their looks : and I say this principally for the sake
of our females, who, in order to gain this point, apply white and
red, and patch up faces, like those of dolls, utterly destitute of
character.  After all  they are in the right; for it is much better
to conceal character  altogether, than to exhibit that of the cruel
passions which are often preying upon them ;  especially to the
eyes of so many of the other sex, who study  character merely
to take the advantage of it.   There are infallible means in their
power of acquiring a beauty  altogether irresistible.   It is to be
internally good, gentle, compassionate, sensible, beneficent, and
devout.  These affections of a  virtuous  soul will impress on
their features, characters altogether celestial, which will appear
beautiful even to the farthest extremity of old age.
  Nay, I will venture so far as to affirm, that the  harsher the
traits may be in homely persons who have suffered degradation
from  a faulty education^ the more sublime and impressive will
be the contrasts produced in them by those which they acquire
from habits of virtue ; for when we find goodness under an un-
promising exterior, we are as agreeably surprized as at finding
violets and primroses under a shrubbery  of briars and thorns.
Such  was the sensation inspired on  a first introduction to the
crabbed-looking M.  afe  Turenne;  and such in our days is that
which we feel at the first aspect of a certain northern Prince, a?
justly celebrated for his goodness, as  the  King his brother  has
rendered  himself by his victories.  I have no doubt that  the
repelling outside of these two great men may  have greatly con-
tributed to give a peculiar prominency to the excellence of their
heart.  Such too was the beauty of Socrates, who, with the fea-
tures  of a profligate,  delighted every eye while he discoursed of
virtue.
  But to no purpose will a man attempt to decorate his counte-
nance 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 ?.r. 
20
STUDIES OF NATURE.
a bed of flowers.  Such is the detestable character generally as-
cribed to courtiers.
   Moral beauty then is that after which we are bound to aspire,
that it's divine irradiations may be diffused over our features
and over our actions.  To no purpose  will a Prince  himself
make his boast of high birth, riches, credit, wit; the People in
order to know him must  look  him in the face.   The  People
form their judgment of him entirely from the physiognomy: it
is in every  country the first, and frequently the last letter of re-
commendation*

                     OF CONCERTS.
   Concert  is an order formed of several harmonies of various
kinds.  It  differs  from simple order in this, that the  last is fre-
quently nothing but a series of harmonies  of the same  species.
   Every particular Work of Nature presents, in different kinds,
harmonies, consonances, contrasts;  and forms  a  real  concert.
This we shall more amply unfold in the Study which treats  of
plants.  It may henceforward be considered as  a  well-founded
remark on the subject of those harmonies, and of those contrasts,
that vegetables whose flowers have the least lustre  are frequent-
ed by animals of the most brilliant colours; and on the contrary,
that the vegetables which are most highly coloured serve as an
asylum to the duskiest animals.   This is particularly evident in
countries situated between the  Tropics;  where  the trees and
herbage, which have few  if any apparent flowers, lodge and
support birds, insects, nay monkies of the most lively colours.
It is in the plains  of India that the peacock displays his gaudy
plumage,, on a  shrubbery despoiled of verdure  by the burning
heat of the  Sun*  In the same climate it is that the parrot race,
consisting of so many different  species, enamelled with a thou-
sand various colours, perch on the gray bough of the palm-tree,
and that clouds of little paroquets, green as the emerald, alight
on fields embrowned by the lengthened heats of Summer.
  In our temperate regions, on the contrary, most of our birds
are dull-coloured, because most  of our vegetables have flowers
and fruits with  shining colours.  It is  very  remarkable, that
such of our  birds and insects  as have lively colours  usually
choose for  their habitation  vegetables that have  no apparent
flowers,  Thus the heath-cock glisters on the gray verdure of 
STUDY X.
21
the pine, whose  apples serves him for food.   The gold-finch
builds his nest in the rough fullers-thistle.  The most beautiful
of our caterpillars, which is marbled with scarlet, is to be found
on a species of the tithymal that usually grows in the sands, and
amidst  the  quarries of  the forests  of Fontainbleau.   On the
contrary,  our 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 most
agreeable consonance and contrast with the prickly shrub where
he resides, by his blood-stained breast and the sweetness of his
song.  The  nightingale with brown plumage delights to nestle
in the rose-bush, according to the traditions of the oriental Po-
ets, who have founded many a charming fable on the loves of
that melancholy  bird for the rose.
   I could here exhibit a multitude of other harmonies of a si-
milar nature, respecting the animals both of our own and of fo-
reign countries.   I have collected these to a very considerable
number; but I aknowledge they are too incomplete to admit of
my forming of  them the  entire concert of one plant.   I shall
however treat the subject more at large under the  article of ve-
getables.  It will be sufficient at present to produce a single ex-
ample, which incontestably proves the existence of  those harmo-
nic Laws of Nature:  it is this, that they subsist even in places
not exposed to the view of the Sun.  We always find in the cells
of the mole fragments of the bulbous  root of the colchica close
by the nest of her young.   Now let any one examine the plants
which usually grow in  our meadows, and  he will find none
which forms more harmonies and contrasts with the black colour
of the mole, than the white, impurpled, and lilach flowers of the
colchica.  This  plant likewise furnishes powerful  means of de-
fence to the feeble mole against her natural enemy  the dog, who
is continually hunting after her in the meadows;  for he is poi-
soned if he eats it.  For this reason the  colchica  has obtained
the trivial name  of dog-bane.  The mole then  finds a supply of
food for her necessities, and a protection against her enemies, in
the colchica, as  the bullfinch  does in the white-thorn.  Such
harmonies are not  only very agreeable objects of speculation,
but may be turned to very good practical  account;  for from
what has just been suggested it will follow, that if you wish to
allure the bullfinch  to your shrubbery, you  have only to plant 
22
STUDIES OF NATURE.
the white-thorn;  and if  you would clear your grounds of the
mole, exterminate the bulbs of the colchica.
   If to each plant are added it's elementary harmonies, such as
those of the season when  it appears ; of the  soil and situation in
which it vegetates; the effects of the dews, and of the reflexes
of the light on it's foliage ; the movements which it undergoes
from the action of the winds; it's  contrasts and consonances
with other plants, and with the quadrupeds, the  birds, and the
insects, which are peculiar to it;  and you will perceive a de-
lightful concert formed all around, the harmonies of which are
still unknown to us.  It is only however by pursuing this track,
that we shall be enabled to obtain a glimpse of the immense and
magnificent edifice of Nature.   I  would earnesdy intreat Na-
turalists, persons  fond of gardening, Painters, nay Poets like-
wise, thus to prosecute  their  studies, and  to  take  frequent
draughts from this perennial spring of taste and of delight. They
will behold new  worlds  arising  into view,  and without remov-
ing from their own  Horizon, they will make discoveries infi-
nitely more curious than  those which are contained in our books
and cabinets, where the productions of the Universe are fritter-
ed awav and disjoined in the petty drawers of our mechanical
systems.
   I know not  at present what name I ought to give to the con-
formities which those particular concerts have with Man.  Cer-
tain it undoubtedly is, that there is no Work of Nature  but what
strengthens it's particular concert, or if you  will it's natural cha
racter, by  the habitation of Man ; and which does not commu-
nicate in it's turn  to the habitation of Man, some expression of
grandeur,  of gaiety,  of terror, or of majesty. There is no ver-
dant mead but what is rendered more cheerful by a  dance oi
shepherdesses  and their swains ; and no tempest but  what ac-
quires additional horror from the shipwreck of a vessel. Nature
raises the  physical character of her Works  to a sublime moral
character, by collecting them around mankind. This is not the
place to descant at large on the new order of sentiments hereby
suggested. I satisfy myself at present with observing,  That she
not only employs particular concerts to express in  detail the cha-
racters of her Works, but  when she means to express these same
characters on the  great scale,  she combines a  multitude of har-
monies and of cdhtrasts of the same kind,  in order to form of 
STUDY X.
23
 ihcm one great general concert, which has only a single expres-
 sion, let the field of representation be ever so extensive.
   Thus, for example, in order to express the maleficent charac-
 ter of a venomous plant, she combines in it clashing oppositions
 of the forms and colours which are the indications of that male-
 ficence ; such as retreating and bristly forms, livid colours, dark
 greens,  with white and black spots, virulent smells....But when
 she means to characterize a whole district that is 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 disgusting,
 the dracunculus, for instance, the flower of which exhibits the
 form, the colour,  and the smell of an ulcer. If any tree arises
 in the cloudy  atmosphere, it is  the yew only, whose red and
 smoky trunk has the  appearance of having passed through the
 fire, and whose gloomy foliage serves as an asylum only to owls.
 If any other animal is to be found seeking a retreat under it's
 lurid shade, it is the blood-coloured cantipede, or the toad crawl-
 ing along the  humid and rotten  ground.   By these, or similai
 signs, Nature scares Man away from noxious situations.
   If she intends to give  him at sea  the signal of an impending
 tempest; as she  has opposed in ferocious animals the fiery glare
 of the eyes  to the thickness of the  eye-brows ; the stripes and
 spots with which they are marked to the yellow colour of their
 skin, and the stillness of their movements to the thundering noise
 of their voices; she collects in like manner in the sky, and on the
 deep, a multitude of clashing oppositions, which in concert an-
 nounce approaching devastation.  Dark clouds sweep through the
 air in the horrible forms of dragons.  Here and there the pale
 fire of lightning bursts from the gloom ;  the noise of the thun-
der, with which their  dark womb is impregnated, resounds like
 the roaring  of the celestial lion,  The Orb of Day, who can
 scarcely render himself visible through their rainy and multipli-
 ed veils, emits long radiations of wan and sickly light. The lead-
en surface of the Ocean sinks and swells into broad white foam-
ing  surges.   A hollow murmuring noise seems to issue from
those threatening billows.  The black  shallows whiten at a dis-
tance with horrid sounds, from  time to time interrupted by
ominous silence.  The Sea, which alternately covers  and re-
veals them, displays to the light of day their cavernous foundar 
24            STUDIES OF NATURE.

tions.   The Norwegian lom 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 plain-
tive screaming voice against the tempest, 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 pro-
tection which he solicits,  announces the tempest to the mariner
before it overtakes hkn.
   Nature uniformly proportions the signs of destruction to the
magnitude of the danger.   Thus,  for example,  the signs  of
tempest off the Cape of  Good-Hope far exceed  those on our
coasts. The celebrated Fernet, who has  exhibited so  many ter-
rifying representations of the Sea, is far from having depicted
all the horrors of the watery element. Every storm has it's pe-
culiar character, and in every particular latitude.  Far different
are the storms off the Cape of Good-Hope from those off Cape
Horn ; those of the Baltic from those of the Mediterranean ;
thbse on the banks of Newfoundland from those on the coast  of
Africa.  They farther differ according to the season of the year,
and even according to the hour of the day.  Those of Summer
are very unlike those of Winter; and widely different is the
spectacle of an enraged sea, shining at noon-day under the rays
of the Sun, and that of the same sea illuminated at the midnight
hour by a single flash of lightning.  But  you perceive in all the
clashing oppositions of which I have made mention,
  I have remarked one thing in the tempests off the Cape  of
Good-Hope, which strikingly supports all that I have* hitherto
advanced  respecting the  principles of discord and harmony ;
and which may perhaps suggest profound and useful reflection
to some one of greater ability than I can pretend to.   It is this,
That Nature frequently accompanies the signs of the disorder
which agitates the Ocean with agreeable expressions  of harmo-
ny, that serve only to redouble the horrors of the scene.
  Thus,  for example, in two different  storms to which I was
exposed in those seas, I did not see the face of Heaven obscur-
ed by dark .clouds, nor these clouds furrowed by alternate flashes 
STUDY X.
1 i lightning, nor a Sea muddy and lead-coloured, as in the tem-
pests of our climates.  The sky,  on the contrary,  presented a
fine blue, and  the  sea  a  beautiful azure; there were no other
clouds hovering in the air but small aggregations  of a ruddy
vapour, dark toward the centre, and illuminated about the ex-
tremities with  the yellow lustre of burnished brass.   They took
their departure from a single point in the Horizon, and travel-
led across the Heavens with the rapidity of a bird flying. When
the thunder shivered in pieces our main-mast in the  middle of
the night, it did not roll; and emitted only a crack resembling
that of a cannon shot off close by us.   Two other thunder-claps
which had  preceded this  one, were exactly similar.  This was
in the month of June, which is mid-winter at the Cape of Good-
Hope.
   I was caught  in another storm when doubling the Cape, on
my return  in the month  of January, which is mid-summer in
that  part of the world.  The  ground of the Heavens was blue,
as in the first,  and not above five or six clouds were perceptible
above the Horizon ; but each of them white, black, cavernous,
and of an enormous magnitude, resembled a portion of the Alps
suspended  in the air.   This last was much less violent than the
former, with its small  ruddy vapours.   In both the sea was of
the same beautiful azure  colour with the sky ; and on the  curl-
ing crests of the vast billows, rushing  like so many cascades,
were formed bright coloured rainbows.
   These tempests, in the full blaze of light, are inexpressibly
tremendous.   The soul stands aghast at sight of the indications
of tranquillity converted into signs of  storm ; the unclouded
azure in the Heavens, and the rainbow playing upon the waves.
The  principles of harmony appeared to be completely inverted.
Nature seemed to have put on a character of perfidiousness, and
to conceal fury under the mask of benevolence.
   The shallows  of those Latitudes exhibit similar  contrasts.
John Hugo de Linschoten, who saw those of the Jewess at no
great distance, in the Mosambique channel, and upon which he
was  in extreme danger of making  shipwreck,  informs us, that
they have a most hideous aspect, being black, white, and green.
Thus Nature increases the characters of terror, by intermingling
v.ith them  certain agreeable expressions.
   Vol. 11.                  D 
26              STUDIES OF NATURE.

  There is a farther observation of essential importance to be
made in this place ; namely, That in those awful scenes of dan-
ger and affright, the terrible is close upon you, and the agreea-
ble is removed to an immense distance ;  tumult is in the seas,
and serenity in the sky.   A prodigious extension is thus given
to the sentiment of disorder ;  for there is no apparent boundary
set to tempests of this sort.   All depends on the first impulsion
which we undergo.  The sentiment of infinity that is within us,
and which is ever making new efforts to propagate itself farther
and farther, seeks to make it's escape  from the  physical  evil
wherewith it is surrounded ;  but repelled in some sort by the
serenity of the treacherous Horizon, falls back upon itself  and
undergoes  a severer pang, under the pressure of present painful
affections, because their source has the appearance of being in-
variable.
  Such is the Giant of Storms,  stationed by Nature at the en-
trance of the Seas of India, and so well delineated by the pencil
of Camoens,  Nature in our climates  produces  quite contrary
effects ; for during Winter she redoubles  our  repose within
doors, by covering the  face of Heaven with dark and rainy
clouds.  All depends, as I have just said, on the first impulsion
which the soul receives.  Lucretius is undoubtedly right in  say-
ing, that our pleasure and security on shore are greatly increased
by the sight of a storm at sea.
  A Painter accordingly, who wished to strengthen in a picture
the effect of a beautiful landscape, and the felicity of it's inha-
bitants, would only have  to  represent in the back-ground a  ves-
sel at the mercy of the winds and of the raging deep:  the hap-
piness of  the  shepherds would in this case  be powerfully
heightened by contrast with the distress of the mariners.   But
if it were his intention, on the contrary, to augment the horrors
of a tempest, it would be necessary for him to place in opposi-
tion to the distress of the mariners, the felicity of the shepherds;
and, for this  effect, the vessel must be introduced between the
spectator and the  landscape.  The first sentiment  depends on
the first impulsion; and the ground  contrasting with the scene
is so far from being a deviation from Nature, that the leading
object is impressed with additional energy by being thrown back
upon itself.   Thus it is possible, with the same objects placed
dif^r^tly, to produce div "•tlv ormo-ite e^F'-c'?. 
STUDY X.
27
  If Nature, by introducing certain  agreeable harmonies into
scenes of discord, redoubles their confusion, such as the green
colour of the rocks of the Jewess, or the azure in the tempests
off the  Cape, she frequently throws in a discordance, in concerts
the most delightful, for the purpose of heightening the pleasura-
ble effect.   Thus a noisy  water-fall  precipitating itself into a
tranquil valley,  or a rugged and dusky rock ascending in the
midst of a verdant plain, enhances the  beauty of a  landscape.
Thus a mole on a beautiful face gives it  additional vivacity.
Skilful Artists have sometimes happily imitated those harmonic
contrasts.   Callot, when he intended to aggravate the horror of
his infernal scenery, introduced amidst his demons the head of
a fine woman  on the carcase of an animal.  On the contrary,
the most renowned Grecian Painters, in order to render Venus
more interesting, represented her with a slight squint in her eyes.
   Nature employs  offensive contrasts only for the  purpose of
chasing Man from some perilous situation.  In all  the rest of
her Works she employs only harmonic mediums.  I must not
involve myself in the examination of their different concerts ;  it
is a subject whose riches are inexhaustible.   All that could be
expected from my scanty fund was the indication  of a few of
their principles.  I shall endeavour, however, to trace a slight
sketch of the manner in which she harmonizes the common fields
of our harvests, these, being the production of human agricul-
ture, seem abandoned to the monotony that characterizes most
of the Works of Man.
   First of all, it is  remarkable that we here find that charming
shade of green, produced by the alliance of the two  primordial
opposite colours, which are the yellow and the blue.  This har-
monic colour decompounds itself in it's turn by another meta-
morphosis, towards the time of the harvest, into the three  pri-
mordial colours, namely,  the  yellow of the ripening corn,  the
red of the wild poppy, and the azure of the blue-bottle.  These
two plants are  found  intermingled with  the  standing corn all
over Europe,  let the farmer take what pains he may in sifting
the grain and in weeding his field.  They form by their harmo-
ny a very rich purple tint, which rises admirably on the yellow
ground of the corn-field.
   If you study these two  plants separately, you will find be-
kween them a variety of particular contrasts; for the blue bot- 
28               STUDIES OF NATURE.

tie  has narrow  and slender leaves; but those of the poppy are
broad, with deep incisions.  The blue-bottle* has the corolla of
it's flowers  radiating, and of a delicate azure ; but those of the
poppy are  large, and  of  a  deep red.  The  blue-bottle throws
out divergent stalks; but those of the poppy are straight.  We
find, besides, among  the  corn, the  cockle or corn-rose, which
rises to the height of  the expanded car, with handsome purple
flowers in form of a trumpet; and the convolvulus with a flesh-
coloured flower, crawling up along the reeds, and surrounding
them with verdure like a thyrsus.   There is a great variety ot
other vegetables usually to be found growing among corn, and
forming contrasts the -most  agreeable, most of them exhale the
sweetest perfumes; and when agitated by the Summer's breeze,
you will be disposed  from their undulations  to imagine the
whole  a sea of verdure  enamelled  with flowers.   Add to all
the rest a  gentle  rustling of the ears against each other,  most
agreeably soothing, which by it's soft murmuring sound invites
to sleep.
  These lovely  forests of vegetable beauty are not destitute of
inhabitants.  You see bustling  about under their  shade,  the
green coated scarab, streaked with gold, and the monoceros of
the colour of burnt coffee.   This last insect takes  delight in a
hillock  of  horse-dung, and is furnished with a ploughshare  on
it's head, with which  he removes the ground like  a labourer.
There are  besides a variety of charming contrasts  in the bees
and  the butterflies, which  are attracted by the  flowers  of the
corn-lield, and in the manners of the birds which inhabit them.
The far-travelled swallow is  continually skimming  along  their
surface, undulating like the waters of a lake; whereas the sta-
tionarv lark towers above  them in a perpendicular direction,
within sight of her nest.   The domesticated partridge and  tran-
sitory quail, there find a situation equally favourable to  both for

  * He does not mean the plant  frequently called in the United States blue-
bottle, which is a species  of Hyacinth  ; but the corn blue-bottle of the En-
glish, which is the centaurea cyanus of the botanists.  Saint Pierre would
have beeti pleased  to have known of the attachment to this plant of various
species of American birds,  whose colours nm sometimes in beautiful harmonv,
and sometimes in equally beautiful contrast, with the  colours of the flowers
of the blue-bottle.  I think none of our birds so frequently perch upon the
eyanust as the frigilla tristis, whose colour is nearly one uniform yellow ; ard
htnee called the yellow bird.—B. SB. 
STUDY X.
29
rearing their young.  The  hare frequently  burrows in then-
neighbourhood, and quietly nibbles the wild-thistle.
  These animals have with Man relations of utility, from their
fruitfulness and their furs.   It is remarkable that they are to be
found over all the  corn-districts of Europe, and that their spe-
cies are varied according to all the variety of human habitation;
for there are different species of quails, partridges, larks, swal-
lows, and hares, adapted to the  plains, to the  mountains, to the
heaths, to the meadows, to the forests, and to the rocks.
  As to the corn-plant itself, it has relations innumerable  with
the wants of Man and of his domestic animals.  It is  neither
too high nor too low  for his stature.   It is easily handled and
reaped.  It furnishes grain to his poultry, bran to his pigs, fo-
rage and litter to his black cattle and his  horses.   Every plant
that grows in his corn-field possesses virtues particularly adapt-
ed  to the maladies  incident  to  the condition of the labouring-
man.  The poppy is a cure for the pleurisy ;  it procures sleep;
it stops hemorrhages and spitting of blood.  The blue-bottle is
a diuretic ;  it is vulnerary, cordial and cooling; it is an antidote
to the stings of venomous insects, and a remedy for inflamaiion
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 him many other
agreeable concerts with his fleeting existence.  The direction of
it's shadow informs him of  the hour of the day; from it's pro-
gressive  growth he learns the rapid  flight of the  seasons:  he
reckons the flux of his own fugitive years by the successions of
the guiltless harvests which lie has reaped.  He is haunted with
no apprehension, like the inhabitants of great cities, of conjugal
infidelity, or of a too numerous posterity.  His labours are al-
ways surpassed by the benefits of Nature.  When the Sun gets
to the sign of Virgo, he summons  his  kindred, he invites hi?
neighbours, and marches at  their head by the dawning of the
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 them, crowned with garlands of blue-bottles and
wild  poppies.  The harmless plav recalls to his memory tht
amusements of his  own  early days, and of his virtuous ances-
tors, whom he hopes at length to re; >in in a better and happier
World.  The sight of his copious harvest demonstrates  to him 
30              STUDIES OF NATURE.

that there is a GOD ; and every return of that joyous season,
bringing to his recollection the delicious eras of his past exis-
tence, inspires him with  gratitude to the Great Being who 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  con-
certs ; happy is the man who shall be permitted to unveil your
hidden beauties! but still happier far is he who shall have 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 frequent
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 load-stone, in gold and mercury.   I believe attraction
to be common  to all metals, and even to all fossils ;  but that it
acts in  each  of them in particular circumstances, which have
not hitherto been observed and ascertained.  Each of the metals,
perhaps, may have a disposition to turn  toward different parts
of the Earth, as magnetic iron points toward the North, and
toward places where there are  mines of iron.   It would proba-
bly be necessary,  in  order to ascertain this  by  experiment, that
each metal should be armed with it's proper attraction  ; this
takes place, as  I think,  when it is united to it's contrary.
  How do we know whether a needle of gold,  rubbed with mer-
cury, might not have attractive poles, as a needle of steel has when
rubbed with the magnet ? Thus prepared, or in some other way
adapted to it's nature, 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 to the West, which
might serve as an indication of the Longitudes more  steadily
than the variations of the magnetic needle.
  If there be a point at the Pole on which the Globe seems to
revolve,  there may possibly be one  under the Equator  from
which it's rotatory motion has commenced,  and which may havr 
STUDY X.
31
determined it's motion of rotation.  It is very ffemarkable, for
example, that all seas are filled with univalve shell-fish, of an in-
finity of very different species, which all have their surrounding
spirals in an increasing progression; and  in one and the same
direction, that is from left to right, like the motion of the  Globe
when the mouth of the shell is turned northward, with the base
to the  ground.  There is only a very  small number of species
which may be  considered as exceptions,  and which have, for
this very reason, been denominated unique (singular or extraor-
ordinary).  The spirals of these circulate from right to left.
   A direction so general and exceptions so  particular in uni-
valve shell-fish, undoubtedly have their causes in  Nature,  and
their epochas in the unknown ages when their germs were  cre-
ated.  It is impossible that they should proceed from the actual
influence of the Sun, who acts on them in a thousand different
aspects. Can they have been thus directed in a conformity to some
general Current of the Ocean, or to some unknown attraction
of the  Earth, toward the North or the South, toward the East
or the  West ? These relations  will appear strange, and perhaps
frivolous to our men of Science; but every thing in Nature  is
a series of concatenation.  A slight observation here  in mam
cases leads to  important discovery. A small plate of iron turn-
ing toward the North guides a whole Navy through the de-
serts of the Ocean: and a reed of an unknown species, thrown or.
the coast of the Azores, suggested to Christopher  Columbus thf
existence of a western World.
   Whatever may be in this, certain it is that there exists a great
number of those particular points of attraction scattered ovt:
the Earth, such as the matrices which renovate the mines of
metals by attracting to themselves the metallic parts dispersed h.
the elements.   It is by means of attractive matrices that thos<
mines are inexhaustible, as has been remarked in many places.
among others in the Isle of Elba situated in the Mediterranean.
This litde island is entirely a mine of iron, from which had been
already extracted, in the  time of Pliny, an immense quantity of
that metal, without it's being perceptible,  as he tells us, that  it
was in the smallest  degree diminished.   Metals have besides
other attractions ; and if  I might presume to deliver my opinioi
by the way, I consider these themselves as  the principal matrices
of all fossil bodies, and as the ever active  means employed b\ 
g2              STUDIES OF NATURE.

Nature for repairing the mountains and the rocks, which the
action of the other elements,  but especially the injudicious la-
bours of men, have an incessant 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 celebrated gold mines of Peru and of Chili are, it is well
known, in the Cordeliers. The gold mines of Mexico are situa-
ted in the vicinity of Mount St. Martha, which is covered with
snow all the year round.  The rivers of  Europe, which wash
down particles of gold along their shores, issue from icy moun-
tains.  The Po in Italy has  it's source in those  of Piedmont.
But without quitting  France, we  reckon ten greater or smaller
rivers which roll,along gold-dust intermingled with their sands,
and which have  all  of them  their origin in mountains  of ice.
Such is the Rhine from Strasburg to  Philipsburg  ; the Rhone
in the Pais de Gex; the Doux in Franche-Comte ; which three
all take their rise in  the icy mountains of Switzerland.  The
Cese and the Gardon descend from those of the Cevennes. The
Ariege in the Pais de Foix ; the  Garonne in the vicinity  of
Thoulouse; the  Salat in the County of  Conserans ;  and the
rivulets of Ferriet and Benagues all  take their  rise in the icy-
mountains of the Pyrennees.
  This observation may be extended,  I believe,  to all the gold
mines in the World,  even  to those of Africa, such  of whose
rivers as wash  down the greatest quantities of gold dust, the
Senegal for instance, descend from the mountains of the Moon.
  To this it might 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
Brasil;  and not many years ago that there was found an ingot,
or mass of several pounds weight, on the bank of a river in the
district  of Cinaloa,  in New-Mexico.  But if I might venture to
hazard a conjecture respecting the origin of this  gold, scattered
about on the  surface of the earth, in the ancient  Continent of
Europe, and especially in that  of the New-World, I believe it
to have  proceeded  from the total effusions of the ices of the
mountains which took place at  the time of the Deluge; and that
as the spoils of the  Ocean covered the western parts of Europe,
that those of vegetable earths were spread over the eastern part 
STUDY X.
si
 >1 Asia, those of minerals from the mountains were forced along
other countries, where their fragments were found in the earlier
ages, in grains, and even in larger masses.
   This much is certain, that when Christopher Columbus dis-
covered the Lucayo and Antilles islands, he found among those
islanders abundance of gold of a base alloy, the produce of the
traffic which they had carried on with  the  inhabitants of  the
Continent;  but they had no mines within their own territory,
notwithstanding the prejudice then entertained, and under which
many labour to this day, that the Sun formed this precious me-
tal in the earth of the Torrid Zone.  For my own part, I find
as I have just observed, gold much more common in the vicini-
ty of icy mountains, whatever their Latitude  may be; and I
 conjecture from analogy, that there must be  very rich mines of
 it in the North.   It  is extremely probable, that the waters of
 the  Deluge hurled along considerable portions of that metal to
 the  northern countries.
   We  read,  I think, in the Book of Job the Arabian, this re-
 markable expression : " Gold cometh from the  North."*  Cer-
 tain it  is, that the first  commerce of  India with Europe was
 carried on by the North, as has been clearly demonstrated by
 the  Baron de Strahlenberg,  a Swedish  exile, after the battle of
 Pultowa, in Siberia, of  which he has given a very sensible  and
 accurate description.  He says, that it is still  possible to pur-
 sue, by evident traces, the track of the ancient Indians along the
 river of Petzora, which empties itself into the White Sea.   On
 it's banks in various places are found many of their tombs, which
 contain some of them manuscripts on silk stuffs, in the language
 of Thibet; and  there are perceptible  on  the  rocks  along it's
 shores, characters which they have traced upon them in a red
 which  cannot be effaced. From this river they forced their way
 iltrough the lakes, by means of leather boats, to the Baltic ; or
 coasted along the northern and western shores of Europe.
   *  This is not entirely of a piece with our Author's usual accuracy.  It is
 written  indeed in the Book of Job, chap, xxxvii. ver. 9, " CoMcometh out of
 " the North :"  and ver. 22,  " Fair weather cometh out  of the North :" but
 no where in Scripture, so far as I know, is this affirmed of Gold.  St. Pierre
 seems to have quoted from general  and indistinct recollection ; happy no
 doubt to have, as he thought, a text from the Bible to support his conjecture.
 But, notwithstanding this defect, his reasoning is plausible and the human
  '•stiniony which he adduces respectable.—H. H.  *
   Vor.. II.                    E 
34
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   This track was known to the Indians  even from the time oi
 the ancient Romans; for Cornelius Nepos relates, that a King
 of the Suevi made a present to Metellus Celer of two Indians,
 who had been thrown by stress of weather,  with their leathern
 canoe, on the coasts adjacent to the mouth  of the  Elbe.  It is
 not easy to conceive what those  Indians, the inhabitants of a
 warm country, were going in quest of so far to the North. What
 use could they have made  in India of the furs of Siberia ? It
 would appear they went thither in search of gold, which might
 then be frequently  discoverable to the North at the surface of
 the earth-
   Whatever may be in this, it is presumable that, as mines of
 gold are placed in the most elevated regions of  the Continent,
 their  matrices collect in the Atmosphere the volatilized parti-
 cles of  gold, which ascend thither with  the  fossil and aquatic
 emanations, conveyed by the winds  from every quarter.  But
 they exercise over men attractions still much more powerful.
   It would appear as if Nature, by burying  the focuses  of this
 rich metal under the snows, had intended to fence it with ram-
 parts  still  more inaccessible than  the flinty bosom of  the rock,
 lest the undismayed ardor of human avarice should at length
 destroy them entirely.  It has become the most powerful bond
 of Society, and the perpetual object  of all the labours of a life
 so rapidly hurrying  to a close,   Alas ! were Nature at this day
 to inflict condign  punishment on this insatiable thirst in the Na-
 tions 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.  Eveiy other nation would instantly flock thither,
 and in a little time exterminate it's wretched inhabitants.  The
 Peruvians and Mexicans have had the dreadful experience of
this.
  There are metals not so  highly prized  but much more use-?
 ful, the elementary attractions of which might perhaps procure
us very important accommodations.
  The peaks of the mountains and their  lengthened crests, are
 filled, as we have seen, with iron  or  copper, intermingled with
 a vitreous body of granite, or of natural  crystal, which attracts
the rains  and the stormy clouds like so many real and electric
needles.   There is not a seaman but what has a thousand times
 seen those peaks  and those crests covered with a cloudy cap, 
STUDY  X.                     3J
gathered round and round, and concealing them entirely from
view, without once suspecting the cause of this  appearance.
Our Philosophers, on the other hand, deducing their conclu-
sions merely  from the inspection of charts, have  taken those
rocky protuberances for the wrecks of a primitive earth,  with
out giving themselves any trouble about their effects.
  They ought  to have observed, that those metallic pyramids
and crests, as well as most mines of iron and copper, are always
to be found in  elevated situations, and at the source of all riv-
ers, of which they are the primitive  causes by means of 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 that, in imitation of Nature, it might be pos-
sible for us to acquire the art  of forming, by means of electric
stones, artificial fountains, which  should attract the rainy clouds
in parched and dry situations, as chains and rods of  iron at-
tract thunder-clouds.   It is true  that Princes must  be at the
expense of such costly and  useful  experiments ; but it is  the
way for them to immortalize  their memory.   The  Pharoahs,
who built the pyramids of Egypt, would not have  drawn upon
themselves the  curses of Uieir  subjects, as Pliny assures us thev
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 ob-
livion, and ceased to be mentioned in his time.
   For my own part, I think that several metals might be proper
for producing similar effects.  An officer of high rank, in the ser-
vice of the King of Prussia, informed me that having remarked
vapors to be attracted by lead, he had employed it's attraction
for drying the atmosphere of  a powder-magazine.   This ma-
gazine was constructed under ground  in the throat of a bastion,
but had been rendered of no  use whatever from it's humidity.
He ordered to line with a coat of lead the  concave ceiling of
the arch, which was befcre planked over where the gunpowder 
J(i
STUDIES OF NATURE.
was deposited in barrels : the vapors 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.
   It is to be presumed that every metal and every fossil has it's
peculiar repulsion as well as it's attraction;  for these two  Laws
always go hand in hand.  Contraries seek out each other.
   There are farther a multitude of other harmonic Laws  as
yet undiscovered ; such are the proportions of magnitudes, and
of the durations of existence,  in beings vegetative and sensible,
which differ exceedingly,  though their nutriment and climates
may be the same.   Man, while yet a youth, sees the dog  his
companion and contemporary die of old age; and also the sheep
which he  fondled when a lamb.  Though the former lived at
his own table, and the other on the herbage of his meadow, nei-
ther 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.   It is impos-
sible to guide ourselves in prosecuting such researches any other
way than by  following the spirit of conformity, which is  the
basis of our own reason, as it is that of the reason of Nature.
   By consulting this we shall find, that if such and such  a car-
nivorous animal  is long-lived, as the crow for instance, it is
because his services and his experience  are long necessary for
purifying the earth, in places  whose impurities are incessandy
renewing, and  which are frequently at great distances from each
other.   If, on  the contrary, an innocent animal lives but a little
while, it is because his flesh and his skin are necessary to  Man,
If the domestic dog by his  death frequently diffuses sorrow
over the children of the family, whose intimate friend and  fel-
low-boarder he was, Nature undoubtedly intended to give  them,
in the loss of an animal so worthy of the affections and the re-
gret of the heart 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 the duration 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 be-
ing is limited to five hours : such is the ephemera.  This spe-
cies of fly, about half as large as the tip of the little finger, is
produced  from ^ fluviatic grub which is found particularly at 
STUDY X.                     37
the mouths of rivers close by the water's edge, in the mud, into
which  it digs in quest of subsistence.  This  grub lives three
years, and at the termination of that period,  about  Midsum-
mer-day, it is transformed almost instantaneously into  a  fly,
which  comes into the world at six o'clock in the  evening and
dies  about eleven at night.  No longer space of time is neces-
sary  for copulation, and  for  depositing the eggs on the mud
which the water has deserted.
  It  is very remarkable that this insect copulates,  and lays her
eggs precisely at the time  of the year when the tides are at the
lowest, when the rivers discover at the place of their discharge
the greatest part of their channel dry. Wings are then furnish-
ed, to enable her to go and deposit her eggs  in places which the
waters forsake, and to extend in the capacity of a fly the do-
main of her posterity, at the time when as a worm  her territory
is most contracted.  I have likewise remarked,  in the micros-
copic drawings and dissections given of this insect by the inge-
nious Thcvenot, in the last part of his collection, that in her fly
^tate she has neither interior nor exterior organs  of nutrition.
They would have been entirely useless to a life of such transient
duration.
   Nature has made nothing in vain. It is not credible that she
should have created momentary lives, and beings infinitely mi-
nute, to fill up imaginary chains of existence. The  Philosophers
who ascribe to her these pretended plans of universality, which
are destitute of every shadow of proof, and which make her de-
scend into  the infinitely small, for purposes  equally frivolous,
would  represent her as acting somewhat like a mother, who
gives as toys to amuse her children tiny coaches, and minute
articles of household furniture of no use in the world, but which
are imitations of domestic utensils.
   The  aversions  and the instincts of animals  emanate  from
Laws of a superior order, which we shall never be able to pe-
netrate into in this world; but supposing those intimate  confor-
mities  to elude our researches, they must be referred like ever)
other 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 discovers to us a multitude of unknown laws, but it sets 
 38             STUDIES OF NATURES

 bounds to those which we do know, and which we believe to
 be universal.
   If Nature, for example, were governed by the Laws of at-
 traction only, according to the supposition of those who have
 made it the  basis of so many systems, every thing in the world
 would be in a state of rest.  Bodies tending toward one com-
 mon 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 approach-
 ed nearer to  the centre, and those which are at the surface would
 all be reduced to a level. The bason of the Seas would be chok-
 ed with the  wrecks of the Land; and this magnificent architec-.
 ture, 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, which is em-
 ployed for explaining the motions of the  heavenly bodies, on the
 supposition that they have a tendency to fly off in the tangent of
 the curve which they describe ; if,  I say, this Law predomina-
 ted, all bodies not actually  adherent to the Earth would be hurl-
 ed 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  in  it's unbounded career the spaces
 of immensity, where  no star  would be  perceptible during the
 course of 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, aggrega-
 ted by  the  central Laws of  attraction, or scattered about in
 sparks and in rays  by  those of projection.
   But on the supposition that these two contrary  forces  were
 combined happily enough in favour of the Globe, to fix it with
 it's vortex in the corner of the firmament, where these forces
 should act without destroying themselves, it would present it's
 Equator to the Sun with as much regularity as it describes it's
 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 it's Poles toward the Sun, till it's axis
has formed on the plane of it's annual circle an angle of twenty-
 three degrees and  an  half; then that other retrogade  motion. 
STUDY X.
39
by which it presents to him with equal regularity the opposite
Pole.  Far from presenting to him alternately it's Poles, in or-
der that his fertilizing 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 it's circumference
would be burnt up by the too constant fires of the Tropics.
   But if we suppose, together with those constant  Laws of at-
traction and projection, 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 surpass the
others, and  at last determine it to obey but  one single impul-
sion ; it would be impossible  to affirm that they had determined
the forms and movements of the bodies which are on it's sur-
face.   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, which are  the hea-
viest part of them, to be placed at  their summits, where  they
are usually found.
   If we suppose that those Laws are the ultimatum of chance,
and that they are  so combined as to form  among  themselves
but one single Law; for the  same reasons that they make the
Earth move  round the Sun,  and  the Moon round the Earth,
they ought to act in the same manner on the particular bodies
which are at the surface of the Globe.  We ought to see the
rocks detached,  the fruits  separated from the trees, the animals
which are not provided with claws turning round it in the air,
as we see the particles  which compose Saturn's ring turn round
that Planet.
   It is the gravity, they repeat, which acts  only at the surface
of the Globe, that hinders bodies to detach themselves from it.
But if it there absorbs  the other powers, Wherefore, as we  have
already asked, did it permit the mountains to rise ? How comes
it that the centrifugal force should have been able to exalt to a
prodigious height the long ridge of the Cordeliers, while it has
left immovable the volatile scurf of snow which covers them ?
For what reason, if the action  of gravity is still universal, ha<;
it no influence on the soft  bodies of animals,  when, shut up in
fhe womb of the mother  or  in the egg, they are in a  state c! 
40
STUDIES OF  NATURE.
 fluidity ? All the numerous progeny of the Earth, animals and
 vegetables, ought to  be rounded  into balls like their mother.
"The weightiest parts of their  bodies  at least ought to be situ-
 ated undermost, especially in  those which possess self-motion ;
 on the contrary  they are  frequently uppermost, and supported
 by limbs much lighter than the rest  of the animal, as in the
 case of the horse and the ox.   Sometimes they are between the
 head and the feet, as in the ostrich; or at the extremity of the
 body,  in the head, as in the human species.  Others,  such as
 the tortoise, are  flattened; others, such as reptiles, are  drawn
 out of spindles;  all of them,  in a word, have forms infinitely
 varied.
   Vegetables themselves,  which seem entirely subjected to the
 action  of the elements, have configurations diversified without
 end.   But how comes it that  animals have in themselves  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 ex-
 tend even to the operations of the human soul, should permit
 the birds to rise  into the air, and fly as they please to the West,
 to the  North, to  the South, notwithstanding the  united powers
 of the attraction, and of the projection of the Globe ?
   It is conformity, adaptation to use, which has regulated those
 Laws,  and which has  generalized or suspended their effects in
 subordination to the  necessities of sensible  beings.  Though
 Nature employs  an infinity of means, she permits Man to know
 only the end which 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 Men in-
 genious and  proud; her  object is to render him  good and
 happy.  She universally mitigates  the evils which are necessa-
 ry ; and universally multiplies blessings  in many cases super-
 fluous.  In her harmonies, formed of contraries, she has oppo-
 sed the empire of death to that of life ;  but  life endures for a
 whole age,  and deatli only an  instant.  She  allows  Man long
 'o enjoy the expansions of beings so delightful to b::hold ; but 
STUDY X.                     41
conceals from him, with a precaution truly maternal, their tran-
sient states 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  decomposi-
tions.   If cavernous mountains  and rocks present appearances
of ruin ; owls, birds of prey, the ferocious animals,  which have
made  them  their retreat, keep us at a distance from  them.
Nature drives far from  us the spectacles and the ministers of
destruction, and all ures us to her harmonies.  She multiplies
them in subserviency to  our necessities, far beyond the Laws
which she seems to have prescribed to herself, and beyond the
measure which we had reason to expect.  It is  thus that the
dry and barren rocks repeat by their echoes the  murmuring
sound of the waters and  of the forests ; and that  the plane sur-
faces of the waters, which have neither forests nor hills,  repre-
sent their colours  and forms by reflecting them.
   From a profusion of this unbounded benevolence of Nature
it is, that the  action of the Sun  is multiplied wherever  it was
most necessary; and  is mitigated in all  the  places where it
would have  been hurtful.  First, the Sun is five or six days
longer  in our northern Hemisphere, because that Hemisphere
contains the greatest part of the Continents, and is the most  in-
habited.  His disk appears in it before he rises, and after he is
set; which, added to  it's  twilights, considerably increases the
natural length of our days.   The colder that it  is the farther
does the refraction of his rays extend.   This is the reason that
it is greater in the morning than in the evening, in Winter than
in Summer, and at the beginning of Spring than at the  begin-
ning of Autumn.
   When the Orb of the  Day has left us, during the night sea-
son, the Moon appears to reflect his light upon us,  with  varie-
ties 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 that  the Sun withdraws from
one Pole, the more are his rays refracted there.  But when he
has entirely abandoned it, then it is  that his light  is  supplied in
a most wonderful manner.  First the Moon, bv a movement  al-
  Vol. II.                      V 
42             STUDIES OF NATURE.
together incomprehensible, goes to replace him there,  and ap-
pears perpetually above  the Horizon, without setting, as was
observed in the year 1596, at Nova Zembla, by the unfortunate
Dutchmen who wintered  there, in the T6th degree of North
Latitude.
   It is  in  those dreadful  climates that  Nature multiplies her
resources, in order to bestow on sensible beings the benefits of
light  and heat.  The  Heavens are there  illuminated with the
aurora-borealis, which darts up  to the very zenith rays of mov-
ing light, gold-coloured, white, and red. The Poles sparkle with
stars more  luminous than those which appear in the rest of the
firmament.  The snows which cover the ground shelter part of
the plants, and by their lustre  dispel  the darkness of night.
The trees arc clothed with thick mosses,  which catch fire from
the smallest spark:  the very ground is covered with them, es-
pecially in the woods, to  so great a depth, that I have oftener
than once sunk in the Summer time up to the knees, in those of
Russia: Finally, the animals. which inhabit those regions are
robed in fur to the very tip of their claws.
  When the season  returns for restoring heat to those climates,
the Sun re-appears there a considerable time before  his natural
term.  Thus, the Dutch mariners whom I have just mentioned,
saw him to their  astonishment above the  Horizon of  Nova
Zembla, on the twenty-fourth of January, that is fifteen  days
sooner than they expected  him.  This return, so much earlier
than their hopes had fashioned it, filled them with joy, and dis-
concerted the calculations of their intelligent pilot, the unfortu-
nate Barents.
  It is then that the Star of Day there redoubles his heat and
his light, by means of the parhelions, which like so many mir-
rors formed in the clouds reflect his disk  upon the Earth.   He
calls from Africa the winds of the South, which passing over
Zara, whose sands are  then violently heated by the  vicinity of
the Sun to their zenith, load themselves with igneous particles,
and proceed to attack like  battering rams of fire, that tremen-
dous cupola of ice  which covers the extremity of our Hemis-
phere.  It's enormous vaultage, dissolved by the heat of those
winds and loosened by their violent agitations detaches itself in
fragments as lofty as mountains ; and floating at the discretion
of the Currents, which sweep them along toward the Line, thev 
STUDY X.
4.3
advance sometimes as far to the 45th degree, cooling the Seas of
the South by their vast effusions.  Thus the ices  of the  pole
communicate coolness to  the heated seas of Africa, just as the
burning sands of Africa transmit warm winds to dissolve the
ices of the Pole.
  But as cold is in it's turn a very great blessing in the Torrid
Zone, Nature employs a  thousand methods to extend the influ-
ence of it in that Zone, and to mitigate in  it the heat and the
light of the Sun.  First, she  destroys there the refractions of
the Atmosphere.  There  is scarcely any twilight  between the
Tropics to precede the rising of the Sun, and still less after his
setting.  When he is in the Zenith he veils himself with raim
clouds, which cool the ground both by  their shade  and by  dieiv
showers.   Besides those clouds being frequently impregnated
with thunder, the explosion of their fires dilates the superior
stratum of the  Atmosphere, which is  icy at the height of two
thousand  five hundred fathom under  the  Line, as is evident
from the snows which perpetually cover at that height the  sum-
mits of some of the  Cordelier mountains.  They cause to flow
down, by their  explosions and concussions, columns of that air,
congealed  in the superior regions of the Atmosphere, into the
inferior, which are suddenly cooled by it, as we feel it to be in our
own climates in Summer, immediately  after a thunder storm.
  The effusions of the polar ices in like manner cool the seas of
the South; and the  polar winds frequently blow on the hottest
parts of their shores.  Nature has farther placed  in  the  very
heart of the Torrid Zone  and in it's vicinity, chains of icy moun-
tains, which accelerate and  redouble  the effects of the  polar
winds, especially along the seas, where fermentation  was  most
to be dreaded,  from  the alluvions of the bodies of animals and
of vegetables, which the waters are there continually depositing.
Thus the  chain of Mount Taurus, eternally covered with snow,
commences in Africa, on the burning shores of Zara, and coast-
ing the Mediterranean, passes on into Asia, where it extends
long arms  this  way  and that,  which embrace the  gulfs of the
Indian Ocean.  In America, in the same manner, the extensive
chains of  die Cordeliers  of  Peru and Chili, with  the elevated
ridges in  which it  crosses Hrasil, cools the lengthened and
L timing shores of the South-Sea and of the gulf of Mexico- 
 14            STUDIES OF NATURE.
   These elementary dispositions are only part of the resources
of Nature, for mitigating the heat in warm countries. She there
shades the ground with creeping vegetables and trees in form of
a parasol, some of which, such as the cocoa-tree of the Sechelles
islands and the  talipot of Ceylon, have leaves from twelve to
fifteen feet long,  and from seven to eight feet broad.  She
clothes the animals of those regions with hairless skins, and co-
lours them in general, as well as the verdure, with dark and
dusky tints, in order to diminish the reflexes of the heat  and of
the light.   This last consideration leads me here to suggest a
few reflections on the effects of colours; the little which  I shall
advance on this subject will be sufficient to  produce conviction
that their generations are not the  effect of chance; that it is
from  reasons profoundly wise we find one half of them proceed
in compounding themselves toward the light; and in their de-
composition toward darkness; and that all the harmonies  of this
World are produced by contraries.
   Naturalists consider colours as accidents.  But if we  attend
to the general uses for which nature employs them, we shall be
persuaded that there is not even on the rocks a single shade im-
pressed without a  meaning and a purpose.   Let us observe, in
the first place, the  principal effects  of the two extreme colours,
white and black, with relation to the light.  Experience demon-
strates that of all colours, white is that which best reflects  the
rays of the Sun, because it sends them back  without any tint, as
pure as it receives them ; and that black, on the  contrary, is the
least adapted to their reflection, because it absorbs them.  This
is the reason why gardeners whiten the walls against which their
espaliers are planted, in order to accelerate the maturity of their
fruits, by the reverberation of the Sun's rays ; and why optici-
ans blacken the walls  of  the camera-obscura, that their reflexes
may not disturb the luminous picture on the tablet.
   Nature of consequence frequently employs to the North the
white colour, in order to increase the light and heat of the Sun,
Most of the lands there are  whitish or of a clear gray.   The
rocks and sands of the northern regions are filled with mica and
specular particles.   Farther,  the whiteness of the snows  which
cover them in Winter, and the vitreous and crystaline particles
of their ices, are exceedingly adapted to mitigate the action of
the cold, by reflecting the light and heat in the most advantage- 
STUDY X.                     45
oua manner. The trunks of the birch trees, of which the great-
est part of their forests consist, are covered with a bark as white
as paper. Nay, in some places,  the earth is clothed with a ve-
getation completely white.
  " In the eastern part," says an intelligent Swede, u of the
" lofty mountains which separate Sweden from Norway, expo-
" sed to the utmost rigor of the cold, there is a very thick fo-
" rest, and singular in this respect, that the pine which grows
" there  is rendered black  by a species  of  filamentous lichen,
" which hangar upon it in great abundance; whereas the ground
" is covered every where around with a  white lichen, which in
" lustre rivals the snow."*
  Nature there bestows the same colour on most animals, such
as the white bear, the wolf, the partridge, the hare,  the ermine;
others perceptibly whiten to a certain degree in Winter, such as
foxes and  squirrels, which are reddish in  Summer and light
gray in Winter.  Nay if we consider the filiform figure of their
hair, it's varnish  and transparency, we shall  be  sensible that it
is contrived in the most proper manner for reflecting and re-
fracting the rays  of light. We ought not to imagine this white-
ness as a degeneration or enfeebling of the animal, as Natural-
ists have done with respect to the human hair, which whitens
in old age, as they tell us, from a failure of radical moisture ;
for nothing can be  of a closer contexture than most of those
furs, nor any thing more vigorous than the  animals which are
arrayed in them.  The white-bear is one of the strongest and
most formidable  of animals in the world; it frequently requires
several musket-shot to bring him down.
   Nature, on the contrary, has tinged with red, with blue, with
dusky and black  tints, the  soil, the vegetables, the animals, nay
even the men, of the Torrid  Zone, for the purpose of their ab-
sorbing the fires of the burning Atmosphere with which they
are surrounded.   The lands and the  sands of the greatest part
of  Africa, situated between the Tropics, are of reddish brown,
and the rocks are of a black hue.  The Islands of France and of
Bourbon, which are on the border of that Zone, are in general
of the same dark complexion.   I have  seen there chickens and

  * ExU-act from the Natural History of the rein-deer, by Charles-FredericJ
Hoffberg, translated by M le Chevalier de Keralia. 
 46               STUDIES OF  NATURE.
 paroquets, not  only whose plumage, but the skin itself was dyed
 black.  I have likewise seen in those islands fishes entirely black,
 and especially among the species which live  near the surface of
 the water, over the  shallows, such as the old woman  and the
 thornback.
   As animals whiten in Winter toward the North in proportion
 as the Sun withdraws from them, those  of the South  assume
 dark and dusky tints in proportion as the Sun  approaches.  When
 he is in the Zenith, the  sparrows of the tropical countries have
 breast plates, and the plumage of the head completely red.  There
 are birds in those regions which change their euluur  three times
 every year, having, if I may use the expression, one dress for
 Spring, another for Summer, and a third for Winter, according
 as the Sun is in the Line, in the  Tropic of Cancer, or in that of
 Capricorn.*
   This too is very remarkable, and of consequential importance
 to the use which Nature makes of these colours to the  North
 and to the South ;  namely, that in all countries the whitest part
 of an animal is the belly, because more heat is wanted there for
 promoting digestion, and for carrying on the  other animal func-
 tions : and on the contrary the head is universally most strongly
 coloured,  especially in  those of hot countries,  because  in the
 animal economy that part stands most in need of being kept cool.
  It  cannot be  maintained that  the bellies of animals preserve
 their whiteness, because that part of the body is sheltered from

  * The white colour accordingly increases the effect of the rays of the Sun,
 and the black weakens it.  The inliabitants of Malta whiten  the inside  of
 their apartments, in order, as they allege, to render the scorpions perceptible
 which are very common in that island.   In doing this, if I am  not mistaken,
 they commit two errors ; the first, in misapprehending the colour : for the
 scorpions which there are gray, would  appear still better on a  dark ground,
 the second, and one of much greater importance, is their increasing to such
 a degree the reverberation of the light, that the eye-sight  is sensibly affected
 by it. To this cause I principally ascribe the disorder  of the eye so frequently
 complained of by  those islanders.  Our trades-people wear  white hats in
 Summer, when in the country, and complain of head-achs. All these evils
 arise from neglecting to study Nature.  In the Isle of France they employ for
wainscotting the wood of the country, which in time becomes entirely black.
but this tint is too gloomy.  It seems as if Nature had foreseen in this respect
the services  which Man was to deiive from the interior of trees ; their timber
is brown in most of those- hot countries,  and white in those of the northern.
regions, such as the fir and the birch 
                        STUDY X.                      47
the Sun;  and that their heads assume >strong  colouring  from
being more exposed  to his influence.  It might appear  from
reasons of analogy that the natural effect of light ought to be, to
invest with it's lustre  all the objects which it touches ; and that
conformably to this, the soil, the vegetables  and the animals of
the Torrid Zone  ought to be white ; and that darkhess, on the
contrary, acting for several months together on the Poles, ought
to clothe every object within those  regions  in robes of mourn-
ing.  But  Nature subjects not herself to  mechanical Laws.
Whatever may be the physical effect of the presence of the Sun,
or of his absence, she has contrived toward the North, to impose
very black spots on the  whitest bodies, and to the South, white
spots on the darkest bodies.   She has blackened the tip of the
tail  of  the Siberian ermine,  in order that these  little animals
which are white all over, as they march along the snow, where
they scarcely leave any traces of their footsteps, may be enabled
to distinguish each other when proceeding in a  train,  in the lu-
minous reflexes of the long nights of the North.
   Perhaps too this blackness opposed to the white may be one
of  those decided characteristics  with which she  has marked
beasts of prey; such as the extremity of the black snout and the
black paws of the white bear.   The ermine is a species of wea-
sel.   There are likewise in the North foxes completely black ;
but they are  indemnified for the influence of the  white colour
by the warmest and thickest of firs ; it is the most valuable of
all those of the North.   Besides,  this species of foxes is very
rare even in those countries.  Nature has perhaps clothed  them
in black because they  live in subterraneous places, in the midst
of warm sands, or in the  vicinity  of certain volcanos, or for
some other reason to  me unknown, but corresponding to  their
natural  calls.   It is thus she has clothed in white the paillencu,
or bird  of the Tropics, because this fowl, which flies at a prodi-
gious elevation above  the Sea, passes part of it's life in the vici-
nity of a frozen Atmosphere.   These exceptions  by no means
destroy the general adaptation of those two colours ; on the con-
trary they confirm it,  seeing it is employed by Nature for dimi-
nishing or increasing the heat of the animal, in conformity to the
temperature of the place where it lives.
  I now leave it  to Naturalists to explain how it comes to pass
that cold should  cause  to vegetate the  hair of animals in the 
48
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 North; and why  the  heat should shorten or cause to fall off
 the hair of  animals to the South j  in  contradiction to all the
 Laws of systematic, nay of experimental Physics ; for we are
 assured from  our  personal experience that  Winter retards the
 growth of the human hair and beard, and that the Summer ac-
 celerates it.
   I  believe I have a glimpse of a Law very  different  from
 the Law of analogies, which we so commonly assign to Nature,
 because it allies itself to  our weakness  by affording us a pre-
 tence to explain every thing, with the assistance of a small num-
 ber of principles.   This Law, infinitely varied in it's means, is
 that of compensations.* It is a consequence  from the universal
 Law, or the mutual adaptation of things, and a sequel of the
 union of contraries, whereof the harmonies of the Universe are
 composed.  Thus  it frequently happens that effects so far from
 being the results of causes are opposite to them.   For example,
 it has pleased  Nature to clothe in white several birds, the inha-
 bitants of warm regions, such as the heron of the Antilles, and
 the paroquet of the Moluccas,  called cacatoes; but she has be-
 stowed at the  same time on  their plumage a disposition which
 weakens the reflection of it.

  * In reflecting on these compensations, which are very numerous, and
 among others on those of the light of the Sun, which embrowns  bodies in
 order to weaken the reflexes of them, it has suggested itself to my thoughts
 that fire must in like manner produce matter the best adapted to diminish
 it's own activity.   And of this I have in fact made frequent proof, by throw-
 ing a little ashes  on the flame blazing on my hea*th.  By this means I have
 been able to quench it suddenly almost without smoke.  I recollect to this
 purpose having some time ago seen in one of our sea-ports, a great caldron
 full of pitch catch fire, which they were heating for careening a ship.  Inex-
 perienced persons immediately attempted to extinguish the flame by throw-
 ing water upon it; but the boiling and inflamed matter spread only the more
 violent in torrents of fire over the brim of the caldron ; I did not think a single
 ladle-full would be left witliin the vessel,  when an old seaman run up and
 instantly brought it down by throwing upon it a few shovels-full of ashes.
 I believe therefore that by uniting this application w ith that of water, great
 assistance might  be derived in case of conflagrations ; for the ashes would
 not only deaden the flame, without exciting that dreadful smoke which arises
from it as soon as the engines begin to play, but when once thoroughly mois-
tened they would retard the evaporation of the  water, which is almost in-
 stantaneous when the fire has made a considerable progress.  It would af-
ford me inexpressible satisfaction should this observation merit the attention
of those who have ability to give it from their experience, sagacity and in
fluence, all the utility of which it is susceptible 
STUDY X.
49
  Farther, it  is very  remarkable that she has furnished the
heads of those birds  with tufts and plumes of feathers  which
overshadow them, because, as was formerly observed, the head
is that part of the body which  in the animal economy  stands
most in need  of being kept cool.  Such is  our crested hen,
which comes originally from Numidia.  Nay I do not believe
that there are to be found in any but southern countries, birds
with tufted heads.   If there be some toward the North, as the
lapwing, they  make  their appearance there  only in Summer.
Most of those of the North, on the contrary,  have the belly and
the feet clothed with tippets formed of down similar to the finest
of wool.
  This likewise is farther worthy of remark, respecting the
white birds and quadrupeds of the South, which live in a hot
Atmosphere, namely, if I am not mistaken, that  the skin of
them all is black; which is sufficient to counterbalance the re-
flection of the colour of their exterior dress.  Robert Knox, in
speaking of certain  white quadrupeds of the Island of Ceylon,
says that their skin is entirely black.   I myself recollect to have
seen at  Port l'Orient, a cacatoes whose stomach had been strip-
ped of  the feathers, and displayed a skin  as black  as that of a
Negro.  When this white bird with his black beak and black
and naked breast, erected his plume and clapped his wings, he
had the complete air of  an Indian  King with his crown and
mantle of feathers.
   The Law of compensations employs therefore means endless*
ly varied, which contradict most of the Laws  which we have
laid down in Physics ; but this  Law must  itself be subjected to
that of general accommodation  or conformity ; without which,
were we to attempt to render it universal, it would involve us in the
common error. It has given rise in Geometry to several axioms
extremely doubtful, though of great  celebrity, such as the fol-
lowing ; the action  is equal to the re-action; and  this  other,
which is a consequence from it, the angle  of reflection is equal
to the angle of incidence.   I shall not stop to demonstrate in how
many cases these axioms are  erroneous ;  how many actions in
Nature are without  re-actions; how many angles  of reflection
are deranged by the  very planes  of  incidence.  It is sufficient
for me at  present to repeat what  I have  already oftener than
once  advanced, namelv, that the weakness of the human mind.
   Vol. II.                    G 
50
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 and the  vanity of our education, are incessandy prompting us
 to generalize.  This mode of proceeding is the source of all
 our errors, and perhaps of all our vices.  Nature bestows  on
 everv being that which is adapted to it in the most perfect con-
 formity, according to the Latitude for which it  is destined;
 and when the temperature of that Latitude is affected by change
 of season, she is pleased to vary likewise the  adaptations.  Some
 of  these adaptations are accordingly immutable,  and others
 variable.
   Nature frequently employs contrary means for producing the
 same effect.  She makes glass with fire ;  she makes it too with
 water, crvstal for instance:  farther,  she produces  it from ani-
 mal organization, such  as certain transparent shell-fish.  She
 forms the diamond by a process to us utterly unknown.  Con-
 clude now, because a body has been vitrified it must certainly
 be by the effect of fire, and  rear on this perception the system
 of the universe ! The utmost that we are capable of doing is to
 catch some hannonic instants in the existence of beings.  That
 which is vitrifiable becomes calcareous, and what is calcareous
 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 also the same
 means for producing  effects directly contrary.   For example,
 we have seen that in order to  increase the heat over the lands
 of the North, and to mitigate it over those  of  the  South,  she
 made use of opposite colours; she produces in both the same
 effects by covering the face of the one and of  the other with
 rocks.  These rocks  are essentially  necessary to vegetation. I
 have frequently remarked in those of Finland stripes of verdure
 skirting their bases to the South; and in those of the Isle of
 France  I have seen  such verdant stripes on the side averted
 from the Sun.
  The same observations may be made in our own climate. In
 Summer when every thing is parched, we frequently find green
herbage under walls which have  a northerly aspect;  it disap-
 pears in Winter ; but then we find it replaced in front of emi-
nences which face southward.
  We have  already remarked that the Icy Zones and the Tor-
 id Zone contain the greatest quaitfitv of waters, the evaporation 
STUDY X.                       51
of which equally tempers the violence  of the heat and of the
cold, with this difference, that the greatest lakes are toward the
Poles, and the greatest rivers toward the Line.  There are, it
is  admitted, some lakes in the interior of Africa and America ;
but they are placed in elevated atmospheres in  the  centre of
mountains, where they are not liable to  corruption from the ac-
tion of the heat; but the plains and low grounds are washed by
the greatest currents of living water that are in the World, such
as the Zara, the Senegal, the Nile,  the  Mechassippi, the Oroo-
noko, the Amazon, and others.
   Nature proposes to herself, universally, only the accommoda-
tion of beings possessed of sensibility.  This remark is all-im-
portant in the study of her Works ;  otherwise  from the simili-
tude of the means 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 her resources, and to the profundity
of our own ignorance.
   This law of adaptation and conformity has been the source of
all our discoveries.  It was this which  wafted  Christopher Co-
lumbus to  America; because, as Herrera  tells us,*  he thought,
contrary 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.  It is this Law which regulates  our ideas respecting the
objects  absolutely beyond the reach of our  examination.  By
means of it, though we are ignorant whether there may be men
in the Planets, we are assured there must be eyes, because there
is light.  It is  this which has awakened  a  sense of  Justice in
the heart of  every man,  and which informs him that there is
another order of things after this life is at an end.   This Law  *
in a word is the most irresistible proof of the existence of GOD;
for amidst such a multitude  of adaptations,  so ingenious that
our passions themselves, restless as they are, never could have
devised any thing similar ; and so numerous, that every clay is
presenting to us some that have all the merit of novelty, the first
of all, which is the Deity, must undoubtedly exist, as he is the
general conformity of all particular conformities.

        ■ Ucrr?ra\- History of the Wc.it-Inciies.  Book i. chap. 2 
52
STUDIES OF NATURE.
  It is this above all whose existence we  endeavour  even in-
voluntarily every where to trace, and to assure ourselves of it in
every possible manner.   And this explains to us the reason why
the most  splendid and comprehensive  collections  in Natural
History,  Galleries of the choicest master-pieces in  Painting,
Gardens filled with the rarest and most curious plants, Libraries
stored with the  most valuable and best written books ; in a
word, every thing that presents to  us the most marvellous rela-
tions of Nature, after having raised us to an ecstasy of admira-
tion, conclude by superinducing languor and fatigue.   We fre-
quently prefer to all these a rustic mountain,  a rugged rock,
some wild solitude, which might present to us  relations newer
and still more direct.
  How often on coming out of the King's magnificent Cabinet
of Natural History do we  stop mechanically to look  at a gar-
dener digging a  hole in  the field with his spade, or at a carpen-
ter hewing a piece of timber with his hatchet ?  It looks as if we
expected to see  some new harmony start out of the  bosom of
the Earth, or burst from the side of a lump of oak.   We  set no
value on  those which we have just been enjoying, unless they
lead us forward  to others which as yet we do not know.  But
were the complete History given us of  the stars of the Firma-
ment, and of the  invisible  Planets which encircle them, we
should perceive  in them a multitude of ineffable plans of intelli-
gence and goodness, after which the heart would continue fond-
ly to sigh: it's last and only end is the Divinity himself. 
STUDY  XI.
    APPLICATION OF SOME GENERAL LAWS OF 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 lan-
 guages are deficient in terms to express her most common har-
 monies.  This is so true, that however exact the description 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.   Per-
 sons who think they have made the  greatest proficiency in Bo
 tany need only attempt to  draw on  paper  a plant which they
 have never seen, after the description of the most accurate  Mas-
 ter, to be  convinced  how  widely the copy deviates from the
 original.
   Men of genius have nevertheless taken inexpressible pains to
 assign characteristic names to the different parts of plants. They
 have even borrowed most  of those  names  from the Greek,  a
 language of singular energy of expression.  From this  has re-
 sulted another inconveniency ;  it is, that those names being for
 the most part compounds,  cannot be  rendered  into modern lan-
 guage ;  and for this reason it is that a great part of the  Works
 of Linnaus 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
 resources of human art to attract our respect.  The sublimity
 of her Laws can easily dispense with  the emphasis and obscurity
 of our expressions.  The more light a man carries  in his own
 bosom the more wonderful he esteems it to  be.

  * This observation is by no means correct. All the writings of Linnxus arc
 capable of translation : and, in truth, some of the most technical of them have
 been ably rendered into different languages, particularly into the English. I do
 not think there is one word in the works of the illustrious Swede which is not
 susceptible of being rendered, and rendered fully and emphatically into Eng-
lish —IV S. «. 
54
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   After all, most of those foreign names employed particularly
 by the herd of Botanists, do not so much as express the most
 common characters of vegetables.   They frequendy make use
 for example, of such vague expressions as these, suave rubentet
 suave olente, of  an agreeable red, sweet smelling, in order to
 characterize flowers ;  without  expressing the shade of red or
 the species of perfume. They are  still more embarrassed when
 they wish to convey the dusky colours of the stem, of the root,
 or  of the  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 compound-
 ed of four or five Greek words to describe them.
   J. J. Rousseau communicated to me one day a set of charac-
 ters somewhat resembling the algebraic, which he had invented
 for the purpose of  briefly expressing  the colours and forms of
 vegetables. Some of them represented the forms of the flowers;
 others those of the leaves, others those of the fruits.  Some re-
 sembled  a  heart, some were triangular, some of the lozenge
 shape.   He did not employ above nine or ten of  those signs to
 compose the expression of one  plant.   Some he  placed above
 others, with cyphers which indicated the genera and the 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 that he had given it up
because it presented to him skeletons only.
  This sentiment came with peculiar  grace from a man whose
taste was equal to his genius, and may suggest some reflections
 to those who are for giving abridgments of every  thing, especi-
 ally of the Works of Nature.  The idea of John James* how-
 ever, well deserves to be followed up, should it  only serve to
 produce one day an alphabet proper to express the language of
 Nature.  All that seems  requisite is the introduction cf accents
 to convey the shades of colours, and all the modifications of sa-
vours, perfumes, and forms.   Even then those characters  could
not be delineated with perfect precision, unless the qualities of
of each vegetable were first exactly determined by words : other-
 wise the language of Botanists, which is  now accused of speak-
ing only to  the ear, would make itself intelligible only to the eye.
  This is what I have to propose respecting an object so highly
interesting, and which will perfectly  coalesce with the  general 
STUDY X.
55
principles which  we  shall afterwards  lay  down.   The  little
which I may advance  upon the subject will serve to supply ex-
pression, not only in Botany,  and in the study of the other natu-
ral Sciences, but in all the Arts, where we find ourselves puz-
zled every instant for want of terms  to convey the shades  and
forms of objects.
   Though we have only the term white  whereby to express the
colour which bears that  name, Nature  presents to  us  a great
variety of sorts of it.  Painting with respect to this article is as
barren as language.
   I  have been told of a  famous  painter of Italy, who upon a
certain occasion found himself very much embarrassed  how to
represent in one of his pieces  three  figures dressed in white.
The point in question was to  give effect to those  figures, to be
thus uniformly dressed, and to draw out different shades of the
most simple nnrl the least compounded of all colours.  He was
going to abandon his object  as a thing  impossible, when hap-
pening  to pass through a corn-market he perceived the effect
which he  was  in quest of. It  was a group formed by three mil-
lers, one of  whom was under a tree, the second in the half tint
of the  shade of that tree, and the third exposed to the  rays of
the Sun :  so that though the drapery of all the three was white,
they were completely detached from each other. He introduced
a tree therefore amidst the three  personages of his picture, and
by illuminating one of them with the rays of the Sun, and throw-
ing over the other two different tints  of shade, he was enabled
to exhibit a drapery of three  several  casts  of white.
   This  however  was  rather  to  elude the difficulty than to re-
solve it.  And this is in fact what Painters do in similar cases.
They diversify their  whites  by shades, half-tints, and reflexes;
but these whites are not  pure;  they are always disturbed with
yellow, blue, green, or gray.   Nature employs several  species
of white without diminishing the purity of it, by dotting, rump-
ling, radiating, varnishing it, and in various other ways.....Thus
the whites of the lily, of the daisy, of the lily-of-the-valley, of
the narcissus, of the .aicmone-neniorosa, of the hyacinth, are all
different from each other.  The  white  of the  daisy has some-
thing of that of a shepherdesses' cornet; that of the hyacinth has
a resemblance of ivory ; and that of the lily, half transparent and
crystalline, resembles  the paste of porcelain.   I believe, there- 
56              STUDIES OF NATURE.
fore,  that all the whites produced by Nature or by Art, mighi
be referred  to those of the petals of our flowers.  We should
thus have in vegetables a scale of shades of the purest white.
  We might in like manner procure all the pure and imaginable
shades of yellow, of red, and of blue, from the flowers of the
j onquil, of the saffron, of the butter-flower of the  meadow, of
the rose, of the poppy, of the blue-bottle of the corn-field, of the
larkspur, and so on.   We might  find, in the same manner,
among our common flowers,  all the compound shades, such as
those of the impurpled violet and foxglove, which are formed of
the various harmonies of red and blue.  The single compound
colour, made up of blue and yellow, which constitutes the green
of our herbage, is  so  varied  in every plain, that each plant, I
may venture to affirm, has it's peculiar shade of that colour.   I
can have no doubt that Nature has displayed  in equal  variety
the other colours of her palette, in the bosom of flowers, or on
the surface of fruits.
  In performing this she sometimes employs very different tints
without  confounding them; but  she  lays  them on one above
another, so that  they form the dove's neck:  such is the beauti-
ful  shag which  garnishes the corola of  the anemone;  in other
cases she  glazes  their  surface, as certain mosses with a green
ground, which are glazed  over with purple; she velvets others^
such as the pansy; she powders over some fruits with a delicate-
ly fine flour, such as the purple plumb, distinguished by the ad-
dition  of de Monsieur; or invests them with a light brown to
soften their vermillion, as  the peach; or smooths their skin, and
gives the brightest lustre to their colours, as to the red of the
apple  of Calleville.
  What  embarrasses Naturalists the most in denominating co-
lours, is to find distinctive epithets for such as  are dusky; or
rather, this  gives them no manner of concern:  for they evade
the difficulty by the  vague and indecisive expressions, of black-
ish, gray, ash-coloured, brown, which they convey,  it is true, in
Greek and Latin words.  But  those  words frequently answer
no  purpose, except  to  confound their images, by giving no re-
presentation whatever; for what  in  good earnest  is meant by
these,  and suchlike epithets, atro-purpurante,fusco-?iigre$caitc<
which they employ so frequently. 
STUDY XI.
   It is possible to make thousands of tints widely different from
each other, to which such general expressions might be applied.
As those  dark  shades in truth are much compounded it is ex-
ceedingly difficult to characterize them by the phraseology of
our common vocabularies.  But this might be easily and ef-
fectually accomplished, by referring  them to the  different co-
lours  of our domestic  vegetables.   I have  remarked in  the
barks of gur trees and shrubbery,  in the capsules and shells of
their fruits, as well  as in the dead leaves, an incredible variety
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 beach tree.
   Those  expressions would be  so much the more exact, that
Nature invariably employs such tints in vegetables,  as  deter-
mining characters and indications of maturity, of vigor or of
decay; and that our peasantry can distinguish the different spe-
cies of wood in the  forests by  the inspection of their bark sim-
ply.   Thus, not Botany alone, but  all the Arts might find in
vegetables an inexhaustible dictionary of unvarying colours,
which  would not be embarrassed  with barbarous and tech-
nical  compound words,  but which  would  continually present
new images.   Our  books of Science would thence derive much
pleasing vivacity, from being  embellished by comparisons and
expressions borrowed from the loveliest kingdom of Nature.
  The  great Poets of Antiquity carefully availed themselves
of this, by referring most of the events of human life to some
appearance of the vegetable  kingdom.   Thus Homer compares
the fleeting generations of feeble mortals to  the  leaves  which
drop from the  trees of  the forest at the end of Autumn;  the
freshness  of beaut}' to that of  the rose; and the paleness  which
overspreads the countenance of a young man wounded to death
in battle, as well as the attitude of his drooping head, to the co-
lour and the fading of a lily,  whose  root has been torn up by
the plough.   But we satisfy ourselves widi repeating the  ex-
pressions of men of genius, without daring to tread in their foot-
steps.  This however is not the worst, for most Naturalists con-
   Vol. II.                   T) 
58            STUDIES OF NATURE.
sider the colours themselves of vegetables as accidents simply.
We shall presently see under what a grievous mistake they la-
bour, and how widely they have deviated from the sublime plans
of Nature, by persisting in the prosecution of their mechanical
and systematic methods.
   It is possible in like manner to trace an approximation of sa-
vours and smells of every species,  and of every country,  to
those of the plants of our gardens and of  our  fields.  The ra-
nunculus of the meadow has the acridity  of the Java-pepper,
The root of the caryophyllata, or 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 which she has 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 strong-
ly of the plumb.  It's small monopetalous flowers, of a  delicate
blue colour and with lips or incisions, have likewise the form of
that fruit.
   By approximations such as these, the English Navigator
Dampier,  and  Father du Tertre, have given  us, as far as I can
judge, the most accurate notions of the fruits and flowers which
grow between  the Tropics, by referring them to the fruits and
flowers of our own climates. Lfampier, for example, in order to
describe the banana, compares it, when stripped of it's thick five-
pannelled  skin, to a large sausage ; it's substance and colour to
fresh butter in Winter ; it's taste, a mixture of apple and of the
pear known by the name of the good-christian, which melts in
the mouth like marmalade. When this traveller describes some
good fruit of the  Indies, he sets your mouth a-watering.  He
possesses  a naturally sound  understanding, superior at once to
the methodical trammels of the learned, and to the prejudices
of the vulgar.   He maintains, for  instance,  and with truth on
his side, in opposition to the opinion of most  navigators, that
the plantain, or banana,  is  the king of fruits, without excepting
even the cocoa. He informs us, that this is likewise the opinion
of the Spaniards,  and that multitudes of families live between 
                       STUDY XL                      59
the Tropics on this pleasant, wholesome, and nourishing fruit,
which lasts all the year round,  and stands in no need of any of
the arts of cookery.
   Father du Tertre  is not less happy nor less accurate in his
botanical descriptions.  These  two travellers give you at a sin-
gle stroke, 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.  This mode of de-
scribing Nature, by ordinary images and sensations* is held in
contempt by the learned ;  but I consider it as the only one capa-
ble of exhibiting pictures  that  have a resemblance, and as the
true character  of genius.   With such assistance  you will  be
enabled to  paint every natural  object, and  may dispense with
methods and systems  ; without it you will only coin phrases.
   Let us now suggest a few thoughts respecting the form of
natural objects.  It is here that the the language of Botany,
and even those of the other Arts, are peculiarly barren.   Geo-
metry, whose particular object this is, has invented scarcely
more than a dozen regular curves,  which are known only to a
small number of the learned; and Nature  employs an infinite
multitude of them in the forms of flowers alone.  Some of the
uses of these we shall presently indicate.   Not that I mean to
make of a study prolific of delight a sublime Science, worthy only
of the genius of a Newton.  As Nature has introduced, in my
opinion, not only  the colours, the savours, and the perfumes,
but likewise every model  of form into the leaves, the flowers,
and the fruits of all climates, whether in trees, in herbage, or in
mosses ;  the vegetable forms of other parts of the World might
be referred to those of our own country which are most familiar
to us.  Such approximations would be much more intelligible
than the Greek compound words, and would manifest new rela-
tions in the different classes of the same kingdom.
  They would be no less necessary  for expressing the aggrega/
tions of die flowers on their stems, of the stems round the root,
and the groups of young plants around the parent-plant.  It may
be affirmed, that the names of most of these vegetable aggrega-
tions and dispositions are yet to be invented ; the greatest Mas-
ters not having been  fortunate  in characterizing them, or, to
speak without reserve, not having made it any part of their study. 
60
STUDIES  OF NATURE.
 For example,  when  Tourncfort* speaks, in his Voyage to th^
 Levant, of a heliotrope of the Isle of Naxos, which he charac-
 terizes thus heliotropum humifusum, fiore minimo, semine magna,
 the  creeping heliotrope, with a very small  flower and a large
 seed ;  he says  that it has it's flowers disposed in form of an ear
 of corn going off in a scorpion's tail.  There are two  mistakes
 in this description ; for  the  flowers of this heliotrope, similar
 from their aggregation  to the flowers of the heliotrope of our
 climates, and to that of Peru, are not disposed in form of an ear
 of corn, for they are arranged on a horizontal stem, and only on
 one side ;  and  they bend downward  like the tail of a snail, and
 not upward like the tail of a scorpion.
   The same inaccuracy with respect of image is to be  found in
 the description which he gives us of the stachis  Cretica latifolia,
 the broad-leaved stachis of Crete: it's flowers,  says he, are dis-
 posed  in rings.  No one can imagine he intends to convey this
■meaning, that they are disposed like  the divisions  of  the king
 of the  chess-board.   Under this form however they are repre-
 sented in the drawings of Aubriet, his designer.  I do not know
 any botanic expression which conveys this character of spheri-
 cal aggregations in separate  stories of alternate swellings and
 sinkings, and terminating in a pyramid.  Barbeu duBourg, who
 possesses much imagination v/ith little exactness, calls this form
 verticillate, for what reason I know not.  If it is from the Latin
 word vertex, head or summit, because these flowers thus aggre-
 gated form several summits, this denominatioi  would be more
 applicable to several other plants ; and besides it does not ex-
 press the swellings, the sinkings, and the progressive diminution
 of the  flowers of the stachi .
   Tourneforte derives it from the Latin word  verticillus; that
 is, says he, a small  weight perforated circularly to receive the
 end of a spindle, in order to make it  whirl with greater facility.
 This is going a great way in quest of a very imperfect simili-
 tude to an  utensil by  no means generally known.   In saying
 this however, I would not be  considered as failing in the re-
 spect which  is due to such  a  man  as  Tourneforte, who first
 cleared for us the botanic path, and was besides  a person of pro-
 found  erudition.  But from this carelessness of the  great Mas-
' Toumefort'1 s Voyage to the Levant, vol. i 
STUDY XL
61
ters we may form a judgment of the vague, inaccurate, and
incoherent expressions which fill the vocabulary of Botany, and
diffuse obscurity over it's descriptions.
   After all I shall be  asked, How would you characterize the
aggregation  of the flowers of the two plants which have just
been mentioned ? By referring  them to aggregations similar to
those of the  plants of our own climates.  In this  there can be
no difficulty : thus, for example, we might refer the assemblage
of the flowers of the Grecian heliotrope to that of the French
or Peruvian heliotrope ; and that of the  flowers of the Cretan
stachis to  that of the flowers of the horehound, or of the penny-
royal.   To this might afterwards be  added the differences in
colour, smell, savour, which diversify  the species of it.   There
is no occasion to compound  foreign terms to describe forms
which are familiar to us.  Nay, I defy  any  one to convey by
Greek and Latin words, and with the most learned turn of pe-
riphrasis,  the simple colour of the bark of a tree.  But  if you
tell me it resembles that of an oak, I have the shade of it at once.
   These approximations of plants have this farther utility, that
they present us  with the combined whole of an unknown object,
without which  we  can form no determinate idea of it.  This is
one of the defects of Botany, it exhibits the characters of vege-
tables only in succession; it  does not collect them, it decom-
pounds them.   It  refers them  indeed to a classical order, but
not to an individual order. This however is the only one which
the human mind permits us to  catch.   We love order because
we are feeble, and  because the least confusion disturbs us ;  now
there is no order which  we  can adopt more  easily than that
which approaches to an order which is familiar to us, and Avhich
Nature is every where presenting.  Try to describe a man fea-
ture by feature, limb by limb;  be ever so exact, yet you never
will be  able to give me his portrait:  but if you refer him to
some known personage ;  if you tell me, for example, that he is
of the make and mean of a  Don Quixote, or with a nose like
that  of  St. Charles Baroyneo, and so on, and you  paint me his
picture in four  words.   It is to the whole of an object that the
ignorant, an epithet which  includes the greatest part of Man-
kind, attavh diemselves in the first instance, in order to acquire
the knowledge of it. 
62              STUDIES OF NATURE.
  It would therefore be of essential importance to have, in Bo*
tany, an alphabet of colours, savours, smells, forms, and aggre-
gations derived from our most common  plants.   Those ele-
mentary characters would enable us to express ourselves exactly
in all the parts of Natural History, and to present to ourselves
relations equally new and curious.
  In hope that persons of superior intelligence may hereafter
be induced to take  up the subject, I proceed to the discussios
of it with what ability I have, notwithstanding the  embarrass-
ment of language.
  When we see a multitude of plants of different forms  vege-
tate on the same soil, there is a disposition to believe that those
of the same climate grow indifferently every where.  But those
only which are produced in places particularly assigned  to them
by Nature, attain there all the perfection of which they are sus-
ceptible.  The same thing holds good with.respect to animals.
Goats are sometimes reared in marshy places, and ducks  on the
mountains ;  but the  goat never will acquire in Holland the beau-
ty of that which Nature clothes with silk on the rocks of An-
gora ; nor will the duck of Angora ever attain the  stature and
the  colours  of those  which  are to be found  in the canals of
Holland.
  If we throw a simple glance on plants, we shall perceive that
they have relations to the elements which promote their growth 3
that they have relations  to each other, from the groups  which
they contribute  to form; that they have relations to the ani-
mals which  derive nourishment from them ; and finally  to Man,
who is the centre of all the Works  of Creation.  To these rela-
tions I give the name of harmonies,  and  I divide them into
elementary, injto vegetable, into animal, and into human.
  By proposing this division, I shall  reduce to something like
order the disquisition on which I am going  to enter. It cannot
be supposed that I should examine them in detail:  those of a
single species would furnish speculations which the application
of a whole life could not  exhaust;  but I shall unfold enough of
their general harmonies to produce conviction, that an infinite
Intelligence reigns in  this amiable part of  Creation, as  in the
rest of the Universe.
  We shall thus make application of the Laws which have been
previously established, and shall take a glimpse of a multitude 
STUDY XL
63-
of others  equally worthy of research, and equally calculated to
excite admiration.  Reader, be not astonished at either their
number or their  extent.  Let this great truth be deeply  im-
pressed on thy heart: GOD has made nothing in vain !  A scho-
lar, 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 know-
ledge.

            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 ; and by their grains, with their situations 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 re-
searches respecting plants, they have paid no attention to any of
those relations.   Fettered by their systems, they have attached
themselves to  the consideration of them particularly on the side
of the  flowers;  and have  arranged them in the same  class,
whereever  they found these external resemblances, without so
much as enquiring what might be the particular use of the flori
fication.  They have indeed distinguished in it the stamina, the
anthene, and the stigmata, for the fecundation of the fruit; but
excepting this, and some others which respect the interior organ-
ization, they  have  neglected or  misunderstood  the  relations
which the whole plant ha$ 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 ve-
getation*  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 which are evi
• 
64
STUDIES OF NATURE.
  dently of the same genus.  Such is, in the first case, the fullers-
  thistle, called dipsacus, which they class with the  scabious, be-
  cause of the resemblance of some parts of it's flower,  though it
  presents in  it's  branches,  it's  leaves, it's  smell, it's  seed, it's
  prickles, and the rest of it's qualities, a real thistle : and such is,
  in the second, the great chesnut of  India, which they  exclude
  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.*
    However,  though they have referred the character of a plant
  to it's flower, they misunderstand the use of it's most shining
  part, which is 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 it's  calix is much  better  adapted  to  this purpose,
  from it's thickness, from it's beards,  and sometimes from 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 vain.
   The corolla seems intended to reverberate the rays of the Sun
  on the parts of  fecundation ; and we  shall be put beyond the
  reach of doubt as to this, if we consider the colour  and the form
  of it in most  flowers.   It has been remarked in the  preceding

   * The dipsacus is not a real thistle ; and as to " the great chesnut of India,"
  which I take to be the aesculus hippocastanum of Linna:u»,it would,indeed,be a
  violation of every just principle of botanical science not to " exclude this from
  the class of chesnut-trecs." Surely, these two vegetables do not differ from each
  other merely in the form, &c, of their leaves.  Are not their fruits very diffe.
 vent > I grant that, with much attention to boiling, &c, the nuts of the horse.
 chesnut may be eaten : and I think Thunbcrg tells us, that the nuts of one spe.
 cies of this family are served up, boiled, at the Cape of Good-Hope.  I have
 tried to eat the nuts of the American species formerly mentioned (see note to
 the first volume, page 34,) but I could, not even by boiling, subdue their bit-
 terness.—B. S. I). 
STUDY XI.
65
Study, that of all colours, white is the most proper for reflecting
the heat: now it is in general that which Nature bestows on the
flowers that blow at cold seasons and in cold places, as we see
is the case  in the snow-drop, the lily of the valley, the hyacinth,
the narcissus, and the anemone-nemerosa,  which  come into
flower early in  the Spring.   We must likewise  assign to this
colour such as have slight shades of the rose and of the azure,
as many hyacinths; as well as those which have yellow and shining
tints, as the flowers of the  dandelion,  the butter-flower of the
meadow, and the wall gilly-flower.   But such as  blow at warm
seasons and in warm situations,  as the cockle, the wild poppy,
and the blue-bottle, which grow in summer amongst the corn,
are dressed in strong colours, such as purple, deep  red, and blue,
for these absorb the heat without  greatly reflecting it.*
   I do not know  however that  there  are any flowers entirely
black; for in that case it's petals, destitute of all power of reflec-
tion, would be  entirely useless.   In general, of whatever colour
a flower may be, the  under part of it's corolla which  reflects the
rays  of the Sun, is of a much paler tint than the  rest.  This is
so very remarkable that Botanists, who generally consider the
colours  of flowers as  accidents  merely, distinguish it  by the
name of  unguiculus (a little nail).  The unguicle is that witli
relation  to  the  flower which the belly is  with relation to ani-
mals: it's  shade is always  clearer than that of the  rest of the
petal.
   The forms of flowers are no less adapted than their colours
to reflect the heat.   Their corolla, divided into petals, are only

   * We have here much ingenuity, and there is  some justness in the author's
observations.  But Flora  does not tie herself down to such rules as these.
She produces Flowers of all colours, at each of the different seasons.  It is
t rue that many white-flowered plants do bloom in  the early spring : and St.
I'icrrc might have added, that the beautiful Christmas-rose  (helleborus niger)
.spreads its white petals upon the  bosom of the Snow.  But the catalogue of
early-flowering plants, with blossoms of a red, blue, violet,  or yellow colour,
is very great. I should take much pleasure in pointing our to our amiable au-
thor these exceptions to his system, along the banks of our Delaware, Schuyl-
kill, and Susquehanna. But that pleasure I shall never have.  And as to the
Summer-season, so many plants with white flowers (at least with the radius
of the flower white) are produced at this season  in our corn-fields, along road-
sides, &c, that one might fill a page with the bare names of them. I must not,
however, omit to  name different species of chrysanthemum, or ox-eye, matri-
 ■aria, or wild chamomile, eritteron, or flec-bane, &c.—U.  S.  B.
   Vol.  II.        %j           I
                   H 
66
STUDIES OF NATURE.
an assemblage of mirrors directed toward one focus.  Of these
they have  sometimes  four, which  are  plain, as the flower of
the cole-wort in the cruciform ; or a complete circle, as the dai-
sy in the class of 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 focuses of  these,  plain, spherical,
elliptical, parabolic, and other mirrors, the parts of the fecunda-
tion of plants, as she has placed those of generation in animals
in the warmts. p rts of their bodies. These curves, which Geo-
metricians  have not yet examined, merit their most profound
researches.   Is  it  not astonishing  that  they should  have be-
stowed such learned pains to find out curves altogether  imagi-
nary and frequently useless, and that they should have neglect-
ed to study those which Nature employs so regularly, and in
such variety, in an infinite number of objects? Be this as it may,
Botanists have  given  themselves  still  less trouble about the
matter.   They  comprehend those  of  flowers under a  small
number of  classes, without paying the slightest attention to their
use, nay without so much as apprehending that they could have
any.  They confine themselves entirely to the division of their
petals, which frequently change nothing of the configuration of
their curves;  and they frequently class  under the  same  name
those which are the most opposite.   Thus, under the general de-
signation of the monopetalous (those that have a single  petal),
they include the spheroid of the lily of the valley and the trum*
pet of the convolvolus.
   On this  subject a very remarkable circumstance claims our
notice, namely, that frequently such as is the curve formed by
the border  or upper extremity oi' the petal, such too is the plan
of the whole petal itself; so that nature presents to us the  cut
or shape of  each flower in the contour of it's petals, and gives
us at once it's plan and it's elevation.  Thus roses,  and  the
whole tribe bearing this denomination, have the border of then-
petals in sections of a circle, like the curve of the flowers them-
selves ;  the  pink  and  blue-bottle,  which have their  selvage
notched, present the plans  of their  flowers plaited up like fans,
and form a multitude of focuses, 
STUDY XI.                     67
.  _ _     t of the  real flower, these curious remarks may be
verified from the drawings of Painters who have been the most
exact in copying plants, but who are indeed very few in number.
Such is, among those few, Aubriet, who has drawn the  plants
of Tournefort's Voyage to the Levant,* with the taste of a Pain-
ter and the precision of a  Botanist.  You may there see the
confirmation of what I  have just been advancing.  For ex-
ample, the scorzonera Grceca saxatilis & maritima foliis varie
laciniatis (the Greek saxatile and marine scorzonera, with leaves
variously scolloped) which is there represented,  has it's petals
or half-flowers squared at the extremity,  and plane in their sur-
face.   The  flower  of the  stachis  Cretica latifolia (the broad-
leaved stachis of Crete,) which is a monopetalous tubular plant,
has the upper part of it's corolla undulated, as well as it's tube*
The campanula Grceca saxatilis jacobece foliis  (the Greek bell-
flower of the rocks, with ragwort leaves) presents these conso-
nances in a manner  still more striking.  This campanula, which
Tournefort  considers as the most beautiful he had  ever  seen,
and which he sowed in the Royal  Garden  at Paris, where  it
succeeded very  well, is  of the pentagonal form.  Each of it's
faces is formed of two portions of a circle, the focuses of which
undoubtedly meet on the same anthera;  and the border of this
campanula is notched into five parts, each of which  is likewise
eut into the  form of a Gothic arch, as each  subdivision of the
flower is. Thus, in order to know at once the curve of a flow-
er, it is sufficient to examine the brim of it's petal.
   It is of much utility to attend to this observation, for other-
wise it would be extremely difficult to determine the focuses of
the petals.  Besides, flowers lose  their internal curves in her-
baries.   I believe these consonances to be general;  I presume
not however to assert that they admit of no exceptions.  Na-
ture may deviate from this  order in some species, for reasons
which I know not.  It cannot be too frequentiy repeated—She
has no general and  unvarying Law, except the accommodation
of beings endowed with sensibility.   The  relations just r.cw
suggested between  the curve of the brim and that of the petal,
seem beside to be founded on this universal Lav.-, as thev nreserv
conformities of such agreeable, approximation.
'Kri  •:■•!'.rt'» Vnvnge to "be I<ev;iHf. vol 
68
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   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, which are themselves aggregations of
small tubes,  infinite in number, that form so many particular
flowers, or, if you will, flowrets. This is obviously remarkable
in the petals which surround the disks of daisies and sun-flow-
ers.   They are likewise to be met with around most of the um-
belliferous plants:  though  each flowret  which composes them
has it's particular petals, there is a circle of others still greater
which encompasses their assemblage, as you may see in the flow-
ers of the daucus.
   Nature has still other  means of multiplying the  reflexes of
heat in flowers.  Sometimes  she  places them on stems of  no
great elevation, in order to collect  warmth from the reflections
of the Earth; sometimes she glares over  their corollse with a
shining varnish, as the yellow meadow-ranunculus, known  by
the trivial name of butter-flower.   Sometimes she  withdraws
the corolla, and makes the parts of fecundation to shoot from
the partition of an ear, of a cone, or of the branch of a tree.
 The forms of the spike and of the cone appear to be the best
adapted for reverberating on them the action of the Sun, and
to ensure their fructification, for they  always present some one-
side or another sheltered  from the cold.   Nay, it is very re-
markable that the aggregation of flowers in a conical and spike
form is very common to  herbs  and trees of the North, and
rarely to be found  is those  of the  South.  Most of the grami-
neous plants which  I have  seen in southern  Countries do not
cany their grains in a spike or closely  compacted  ear, but in
flowing tufts, and divided into a multitude of particular stems,
as the millet and rice.  The maize or Turkey-corn, I admit,
bears it's grains in  a large ear; but that ear  is for a consider-
able  time shut up in a bag, and in bursting from it, pushes awav
 >ver it's head a long covering of  hair,  which seems entireh
destined to the purpose of sheltering it's flowers from the heat
of the Sun.
  Finally, what  confirms me in the belief that the flowers  of
plants are adapted to the action of heat, conformably to the na-
ture  of every climate is this, that many of our European plants
vegetate extremely well in the Antilles Islands., but never come 
                      STUDY XL                       69
to seed there. Father du  Tertre observed, that in those islands*
the cabbage, the sainfoin, the lucern, the savory, the sweet basil,
the nettle, the plaintain,  the  wormwood, the sage,  the  liver-
wort, the amaranth,  and all our species of gramineous plants,
throve there wonderfully  well,  but  never  produced grains.
These observations  demonstrate, that it is neither the air nor
the soil which is inimical to them, but the Sun, which acts with
too much  vivacity on their flowers,  for most of these plants
have theirs  aggregated into an ear,  which generally encreases
the repercussion of the solar rays.
  I believe, at the same time, that such  plants might be natu-
ralized to the  West-India Islands, as well  as many others of
our temperate climates, by selecting from the varieties of their
species, those whose flowers have the smallest fields and whose
colours are the  deepest, or those whose pannicles are  divergent.
   Not that Nature has no other resources except such as these
to make plants  of the same genus attain perfection in different
seasons and climates.  She can  render their  flowers capable of
reflecting  the heat in different degrees of Latitude, without am
very sensible alteration of  the form,   Sometimes she mounts
them on elevated stems, to remove them from the influence of
the refraction of the  ground.   It is thus she has placed between
the Tropics  most of the apparent flowers upon trees.  I  have
seen  ver)-  few there  in the meadows, but a  great many in the
forests. In those  countries you must look aloft in order to  Lave
a sight of flowers ; in our native climes we must  cast our eves
on the ground for this purpose, for with us flowers grow on her-
bage and shrubbery.  Sometimes she expands them under the
shade of leaves ; such are those of the palm-tree, of the banana,
and of the jacquier,  which grow close to the  trunk of the  tree.
Such likewise are, in our temperate climates  those large white
bell-lornied flowers, known by the name of Ladv's-smock, which
delight in  the shade of the willow.
  There are others,  such as  most part  of the convolvoluses,
which expand only in the night; others grow close to the ground
and exposed, as the pansy,  but their draper)-  is dusky and vel-
veted.  There are some  which receive the action of the Sur
when at  a considerable  height, as the tulip; but Nature ha-
* Natural History of the Antilles, by Father du Tertre. 
/O
STUDIES OF NATURE.
taken her  precautions  so exactly, as to bring out this stately
flower only in the Spring, to paint it's petals with strong colours,
and to daub the  bottom of it's  cup with black.*  Others  are
disposed in girandoles, and receive the effect of the solar ray9
only under one point of the compass.   Such is the girandole of
the lilach, which, pointing with  various aspects to the East, to
the South, to the West, and to the North, presents  on the same
cluster flowers in bud, half open, fully blown, fading, and all  the
delightful shades of the florification.
   There are flowers, such as the compound,  which being in a
horizontal  position  and  completely exposed,  behold  the Sun,
like the Horizon itself, from his rising to  his setting; of this
description is the flower of the dandelion.  But it possesses very
peculiar means of sheltering  itself from the heat: it  closes  en-
tirely whenever  the heat becomes  excessive.   It has been  ob-
served to open in Summer  at  half an hour  after five in  the
morning, and to collect it's petals toward the  centre about nine

  * This  flower from it's colour is in Persia the emblem of perfect lovers.
Chardin tells us, that when a young Persian presents a tulip to his mistress,
it is his intention to convey to her this idea, that like this flower he has *
countenance all on fire, and a heart reduced to a coal. There is no one Work
of Nature but what awakens in man some moral affection.  The habits of so-
ciety insensibly efface at length the sentiment of it;  but we always find  it in
vigour among Nations who still live near to Nature.
  Many alphabets have  been imagined in China in the earlier ages after the
wings of birds, fishes, shells, and flowers :  of these very curious characters
may be seen in the China Illustrated of Father Kercher.  It is from the influ-
ence of those natural manners, that the Orientals employ so many similitudes
and comparisons in  their languages.   Though our  metaphysical eloquence
makes no great  use of  them,  they frequently produce nevertheless a very
striking effect.  J. J. Rousseau has taken notice of that which the Ambassa-
dor of the Scythians addressed to Darius. Without speaking a word, he  pre-
sented him with a bird,  a frog, a mouse, and five arrows.*  Herodotus relates,
that the same Darius sent word to the Greeks of Ionia who were laying waste
the country, that if they did not give over their depredations he would treat
them like pines.  The Greeks, who by this time had become infected with  wit,
and had proportionably begun to lose sight of  Nature, did  not comprehend
the meaning of this. Cpon enquiry,  they at length discovered that Darius
meant they should understand it to be his iv solution utterly to  exterminate
them ; for the pine-tree  once cut down shoots out again no more.

  * Darius at first understood this as a  complete surrender of Scythian independ-
ence into his hands ;  but  the cvmt instructed him, that  this high-spirited people
intended to convey a bold defiance : " Unless you can fly as a bird, dig  as a
" mouse, swim as a frog,  our arroivs shall reach you."—H. U 
STUDY XL                     71
o'clock.  The flower of the garden-lettuce, which  is on the
contrary in a vertical  plane, opens  at  seven o'clock and shuts
at ten.
  From a series of similar observations it was, that the  cele-
brated  Linnams formed a  botanical  time-piece;  for he had
found plants which opened their flowers at every hour of the
day and of the  night.   There is cultivated in the King's  Gar-
den at  Paris a species  of  serpentine  aloes, without prickles,
whose large and beautiful flower exhales a  strong odour of the
vanilla during the time  of  it's expansion, which is very short.
It does not blow till toward the month of July, and about five
o'clock  in  the evening: You then perceive it gradually open
it's petals,  expand them, fade and die.   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 ex-
traordinary ;  for it flowers so rapidly  that there is scarce time
to observe  it's expansion.
  These observations,  taken  in their  connection,  clearly de-
monstrate the relations  of  the corolla? to the heat of the Sun.
To those wdiich  have been already produced, I shall subjoin
one more by  way  of  conclusion, which evidently  proves the
use for which  they are intended; it is this, The duration of
their existence  is  regulated by the quantity of heat which it is
their destination to collect.   The hotter it is the shorter is then
duration.   They almost all drop off as soon as the plant is fe-
cundated.
  But if Nature withdraws the greatest number of flowers  from
the too violent action of the Sun, she destines others to appear
in all the lustre of his rays, without sustaining the least injurv
from them.  On the first she bestows dusky reflectors, or such
as can  close themselves as  occasion  requires ; she provides
others  with parasols.  Such is the  crown-imperial, whose flow-
ers, like a  bell  inverted, grow  under  the  shade of a tuft of
leaves.  The chrysanthemum-peruvianum, or to employ a bet-
ter known term, the turnsol, which turns continually toward the
Sun, covers itself, like Peru the country from which it comes,
with dewy clouds, which cool and refresh  it's flowers during
the most violent heat of the day.   The white flower of the ly- 
72
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 chnis, which blows in our fields in Summer, and presents at a
 distance the resemblance of a Maltese-cross,  has a species ot
 contraction or narrow collar  placed at it's centre, so that it's
 large shining petals turned back outwardly do  not act upon it s
 stamina.  The white narcissus has in  like manner a small tun-
 nel.  But Nature stands in no need to create new parts, in or-
 der to communicate new characters to her  Works.  She  de-
 duces them at once from existence and from non-existence;
 and renders 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 focuses of them so as to act outwardly.  It is thus that the
 petals of the lily  are disposed, which  are  so many sections of
 the parabola. Notwithstanding the large size and the whiteness
 of it's cup, the more it expands the more it  disperses the fer-
 vent heat of the Sun;  and while in the middle of Summer, at
 noon-day, all other flowers, parched by his  burning rays, droop
 and bend their heads to the ground, the lily rears his head like
 a king,  and contemplates  face to  face the dazzling orb, which
 is travelling majestically through the Heavens.
  I proceed to display in a few words, the  positive or negative
 relations of flowers with respect to the Sun, to  the five elemen-
 tary forms which  I have  laid down in the preceding Study as
 the principles of the harmony of bodies.   This is not so much
 a plan which I take upon me to prescribe to Botanists, as an in-
 . itation to  engage in a career so rich in observations, and to
correct my errors by communicating some portion of their know-
 ledge.
  There arc, therefore, reverberating powers perpendicular, co-
 nical, spherical, elliptical, parabolical, or plane.   To  these may
be referred most of the curves of  flowers.  There are likewise
some flowers in form of a parasol, but the others are much more
numerous; for the negative effects in every harmony are in much
greater number than the positive. For example,  there is but one
single way of coming  into life, and  there are thousands of going
out of  it.  We shall oppose however to every positive relation
of flowers to the Sun, a principal negative relation, that we may
be enabled to compare their effects in every Latitude. 
i ;
i S 
»
.i./tl //I'/Y.-.'/l/'f/
     /'A,/,.,-

n' Or f*itnt/n>hr.

r>. '/'he . \ 'n/i     ...
!        <
'/.A
//.At tttteyit//>/tr/t*.
Agflif'tie.
BKVTSRKBRAT.I :>' I*  KL0 WE .Ra.

                 .i.yp/trrtr.
i'.Qm/c
4. The Tulip.
/O.^/ie /rtywrta/.
.%r/if .i-'/>>,■/'■  /<<>*<■■
?.f!mtW$ttAu o/'the /Jttr
&. feu /i/of'som .
8.6>nvob*ki*<>t'ffie My/it.
/a/ri the/??ttp*e tmtrteti     ^/n  the  S/>Aere rh/,/e,t' titrntn/tt.       a/n  u f„i,e e/„.fcit'.

                                 P.\KA3 OJ, FlLO VVK fl S .
l/'ttftautietttar.
f.Ettrof /tier.
f./Jtrrrt/mf.
/.Ettr ft' Corn
     ,„■ riAe.it
 
STUDY XI.
73
   Perpendicular reverberating flowers are those which grow
adhering by the back to a cone, to  long  catkins, or to an ear:
such are those of the cedar, of the larch, of the fir, of the birch,
of the juniper ; of most of the  northern  gramineous plants, of
the vegetables of cold and lofty mountains, as the cypress and
the pine ; or of those which flower in our climates about the end
of Winter,  as the hazel and the willow.   A part of the flowers
in this position is sheltered from the North wind, and receives
the reflection of the  Sun from the South side.
   It is remarkable that all vegetables which bear cones, catkins,
or spikes, present them at the extremity of their stems, exposed
to all the action of the Sun.   It is not 30 with those which grow
within the Tropics ; most of which, such as the palm-tree, bear di-
vergent flowers attached to pendent clusters, and shaded by  their
branches.   The greatest part of the gramineous plants of warm
countries have likewise divergent ears ; such are the  millets of
Africa.   The solid  ear of the American maize is crowned with
a hairy tuft which shelters its flowers from the  Sun.   On the
annexed plate  are represented an ear of European corn, and an
ear of the rice of Southern Asia, to furnish the means of com-
parison.
   Conical reverberating flowers reflect on the parts of florifi-
cation a complete cone of light.  It's action is  very powerful;
and it  is accordingly very remarkable,  that Nature has given
this configuration of petal only to flowers which grow under the
shade of trees, as to the convolvulus, which scrambles up around
their trunk; and that she has  assigned to this flower a very tran-
sient duration, for it scarcely  lasts half a day; and when it's fe-
cundation is completed, the border contracts inwardly,  and ga-
thers together like a  purse.    Nature has however given it a
place in southern latitudes, but she has there tinged it with vio-
let and blue, in order to weaken the effect.  Besides, this flow-
er scarcely  ever opens in hot countries except in the night.
From this  nocturnal  character  I presume it  is, that we are
chiefly enabled to distinguish the convolvulus of the South  from
that of our  own climates, which blows in  the day time.   In the
plate we have represented the day-convolvulus, or that which is
native with us, expanded ; and that  of the night, or of hot coun-
tries, closed ; the one having  a positive character with the  light
and the  other a negative.
   Vol. II.                     K 
7-1
STUDIES OF  NATURE.
   The flowers which partake the most of this conical form arc
 those which grow early in the Spring, as the flower of the arum,
 which is formed like a cornet;  or those which thrive on lofty
 mountains, as the bears-ear of the Alps. When Nature employs
 it in Summer it is almost always with negative characters, as in
 the flowers of the Fox-glove, which are inclined, and  dyed a
 deep red or blue colour.
   Spherical reverberating flowers are those whose petals are
 formed into segments of a  circle.  One might amuse himself
 very agreeably, in observing that these spherically formed petals
 have  at  their focuses the antherae of the flower supported on
 fibrets, longer or shorter as the effect intended may require.   It
 deserves farther to be remarked, that  each petal is adapted to
 its particular anthera, sometimes to two, or even to three :  so
 that the number of petals in a flower divides almost always ex-
 actly that of the  antherae.  As to the petals, they scarcely ever
 exceed the number of five in rose-formed flowers, as if Nature
 had designed to  express in that the number of the five terms of
 elementary' progression, of which this beautiful form is the har-
 monic expression.
   Spherical reverberating flowers are very common in our tem-
 perate climates.  They do not throw back the whole reflection
 of their disks on the antherae like the convolvulus, but only the
 fifth part, because each of their petals has  it's particular focus.
 The rose-formed flower is spread over most fruit trees, as the
 apple, the pear, the peach, the plumb, the apricot, and the like ;
 and over a great part of our shrubbery and herbage, such as the
 black  and white-thorn, the bramble, the anemone, and many
 others, most of which produce for Man a nutritious, fruit, and
 which flower in the month of May.  To this form may be like-
 wise referred such as are spheroidal; the lily of the valley for
 example.
   This form, which is the harmonic expression of the five ele-;
mentary forms, was admirably adapted to a  temperature like
ours, which  is itself the proportional medium between that  of
the Icy and of the Torid  Zone.  As spherical reflectors colled,
a great quantity of rays at their focuses, their action is very pow-
erful,  but at the same time  of very transient duration.   It  *<-■
well known that nothing fades more quickly than a rose, 
                        STUDY XI.                     75
  Kose-formed flowers are very rare between the Tropics, es-
pecially those whose petals are white.  They thrive  only under
the shade of trees.   I have known many of the inhabitants of
the Isle of France make fruitless  efforts  to raise Strawberries
there; but one of them, who lived indeed in an elevated part of
the island, found means of procuring them in great plenty, by
planting his beds under trees, and in ground but half-cleared.*
  As  a compensation for this, Nature has multiplied in warm
countries  papilionaceous or leguminous flowers.  The legumi-
nous flower is entirely opposite to the rose-formed.   It usually
has five rounded petals like  the  other:  but instead  of being
disposed round the centre of the flower in order to  reverberate
thither the rays of the Sun, they are on the contrary folded in-
ward around the antherae for the purpose  of sheltering them.
You  distinguish in  them a pavilion, two wings, and  a ridge,
usually divided into two, by which the antherae and the embry-
on  of the fruit are closely covered over.  Between the Tropics
accordingly, a great number of  trees, shrubs, creepers,  and
grasses, have  papilionaceous flowers.  Every species of  our
peas  and  french-beans  succeed  there wonderfully well,  and
those countries  produce infinite varieties of them.  Nay  it  is
remarkable, that even at home those plants delight  in a sandy
and warm soil, and exhibit their flowers in the middle of Sum-
mer.   I  consider leguminous flowers therefore as of the para-
sol kind.   To those same negative effects  of the Sun  may like-
wise be referred the form of flowers with gullets, which conceal
their antherae, such as  the calfs-snout,  which takes  pleasure  irt
blowing on the sides of walls.
   Elliptical reverberating flowers are those which present
oval-formed cups, narrower a-top than in the middle.  It is very
perceptible that this form of cup,  the perpendicular  petals  of
which approach toward each other at  the  summit, shelters  in
part the bottom of the flower: and that the curves of these same
petals, which have several focuses, do not collect the rays of the

  * I do not think this observation is correct. " Rose-formed flowers" are far
from being rare between the Tropics of America.  The strawberry arrives tu
great perfection between the Tropic3.  i coidd easily fill a'page with the
mere names of these rosacex which are'truly/>/<»nt<r tropicales.  Perhaps it is
more^true,  that rose-formed flowers with white petals, r.re peou'iarly rare '>e
twer  th^ limits mentioned by our author—-H. s. n 
 76              STUDIES OF NATURE.
 Sun toward one single centre: such is the tulip.  It is remarka-
 ble  that this oblong-formed flower is more common in warm
 countries than the  rose-formed. The tulip grows spontaneously
 in the vicinity of Constantinople.  To  this form may likewise
 be referred that of the liliaceous, which are more common there
 than  elsewhere.   However, when Nature  employs them  in
 countries still farther to the South, or in the middle of Summer,
 it is almost always with negative  characters ;  thus she has in-
 verted the tulip-formed flowers of the imperial, which is origi-
 nally from Persia,  and has  shaded d>em with  a tuft of foliage.
 Thus she bends back outwardly in onr climates the petals of the
 lily; but  the  species of white lilies  which grow  between the
 Tropics have besides their petals cut out  into thongs.
  Flowers with parabolic or plane mirrors, are those which
 reflect the rays of the Sun in parallel  directions.   The configu-
 ration of the first gives much lustre to the corolla of these flow-
 ers, which emit from their bosom, if  I may be allowed the ex-
 pression, a bundle of light, for they collect it toward the bottom
 of their corolla, and not on the antherae.  It is perhaps in order
 to weaken the action of it, that Nature  has terminated flowers
 of this form in a species of cowl,  which Botanists call spur.   It
 is probably  in  this tube  that the focus of their parabola termi-
 nates, which is perhaps situated there, as in many curves of this
 kind beyond it's summit. Flowers of this sort  are  frequent be-
 tween the Tropics ; such is the flower of the poincillade of the
 Antilles, otherwise called the peacock flower, on account of it's
 beauty; such is also the  nasturtium, or nun of Peru.  It is even
 pretended that the perennial species is phosphoric in the night-
time.*
  Flowers with plain mirrors produce the same effects ; and
 Nature has multiplied the models of them in our Summer flow-

  * Saint-Pierre's nasturtium, or nun of Peru, is the  tropxolum majus  of
 Linnaeus : " the fair tropxo" of Dr. Darwin.  This plant  is both annual and
perennial.  The property which is here called " phosphoric," was first ob-
 served by one of the daughters of Linnauis, Elizabeth Christina, and has been
 supposed,  by several very competent judges, to be more of an electrical na-
ture.  " Flares ante crepusculum fulminant, observante E. C.  Liwinea."  See
 Linnxi, species plantarum, torn. i. p. 490 : also, Darwin's Loves of the Plants.
 Saint-Pierre seems uncommonly attached to this plant, which, indeed, is not
 without botli its beauties and use* to recommend it. He again mentions it
 in his third volume.—B. S. B 
STUDY XI.
ers, and in those which thrive in warm and sandy soils, as the
radiated; such are the flowers of the dandelion.   We likewise
meet with them in the flowers of the doronicum, of the lettuce,
of the succory ; in the asters, in the meadow daisy, and others.
But she has placed the original model of them under  the Line,
in America, in the broad  sun-flower, which we have borrowed
from Brasil.*
   These being flowers whose petals  have the least activity, are
likewise those which are of the longest duration.  Their attitudes
are varied without  end.  Such as are horizontal, like those of
the dandelion, close, it is said, toward the middle of the day ;
they are likewise such as  are  the  most exposed to the action of
the Sun, for they receive  his  rays from his rising to his setting.
   There  are  others which instead of closing their petals invert
them, and this produces nearly the same effect; such is the flower
of the camomile.   Others are perpendicular to  the Horizon, as
the flower of lettuce.  The blue colour with which it is tinged,
contributes  farther  towards  weakening the rays  of the Sun,
which in this respect would act too vehemently  upon it. Other.
have only four horizontal petals, such  as the cruci-form ; the spe-
cies of which are very common in hot countries.   Others bear
around their disk flowrets which overshadow it; such is the blue
bottle of the corn-field, which is represented on the plate in  op-
position to the daisy.  This last flowers early in the Spring and
the other  in the middle of Summer.
   We have said somewhat of the general forms of flowers,  but
we should never come to a conclusion  were we to enter into a
discussion of their various aggregations. I believe however that
they  may be referred to the plan itself of the flowers.  Thus the
umbelliferous flowers present themselves to the  Snn under  the
same aspects as the radiated.
   I must beg leave to recapitulate only what has been said res-
pecting thesr reflecting mirrors.  The reverberated  perpendi-
cular of a cone or ear form, collects on the antherae of the flowers

  * According to Linnaeus, the sun-flower fhelianthua annuusj is a native of
Peru.  But this superb vegetable was also found in Mexico, in Florida, in Vir
ginia,  £cc. Of late.it has been disco\ercd  in the vast regions beyond th''
M  sissippi.  For ages, it has been cultivated as an article of food, by the na-
tiv< •kmcricans.  It is difficult to say, in what part of Amcr:c:i. the plant  wa<
originally sown by the kind hand of Nature—B  S. B 
 78              STUDIES OF NATURE.
 an arch of light of ninety degrees from the  Zenith to the Hori-
 zon. It farther presents in the inequality of it's panels reflecting
 surfaces.
   The conical reflector collects a cone of light of sixty degrees.
 The spherical  reflector unites in each of it's five petals an arch
 of light of thirty six degrees of the Sun's course, supposing that
 luminary to be in the Equator.
   The  elliptical  reflector collects a smaller quantity from the
 perpendicular position of it's petals ; and the parabolic reflector
 as well as that with plane mirrors, sends back the rays of the Sun
 divergently or  in parallels.
   The first form  appears to be very common in the flowers of
the Icy Zones ; the second in those which thrive under the shade;
the third in temperate  latitudes ; the fourth in warm countries ;
and the  fifth in the Torrid Zone.   It  would likewise appear
that Nature multiplies the divisions  of their petals in order to
diminish their  action.   Cones  and ears have no petals.  The
convolvulus has but one ; rose formed flowers have five ; el-
liptical flowers, as the tulip and the illiaceous, have six; flowers
with plane reflectors, as the radiated, have a great number.
   Farther, flowers have parts  adapted to the other elements.
Some are clothed  externally with  a hairy garment to  shelter
them from the cold.  Others are formed to  blow on the surface
of the water; such  are the yellow roses of the nymphaea, which
float on lakes, and accommodate themselves to the various  move-
ments of the waves without being wet by them, by means of the
long and pliant stems to which they are attached. Those of the
valisneria are  still more artfully disposed.   They  grow  in the
 Rhone,  and would  be there exposed  to  frequent inundation by
the sudden swellings  of that river,  had not Nature given them
stems formed like a corkscrew, which draw out at once to the
length of three or four feet.
   There are other flowers adapted to the winds and to the rains,
 as those of pease, which are furnished with little boats to cover
and shelter the stamina and the embryons of their fruits.*  Be-

 '  I am persuaded that the bearing of most flowers  is adapted to the rains
and for this reason it is that many of them have the form of mufflers or ridges
like little boats inverted, which shelter the parts of fecundation. I have re-
marked that many species of flowers possess the instinct, shall I venture' to
 til it ? of closing themselves when tly; air is humid and that tlig impregnation 
STUDY Xt.
79
iides, they have large pavilions, and rest on tails bent and elas-
tic as a nerve ; so that when the wind blows over a field of pease,
you may see all the flowers turn their back to the wind like so
many weather cocks.
   This class appears to be very  generally diffused over places
much exposed to the winds.  Dampier relates that he found the
desert shores of New-Guinea covered with pease, whose blos-
soms were  red and blue.   In  our  climates the  fern, which
crowns the summits of hills always battered with the wind and
the rain, bears it's  flower turned toward the Earth on the back
of it's leaves.   There  are even  certain species of plants the
flowering of which  is regulated by the irregularity of the winds.
Such are those the  male and female individuals of which  grow
on separate stems.  Tossed hither and thither over the  earth
frequently at great distances from each other, the  powder of
the male could fecundate but a very few female flowers, unless
 at the season of their florification the wind blew from various
quarters.  Wc n erful to be told ! There are invariable gene-
rations depending on the variableness of  the  wind.   Hence I
presume that in countries where the winds always blow from
the same quarter, as between the Tropics, the species of florifi-
cation must be uncommon; and if  it be found there at all, it
must be regulated precisely according to the season when those
regular winds vary.
   It is  impossible to entertain  a  doubt respecting those admi-
rable relations, however remote they mat  appear, when  we ob-
serve the attention with  which  Nature, has preserved  flowers
from the shocks to which they might be exposed, from the winds
themselves, upon their stems.  She inwraps them for the most
part in  an integument,  which Botanists  call the  calix.  The
more rtunous  the  plant is the thicker is the calix of it's  flower.
She sometimes fringes it with little cushions and  beards,  as may
be seen in the rose-bud.   Thus  the mother puts a  pad round
the head of her little child, to secure it against accidents  from
falling.  Nature has so clearly marked her intention  as  to this,

bf fruit tree blossoms is injured much more by the rain than by the frost,
Th.s observation is of essential importance to gardeners, who ti\ quently cause
the  flowers of their strawberry plants to miscarry by watering them. As far
as lean judge, it woidd be bitter to water plants in blossom by little trenches
according'to the Indian methad, rather tlMtn by aspersion^ 
80              STUDIES OF NATURE.
in the case of the flowers of ramous plants, that she has de-
prived of this clothing such as  grow on stems that are not
branchv, and where they are in no danger from the agitation
of the winds.  This may be remarked with regard to the flow-
ers of Solomon's seal, of the lily of the valley, of the hyacinth,
of the narcissus, of most of  the liliaceous,  and of plants which
bear their flowers isolated on perpendicular stems.
  Flowers have  farther very curious relations with animals and
with Man, from the diversity of their configurations and from
their smells.  Those of one species of the orchis represent bugs,
and exhale the same unpleasant odour.   Those ofa 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  those  relations, hitherto very superficially investi-
gated, do not come in so properly under  this article; it is sufi
ficient for me to have her demonstrated,  that they actually have
very clearly marked relations with the elements, and especially
with the Sun.
  When botanists shall have diffused over this branch of the
subject all the light  of which it is  susceptible, by  examining
their tocuses, the elevation to which they rise above the ground,
the shelter or the reflection of the bodies which are in their vi-
cinity,  the variety of their colours, in a word, all the means by
which Nature compensates the differences of their several ex-
posures, and they will no longer doubt about those  elementary
harmonies ; they will acknowledge  that  the flower, far  from
presenting an unvarying character in plants, exhibits on the con-
trary a perpetual character  of diversity.  It is by this princi-
pally that Nature varies the species in the  same genus of plant,
in order  to render it  susceptible of fecundation  on different
sites.  This  explains the reason why the flowers of  the  great
chesnut of India, but originally from America, are not the same
Avith those of the European  chesnut;  and that those of the ful-
lers-thistle, which thrives on the brink of  rivers, are different
from those of thistles which grow in lofty and dry places.
  A very extraordinary observation shall serve irrefragably to
confirm all that we have just now advanced: it is this, That a
plant sometimes totally  changes the  form of it's flowers in the
generation which  reproduces  it.  This phenomenon  greatly
astonished the  celebrated Linnxus  the  first time that it was 
STUDY XI.
81
 submitted to his consideration.  One of his pupils brought him
 one day a plant perfectly similar to the linarium, the flower ex-
 cepted ; the colour, the savour, the leaves, the stem,  the  root,
 the calix, the pericarpium, the seed, in a word, the smell, which
 is a remarkable circumstance, were  exacUy the same, only it's
 flowers were in form of a tunnel, whereas those of the linarium
 are gullet-formed.   Linnoeus imagined at first that his pupil in-
 tended to  put his knowledge to the test, by adapting a strange
 flower to the stem of that plant; but he satisfied himself that it
 was a real linarium, the flower of which Nature  had totally
 changed.  It had been found among other linaria, in  an island
 seven miles distant from  Upsal, near the shore of the sea on a
 sandy  and gravelly bottom.  He himself put it to the proof,
 that it re-perpetuated itself in this new state by it's  seeds.  He
 afterwards found some of it in other places: and what is still
 more extraordinary, there were among these last some which
 carried on the  same stalk flowers tunnel-formed, and flowers
 gullet-formed.
   He gave to  this new vegetable  the name of pelorum  from a
 Greek word, which signifies prodigy.  He afterwards observ-
 ed the same variations in other species of plants, and among the
 rest in the eriocephalous thistle,  the seeds of which produce
 every  year in  the garden of  Upsal the fantastic  thistle of the
 Pyrennees.* This illustrious Botanist accounts for these trans-
 formations, as  being the effect of a mongrel generation, dis-
 turbed by the fecundating farina  of  some other  flower in the
 vicinity.   It may be so ; to his opinion however may  be oppo-
 sed the flowers of the pelorum and of the linarium, which he
 found united on the  same individual.  Had it been the fecun-
 dation which transformed this plant, it ought to have given si-
 milar flowers in the whole individual.  Besides, he himself has
observed that there was not  the slightest confusion in the other
 parts of the pelorum,  any more  than in it's virtues ;  but  this
 must have  been the case,  as well as in the flower, had it been
 produced by a mixture of some strange breed.   Finally, the
pelorum re-produced itself by seed, which does not take place
 in any  one  mongrel species of animals.

        * I'psalian Dissertation, for Dec. 174 1 ■: page 59. note t
Voi.  II.
I. 
82             STUDIES OF NATURE.
   This sterility in mongrel branches is an effect of the sage con-
sistency of Nature, who cuts off divergent generations, in order
to prevent the primordial species from being confounded, and
from at length disappearing altogether.  As to the rest, I pry
neither into the causes nor the means which she is  pleased to
conceal from me, because they far transcend my comprehen-
sion.  I  confine my enquiries to the ends which she  kindly un-
folds ; I confirm myself in the belief, from the variety of flowers
in the  same species and sometimes in the same individual, that
they serve in certain cases as  reflectors to vegetables,  for the
purpose of collecting, conformably to their position, the rays of
the Sun on the parts of fecundation ; and in other cases as para-
sols, to put tiu m under covert from excessive heat.
   Nature  deals by them nearly as she does  by animals which
are exposed to the same variations of Latitude.   In Africa she
strips the sheep of the woolly fleece, and gives her sleek smooth
hair, like that of the horse: and to the  North on the contrary
she clothes the horse with the shaggy fur of the sheep.   I have
been an eye-witness of this double metamorphosis at the Cape
of Good-Hope and in Russia.  I have seen at Petersburg Nor-
man and Neapolitan horses, whose hair naturally short, was so
long and  so frizzled in the middle of Winter, that you would
have believed  them covered  with  wool  like sheep.  It is not
without reason, therefore, that the ancient proverb says:  GOD
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb:  and when I behold his pa^
ternal hand varying the fur of  animals conformably to the de-
gree of heat and cold, I can easily believe that it varies in like
manner the mirrors of flowers conformably to the Sun. Flowers
then may  be divided with relation to the Sun into two classes;
into  reverberating flowers, and flowers in form of a parasol.
   If there be any constant character in plants we must look for
it in the fruit.  It is thitherward that Nature has directed all
the parts  of vegetation, as to the principal object.   That saving
of Wisdom itself, by their fruits ye shall know them, is at least
as applicable to plants as to the human species.
   We  shall examine therefore the  general characters of plants,
with relation to the places where their seeds are accustomed to
grow.  As the  animal  kingdom   is divided  into three great
classes, quadrupeds, volatiles,  and  aquatics,  relatively to the
three elements of the Globe; we shall in like manner divide 
STUDY XL                     83
the vegetable  kingdom into aerial or mountain-plants ;  into
aquatics, or those of the shores ; and into terrestrial, or those of
the plains.  But as this last participates of the two others, we shall
not dwell upon it; for though I am persuaded that every spe-
cies, nay that every variety may be referred to some particular
site of the  earth, and may grow there  in  its highest degree of
beauty, it is sufficient to say as much of it here as may be  ne-
cessary to the prosperity  of  a small garden.   When we shall
have traced invariable characters in the two extremities of the
vegetable kingdom, it  will be easy to refer to  the intermediate
classes those which are adapted to them.  We begin with the
plants of the mountains.

 ELEMENTARY HARMONIES OF PLANTS WITH THE WATER AND
     THE 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 as-
pects of the sun by which  they were to be heated.   As soon as
those  harmonies were established between the elements, the
clouds ascended out of the  Ocean, and  dispersed themselves
over the most remote parts of the Continents.  There they dis-
tilled under a thousand different forms,  in fogs, in mists, in
dews,  in rains, in snows.  They descended from the heights of
the Atmosphere in every  possible variety  of manner ; some in
a tranquil air, such as our Spring showers, came down  in per-
pendicular drops as  if they had been strained  through a sieve ;
others  driven by the furious winds, beat horizontally on the sides
of the  mountains ; others  fell in  torrents,  like those which for
nine months of the year inundate the Island of Gorgona, placed
in the  heart of the Torrid Zone, in the burning Gulf of  Pana-
ma. There were some which accumulated themselves in moun-
tains of snow, on the inaccessible summits  of the Andes, to cool
by their effusions the Continent of South-  t meric?, and by their
icy Atmosphere, the vast  expanse of the  Pacific Ocean.   In a
word,  mighty rivers  flowed over regions w here the rain never
descends, and the Nile watered the plains  of Egypt. 
84
STUDIES OF NATURE,
   Then GOD said : " Let the Earth bring forth grass, the herfc
 " yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind,
 " whose seed is in itself upon the Earth,"   At the voice of the
 All-Mightv, the vegetables appeared with organs perfectly fit-
 ted to collect the blessings of  Heaven.  The elm arose on the
 mountains which skirt the Tanais, clothed with leaves  in form
 of a tongue ; the tufted box started from the brow of the Alps;
 and the prickly caper-tree from the rocks of Africa, with leaves
 hollowed into spoons.  The pines of the sandy Norwegian hills
 attracted the vapours which were floating in the air, with their
 slim foliage disposed  like a  Painter's pencil; the verbascum
 displayed it's broad leaves on the parched sand, and the fern
 presented on the hill it's fan-like foliage to the rainy and hori-
 zontal winds.   A  multitude of other plants, from the bosom of
 the rocks, from strata of flint, nay even from marble incrusta-
 tions, drunk in the waters of Heaven by cornets, by sandals, and
 by cruets.  From the cedar of Lebanon down to the violet which
 perfumes  the  grove, there was not one but what presented it's
large goblet, or it's tiny cup,  conformably to it's necessity, or
it's 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, scoop-
 ed out on the pedicle by which they are  attached to their
 branches.   It has something of a  resemblance to that which
 Nature has traced on the upper  lip of a Man, to receive  the
 humours which descend from the brain.  It is particularly per-
 ceptible on the leaves of artichokes, which being of the nature
 of thistles, agree with dry and sandy situations.  These have
 besides, collateral  awnings to prevent the loss of any of the wra-
 ter that falls from Heaven.   Plants which grow in places very
 hot and very  parched,  sometimes have their stems or their
 leaves transformed entirely into a canal.   Such are the  aloes of
 the island  of  Zocotara,  in the mouth  of the Red-Sea, or  the
 prickly taper of the Torrid Zone.   The aqueduct of the aloes is
 horizontal, and that of the taper perpendicular.
  What has prevented Botanists  from remarking the relstions
 which the  leaves of plants have with the  waters that feed and 
STUDY XL
85
refresh them, is  their seeing  them every where nearly of  the
same form, in the valleys, as on the heights; but though moun-
tain-plants present foliages of every kind of configuration, you
may easily discern from their aggregation in form of pencils or
fans, from the gathering of the leaves, or from equivalent signs,
that they are destined to receive the rain water, but chiefly from
the aqueduct which I have just mentioned.   This aqueduct is
traced on  the pedicle of the smallest leaves of mountain-plants;
by means  of it  Nature has rendered  the forms themselves of
aquatic-plants susceptible of  vegetation in the  most parched
situations.
  The bulrush,  for  example, which is only a round  and  full
straw that grows by the  water-side, did not appear susceptible
of collecting any humidity in the air, though it is very well suit-
ed to lofty situations, from it's capillaceous form, which like that
of gramineous plants presents nothing to the wind to lay hold of.
   In fact, if you consider the different species of  rush  which
clothe the mountains in  many parts of the world, such as that
called icho, on the lofty mountains  of  Peru, the only vegetable
almost that grows there, and those  which thrive with ourselves
in dry sands or on heights, you would at the first glance believe
them similar to the rush of marshy places ; but with a little at-
tention, and not without  astonishment, you  will observe  that
they are hollowed into a furrow the whole of  their lengthwise
direction.   They are like other rushes convex  on one side,  but
they differ from them essentially, in that they are all concave on
the other; I was enabled to distinguish by this same character
the spartha, which is a rush of the mountains of Spain, and is
now frequently  manufactured at  Paris into cordage for  their
draw-wells.
  Many leaves even of the plants of the plains assume on theit
first springing up this form of 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  up-
right toward Heaven, like paws, to catch the falling drops, es-
pecially when  it  begins to rain ; but  most plants of the plain 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 
S6
STUDIES OF NATURE.
the rain-water into  the  tree from  the leaf to the branch:  the
branch, by the obliquity of it's 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 which are the farthest from it's stem, you will
perceive it pursue the progress which I have just indicated, and
not a single drop will be lost on the ground.
  I have had the curiosity to measure in some mountain-plants,
the inclination which their branches form with their stem ; and
I have found in at least  a dozen different species, as in the fern,
the thuia, and the like,  an  angle of about  thirty degres.   It is
very remarkable,  that this degree of incidence is the same with
that which is formed in  a flat country, by  the course of  many
rivulets and smaller rivers, with the great rivers into which they
discharge themselves, as may be  ascertained  by reference to
maps.  This degree of incidence appears to be the most favoura-
ble to the eflux of many fluids, which direct themselves toward
one single line.  The same Wisdom has regulated the level of
the branches in trees, and the course of the stream through the
plains.
  This inclination undergoes some varieties in certain moun-
tain-tuees.  The cedar of Lebanon, for example, sends forth the
lower part of it's  branches in an upward direction toward Hea-
ven, and lowers their extremities, by bending them downward
to the  Earth.  They have  the attitude of command  which is
suited to the King of vegetables, that of an arm raised up into
the air, with the hand gently inclining.  By means of the first
disposition, the rain-water is conveyed along the sloping branch
to the  trunk;  and by  the second, the snows in the regions of
which it takes delight to dwell, slide away from off it's foliage.
It's cones have in like manner two different attitudes ; for it lif-
elines them at first toward the Earth, to shelter them at the sea-
son of their flowering; but when they are fecundated, it erects
them toward Heaven.   The truth of these observations may be
confirmed by referring to a young  and  beautiful cedar in the
Royal Garden, which, though  a  stranger,  has  preserved in the
midst of our climate the air of a King, and the majestic port of
Lebanon.
  The bark of most mountain-trees is equally adapted for con-
ducting the rain-water from the branches to the roots.   That of 
STUDY XL
87
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 of dry grounds have a farther
character, which is in general peculiar to them:  it is that of at-
tracting the  water which floats in the air in imperceptible va-
pours.  The parietaria (pellitory) which has derived it's name
from the latin word pariete (wall), because it grows on the sides
of walls, has it's leaves almost always in a humid state.  This
attraction is common to most trees of the mountains.  Travel-
lers  unanimously assure  us that there is in the mountains of
the Island of Ferro, a tree which furnishes every day  to  that
island a prodigious  quantity of  water.   The islanders call it
garoe, and the Spaniards santo, from its singular utility.  They
tell  us it is  always surrounded with a cloud which distils copi-
ously along it's leaves, and fills with water the large reservoirs
which are constructed at the root of this tree, affording an abun-
dant supply for the island.                     •
   This effect is perhaps somewhat exaggerated, though related
in nearly the same terms by persons of different  Nations : but I
give full credit to the general  fact.  The real case I take to be
this  : it is the mountain which  attracts from afar the  vapours of
the Atmosphere, and that the tree, situated in the focus of attrac-
tion, collects them around it.
   Having frequently spoken in the course  of this Work of the
attraction of the summits of many mountains, the Reader per-
haps will not be  displeased if  I present him, in this place, an
idea of that branch of the hydraulic architecture of Nature.
Among a great number of curious examples which I might pro-
duce to this purpose, and which I have collected, as an addition
to my materials on the subject of Geography, I beg leave to pre-
sent one, which I have extracted not from a systematic Philoso-
pher, but from a simple and unaffectedly sprightly traveller of
the last age, who relates things as he saw them, and without
pretending to deduce consequences of any  kind  whatever.  It is
a description of  the  summits of the island of Bourbon, situated
in the Indian Ocean,  extending to the  twenty first degree of
South Latitude.  I copy it from the writings of M. de Fillers,
who was then Governor of that island under the East India Com-
pany.   It was published  in the Journals  of the first voyages 
88              STUDIES OF NATURE.
made by our French Navigators into Arabia Felix, about the
year 1709, and given to the World by M. de la Roque.  See that
Work, page 201.
  " Of those plains," says M. de Fillers, which are upon the
mountains (of Bourbon), " the most remarkable, though no ac-
" count has hitherto been given of it, is that to which they have
" given the name of the Plain of the  Cafres, from a tribe  of
" that People, slaves to the inhabitants of the Island, who went
" thither to conceal themselves, after they had run away from
" their masters.  From the shore of the Sea you rise by a gentle
" ascent for seven leagues together,  in order to reach this plain
" by the single path that leads  to it, along the river of Saint Ste-
" phen :  it is possible however to ride up on horseback.   The
" soil is good and smooth to about a league and  a half on this
" side the plain, planted with large  and beautiful trees the foli-
" age of which, as it falls, serves for food to the tortoises, which
" are to be found there in great numbers.
  " The height  of  this plain may be estimated at two leagues
" above the Horizon ;  it accordingly appears from below to be
" quite lost in the clouds.  It's circumference may be about four
" or five leagues.  The cold is there insupportable, and a con-
" tinual fog, -which  wets as much as rain, prevents your seeing
" objects ten paces distant; as  it falls in the night, you may see
" through it more clearly than by day: but then it freezes dread-
" fully, and in the morning before sun-rise the plain is frozen all
" over.
  " But what strikes the eye of the  beholder as very extraordi-
" nary, there are certain elevations of ground cut out almost in
" form of round  columns, and  of a prodigious  height; for they
" cannot be much lower than the turrets of Notre-Dame at Pa-
" ris.  They are put down like pins on the skittle-ground, and
" the resemblance is so strong, that you may easily mistake  on
" reckoning them :  they go by the  name of pitoyis (pins).  If
" you wish to stop by one of those eminences to take rest, such
" of your company as are  not inclined to repose, but want to go
" forward, must not withdraw so far  as two hundred paces,
^ otherwise they will be in great danger of not finding again the
" point of separation, these pins are so many in number, all  si-
" milar  in form, and so  much arranged in the same  manner,
" that the Creoles who are natives there  are themselves  liable
u to mistake. 
STUDY XL
89
  u For this reason it is, that in order to prevent theunplea v.*nt
u consequences of such an error,  when a company of travellers
a take station at one of the pins, if they are disposed to make a
a farther excursion, they leave a person at the place of rendez-
u vous, to make a fire or raise a smoke which may serve to di-
u rect and bring back the strayers ; and if the fog be so thick,
u which is frequendy the case, as to hinder the fire or the smoke
" from being seen, they provide themselves with a kind of large
" shells, one of which is left with him who keeps station at the
" pin ; another is carried off by the separating party; and when
" they wish to return some one blows violently into the shell as
" into a trumpet, which emits a very shrill sound, and is capa-
" ble of being heard  at a great distance ; this  is answered by
tk the other, and being repeated as often as  is necessary,  they
" are easily recovered from straying, and collected at the point
" of departure.  Without such precautions the traveller might
" be bewildered.
  "  In this  plain are  many aspin-trces, and they are  always
f green.  Other trees are  covered with a moss of more than a
" fathom in length around their trunk and large branches. They
" arc withered, without foliage, and so impregnated with mois-
" tare, that it is  impossible to make them take fire.  If with
" much difficulty you are able to kindle  some of the smaller
" boughs, it is only a dark fire without  flame, which  emits a
" reddish smoke  that defiles  the meat without  roasting  it.
" You can hardly  find a spot in this plain on which to kindle a
u fire, unless by looking about for some small elevation round
" the peaks ; for the soil of the plain is so humid that the water
" e\ erv where spouts  out,  so that you are continually in mud,
" and moistened up to the calf of the leg.  Great numbers of
lt blue birds are to be seen there  nestling in the herbage, and
u among the aquatic ferns. This plain was unknown before the
k- desertion of the Cafres.  In order to get down you rau.;t 1^-
" turn by the same way that you ascended, unless you choose
" to run the risk of another path, which  is very rough and cian-
u gerously steep.
  "  From the  plain of the Cafres may be seen the mountain
" known by the name of Troh Stiluses, from the three pohitj of
" that rock, the loftiest in the  Island of Bourbon.  All it's ri-
  Voi. II.                  M 
 90             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 " vers issue from thence, and  it is so steep on every side that
 " there is no possibility of climbing it.
   " There is besides in this island another plain, called the plain
 " of Silaos, higher  than that of the Cafres, and of no greater
 " value ; it is extremely  difficult to get up to it."
   In the lively description  of  our Traveller we must overlook
 some errors in Physics, such as his assigning to the Plain of the
 Cafres an elevation of two leagues above the Horizon. He had
 not learned  from the barometer and thermometer that there is
 no such elevation on the  face of the Globe, and that at the per-
 pendicular height of one league only,  the freezing point is in-
 variable.  But from the thick fog which surrounds those peaks,
 from that continual mist which  wets as much as rain, and which
 falls during the  night, it is evidently  perceptible that they at-
 tract to them the vapours which the Sun raises out of the Sea
 in the day-time, and which disappear in the night.  Hence is
 formed that  sheet  of  water which inundates the Plain of the
 Cafres, and from  which most  of the  brooks and rivulets that
 water the island take their  rise.   You may equally distinguish
 a vegetable attraction in those ever-green aspins, and those other
 trees at all times humid,  which it is impossible to kindle into
 flame.
   The island of Bourbon is almost round, and rises out of the
 Sea in the shape of half an orange.   On the highest part of this
 hemisphere are situated the Plains of  Silaos and of the Cafres,
 where Nature has  placed those labyrinths of peaks continually
 involved in fogs, planted like  nine  pins, and  elevated like so
 many turrets.
   Did time and room permit, I could make it evident that there
 are a multitude of similar peaks on the chains of lofty moun-
 tains, of the Cordeliers, of Taurus and others, at  the centre of
 most islands, without  admitting the possibility  of supposing,   ,
 though  the opinion be current, that they are the remains of a
primitive Earth raised to that height; for what must have be-
 come,  as has  been  already demanded, of the wreck of that
Earth, the pretended testimonies of which arise on every hand
 over the surface of  the Globe ? I could demonstrate that they
 are placed in aggregations,  and in situations adapted to the ne-
cessities of the countries of which they are in some sense the
reservoirs ; some in a labyrinth, as those of the Island of Bour- 
STUDY XL
91
bon, when they are on the summit of a hemisphere, from whence
they are destined to distribute the waters of Heaven in every
direction ;  others in the form of a comb, when they are placed
on the extended crest of a chain of mountains,  as the pointed
peaks of the chain of Taurus and of the  Cordeliers; others
grouped into pairs, into threes,  according to the configuration
of the territory which they are to water.   They are of so many
forms, and of different constructions : some  of them are  incrus-
tations of earth,  as those of the Plain of the Cafres, and of some
of the Antilles Islands, and which are besides so steep as to be
entirely inaccessible.   Those incrustations of earth demonstrate
that they have at once fossil and hydraulic attractions.
   There are others which present long  needles of solid  and
naked rock ;  others are of a conical form ; others are flattened
as a table,  such as that of Table-mountain at the Cape  of Good-
Hope, where you may  frequently see the clouds accumulate and
spread like a table-cloth.  Some are not apparent, but entirely
involved in the  side of mountains or in the bosom  of plains.
They  are  all distinguishable  by the fogs  which  they  attract
around them, and by the sources which emit  their streams in
the vicinity.  Nay you may rest assured that there is no source
but in the  neighbourhood of some quarry of hydro-attractive,
and for the most part of metallic stone.  I  ascribe the attraction
of those peaks to the vitreous and metallic bodies of which they
are composed :  and I am persuaded it might be possible to imi-
tate this  architecture of  Nature, and to form by means of the
attraction of such stones, fountains of water in the most parched
situations.   In general vitreous  bodies  and stones susceptible
of polish are very proper for this purpose ;  for it is observable
that when  water is diffused  in great quantities  through  the air,
as at the time of a general thaw, it is first attracted, and attaches
itself to the glass-windows and the polished stones of our houses.
   I have frequently seen on the summit of the mountains in the
Isle of France, effects similar to  those of the peaks of the Plain
of the Cafres in the Island of Bourbon.  Tiu clouds collect there
incessantly around their peaks, which are steep and pointed like
pyramids.   Some  of those peaks terminate in a rock of a cubi-
cal form, which crowns them like a chapiter. Such is that which
they call Piterbootn, after the name of  a Dutch Admiral; it is
one gf the  loftiest  in the  Island. 
92
STUDIES OF NATURE:
     Those peaks are formed of solid rock,  vitrifiable and mixed
   with copper : they are real electrical needles both in form and
   substance. The clouds perceptibly deviate from their course to
   collect upon them, and there accumulate  sometimes  to such a
   degree that the pinnacles become totally invisible. They thence
   descend into the cavity of the vallies, along the declivities of the
   forests, which likewise attract them, and there dissolve into rain,
   frequently forming rainbows  on the verdure of the trees.  This
   vegetable attraction of the forests of that  island is in such per-
   fect harmony with  the metallic attraction of the peaks of  it's
   mountains, that a field situated in an open place in their vicini-
   ty very often suffers for want  of rain, whereas it rains the whole
   year round in the woods, which are not above  a gun-shot dis-
   tant. It  was by the destruction of part of  the trees that clothed
   the heights of the island  that most of the, brooks which watered
   it have been dried up :  and now nothing  remains of them  but
   the empty channel.
     To the same injudicious management  I ascribe the sensible
   diminution of a considerable part of the rivers of Europe both
   great and small; as is evident from a simple inspection of their
,   ancient bed, which is much broader and deeper than the mass of
   water at this day transmitted by them to the Ocean.  Nay I  am
   persuaded  that to this cause we must ascribe the dryness of the
   more elevated provinces of Asia, those  of Persia in particu-
   lar,  the  mountains of which have no  doubt been stripped of
   their trees by the first tribes who inhabited them.   I am de-
   cidedly of opinion, that  were we to plant in France mountain-
   loving trees on the high grounds, and at the sources of our riv-
   ers, their ancient volume  of water might be restored, and many
   rivulets might be made to  re-assume their current through our
   plains, though they have  a long time since ceased to  flow.  It
   is neither among the reeds, nor in the depth of the valley that
   the Neiads conceal their  exhaustless urns,  as Painters represent
   them, but at the summit of rocks crowned  with wood, and tow-
   ering to  the Heavens.
    There is not a single vegetable, the leaf of which is disposed
   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.   By  inspecting
   their leaves it in possible  to ascertain the character of their 
 
I'l.vn. I\
 
STUDY XL
93
grains, and by inspecting the  grains that of their  leaves, and
thence to  infer  the  elementary  character of the plant.  By
mountain-plants I here wish to be understood to mean all those
which grow in sandy  and parched situations,  on hillocks, in
rocks, on steep ridges by the  highway's side, in walls, and, iu
one word, at a distance from water.
  The seeds of thistles, of blue-bottles, of dandelion, of succo-
ry, and many others, are  furnished with pinions, with plumes,
with tufts,  and various  other means of rising, which convey
them to  prodigious  distances.  Those  of the  grasses, which
likewise travel very far,  are provided with a light chaffy coat,
and with bearded husks.   Others, such  as those of the yellow
gilly-flower, are cut into  thin scales,  and fly by  the slightest
breath of the wind, and  plant themselves in the most inconsi-
derable crevice of a wall.   The seeds of the largest mountain-
trees are no less volatile.   That of the maple has two membra-
nous pinions similar to the wings of a fly.  That of the ehn is
cased in the midst of an  oval thin leaf.   Those of the cypress
are almost  imperceptible.  Those of the cedar are terminated
by broad and thin plates, which in their aggregated state com-
pose a coi.e.   The grams arc in the centre of the  cone; and
when arrived at maturity, the thin membranes to v Men they
adhere separate from each other like the cards in a pack, and
each of them flies off with it's own little kernel.   (See the an-
nexed plate.}
  The seeds of mountain-plants which appear  too heavv  for
flying, are  furnish xl with other resources.   The  pease of  the
balsamine have pods whose elasticity darts them to a consider- *
able distance.   There is likewise a tree  in India,*  the name of
which I do rot  uo-v recollect, that in like manner discharges
it's seeds with a noise like thafof a musket fired off.  Those
which have  neither tufts, nor pinions, nor springs, and which
from their  v. eight seem condemned to remain at th.• foot of the
vegetable which produced them, are  in  ve;y  Many cases those
which travel the  farthest.  The)-  fly oft' witn the  wings of a
bird.  It is thus that a  multiade of berries and shell-fruits re-
sow themselves.   Their  seeds arc inclosed it  stony incrusta-

  * I presume the author here alludes to the /««r<i crepitant of tiic \\\\s.t In-
dies, a tree* there called sand-box.—B. S. B. 
94             STUDIES OF NATURE.

tions not capable of being digested.   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 ri-
vers, nay beyond oceans.  By such means it was that a bird of
the  Moluccas re-peopled 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 Can-
not be subservient to their own commerce.
   This is not the place for bringing forward the relations which
vegetables  have no  animals.  It is sufficient to observe as we
go along that most birds resow the vegetable which feeds them.
Nay we find, without going from home, quadrupeds which con-
vey  to a great distance the seeds of the grasses.   Such among
others as do not  chew the cud, horses for  instance, whose dug
is hurtful to the meadows, for an obvious reason, they introduce
into  them a variety of foreign herbs, as the heath and the short
furze, the seeds of which they are  unable to digest.  They re-
sow, besides, a great many others, which adhere to their hair,
by the motion of their tail simply.  There are quadrupeds of
small size, such as the dormouse, the  hedge-hog, and the mar-
mot, which convey to the most elevated regions of the moun-
tains, acorns, beech-mast, and  chesnuts.
   It is singularly worthy of remark that volatile seeds are pro-
duced in much greater number than those of other species ; and
fa this we are called upon to  admire  the intelligence of that
Providence which foresaw every thing, and arranged all accord-
ingly.  The  elevated situations for  which  they are destined,
were exposed to be  speedily stripped of their  vegetables, by
the declivity  of their soil, and by the  rains,  which have a con-
tinual 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 deposited the Botanist's
treasure.
   It cannot be too frequently repeated, The remedies provided
by Nature always surmount the obstacles which  she has oppo-
sed ; and her compensations  ever exceed her gifts.  In truth,
if you except the inconveniences of declivity, a mountain  pre-
sents to plants the greatest variety of exposures.  In  a  plain
they have the s-»me Sun, the same degree of humidity, the same
soil,  the same wind; but if you ascend a mountain, situated  in 
STUDY XI.
{> 3
our Latitude only twenty-five fathoms of perpendicular height,
you change your climate as much as if you travelled twenty-five
leagues northward ;  so that a mountain of twelve hundred  fa-
thoms perpendicular height, would present us with a scale of
vegetation as extensive as that of twelve hundred leagues along
the Horizon, which is nearly our distance from the Pole : both
the one and the other would terminate in a region of perpetual
ice.   Every step we take upon a mountain, whether ascending
or descending, gives us a change of Latitude; and if we  en-
compass it round and round, every step changes our Longitude.
We shall fall in with points where the Sun rises at eight o'clock
in the morning ;  others at ten o'clock ;  others at noon.   We
should find an infinite variety of exposures; of cold toward  the
North, of heat to the South, of rain to the West, of drought to
the East; without taking into the account the different reflec-
tions of heat in sands, rocks, bottoms of vallies, and lakes, which
modify them a thousand various ways.
   We must proceed  farther to observe ; and who can do it
without  profound   admiration?  that  the season of the ma-
turity of most volatile seeds takes place toward the commence-
ment of Autumn ; and that from an effect of the  universal  In-
telligence, which constrains all the parts of nature  to act in con-
cert.   Then it is that we have the most violent gales of wind,
about the end of September or beginning of October, called  the
equinoctial winds.   These winds blow in all parts  of the Conti-
nents, from the bosom of the seas to the mountains which  are
in correspondence with them.  Not only do they convey thither
the volatile grains which have then attained to a state of matu-
rity, but likewise blend with these  thick clouds of dust, which
they carry off from lands dried up by the burning heats of Sum-
mer, and particularly from the shores of the Sea, where the  in-
cessant motion of the billows, which there break, and continu-
ally toss  the pebbly strand backward and forward, reduce  the
hardest bodies to an impalpable powder.
   Those emanations of dust are in many places so copious, that
I could produce  a variety of instances of vessels covered witli
them, as they were crossing gulfs, diough more than  six leagues
distant from land.   They are so troublesome  in the loftier pro-
vinces of Asia, that all travellers who have visited Pekin assure
us it is impossible to walk the streets of that city, for a considc- 
 96            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 rable part of the year, without having the face veiled.  Thus
 there are rains of dust which repair the summits of the moun-
 tains, as  there are rains of water which feed their sources.
 Both the one and the other issue from the Sea, and return to it
 by the course of the rivers, which are perpetually conveying thi-
 ther their constant tribute of waters and sands.  The maritime
 winds unite  their efforts toward 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 wonderful manner to keep up
 the vegetation of the mountains.
   I have  been mentioning the relations of plants to mountains;
 I am mortified that it is not in my power here to insert the re-
lations which mountains themselves have with plants, according
 to my original intention.  All that I can at  present say on this
 subject is, that so far are mountains from being the productions
 of a centrifugal force, or of fire, or of earthquakes, or of water
 courses, I know of at least ten  different species, each of which
 has a configuration the most perfectly  adapted for keeping up
 in every particular Latitude the harmony  of the elements rela-
 tively to vegetation. Each of them has moreover vegetables and
 quadrupeds peculiar to itself, and which are nor elsewhere to be
 found.  This proves to a demonstration that 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 the Icy Zones, there is but one single
 species, the least considerable 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.   But this interesting subject, of
 :m extent  too considerable to admit of it's being here introduced,
 belongs, besides, to the province of Geography.
   Let us  now proceed to display the harmony of aquatic plants.
   These have dispositions entirely different in their leaves, the
 bearing of their branches, and  above  all in the configuration of
 their seeds.  Nature, as has already been observed, in order to
 vary her harmonics, only employs in  very many cases positive 
STUDY XL                     97
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 transforms them
into aquatic plants.  These, instead of having their leaves hol-
lowed out into gutters,  are  cloathed with leaves smooth and
sleek, such as the corn flag, which bears them in form of a poig-
nard'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.
Those of the nymphse or plane, and rounded in form of a heart.
Some of these species affect their forms, but their long tails are
uniformly destitute of a canal.  Those of the bulrush are round
like a pipe.   There is an endless  variety of rushes on the brink
of morasses, rivulets, and fountains.   You will find them of al!
sizes, from those which have the fineness of a hair up to the spe-
cies  which grow in the river of Genoa as large as a cane,
Whatever difference  there maybe in the jointing of their stalks
and of their panicles, they all have in their plan a round or elip-
tical  form.   You will find those species alone  which grow in
parched situations to be  fluted and hollowed  on their surface.
When nature intends to render aquatic plants susceptible of ve-
getation  on the  mountains,  she  bestows aqueducts  on their
leaves; but when on the contrary she means to place mountain-
plants by the water's-side, she withdraws it.  The aloes  of the
rock has it's leaves hollowed into a scoop; the aloes of the wa-
ter has them full.  I am acquainted  with a dozen species of
mountain-fern, every one of which has a small fluting along it's
branches, and  the only species of the  marshes which I know
wants it.  The bearing of it's branches is likewise very different
from that of the  others.   The first rears them toward Heaven
the last bears them almost horizontally.
   I f the leaves of mountain plants are constructed in the best
manner possible for collecting at their roots the waters of Hea-
ven, which they have not always  at command; those of aquatic
plants are frequently disposed in such  a manner as to remove
them, because they are destined to grow in the bosom of water,
or in it's vicinity.  The leaves of trees which love the water's
side, as the birch, the aspin, and the poplar, are attached to long
and pendant tails.  There  are others  which bear their leaves
disposed  in  form  of tiles, as the great chesnut of India and the
   Vol. II.  .                   N 
98
STUDIES OF NATURE,
 walnut.  Those of plants which grow in the shade, around the
 trunk of trees, and which derive by their roots the humidity col-
 lected by the foliage of the tree, as the french-bean and the con-
 volvulus, have a similar bearing.  But those which grow entire-
 ly under the shade of trees, and which have scarcely any roots,
 as mushrooms, have  leaves that  so  far from pointing toward
 Heaven are  turned downward to the earth.  The greatest part
 are formed on the upper side into a thick parasol, to prevent the
 Sun from drinking up the moisture of the soil in which they
 grow; and they are divided on  the under side into thin leafy
 plates,  for receiving the vapors which exhale from the ground,
 nearly as those of the horizontal wheel ofa fire-engine receives
 the steam of the boiling water which makes  it to  turn about,
 They have besides several other means of  watering themselves
 by these exhalations.   There are many numerous species lined
 with tubes, others are stuffed with sponges.   There are  some
 whose pedicle is hollow inwardly, and which  bearing a chapter
 a-top, there collect the emanations of their  soil as in an alembic.
 Thus there is not a particle of vapour in the Universe that goes
 to waste,
   What has just now been said of the inverted forms  of mush-
 rooms, of their leafy plates, of the tubes and sponges with which
 they are lined,  for receiving  the vapours exhaled  from the
 ground, confirms what was advanced respecting the use of the
 leaves of mountain-plants hollowed into gutters,  or constructed
 into the form of a pencil, or of a fan, for  receiving the waters
 of Heaven,   But aquatic plants which had no need  of such re-
 cipients, because they thrive in wTater, have, if I may so express
 myself, a repulsive foliage.  I shall here present an  object of
 comparison, calculated to produce conviction of the truth of
 those principles: for example, the mountain-box-tree and the
 caper-plant of the rocks, have their leaves hollowed into a spoon
form, with the concavity turned toward Heaven ; but the vac-
 cinium of die marshes, (cranberry) or vaccinia palustris, which
 is likewise furnished with concave leaves, bears them inverted,
with the cavity turned toward the earth.   From this negative
character, I was enabled to distinguish, as a plant of the marshes,
a very rare plant in the Royal Garden, which I saw for the first
time.   It is the ledum palustre, which grows in the marshes oi
the Labrador country.   It's leaves, formed like little  coffct- 
STUDY XL
99
*>poons, are all inverted ; their convex side being turned toward
Heaven.  The water-lentil of our marshes, as well as the typha
of our rivers, has the middle of it's leaf swelled.
   Botanists, on observing leaves nearly similar to plants on the
brink of the water, and on the heights of mountains, never en-
tertained a suspicion that they could answer purposes so differ-
ent.   Many of them no doubt are persons of profound erudition j
but their learning is rendered entirely useless to them, because
their  method constrains them to proceed in one single track, and
their  system  indicates to them only one kind of observations.
This is the reason that their most numerous collections frequent-
ly present nothing but  a mere vocabulary.   The Study of Na-
ture is spirit and intelligence simply.  Her vegetable order  is
an immense volume, of which plants form the thoughts, and the
leaves of those very plants the letters.  Nay there is not a very
great number of primitive forms in the characters of this alpha-
bet :  but by means of  their various assemblages she forms,  as
we do with ours, an infinite number of different thoughts.  As
it is with language, in order totally to alter the meaning of an
expression, all that she has in many cases to do is to change an
accent.  She places rushes, reeds, arums with  a  sleek foliage
and a full pedicle, on the banks of rivers : she traces an aque-
duct in the leaf, and transforms them  into rushes, reeds, and
arums of the mountains.
   We must at the same time be carefully on our guard against
generalizing those means; otherwise they will quickly betray
us into a misapprehension of her procedure.  For example, cer-
tain Botanists having suspected that  the leaves of  some plants
might very well  be  adapted for collecting the rain water, be-
lieved that they had a perception of this use in that of  the dip-
sacus, or fullers^thistle.  It was very easy to fall into a  mistake
here, for the leaves are  opposite,  and meet at their bases ;  so
(hat after it has rained they present reservoirs, which contain
one with another a good half-glass of water, and which  are dis-
posed in stories along  it's stem.   But they ought to have con-
sidered, first, that the dipsacus grows naturally on the brink  of
waters, and that Nature does not bestow  cisterns of water on
aquatic plants.  This would be,  according to  die  proverb,  to
carry water to the river.  Secondly, they might have observed
that the tiers formed by the opposite  leaves of the dipsacus,  zo 
100
STUDIES OF NATURE.
far from being reservoirs, are on the contrary discharges, which
convey off the rain water from it's roots, to the distance of nine
or ten inches on  every side  by the extremities of it's leaves.
They resemble, in some respects, the gutters which project from
the roofs of our houses, or those which are formed by the corners
of our hats,  which serve to carry away the rain water from the
body and not to throw it  inward.   Besides, the water which re-
mains in the cavity of the leaves of the dipsacus never  can get
down to the  root of the plant, for it is detained there as at the
bottom of a  vase.  It would not even be proper for moistening
it, for Pliny insists that it is brackish.   The birch-wort which
grows in the trembling and frothy marshes  of Canada, carries
at it's base two leaves, formed like the halves of a trumpet saw-
ed asunder lengthwise. They are both concave, but have  at the
extremity  that is farthest from the plant a kind of bill shaped
like a spout. The water which remains in the receivers of these
aquatic plants, is perhaps destined to supply drink to the small
birds, which sometimes find  themselves not a little embarrassed
how to come at it in the time of inundations.
   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  appearances,
and in order to  form  his understanding, she  makes him rise
from the means which she employs to the ends which she pro-
poses.   If certain aquatic plants seem to present in their foliage
some  of the characters  of  mountaineers, there are upon the
mountains some which seem to present characters  similar to
those  of the  waters ;  such, for example, is the broom.  It bears
leaves so small and so few in number, that they appear insuffi-
cient for collecting  the water necessary to it's  growth, and  so
much the more that it thrives in soils the most parched.  Nature
has indemnified it in another manner.  If it's leaves are small
it's roots are very long. They go in quest of coolness to a great
distance.  I have seen some of them extracted  from  the earth,
which were  more than twenty feet in length, and it was neces-
sary after  all to break them off, it being impossible to reach the
extremities.   This prevents  not the scanty leaves from exhibit-
ing the  mountain-character  ; for  they are concave,  they point
toward  Heaven, and are lengthened out like  the under bill of a
bird. 
STUDY XL
101
   1 he greatest part of aquatic vegetables throw  the water off
from them, some by their port;  such as the birch, the branches
of which, so far from  rearing themselves toward Heaven, fall
downward in form of an arch.   The same thing may be affirm-
ed of the great chesnut and of the  walnut,  unless  these  trees
should have changed their natural attitude by growing in thirs-
ty situations.   Their bark is usually sleek, as that of the birch,
or scaly like that of the  chesnut; but not hollowed  into canals,
as that of the elm or the mountain pine.   Others have in them-
selves a repulsive quality: such are the leaves of the nymphaea,
and of several species of colewort, on which the drops of water
collect into globules  like the  particles of  quicksilver.   Nay
there are some which it is extremely difficult to moisten, such
as the stems of many species of  capillary plants.   The laurel,
we are told, carries it's  repulsive quality to such a degree as to
repel the thunder.  If  this quality, so highly  extolled by  the
Ancients, is really possessed by the laurel, we must undoubt-
edly ascribe this to it's  nature as a fluviatic plant.   The  laurel
grows in abundance on the banks of the rivers of Thessaly.  A
traveller, whose name is the Sieur de la Guilleticre,* says, in a
relation  written in a very lively and agreeable manner, that he
never saw any where  such fine laurels as  along the side of the
river Peneus.   Hence perhaps was suggested the idea of die
metamorphosis of Daphne, the  daughter of that river-deity,
transformed by Apollo into a laurel.
   This repulsive property of certain trees, and of some aquatic
plants, induces  me to think that they might be employed around
our habitations,  as a  security against thunder-storms,  and that
in a manner more certain, and much more agreeable than elec-
trical conductors, which dissipate only by attracting them to the
neighbourhood, f   They might  farther be very advantageously
employed for drying  marshy grounds ; as the attractive quali-

      * See the Voyage to Laccdemon, In the Sicur de la GuilUtitre.
  f I am really inclined to the opinion, that there is a great difference in
dilKrent trees, in regard to their pown- of attracting and conducting tho
electrical fluid: and hence, during thunder-storms, our houses and persons
are more secure with one than with another species of tree in the immediate
vicinity.  On tliis subject, curious if not important, I composed  a memoir
scvrral years ago, and long before I had read any part of the Studies of Saint-
Pierre  I hare found, that  the l^.k-wulnut, (juglans nigra,} the common 
L02
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 ties of many  mountain-vegetables might  be used  in  forming
 fountains upon heights, by collecting there  the vapours which
 float in the air.   There is not perhaps an infectious morass on
 the Globe,  except in places where  men have injudiciously de-
 stroyed the plants whose roots  absorbed the humidity of the
 Earth, and whose foliage  repelled that of the Heavens.
   I pretend not  to  affirm however that the foliage of aquatic
 plants has  no farther uses: for where is the man who has en-
 tered into  the endless views of Nature ? " To whom hath the
 " root of wisdom been revealed ? or who hath known her wise
 counsels?"  Radix sapientice cut  revelata est? et  astutias  illim
 quis agnovit f\  In general, the leaves of aquatic plants appear,
 from their extreme mobility, very much adapted to the purpose
 of renewing the air of humid places, and of  producing  by  their
 movements, that drying of the ground to which I have just al-
 luded.  Such are those of reeds, of poplars,  of aspins, of birches,
 and even of willows, which are  sometimes  in motion though
 there is not the slightest degree of wind perceptible.
   It is farther remarkable that most of these vegetables emit a
 very pleasing smell ; among others, the poplar and the birch,
 especially in the  Spring: and that a great  number of aromatic1
 plants thrive by the water's-side,  as mint,  sweet marjoram, ci-»
 perus, the sweet-smelling rush, the iris, the calamus aromaticus:
 and in the Indies, the spice plants, such as the cinnamon-tree,
 the  nutmeg, and the clove.  Their perfumes must contribute
 very powerfully to diminish the mephitic exhalations which are
 natural to marshy and humid places. They have likewise many
 uses relatively to animals,  such as affording a shade to the fishes
 which resort thither in quest of a shelter from the scorching heat
 of the Sun.
   But one conclusion we may certainly deduce in favour of our
 improvements  in culture  from  the observations  now made j
 namely this, That in the  cultivation of plants, the pedicle of

 American chesnut, (castania americana,) the tulip-tree, (liriodendron  tulipi-
fera,) and some otliers, are much more frequently struck, and shattered to
 pieces, by the lightning, than the common tupelo, (nyssa integrifolia,) the
 beech, (fagus ferruginea,) the occidental plane-tree,  (platanus occidentalis,)
 &c. It is asserted that the tupelo is never injured by the lightning.—I design
 to publish my memoirs on this subject.—B. S. B.
t Ecclesiasticus, chap. i. ver. 6, 
STUDY XL
103
whose leaves presents no impress of a canal, it is necessary to
water them copiously ; for in this case they are naturally aqua-
tic.  The nasturtium,  the mint, and the sweet-marjoram, con-
sume a prodigious quantity. But when plants are provided with
a canal, they must be watered more sparingly, for this demon-
strates 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 destined 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 at-
tentive study of this part alone, a great number of very curious
discoveries  might be made, respecting the art  of crossing cur-
rents of every sort; and I am persuaded that the first men, who
were much  better observers than we are,  copied their different
methods of travelling by water after those models of Nature, of
which  we with  all our pretensions to  discovery are but feeble
imitators.
   The aquatic  or maritime pine  has it's kernels inclosed in a
kind of little bony shoes, notched on the under  side, and cover-
ed over on  the  upper  with a piece resembling a ship's hatch.
The walnut, which delights so much in the banks of rivers, has
it's fruit contained in two  little boats whose apertures are per-
fectly fitted to each other.  The hasel, which becomes so bushy
on the brink of rivulets ; and the olive, which is enamoured of
the sea-shore to such a degree that it degenerates in proportion
as you remove it thence, carry their seed inclosed in a species of
little casks capable of holding out the longest voyages. The red
berry of the yew, whose favourite residence is the cold and hu-
mid mountain by the side of a lake, is hollowed into a little bell.
This berry on dropping from the  tree,  is  at first carried down
by it's fall to the bottom of the water : but it returns instantly
to the surface, by means of a hole which Nature has contrived,
in form of a navel, above  the seed.  In this aperture is lodged
a bubble of air, which brings it back to the surface of the water,
by a mechanism more ingenious than that of the divcr's-bell ip 
loi             STUDIES OF NATURE.
this, that the vacuum of the diving-bell is undermost, and m the
berry of the yew it is uppermost.
   The forms of the seeds of aquatic-plants are still more  curi-
ous ; for universally, Nature redoubles her skill and exertions
in favour of  the little  and the weak.  That of the bulrush re-
sembles a lobster's eggs ; that of fennel is a real canoe in minia-
ture, hollowed in the middle, with both ends raised into a prow.
There are others grooved into each other, resembling pieces of
wood disposed for a float and worm-eaten ; such are those of the
 horned  poppy.  Those  which are destined to thrive on the brink
 of waters destitute of current are wafted by sails ;  such is the
 seed of a scabious  plant of our own country which grows on the
 border  of morasses.  Besides  the  difference of this from the
 other species of scabious, whose seeds are crowned with prong-
 ed  hairs, in order to fasten themselves on the hairs of the ani-
 mals which transplant them, the one last-mentioned is overtop-
 ped by a half  bladder, open and resting on it's summit  like a
 gondola.  The half-bladder serves it at once as a sail by water,
 and as  a vehicle by land. These means of natation, though end-
 lessly varied, are common in all climates to the grains of aqua-
 tic  plants.
   The  almond of the  river of the Amazons, known by the name
 of totoca, is inclosed in two shells, exactly similar to those of an
 oyster.  Another fruit on the strand  of the same river, which
 abounds in  almond-trees, has a perfect resemblance  in colour
 and form to an earthern pot, with it's little lid ;* it goes by the
 name of the monkey's porridge-pot.  Others are formed into
 large bottles as the fruit of the great gourd.  There are seeds
 incrusted in a coat of wax, which makes them float, such are the
 berries  of the wax-tree, or royal pimenta of the shores of Lou-
 isiana.   The formidable  apple of the mancenilla, which grows
on the sea-shore of the islands situated between the Tropics, and
the fruit of the  manglier, which grows there actually in the salt
water, are almost ligneous.  There are others with shells simi-
lar to the sea-urchin, without prickle -.  Many are coupled and
perform their voyage  like the  double canoe, or  balse, of the
South-Sea.   Such is the double cocoa of the Sechelles islands.
 » <a                                     * -f'
   sve engravings  of most of those seeds, in John de Lact'x History of the
Vest-Indies. 
 
■LEAVES TOTHQ1TT A?f AQ VM.17V I'T AND NAU'TlfAL
       EKUITS  OFTEtMETABJ.ES  OV THE SHOIK .
Zeat* ctncf J^rutf of the J/arania
on the Shore* />/' /a I ?r< i Oiiz. 
STUDY XI.
105
   If you examine the leaves, the stems, the attitudes, and the
seeds of aquatic plants, you will always remark in them charac-
ters relative to the places where they are destined to grow, and
in harmony with each other ; so that if the seed has a nautical
form, it's leaves are deprived of an aqueduct; just as in moun-
tain-plants, if the grain is volatile, the pedicle of the leaf, or the
leaf altogether, presents a channel.
   I shall assume, as  an instance of  the nautical barmonies of
plants, the nasturtium, with which every one is acquainted. This
plant, which bears flowers so agreeable, is one of the cresses of
the rivulets of Peru.   It must be observed first, that the foot-
stalks of it's leaves have no conduit, like those of all aquatic
plants ; they are inserted in the middle of the leaf, which they
support like an umbrella, to ward off from them the water which
falls from Heaven.  It's seed when fresh has exactly the form
of a boat.  The upper part is raised into a slope like a bridge
to let the water run off; and you  distinguish perfecdy  in  the
lower part a poop and  a prow, a keel and a bottom.  (See the an-
nexed plate.}  The little furrows of the seed of the nasturtium
are characters common to most nautical grains, as well as the
triangular forms, and those  of the kidney or keel.  Those fur-
rows undoubtedly prevent them from rolling about in all direc-
tions,  constrain them to floating  along lengthwise,  and give
them the direction the best adapted to the track of the water,
and to the passage of the narrowest straits.  But  the)- have a
character still more general ; it is this, that they swim in theii
state of maturity, which is not the  case with grains destined
to grow in the plains, such as pease and lentils, which sink to
the bottom.
   Some species of these nevertheless, such as the french-bean,
6ink at first to the bottom, and rise to the surface when penetra-
ted with the water.   Others, on the  contrary,  float at first and
sink afterward.  Such is the Egyptian bean, or the seed of the
colochasia, which grows in the waters of the Nile.  In order to
sow it you are under the necessity of rolling it up in a ball  of
earth, and in that state  it is thrown into the water.   Without
this precaution not one would remain on the shores where you
would wish it to grow.  The natability of aquatic  seeds is un-
doubtedly proportioned to the length of the voyages which they
have to  perform, and to the different gravity of the waters in
   Vol.  II.                    O 
106             STUDIES OF NATURE.
 which they are destined to swim.   There are some which float
 in sea-water and sink in fresh, which is lighter than sea-water
 by one thirty-second part: such precision is in the balancing of
 Nature ! I believe that the fruit of the great  India  chesnut,
 which thrives on the shores of the salt creeks of Virginia, are
 in this  situation.  In a word, I am so entirely convinced of all
 the relations which 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 of the attention of the philoso-.
 phic mind, to trace those vegetable fleets sailing along night and
 day with the current of the rivulets, and arriving, undirected by
 anv pilot, on unknown regions.  There are some which, by the
 overflowing of the waters, 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 beau-
 tiful sea-green.   You woidd have thought that  Flora, pursued
 by some River-god, had dropped  her basket in the urn of the
 deity.  Others more fortunate, issuing from the sources of some
 stream, are caught by the current of the greater rivers, and con-
 veyed away to embellish their distant banks with a verdure not
 their own.
   There are  some which cross the vast Ocean ; and after a
 long navigation are driven by the very tempests on the regions
 which they  adorn and enrich.  Such  are the double cocoas  of
 the Sechelles or Mahe Islands, which the Sea carries regularly
 every year a distance of four hundred leagues, and lands  them
 on the coast of Malabar. The Indians who inhabit it were long
 under the persuasion,  that those annual presents of the Ocean
 must have been the produce of paim-trees that grow under it's
 billows.  They gave them the name of marine cocoa-nuts ; and
 ascribed wonderful virtues to them.  They set as high a value
 upon them as upon ambergris ; and to such a pitch was this ex-
 travagance carried, that many of those fruits have  been  sold as
 high as a thousand crowns  a-piece.  But the French  having
 some years ago discovered the Island of Mahe, which produces
them, and which is situated in the  fiftieth degree of South-La-
titude,  imported them  in  such quantities to India,  that they 
STUDY XL                     lor
sunk at once in value and  in  reputation; for men in every
country prize those things only which are rare and mysterious.
  In eveiy 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.  James Cartier and Champlain
represent the strands of the lakes  of North-America as shaded
by stately walnut-trees.  Homer, who has so  attentively studied
Nature, at times when,  and in  places where, she still retained
her virgin beauty,  has planted the wild-olive along the shores
of the island on which Ulysses floating upon a raft, is thrown
by  the tempest. The navigators who have  made the first dis-
coveries in the seas of the  East-Indies,  frequendy found  in
them shallows planted with cocoa-trees.   The Sea throws  such
quantities of fennel-seed on the shores of Madeira, that one of
it's bays has obtained the name of Funchal, or Fennel-Bay.
   It was by the course  of those  nautical  seeds, too carelessly
observed by modern Seamen, that the Savages formerly disco-
vered  the islands to windward  of the countries which  they in-
habited.   They formed conjectures respecting a tree at a great
distance, on seeing it's fruit cast upon their shores.   By similar
indications Christopher Columbus  acquired the assurance that
another world  existed.  But the regular winds and currents
from the East,  in the South-Sea, had carried them long before
to the  Nations of Asia ; of which I shall say something toward
the end of this  Stud)-.
   There are besides vegetables of an amphibious nature.  They
arc disposed in such a manner, that one  part of their foliage
raises  itself toward Heaven, and the  other forms an arcade and
bends  downward to the  ground.  Nature has given  to  their
seeds likewise 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.   This down is  composed of small
capsules like the bottom of a lamp, and with two beaks filled with
seeds, which are covered with a plume : so  that the wind con-
veys those  capsules through the air, and likewise transports
them by sailing along the  face of the  w ater.  This configura-
tion was admirablv adapted to be the vehicles of the seeds of 
 108            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 plants which grow by the side of stagnant  waters and lakes-
 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 plu-
 mage, because the current of the stream is designed to convey
 them from place to place.
  The seeds of the fir and of the birch have at once  volatile and
 nautical  characters ; for the fir  has  it's kernel  attached  to a
 membranous wing; and the birch has it's grain embraced by two
 wings, which  give  it  the appearance of a little  shell.   These
 trees grow at once on the wintry mountains and on the margin of
 the lakes of the North ; their seeds had occasion not only to sail
 over stagnant waters, but to be transported through the air over
 the snows, in the midst of which they take delight.   I have no
 doubt that there may be species of these  trees the seeds of which
 are altogether nautical. Those of the  linden-tree  are carried in
 a spherical body similar to a little bullet.  This bullet is affixed
 to a long tail, from the extremity of which descends obliquely
 a follicle of considerable  length,  whereby the wind  carries it
 away to a great distance, spinning it round and  round.   When
 it drops into the water it plunges  about the  length of an inch,
 and serves in some sort as ballast to  it's tail, and to the little
leaf attached to it, which being thus brought to a vertical situa-
tion, perform the functions  of  a mast and  a sail.  But the ex-
amination of so many curious varieties would carry me too far.
  This would be the  proper place to speak of  the  roots of ve-
 getables ; but I  am little  acquainted with what passes under
ground.  Besides in all Latitudes, on heights as well as  by the
water's side, we find the same  substances nearly, muds, sands,
pure mould, rock, which must produce,  a much greater resem-
blance in the roots of plants than in the other parts of their ve-
getation*  I have no doubt however that Nature  has establish-
ed on this subject relations,  the knowledge of which would be
highly useful, and that a cultivator somewhat experienced might
be able, by inspecting the root of a vegetable, to determine the
species of soil best adapted to it.   Those which are very hairy
seem  most  proper for sandy grounds.   The  cocoa tree, which
 grows to a very  large size on the shores of  the Torrid Zone,
thrives in pure sand, which it interlaces with  such a prodigious-
quantity of hairy fibres, as to form a solid mass around it.  It is
on this basis that it effectually resists the most violent tempests 
STUDY XI.
109
in the midst of a moving  soil.   What is singularly remarkable
in the case of thi3 plant, it never succeeds so well as in the sand
on the sea-shore, and  generally languishes in the interior of a
country.
   The Maldivia Islands, which are for the most  part nothing
but sandy shallows, are the  most renowned regions of all Asia
for the abundance and the beauty of their cocoa trees.   There
are other vegetables  of the  shores  the  roots of which  are
drawn out like cords.   This configuration renders them exceed-
ingly proper for binding together the ground, and  thereby  de-
fending it against the inroads of the  watery element.  Such are
among ourselves the alder, the reed, but above  all a species of
dog-grass, which I have seen very carefully cultivated in Hol-
land along the dikes.
   Bulbous plants appear in like manner to take pleasure  in soft
muds, into  which they  cannot  penetrate very far from  the
roundness of their bulbs.  But the elm extends it's roots at
pleasure on the declivity of the mountain; and the oak  inserts
his sturdy pivots into it,  to lay hold of the successive strata of
which it  is  composed.  Other plants preserve  on the high
grounds, by their creeping foliage and their superficial roots, the
emanations of dust which the winds  there deposit.  Such is the
anemone nemerosa.   If you find a  single root of it on a hill, in a
wood not greatly frequented, you may rest assured that it dif-
fuses itself like a net-work through the whole extent of that
wood.
   There are trees, the trunks and the  roots of which are admi-
rably constructed with  obstables which appear to us accidental,
but which provident Nature foresaw.  For example, the cypress
of Louisiana grows with it's foot in the water, chiefly on  the
banks of  the Mechassippi, whose vast shores it magnificently
shades.   It rises there  to a height which  surpasses that of al-
most  any of the trees  of  Europe.*  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 the prodigious
rafts of timber  which float  down it's  stream, and which have
'obstructed most of it's mouths  to  such a degree as  to interrupt

       * Sec Father Charlevoi.r, hi* History of New France, vol. i\\. 
110
STUDIES OF NATURE.
the navigation to vessels of  any considerable burthen.   And to
put it beyond a doubt that  she designed the thickness of it's
trunk for withstanding the shock of floating bodies, it is remarka-
ble that at the  height of six feet  she suddenly diminishes  the
size of it at least a third, the full magnitude having become su-
perfluous at that degree of elevation: and for the purpose of secur-
ing it in another manner still more advantageous, she raises  out
of the root of the tree at four  or  five feet distance all  around,
several large stumps from one foot to four feet high. These are
not shoots; for their  head  is smooth, and bears neither leaves
nor branches : they are real ice-breakers.
   The tupelo, another great tree of Carolina, which grows like-
wise by the water's-side, but in creeks, has nearly the same di-
mensions  at it's base, excepting the ice-breakers or pallisades.
The seeds of those  trees are fluted, as I have already observed
to be the case of aquatic seeds  in general;  and that of the cy-
press of Louisiana differs  considerably, by it's nautical form,
from  that of the cypress of the mountains of Europe, which is
volatile.  These observations are so much the more worthy of
credit, that Farther Charlevoix, who  in part relates them,  de-
duces no consequence  whatever from the facts, though he was
abundantly capable of interpreting  their use.
   It must now be apparent of  what importance it is to  connect
the study of plants with that of the other works of Nature.   It is
possible to ascertain by their flowers the  exposure to the Sun
which is best adapted to them ;  by their leaves the quantity of
water that is necessary to vegetation; by  their roots, the  soil
which is  most suitable; and by their fruits, the  situations in
which they ought to be placed, together with new relations to
the animals which feed upon them.  By fruit I mean, as Bota-
nists likewise do, seed of every species.
   The fruit is the principal  character of the plant.  Of this we
may form a judgment, first from the care which Nature has be-
stowed  on it's formation and preservation.  It is  the ultimate
term  of her productions.  If you examine  in a vegetable  the
different envelopes which enclose it's leaves,  it's flowers, and it's
fruits, you will perceive a most wonderful progression of pains
and precautions.  The simple leaf-buds are easily  distinguisha-
ble from  the  simplicity of their cases.   Nay there are plants
which have none at all, as the fruits of the  gramineous, which 
STUDY XL                     in
start immediately out of the earth, and stand in no need of any
foreign protection.  But  the buds which contain  flowers are
provided with sheaths, or lined with down, as those of the apple-
tree ; or cased over 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 another, so as to be very
distinguishable even before the expansion.
   You afterwards perceive that the care employed in dressing
out the flower was entirely destined to the  fecundation of the
fruit; and that when this  is once formed, Nature redoubles her
precautions, both externally and internally, for it's preservation.
She gives it a placenta, she envelops it in pellicles, in  shells, in
pulps, in pods, in capsules, in husks, in skins, and sometimes in
a case of thorns.  A mother  cannot pay more attention to the
cradle of her infant.   In process of  time,  in order  that her
grown child may be enabled to go abroad, and look for a settle-
ment in the world, she crowns it with a tuft of plumage, or in-
closes it in a shell: furnishes it with  wings  to fly away through
the air, or with a bark to  sail off along die face of the water.
   There is something still more marked to arrest our observa-
tion in favour of  the fruit.   It is this, that Nature frequenth
varies the leaves, the flowers, the stems, and the roots of a plant;
but the fruit remains constantly the same, if not as to it's form,
at least as  to it's essential substance.   I  am persuaded that when
she was pleased to create a fruit, it was her intention that  it
should have the power of re-producing itself on  the mountains.
in the plains, amidst rocks, in sands, on the  brink of waters, and
under different Latitudes; and in  order to adapt it to it's situa-
tion, she varied the watering-pot, the mirror, the prop, the atti-
tude, the buttress, and the fur of the vegetable, correspondingly
to the Sun, to the rains, to the winds, and to the soil.   To this
intention, I believe, we ought to ascribe the  prodigious varietv
of species in eveiy genus, and the degree of beauty which each
attains when in the situation that is natural to  it. Thus, in form-
ing 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 it's  adaptations.
   I have eaten  of the fruit of the chesnut-tree of the Island of
Corsica.  It is as large as small hen's eggs,  and makes excellent
food.  You may read in a modern traveller the description of a 
112
STUDIES OF  NATURE.
chesnut-trce which grew in Sicily, on one of the ridges of Mount
iEtna.  It's foliage is of such extent that a  hundred cavaliers
could  repose  with ease under it's shade.   For that reason it
obtained the name of centum  cavallo.  Father Kircher assures
us  that  he had seen on the same mountain, in a place called
Trecastagne, three chesnut-trees of such a prodigious size, that
when  they were felled you might have lodged a large flock of
sheep under covert of their bark. The shepherds employed them
for this purpose in the night time, and in bad weather, instead
of penning up their charge in  the fold.  Nature has  granted to
this stately vegetable the faculty of collecting on the steep moun-
tains the waters of the  Atmosphere, by means of leaves formed
like so many tongues ; and of penetrating, by means of it's stur-
dy  roots, down to the very bed of fountains  in despite of lavas
and rocks.
  Nature has  been pleased elsewhere 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.  She has bestowed on the tree which bears it's
leaves disposed in form of a tile, a scaly bark, flowers different
from those of the European chesnut-tree, but adapted unques-
tionably to the  humid exhalations, and to the aspects  of the Sun
to which it is exposed.   In a word, she has transformed  it into
the great India chesnut.   It arrives at much greater beauty in
it's native country than in Europe.    That of America is the
maritime  chesnut-tree ; and that of Europe is 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.
  Finallv, 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 the same fruit in the grain of the black corn,
whicn in it's colour and it's triangular form resembles the seed
of the beech, called in Latin fagus, whence this  species of corn
has obtained  the name of fagopyrum.  One thing at any  rate
is certain, namely, that independent of the mealy substance, we
find in the black-corn, in the beech-mast, and in the chesnut, si-
milar properties, such as that of cooling excessive heat of urine.*

              * See Chomjl's Treatise on Common Plants 
STUDY XI.                     iu
   It was in like manner the intention of Nature to produce the
acorn in a great variety of exposures. Pliny enumerated in his
time thirteen different species in Europe, one  of them, which
makes very excellent food, is that of the green oak.   It is of
this that the Poets speak when they celebrate the felicity of the
Golden Age,  because it's fruit  then served  as an aliment to
Man.   It is worthy of being remarked that there is not a single
genus  of vegetable but what gives, in some one of it's species,
a substance  capable of being converted into  nourishment for
mankind.   The acorn of the green oak is,  among the fruits of
this genus of trees, the portion reserved for our use.   Nature
has been pleased, after making this provision for Man, to scat-
ter the other species of the oak over the different soils of Ame-
rica, to supply the necessities of her other creatures.   She has
preserved the fruit, and has varied the other parts of the vege-
ble. She has placed the acorn, but with the leaves of the willow,
on the plant which has for that reason got the name of the wil-
low-leafed oak, and which thrives in that country by the water's -
side.* She has placed it together with small and pendent leaves
affixed to pliant tails  like those of the aspinvon the water oak,
which grows there in the  marshes.   But when she intended to
plant them in dry and parched soils,  she united to  them leaves
often inches in breadth, adapted to the reception of rain-water,
such are those  of  the species known by the name of the black
oak in that country.
   It may be necessary farther to observe,  that the place where
any species  of plant produces the  finest  fruit, determines it's
principal genus.  Accordingly,  though the  oak has it's species
scattered about every where, it  must be considered as of the
genus  of mountain-trees ; because  that  which  grows on  the
mountains of America, and there distinguished by the name of
the chesnut-leafed oak, yields the largest acorns, and  is one of
the greatest trees in that part of the world ; whereas the water-
oak and the willow-leafed oak, rise to no great height, and pro-
duce very small acorns.
   The fruit, as we have seen, is  the  invisible  character of the
plant.   To it, accordingly, Nature  has  likewise attached  the

  ■ Sec the figures of it in Father Charlevoix, his History of New France,
vol. iv.
\'ni II
P 
114
STlJDIES OF NATURE.
principal relations of the animal kingdom to the vegetable.   It
was her intention that an animal of the  mountains should  find
the fruit on which he has been accustomed to live  in the plains,
on the sand, among the rocks, when he is under the necessity of
changing his country, and especially on the brinks of rivers.
when he descends thither to quench his thirst.   I  am not ac-
quainted with a single mountain-plant but what has some of it's
species, with  their  corresponding varieties, scattered over  all
situations, but principally on the margin of waters.
  The mountain-pine has it's kernels mounted on wings, and the
aquatic pine has it's seed inclosed on a skiff.   The seeds of the
thistle which grow on parched soil,  are  furnished with plumes
to convey them from place to place : those of the fullers-thistle,
which thrives by the water's-side, have none,  because they had
no occasion for any to assist them in swimming. Their flowers
vary for similar reasons $ and though  Botanists have two dif-
ferent genera of them,  the  goldfinch fails not to acknowledge
this last as a real thistle.  He rests himself  upon it when  he
finds it convenient to go and cool himself on some watery bank.
He forgets, on beholding his favourite  plant, the sandy downs
where he was born, and cheers the banks of the rivulet with the
music of his song, and the beauty of his plumage.
  It appears to me impossible to acquire any thing like a know-
ledge of plants  unless by studying their  geography and their
ephemeris.  Without this double illumination, which mutually
reflects, their forms will be for ever strange to us. The greatest
part  of Botanists however pay no manner of regard to this.  In
making their collections,  they remark  not the season at which
plants grow, nor the place where, nor the aspect to which  they
are exposed.   They carefully attend to  all their intrinsic parts,
and especially to their flowrers ;  and after this  mechanical ex-
amination, deposit them in their herbary, and imagine they have
a thorough knowledge of them, especially if they have had the
good fortune to  dignify them by imposing some  Greek name.
They resemble  a certain hussar of whom I  have heard, who
having happened to find a Latin inscription in  characters of
bronze, on an  antique monument, disengaged them one  after
another, and tumbled them together into a basket,  which he dis-
patched to an Antiquarian of his friends, Avith a request that he
would inform him what thev meant.  Thev no more lead us to 
STUDY XI.
115
an acquaintance with Nature, than a Grammarian would give
us a relish for the genius of Sophocles, by presenting us with a
naked catalogue of his tragedies, of  the  division of their acts
and scenes, and of the number of verses which compose them.
With equal absurdity are  they chargeable who collect plants,
without marking their relations to each  other, and to the ele-
ments ;  they scrupulously preserve the letter, but suppress the
sense.   Far different was the  manner in which a Tournefort, a
Faillant, a Linnaus, prosecuted the study of Botany.  If these
learned men have not deduced any consequence from those re-
lations, they have at least prepared  the projecting stones of ex-
pectation, which promise the construction of a future fabric of
science.
   Though the observations which I have  just made respecting
the elementary harmonies of plants,  are but few in  number, I
have the confidence to affirm that they are of very high impor-
tance to the progress of agriculture.  The point in question  is
not to  determine geometrically the genera  of flowers,  whose
mirrors are  the best adapted for reflecting the rays of the Sun
in every point of Latitude  ; the glory  of calculating their curves
is reserved for future Newtons.  Nature  has outrun our most
ardent wishes in those places where she has been left at liberty
to re-establish her own plans.   We  have it in our power to se-
cure prosperity  to ours, in a manner the most  beneficial, by
reducing them into harmony with her's.  In order to ascertain
what plants  are best adapted to succeed in such and such a dis-
trict, you have only to  pay attention  to the wild  plants which
thrive there  spontaneously, and which are distinguishable for
their vigor and for their multitude :  then substitute in their place
domestic plants, which have the same kind of flowers and leaves.
Wherever umbelliferous plants grow, you may put  in their room
such of our culinary vegetables as have most analogy with them,
from their leaves,  their flowers,  their roots,  and their grains,
such as the daucus genus:  the artichoke will there usefully re-
place the gaud\- thistle ; the domestic plumb-tree ingrafted on i:
wild stock of the same plant, in the very place where this spon-
taneously sprung up, will  become  extremely vigorous.  I am
persuaded that by these natural approximations, advantage might
be derived from the most barren sands and rocks  ; for there is 
116             STUDIES OF  NATURE.

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
manv harmonies between plants, and the situations  in  which
they were destined  to  vegetate, had she not likewise provided
means for restoring them, when destroyed by the intolerant cul-
ture of Man. Let a piece of ground be left uncultivated for ever
so short a  space of time, and you will presently see it clothed
with vegetables.  They grow in that case in such numbers, and
so vigorously, that there is  no husbandman capable of produ-
cing an equal quantity on the same spot, let him take what pains
he will.  These shoots however, so vigorous and so rapid, which
frequently take possession of our dock-yards of free-stone, of
our walls of ashlar, and of our courts paved with granite, are in
many cases only  a provisional culture.   Nature who is always
advancing from harmony to harmony, till she has attained that
point of perfection which she has proposed to herself, sows at
first with grasses, and with herbage of different species, all aban-
doned 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 behold stately forests arising.
   We shall throw, as our custom is, a superficial glance  on the
very ingenious methods which Nature employs for preparing and
conducting those vegetable progressions.  We shall hence attain
a glimpse at least, not only of the  elementary relations of plants,
but of those which exist between  their  different classes, and
which extend even to the animal kingdom.  Vegetables the most
contemptible in the eyes of Man are frequently the most  neces-
sary in the order of Creation.                >
   The principal means employed by Nature for securing the
growth of plants of every other species,  are the thorny plants.
It is very remarkable that plants of this description  are the first
which appear on lands  in fallow, or in forests which have been
rut down*  They are in truth  wonderfully well adapted to pro-
mote foreign vegetations, because their leaves with deep inci-
sions, like those of the thistle and echium, or their sprigs bent
into an  arch, as  those of the bramble, or their horizontal and
interlaced  branches, like those  of the  black-thorn,  or  their
boughs bristled with briars and unprovided with leaves, as those 
STUDY XL
11:
of the sea-rush, leave underneath and around them many inter-
vals through which other vegetables may arise, and find protec-
tion from the tooth of most quadrupeds. Nurseries of trees are
frequently found in their bosom.  Nothing is more common in
coppice-woods than  to see  a  young oak start out of a tuft of
brambles, which enamels the  earth all around with it's  clusters
of prickly flowers ; or a young pine arise out of a yellow brake
of marine-rushes.
  When these trees have once  acquired 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 plains.  Thus,  the
thorny plants are the original cradles of the forests ;  and the
scourge of  the agriculture of Man is the bulwark of that of
Nature.
   Man has however imitated in this respect the processes of
Nature ; for if he wishes to protect the newly sown seeds of his
garden, he  finds  it  frequently  necessary to cover them with
prickly branches of one  sort or another.   It appears to me pro-
bable that there is not a heath but what in time might become a
forest, were their commoners  restrained from driving the flocks
thither to pasture, for the  cattle  crop the tender shoots of  the
trees as fast as they spring up. This  in my opinion is the reason
why the declivities of the lofty mountains of Spain, of Persia, and
of many other parts of the World, are not clothed with trees: it is
because of the numerous flocks of sheep which are driven thither
in Summer, and which roam over their different chains.  I am
fully convinced that those mountains were covered in the earlier
ages of the World with forests which  were laid low by  their
first inhabitants :  and that they would resume  their ancient
clothing, though  now naked and desert, were the cattle to pas-
ture on them no longer.   It is very  remarkable that those ele-
vated regions are sowed over with  prickly plants, just as our
heaths generally are.
   Don Garcias de Figueroa Ambassador from Spain at the Court
of  Cha-Abbas King of Persia, relates, in the  account which he
has given of his journey,  that  the  lofty  mountains of Persia
which he crossed, and where the Turcomans  are continually 
118
STUDIES OF NATURE.
straying as they tend their fleecy  charge, were  covered with a
species of thorny shrub, which  grew luxuriantly  in the most
parched situations.  This same shrubbery served as a retreat to
a great number of partridges.
   From this circumstance we take occasion to observe, that Na-
ture employs the birds  particularly to sow the thorny plants in
places the steepest and  most inaccessible.  They are accustom-
ed to retire thither in  the  night, and there deposit with their
clung the stony seeds of the bramble-berry, of the  berry of the
eglantine, of the barber?)-, and of most  thorny shrubs, which,
from relations no less wonderful,  are indigestible in their sto-
mach.
   Birds have besides particular harmonies with those vegetables
as we shall make appear in it's proper place. Not only do they
find on them a plentiful  supply of food, and shelter  under them,
but downs for lining their nests, as on thistles, and  on the cot-
ton-tree of America; so that if many of them resort for safety
to the elevation of towering  trees, others find it in the thorny
brake.  There is not a single bush but what has  it's peculiar
bird.
   Independently of the plants proper  to  each  situation, and
which are there domesticated, there are some in a state of in-
cessant peregrination, and flit round the earth without settling
in any fixed abode.  We can easily have  a  conception of the
cause of this constant removal by supposing, what  is actuallv
the truth, that several of such plants shed their seeds only at the
season when certain regular  winds blow,  or at certain revolu-
tions of the currents of the  Ocean.  Whatever may be in this,
I am of opinion that we must rank under this description many-
plants which were known to the  Ancients, but which  are not
now to be found.   Such, among others, is the celebrated lazer-
pitium of the Romans, the juice of which, called lazer, sold for
it's weight in  silver.  This  plant, according to Pliny, grew in
the vicinity of the city of Corenum, in Africa ; but it had be-
come such a rarity  in his time as hardly any where to be seen.
He tells us that a single plant of  it had  been found under the
reign of Nero, and that  it was sent to  this Prince  as a great cu-
riosity.
   Modern Botanists pretend  that the lazerpitium  is the same
plant with the silphium of our gardens.  But they are evidently 
STUDY XL                     119
in an error,  from the descriptions which the Ancients, and
among others Pliny and  Dioscorides,  have left us of it.  For
my own part, I have no doubt that the lazerpitium is of the
number of the  vegetables which are  destined to flit along the
Earth, from East to West, and from West to East.  It is per-
haps at present on the western shores of Africa, u hither the eas-
terly winds may have conveyed it's seeds ; perhaps likewise, by
the revolutions of the westerly winds, it may have returned to
the place where it was in  the days of Augustus ; or it may have
been conveyed into the plains of Ethiopia, among Nations total-
ly unacquainted  with its  pretended wonderful qualities.
   Pliny  enumerates  a great many other vegetables, which are
at this day to us equally  unknown.   It may merit observation,
that those  vegetable apparitions have been contemporary with
several species of flitting birds, which have likewise disappear-
ed.   It  is well  known that there  are several classes of birds,
and of fishes, which do nothing but migrate incessantly over the
Earth and through  the  Seas ; some  in a certain 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, in  which some  new star is from time to
time making it's appearance.   Nature, as  I think, has disposed
her Works in such a manner as to have always some novelty in
reserve, in order to keep  man continually in exercise.   She has
established, in the duration of the existence of the different be-
ings of each  kingdom, concerts of a moment, of an hour, of a
day, ofa moon,  of a year, of the life of  a  man, of the duration
of a cedar, and perhaps of that of a globe : but this  undoubted-
ly 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 midst of the Sea,  from whence they diffuse
themselves over all the rest of the world.  This  leads me to
deduce what I consider as an  irrefragable argument in support
of the recent Creation of our Globe ;  it  is this, were the Globe
of very remote  antiquity, all the possible combinations of the
propagation of plants by  seed  would have been  already  com-
pleted all over the World.  Thus, for  example, there would not
be an uninhabited island  and shore of the  Seas of  India which
vou would not find planted with cocoa-trees, and sown with co 
120
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 coa-nuts, which the Ocean wafts thither every year, and which
 it scatters alternately on their strands, by means of the variety
 of it's monsoons and  of  it's currents.   Now  it is unquestion-
 ably certain, that  the  radiations of that tree and  it's fruit, the
 principal focuses of which are in the Maldivia Islands, are not
 hitherto diffused over all the islands of the Indian Ocean.
   The Philosopher Francis Leguat, and his unfortunate com-
 panions, who were, in the year 1690, the first inhabitants of the
 small Island of Rodriguez, which lies a hundred leagues to the
 eastward of the Isle of France, found no cocoa-trees in it.  But
 precisely at the period of their short residence there, the Sea
 threw upon the coast several cocoa-nuts in a state of germina-
 tion ; as if it had been the intention of Providence to induce
 them, by this useful and  seasonable present, to remain  on that
 island and to cultivate it.
   Francis Leguat, who was  unacquainted writh the relation
 which seeds have to the element in which they are designed to
 grow, was very much astonished to find that those fruits, which
 weighed from five to six pounds, must have performed a voyage
 of sixty or fourscore leagues without being corrupted. He took
 it for granted, and he was in the right, that they came from the
 Island of St. Brande, which  is  situated to the North-east of
 Rodriguez.  These two desert islands had  not  as yet, from the
 Creation of the  World,  communicated to each other all their
 vegetables,  though situated in a current of the Ocean  which
 sets in  alternately, in  the course of one year,  for six months
toward the one, and six months toward  the other.
  However this may be,  they planted those cocoa-nuts, which
 in the space of a year and a half sent out shoots of four feet in
 height.   A blessing from Heaven  so distinctly  marked, had
 not the power of detaining them in that happy  island.   An in-
 considerate  desire  of procuring themselves  women constrained
them to abandon it, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Le-
guat, and plunged them into a long series of calamities which
 few of them were able to survive.  For my own part, I can en-
tertain no doubt that had they reposed the confidence in Provi-
 dence which they had reason to  do,  it's care would have con-
veyed wives for them into that desert Island, as it had sent to
them the erift of the cocoa-nut. 
STUDY XL
1*1
  To return to the subject of vegetable  navigation;  all the
combinations and the versatilities of their sowings, would have
been long ago completed in islands lying between the same paral-
lels, and in the same monsoons, if the World had been eternal.
The double cocoa-nuts, the nurseries of which are  in the Se-
chelles Islands, would have diffused themselves, and would have
had time to  germinate  on the Malabar coast, on which the Sea
is from time to time throwing them.  The  Indians would have
planted upon their  shores  those  fruits  to which they ascribed
virtues so miraculous, while the palm-tree which  bears them
was so entirely unknown but twelve  years ago to the people of
this coast, that  they believed them to be natives of the bottom
of the Sea, and thence gave  them the appellation of marine co-
coa-nuts.  There are in like manner a multitude of other fruits
between the Tropics, of which the primordial  stocks  are  in the
Moluccas, in the Philippines,  in the islands  of the South-Sea,
and which are entirely  unknown on the coasts of both  Conti-
nents,  and even  in  the adjacent islands,  which undoubtedly
would have become there the objects of cultivation to their in-
habitants, had the Sea been  allowed sufficient time to multiply
the projection of them on their shores.
  I shall pursue this reflection no farther ;  but it evidently de-
monstrates the  newness of the World.   Were it eternal,  and
' xempted from the care ofa Providence, it's vegetables would
long since have undergone all the possible combinations of the
chance which  re-sows  them.  We  should  find their different
species  in every  situation where it  was possible for them to
grow.   From this observation  I  deduce another consequence,
namely this, That the Author of Nature evidently intended to
link Mankind together by a reciprocal communication of bene-
fits, the chain of which is as yet very far from being completed.
Where is, for example, the benefactor of Humanity,  who shall
transport to the Ostiacs and the Samoiedes, of Waigat's Strait,
Winter's tree from the Straits of Magellan,  the bark of which
unites the savour  of cloves, of pepper, and of cinnamon ? And
who is tbe man that shall convey to Magellan's  Strait the pease-
tree of Siberia, to feed the starving Patagonian ?
  What a rich collection might Russia make, not only of the
trees which thrive in the northern and the  southern regions of
America,  but of those which,  in all parts of the World, crown
  Vol. II.                    Q 
122
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 the loft)' ice-covered mountains,  whose elevated ridges have a
 temperature approaching to that of her plains ? Wherefore be-
 holds she not her forests enriched with the pines of Virginia,
 and with the cedars of Mount Lebanon ? The desert shores of
 the Irtis might every year clothe themselves with the same spe-
 cies of  oats wherewith so many  Nations, inhabiting the banks
 of the rivers of Canada,  are principally supported.   Not only-
 might she collect in her plains the trees and the plants  of cold
 Latitudes, but a great number of annual vegetables which grow
 during the course  of a Summer  in warm and temperate Lati-
 tudes. I know bv experience that the Summer's heat is  as pow-
 erful at Petersburg as  under the  Line.
  There are besides parts  of the ground in the North, which
 have configurations perfecdy adapted to afford a shelter against
 the northerly winds, and to multiply the warmth of the  Sun. If
<the South has  it's icy mountains, the North has it's reverbera-
 tory valleys.  I have seen one of those small valleys near Pe-
tersburg, at the bottom of which flows a brook  that never
 freezes  even in the midst of Winter.   The  rocks  of granite
 wherewith  Finland is roughened  all over, and which according
to the report of Travellers cover  most of the lands of Sweden,
 of the shores of the Frozen Ocean, and all Spitzbergen,  are suf-
 ficient for producing the same temperatures in  many  places, and
 for  diminishing in them to a considerable degree the  severity of
the cold.
  I have seen in Finland,  near Wiburg, beyond the sixty-first
 degree of Latitude, cherry-trees  entirely exposed to the wea-
 ther, though these trees are natives of the forty-second degree;
that is of the kingdom of Pontus, from whence Lucullus trans-
planted  them  to Rome after the  defeat of Mithrtdates.   The
peasantry of  that  Province  cultivate  tobacco  with  success,
which is a much more southerly plant, being originally a native
of Brasil.  It is I admit an annual plant, and that it does not ac-
quire in it's northern situation a very high degree of perfume;
for  they are under the necessity of exposing it  to  the heat of
their stoves, in order to bring  it to a state of  perfect maturity.
 But the rocks  with  which  Finland is covered over would un-
doubtedly present,  to  attentive  eyes, reverberating situations
which might bring it to a sufficient degree of maturity, withou*
the  aid of artificial heat. 
STUDY XL
123
  t myself found, not far from the city of Fredericksham, upon
a dunghill under the shelter of a rock, a very lofty tuft of oats
the produce of a single seed,  consisting of thirty-seven stalks,
loaded with as  many ears completely ripe, without reckoning a
multitude of other small suckers.  I gathered it with an inten-
tion of having it presented to her imperial Majesty, Catharine
II.  by my general  M. Dubosquet, under whose orders, and in
whose company I was then visiting the fortified places of that
province : it was likewise his intention; but our Russian atten-
dants, careless as all slaves are, suffered it to be lost.  He was
exceedingly vexed at this as well as I.   It is impossible to help
thinking, that a sheaf of corn so rich and beautiful, the produce
of  a province considered even at Petersburg as smitten with
sterility, because of the rocks which cover it's surface, and which
procured for it from ancient Geographers the epithet of lapidosa
(stony), would have been as acceptable to her Majesty, as the
huge block of  granite  which she has since had conveyed from
thence, to be formed at Petersburg into the basis of a statue of
Peter the Great.
  I have seen in Poland several private individuals cultivate the
vine and the  apricot-tree  with very great  success.   M. de Id
Roche, Consul from the Prince of Moldavia, carried me when
at Warsaw to a little garden in the suburbs of that city, which
produced to the occupier an annual revenue of one hundred pis-
toles, though it did not contain quite thirty of the last mentioned
tree.   It was totally unknown in that country a hundred and
fifty years ago.  The  apricot was first introduced  into  it by a
Frenchman, valet-de-chambre to a Queen of Poland.  This man
raised the fruit secretly, and made presents of it to the Grandees
of the Country, pretending that he had received it from France
by the couriers of the Court.   The great did not fail to pay him
magnificently for his presents; and this species of commerce
became to him  the foundation of an ample fortune, by means of
which his great-grand-children are at  this  clay the most oppu-
lent Bankers of the Country.
  What I have said respecting the possibility of enriching Rus-
sia  and Poland with useful vegetables, is not only in the view of
acknowledging, the  best way in my  power, the gracious recep-
tion with which I was honoured by persons  of rank  and bv
the government of those countries, when I was a stranger among 
124
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 them; but because  these indications tend equally*.to the im-
 provement of France, the Climate of which is more temperate.
 We have icy mountains capable of producing all the vegetables
 of the North; and reverberating valleys equally adapted to the
 production of most of those  of the South.  It would not be pro-
 per, as our custom is, to make an effort to render this species
 of culture general  through a whole district, but to set  it a-going
 in some little sheltered exposure, or in some small winding val-
 ley.  The influence  of these positions  is of  no great extent.
 Thus the famous  Constantia vine of the Cape of Good-Hope
 succeeds perfecdy only on a small spot of ground, situated at
 the bottom of a  little hill, whereas the adjoining and surround-
 ing vineyards do not produce the muscadine grape of any thing
 like the same quality.   Of this too I have had personal expe-
 rience.
  In France it would  be proper to  look for sheltered aspects,
 such as we have been  describing, in places  where  there are
 white stones in abundance, the colour of which is the best adapt-
 ed to reverberate the rays of the Sun.  Nay I believe that marl
 is indebted to it's  white colour  for part of the heat  which it
 communicates to the lands on which it is spread; for  it reflects
 upon them the rays  of  the  Sun with so much activity,  as to
 burn up the first shoots of many herbs.   This is the reason, if I
 am  not mistaken, why marl, which has  in other respects the
principles of fecundation within itself, kills a great many of the
 smaller herbs  which  are accustomed to  grow  under the shade
 of the corn, and  whose first  leaves are  more tender than those
of corn, which is  in general the  most hardy of gramineous
plants.
  It would be farther necessary to look for those fortunate ex-
posures in the vicinity of the Sea, and under the influence of it's
winds, which are so necessary to the vegetation of many plants
 that several of them refuse  to  grow in the  inland parts of a
 country.   Such  is among others  the olive-tree, which it has
been found impossible to propagate in the interior of  Asia and
of America, though the Latitude be in other respects favourable.
 Nay I have remarked that it is not  fruitful in islands and on
 shores where  it  is excluded from the  sea-breezes.  To this
 cause I ascribe the sterility of  those which have been planted
 in the Isle  of France, on it's western shore; for it is  sheltered 
STUDY XI.                     isj
from the East-winds by a chain of mountains.  As to the cocoa-
tree, it will not thrive between the Tropics, unless  it has, if I
may venture to say so, it's root in the sea-water.  It is I firmly
believe for want of these geographical considerations, and some
others of a similar nature, that many plans of improvement in
cultivation have failed  in  France, and in her Colonies.
   However that may be, it might be possible to find within the
kingdom an icy mountain, with perhaps a reverberating valley
below.  It would be a most agreeable employment to  go in
search of such a  situation,  and  the greatest benefits might be
derived from it.   We might convert it  into a  Royal Garden,
which would present to our Sovereign a spectacle of the vege-
tation of a multitude of climates, upon one line of less than  fif-
teen hundred fathoms of elevation. There he might  bid defiance
to the burning heat of the dog-star, under the shade of cedars,
on the mossy bank of a  rivulet issuing from  the snow  ; and
perhaps escape the severity of Winter's cold, at the bottom of a
valley with a southern aspect,  under the  palm-tree, and amidst
a field of sugar-canes.  We might there naturalize the animals
which are the compatriots  of those vegetables.   He might hear
the braying of the rein-deer of Lapland,  from the  same valley
in which he would see the peacocks of Java building their nests.
This landscape would collect around him  a part of the tributes
of the Creation,  and exhibit to him an image of the terrestrial
paradise, which was situated as I suppose in  a similar position.
In serious truth, I cannot  help expressing a wish, that our Kings
would extend their sublime enjoyments, as far  as the  study of
Nature has pursued it's  researches under   their   flourishing
Empire.*
   It now remains that  I examine the harmonies which  plants
form with each other.  These harmonies constitute the  inex-
pressible charm lavished on the sites which Nature has sowed

   " .Wm'fl mens hominum futi fortisque fnturx / Ah, blind to futurity! Little
did good Saint-Pierre think that the ill-fated Prince, for whom he took so
much delight to plant and decorate this earthly Paradise, was in the  course
of a few rleeting years to be dethroned, imprisoned, condemned, and publicly
executed, in the Metropolis of his own Kingdom ; and the very name of King
proscribed by a Nation once enthusiastically attached to \to\ alty. How won
derful are the Works of Nature !  How mysterious the w:tys of Providence '
—II II 
 126             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 and planted with her own hand ; and they are to be the subject
 of the ensuing section.

             VEGETABLE HARM.ONIES OF PLANTS.
   We are  going to  apply to plants  the general principles laid
 down in the preceding Study, by examining one after  another
 the harmonies of their colours, and of their forms.
   The verdure  of  plants, which is so graceful  to the eye, is a
 harmony of two colours opposite in their elementary generation;
 of yellow which is the colour of the  Earth, and of blue which is
 the colour of the  Heavens.   Had  Nature dyed plants yellow,
 they would have been confounded with the ground; if blue, they
 would have been confounded with the Heavens and the Waters.
 In the first case, all would have appeared Earth ; in the second,
 all  would  have  appeared  sea: but their verdure  gives them
 contrasts the most delightful with the grounds  of this magnifi*
 cent picture, and consonances equally agreeable with the yellow
 colour of the Earth, and with  the azure of the  Heavens.
   The green colour possesses this farther advantage, that it ac-
 cords in  a most wonderful manner with  all the others, which
 arises from it's being the harmony of the  two extreme colours.
 Painters who are endowed with taste, hang the walls of their
 exhibition-rooms with green, in order that the pictures, of what-
 ever colours, may detach themselves from that ground without
 harshness,  and harmonize upon it without confusion.*
   Nature,  not satisfied with this first general tint, has employ-
 ed, in extending it  over the ground  of her scene, what Painters
 call transitions.  She has appropriated  a particular shade  of
bluish green, which we call sea-green,  to  plants which grow in
 the vicinity of water, and of the Heavens.   This is  the shade
which in general tinges the plants of the shores, as reeds, wil-
lows, poplars; and those of high grounds,  as the thistle, the
 cypress, and the pine ; and which makes the  azure  of the rivers

  * Undoubtedly when  they put on a green ground pictures of plants or land-
 scapes, such pictures detach themselves from it but indifferently.  There is,
in my opinion, a tint better adapted to be the ground of a picture-gallery;
 namely, gray.  This tint, formed of black and white, which are the extremes
 of the chain of colours, harmonizes with every other without exception. Na-
 ture frequently employs it in the Heavens, and on the Horizon, by means o*'
 vapours and of clouds, which arc generally of that colour. 
STUDY XL                    l2r
to harmonize with the verdure of the meadows, and the azure
of the Heavens with the verdure of the heights.   Thus, by
means of this light and fugitive tint, Nature diffuses delicious
harmonies over the limits of the  waters, and along the profiles
of landscapes; and it is productive of a  still farther  magic to
the eye, in that it gives greater apparent depth to the valleys,
and more elevation to the mountains.
  Something  more wonderful  still  challenges  our  attention,
namely this,  that though she employs but one  single colour in
arraying so many  plants, she extracts  out of it a quantity of
tints so endlessly varied, that each of those plants has it's own,
peculiar  to  itself, and which detaches  it sufficienUy from it's
neighbour to be distinguishable  from it; and each of these tints
is farther varying  from day to day, from the commencement of
Spring, when most  of them exhibit themselves in a blooming
verdure,  up  to the last days of Autumn, when they  are trans-
formed into various yellows.
  Nature, after having thus harmonized the ground of her pic-
ture by means of  a general colour, has detached from it even-
vegetable in particular by means of contrasts.   Such as  are de-
signed to grow immediately on the  ground, on  strands, or on
dusky rocks, are entirely green, both leaves and stems,  as the
greatest part  of reeds, of grasses, of mosses, of tapers, and of
aloes ; but those which are destined  to arise out of the midst of
herbage, have stems of different tints of brown; such  are the
trunks of most trees, and the  stalks of shrubs.   The  alder, for
example, which thrives amidst  the grassy turf, has a stem of an
ash-coloured gray ; but the wallwort, which entirely  resembles
it in all  other respects,  and  which  grows immediately on the
ground,  is green all over.  The mugwort, which grows along
hedges, has reddish stems, by which it is easily distinguishable
from the neighbouring shrubs.   Nay there  are  in every genu-
of plants, certain species which, by their shining colours, seen.
to have been formed for terminating the limits of their  classes..
Such is, in the sorb genus, a species called the Canadian service
tree, the branches of which are of  a coral red.  There are in
the willow tribe, osiers whose scions are as yellow as gold ; but
there is not a single plant which does not detach itself entirely
from the ground which surrounds it by it's flowers  and by it'*
fruits. 
128
STUDIES OF NATURE.
  It is impossible to suppose that so many varieties should be
mechanical results of the colour next to which bodies are placed;
for example, that the bluish green of most mountain vegetables
should be an effect of the azure of the Heavens.   It is worthy
of being  remarked, that  the blue colour is not to  be  found, at
least as far as I  know, in the flowers  or in the fruits of lofty
trees; for in this  case they  would be confounded with the Hea-
vens ; but  it is very common on the ground in the flowers of
herbs, such as the blue-bottle, the scabious, the violet, the liver-
wort, the iris, and many others.  On the  contrary, the  colour
of the earth is very common in the fruits of lofty trees, such as
the chesnut, the walnut, the cocoa-nut, and the cone of the pine.
Hence we have  an intimation  that the point of view of this
magnificent picture w-as taken from the eye of Man.
  Nature,  after  having  distinguished the harmonic  colour of
each vegetable by the contrasting  colour of  it's flowers  and of
it's fruits,  has followed  the same laws in the forms which she
has given them.  The most  beautiful of forms, as  we have seen,
is the spherical;  and the most  agreeable  contrast which it is
capable of presenting, is when found in opposition to the  radia-
ting form.   You will frequently  find this form and it's contrast
in the aggregation  of the  flowers that  go by the name of the
radiated, as the daisy, which has a circle of small white  diver-
gent petals surrounding it's yellow disk:  we find it likewise,
with other combinations, in the blue-bottle, in the asters, and in
a multitude of other species.  When the radiating parts  of the
flower are  outermost, the spherical are inmost, as in the species
which I have just named; but  when the first are inmost, the
 pherical parts are outermost; this may be remarked in those
whose stamina are drawn out into length, and the petals in sphe-
rical portions, such as the  flowers of  the hawthorn and  of the
apple tree, and most part of the rosaceous and liliaceous plants.
Sometimes the contrast  of  the  flower is with the surrounding
parts of the plant.  The rose is one of those in which it is most
strongly marked: it's disk is formed of beautiful spherical por-
tions, it's calix is brisded with beards, and it's stalk beset with
thorns.
  When the spherical form is found placed in a flower between
the radiating and the parabolic, then there is a complete elemen-
tary  generation, the effect of which is always highly agreeable ; 
                      STUDY XL                     129

it is this too which is produced by most of the flowers that have
just been named, by the profile of their calices, which terminate
their  projecting  stems.   The  nosegay girls are so sensible of
the value of this combination, that they sell a simple rose on it's
branch at a much higher price  than  they would ask for a large
posy of the same flowers, especially if there are on it a few buds,
which present  the charming progressions of the florification.
But Nature is so vast, and my incapacity so great, that I must
restrict myself to throwing a simple glance on the contrast which
arises from the simple opposition of forms:  it is so universal
that Nature has given it to plants which had it not themselves, by-
opposing them to others which have a configuration entirely dif-
ferent.
   The species opposite in forms are almost always in company.
When you fall  in with  an old willow on the bank of a river
which art  has not degraded, you may frequently see upon  it a
great convolvulus covering the radiated foliage of the tree with
it's own heart-formed  leaves, and it's bell-shaped white flowers,
to make up the defect of apparent flowers, which Nature has
denied to this tree.  Different species of ropeweed produce the
same harmonies on various species of tall gramineous plants.
   These plants,  called creeping, are scattered over the  whole
vegetable kingdom,  and are appropriated as I  suppose to each
vertical species.   They have a great variety of methods  of fix-
ing themselves on the  upright plant, which would alone merit a
particular  treatise. There are some which turn themselves spi-
 rally around the trunks of forest trees, such as the honey-suckie ;
others, as  pease, have  hands with three to five fingers, by which
they  lay  hold  of shrubbery :  it is very remarkable that those
hands do  not make their appearance till they have acquired a
height at which they begin to have occasion for them as  a sup-
port ; others, as  the bastard-pomegranate, attach themselves in
 form of a  cork-screw ; others form a simple hook with the tail
of their leaf, as the nasturtium : the pink employs a similar
method of adhesion.  These two beautiful flowers are support-
ed in our garden with rods ; but it would be a problem  well
worthy of the investigation of Florists, to ascertain what are the
auxiliary plants, if I may call them so, to which these were de-
signed to unite themselves,  in the places  where they are native %;
delightful groups might be  formed by their re-union.
   Vol. II.                     R 
130             STUDIES OF NATURE.
   I am persuaded that there is not a vegetable but what has it's
 opposite in some part of the Earth : their mutual  harmony is
 the cause of the secret pleasure  which we feel  in wild  rural
 scenes, where Nature is at liberty to combine them.   The fir-
 tree rises in the  forest of the North like a lofty pyramid, of a
 dark green, and with a motionless attitude.  The birch is  al-
 most always found in it's vicinity, and grows to nearly the  same
 height, is of the form of an inverted pyramid,  of a lively ver-
 dure, with a moveable foliage, continually playing about with
 every breath of the wind.  The round-leafed trefoil  loves to
 grow in the midst of the fine grass, and to adorn  it with it's
 own flowery nosegay. Nay I believe that Nature has made those
 deep incisions in the leaves of a great many vegetables, entirely
 in the view of facilitating alliances of this sort, and of opening
 a passage for the grasses, the verdure and delicacy of whose
 stems form with them an infinity of contrasts.  Of this instan-
 ces innumerable may he seen in uncultivated fields,  where tufts
 of grass pierce through the broad plants of the thistle and the
 echium.  This arrangement has likewise been made, in order
 that the grasses, which are the  most useful of all vegetables,
 might receive  a  portion of the rain from Heaven, through the
 interstices of the broad foliage of those privileged children of
 Nature,  which would stifle every  thing around them,  were it
 not for those profound incisions.  Nature does nothing merely
 for the pleasure  of doing it, but always connects with  it some
 reason of utility : this appears to  me so much the more  deci-
 dedly marked, that the incisions in leaves are much more  com-
 mon and deeper in the plants and under-shrubbery which rise
 to no great height, than in trees.
  The harmonies resulting from contrast are to be  found  even
 in the waters.  The reed, on the brink of rivers, raises into the
 air it's radiating leaves and it's embrowned distaff, whereas the
nymphaea extends at it's feet a broad heart-formed foliage, and
 roses of yellow gold: the one presents on the waters  a continued
pallisade, and the other a platform of verdure.
  Similar oppositions present themselves in the most frightful
 of climates.  Martens of Hamburg, who has given a very  good
 account of Spitzbergen, tells us, that when the  seamen belong-
 ing to the vessel in which he navigated along it's coasts,  heaved
 up the anchor, they  seldom failed  to bring up  with  it a very 
STUDY XL                    1.31
broad leaf of the alga marina, six feet in length, and attached
to a tail as long: this leaf was smooth, ofa brown colour spotted
with black, striped with two white stripes,  and made in form
of a tongue: he  calls it the  plant  of the rock.   But what is
very  singular, it was  Usually accompanied by a hairy plant,
about six feet in length, like a horse's tail, and formed of hairs
so fine, that one  might denominate it, says he, the silk of the
rock.  He found on those  dismal shores, where the empire of
Flora is in such a state of desolation, the cochlearia (scurvy-grass)
and the sorrel, which grew together.  The leaf of the first is
rounded in form of a spoon, that of the other is  lengthened into
the shape  of the iron head of an arrow;  A  Physician of con-
siderable ability, of the name of  Bartholin^ has observed, thai
the virtues of their salts are as opposite as their configurations ;
those of the first are alkalis, those of the other are acids ; and
from their  union results what medical men call a neutral  salt,
which they ought rather to call a harmonic  salt, the most  pow-
erful remedy which can be employed as an antiscorbutic, and
the scurvy  is a disease which is readily and usually caught in
those dreadful climates, f
   For my own part, I apprehend that the qualities of plants are
harmonic  as their  forms ; and  that as often as we find them
grouped agreeably and constantly, there  must  result  from the
union of their qualities, for nourishment, for health, or for plea-
sure, a harmony as agreeable as that which arises from the  con-
trast  of their figures.   This is a presumption that I could  sup-
port, by referring to the instinct of animals, which in browsing
on the herbage vary the choice of their aliments ; but this  con-
sideration would lead me away from  my subject.
   I should never come to a conclusion, were I to go into a detail
respecting  the harmonies of so  many plants which we  under-

              * Sec ChomeVs Histcm of Common Plants.
  ■J- All this is too fanciful.  If the scurvy-grass and sorrel are f >und in cli-
mates where the scurvy is frequent; and if it be true, that a neuU-al (harmo-
nic) salt results from the union of the  alkaline and acid, it has not yet been
proved, that any of the neutral salts are among the most powerful ::nti-bco»
butic remedies.  Without  indulging  in such reveries or speculations, we
should content ourselves with acknowledging the goodness of Providence
who lias so liberally diffused tin-  tv o plants through  almost all climates of
l!u  earth.—11. s 1! 
 U2            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 value, because they are feeble or common. If we suppose them,
 for thought's sake, of the size of our trees, the majesty of the
 palm would disappear before the magnificence of their attitudes
 and of their proportions.  Some of them,  such as the echium,
 rise like superb chandeliers, forming a vacuum round their cen-
 tre, and rearing toward Heaven their prickly arms, loaded their
 whole length through with lamps of violet-coloured flowers.
 The verbascum, on the contrary, extends around it broad leaves
 of solemn drapery, and sends up from it's  centre a long distaff
 of yellow flowers, as salutary to the stomach as grateful to the
 touch.  The violet of deep blue contrasts in the Spring with the
 primrose, expanding it's  golden  cup with a scarlet brim.   On
 the embrowned 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.
   Mushrooms alone present a multitude of unknown consonan-
 ces and contrasts.  This class is, first, the most varied of all
 those of the vegetables of our climates.   Sebastian le Faillant
 enumerates one hundred  and four species of them in the vicinity"
 of Paris,  without taking into the account the fungoids,  which
 furnish at least a dozen more. Nature has dispersed them over
 most  shady places, where  they frequently form contrasts  the
 most extraordinary.  There are some which thrive only  on the
 naked rock, where theyT present a forest of small filaments, each
 of which supports it's particular  chapiter.  There  are  some
 which 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 it has borrowed it's
 name. Others present agreeable consonances : such is that which
 grows at the foot  of the alder, under the  form of a cockle.
 What nymph has planted a shell by the root of a tree of the ri-
 vers ?
  This numerous tribe appears to have it's destinyr attached to
 that of the tree, which  have each a mushroom appropriated to
 itself, and rarely to be found elsewhere ;  such  are those  which
 grow only on the roots of  plumb-trees and pines. To no purpose
does Heaven pour down it's copious rains : the mushroom under
 covert of it's umbrella,  receives not a single drop.  They derive
the whole support  of life  from  the  Earth, and from the  potent 
STUDY XL
133
vegetable to whose  fortune  they have  united their own: like
those little Savoyards who are planted as posts at the gates of
the hotels of the Great, they extract their subsistence out of the
superfluity of another; they grow under the shade of the Powers
of the forest, and live on the superabundance of their sumptuous
banquets.
   Other vegetables present oppositions of strength to weakness.
in a different way, and consonances of protection still more dis-
tinguished.  Those w*hich we have been  mentioning, like lordly
Chieftains leave their humble  friends at their feet: the others
carry them in their arms, and place them  upon their heads. They
frequently receive the  recompense of their noble hospitality.
The liannes which in the Antilles-Islands attach themselves to
the trees of the forest, defend them from the fury of the hurri-
cane.  The Gallic Oak has oftener than  once seen  itself an  ob-
ject of veneration to the Nations, from having carried the mis-
detoe in it's branches.   The ivy,  a  friend  to monuments and
tombs ;   the ivy, with which  in ancient times they crowned the
Poets who  conferred immortality, sometimes  covers with it's
foliage the trunks of the stateliest trees.  It is one among many
of the irresistible proofs  of the vegetable compensations of Na-
ture ; for I do not recollect that I ever saw the ivy on the trunks
of pines, of firs, or of other trees  whose foliage lasts all the year
round.   It invests those only which are stripped by the hand of
Winter.  Symbol of a generous friendship, it  attaches itself only
to the wretched ; and when death itself has smitten it's protector,
it restores to him again the honours of the forest where he lives
no longer;  it makes him revive  by decorating his shade with
garlands of flowers,  and festoons  of undecaying verdure.
   The greatest part of plants which  grow under the shade are
adorned with the most vivid colours ; thus  the mosses display
the brilliancy of  their emerald green on the  dusky sides of the.
rocks.   In  the forests, the mushroom and the agaricum distin-
guish themselves by their colours  from the  roots of the trees
under w  hich they grow. The ivy detaches itself from their gray-
barks by it's shining green ; the mistletoe discloses it's branches
of a yellowish green, and it's fruits similar to pearls, amidst the
thick foliage of the oak.   The  aquatic convolvulus dazzles you
with it's  large white bell-shaped flowers on the trunk  of  the
 *il!.w.   The virgin's bower  clothes with verdure the  ancient 
134
STUDIES  OF NATURE.
 towers, and in Autumn her foliage of gold and purple seems t&
 fix on their sober eminences the rich colours of the setting Sun.
 Other plants, entirely concealed from  the eye, discover them-
 selves by their perfumes.  It is thus that the obscure violet in-
 vites the hand of lovers to the bosom of the prickly shrub. And
 thus is verified on every hand, that great Law of contrasts which
 governs  the World: No aggregation  is in plants the effect of
 chance.
   Nature has established in the numerous tribes of the  vegeta-
 ble 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. There are others
 whom you always find united in several  clusters, as if they loved
 to  live in  Society;  others, on the contrary, you almost always
 meet with 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 which re-sow  them.  The herbage in
 the  meadows frequently represents the  bearing  of the trees in
 the forests ; there are some which in their foliage and propor-
 tions resemble the pine, the fir, and the  oak : nay I believe that
 every tree has a consonance in it's  corresponding herb.  It is
 by a magic of this sort that small spots  of ground present to us
 the extent of a large district.  If you are under a grove of oaks
 and perceive on an adjoining hillock  tufts of germander, the fo-
 liage of which resembles them in  miniature, you feel all the
 effect of a perspective.  These diminutions of proportion extend
 from trees even down to mosses, and are the  causes in part of
 the pleasure which we enjoy in wild rural scenes, where Nature
 has had leisure to dispose and accomplish her plans. The  effect
 of those vegetable illusions is so undoubtedly certain, that if you
 have the ground cleared, the extent of any particular spot, when
 stripped of it's natural vegetables, appears much smaller than be-
fore.
  Nature farther employs diminishing shades of verdure, which
being lighter on the summit of trees than at  their base,  gives
them the appearance of being more  lofty than they really are.
She appropriates, besides, the pyramidical form to many moun-
tain-trees, in order  to increase the apparent elevation of their
site ; this is observable in the larch,  the fir, the cypress, and in
many other plants which crow on heights.  She sometimes unites 
STUDY XL
135
iin the same place, the effects of seasons and of climates the most
opposite.  She clothes  in hot climates the whole sides of moun-
tains with the vegetable  called the ice-plant, because it seems
entirely covered over  with flakes of ice; you would believe that
in the midst  of  Summer, Boreas had breathed upon it all the
chilling blasts of the North.
   On the other hand we  find in  Russia, mosses in the midst of
Winter; which, from the red and smoky colour of their flow-
ers, have the appearance  of being set on fire.  In our  rainy^
climates  she  crowns the summits of hillocks with  broom and
rosemary; and the tops of ancient towers with the yellow gilly-
flower : in the midst  of  the gloomiest day you would imagine
you saw the rays of the Sun shining upon them.
   In another place she produces the effect of the wind in the midst
of perfect stillness.  In many parts of America,  a bird has only
to alight on a tuft of the sensitive plant, in order to put in mo-
tion the  whole stripe, which sometimes extends to three fur-
longs.   The  European traveller  stands still, and observes with
astonishment the air  tranquil, but the herbage in  motion.   I
myself have sometimes mistaken, in our own woods, the mur-
mur of poplars and of aspins for the bubbling of brooks. Often-
er than once seated under their shade on the skirt of a meadow,
whose  herbage the winds put into an undulatory motion, this
multiplied tremulousness has transfused into my blood the ima-
ginary^ coolness of the stream.
   Nature frequently employs the aerial vapours in order to give
a greater  extent to our landscapes. She diffuses them over the
cavities of valleys,  and stops them at the windings of rivers,
giving you a glimpse, at intervals, of their long canals illumi-
ned by the Sun.  She thus multiplies  their plans, and prolongs
their extent.   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 vermillion and azure,
she confounds the circumference of the Earth with the vault of
Heaven.  It is thus that she employs clouds as evanescent as the
illusions of human life, to  raise  us to  Heaven.   It is thus that
she expands over her most profound mysteries, the ineffable sen-
sations of infinity, and that she withdraws from our senses the
perception of her Works,  in order to convey  to our minds a
a more impressive feeling of them. 
136            STUDIES OF NATURE.

               ANIMAL HARMONIES OF PLANTS.
   Nature, after having established on a soil formed of frag-
ments insensible and lifeless, vegetables endowed with princi-
ples of life, of growth, and of generation, accommodated to
those beings which had, together with these same faculties, the
power of self-motion, dispositions to inhabit them, passions to
derive their nourishment from them, and an instinct which im-,
pels them to make a proper choice : these are animals.  I shall
here speak only of the most common relations which they have
with plants ; but were I to attempt a detail of those which their
innumerable tribes have with the elements, with each other, and
with Man, whatever might be my ignorance, I should disclose
a multitude of scenes still more worthy of admiration.
   In an order entirely new, Nature has not changed her Laws:
she has established the same harmonies and the same contrasts,
of animals to plants, as of plants to the elements. It would ap-
pear natural to our feeble reason,  and consonant to the great
principles of our Sciences, which ascribe so much power to an-
alogies, and to physical causes, that so many sensible beings
which are produced in the midst of verdure, should be in pro-
cess of time affected by  it. The impressions of their parents, ad-
ded to those of their own infancy,  which serve to explain so
many appearances in the human species, acquiring in them in-
creasing 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 Stu-
dy, that as vegetables were detached from the ground by means
of their green colour, the animals which live on verdure distin-
guish themselves from it in their turn, by means of their dusky
colours ; and those which live on the dusky barks of trees, or
on other dark  grounds,  are invested with colours  brilliant, and
sometimes green.
  On this subject I have to remark, that many species  of birds
of India which live amidst the foliage of trees, as the greatest
part of paroquets,  many of  the colibri, and even of turtles, are
of the finest green; but independently of the white, blue, and
red marbled spots, which distinguish their different tribes, and
render them perceptible at a distance upon the trees, the brilli-
ant verdure of their plumage detaches them, to great advantage, 
STUDY XL
137
from the solemn and imbrowned verdure of those southern fo-
rests.   We have seen that Nature employs this as the general
means of diminishing the reflexes of the heat ; but that she
might not confound the objects of her picture, if she has dark-
ened the ground of her scene, she has bestowed greater brillian-
cy on the dresses of the actors.
   It would  appear that Nature has appropriated the species of
animals coloured in the most agreeable manner, to the species of
vegetables whose flowers are the least vivid, as a compensation.
There are much fewer brilliant flowers between the Tropics than
in the Temperate Zones ;  and as a compensation, the insects,
the birds, and even the quadrupeds, such as several species of
monkeys and lizards, are there arrayed in the most lively co-
lours.  When they  rest on their proper vegetable, they form
with them the most beautiful contrasts, and the most lovely har-
monies.  I have  often stood still in the West-Indies, to contem-
plate  the little lizards, which live on the branches of trees, em-
ploy themselves in catching flies.  They are of a beautiful apple-
green, and have on their back a sort of characters  of the most
vivid red, resembling the letters of the Arabian alphabet. When
a cocoa-tree had several of them dispersed along it's stem, never
was there Egyptian Pyramid  of porphyry with it's hierogly-
phics, so mysterious and so magnificent in my eyes.*
  I have likewise seen flocks of small birds, denominated car-
dinals, because  they are red all over, settle on shrubbery, the
verdure of which was blackened  by the Sun, and present the
appearance of girandols studded with little burning lamps. Fa-
ther du Tertre says, that there is not, in the Antilles, a spectacle
more brilliant, than the alighting of coveys of the parrot species,
called arras, on the summit of a palm tree. The blue, the red, and
the yellow of their plumage, covers the boughs of the flower-
less tree with the most supurb enamel.  Harmonies somewhat
similar may be seen  in our climates.   The goldfinch,  with
his red head and wings tipped with yellow, appears  at  a dis-
tance on a bush, like the flower of the thistle  in which he was

  * They have sometimes served me to explain the moral sense of hierogly-
phics, engraven on  the obelisks of Egypt in honour of her conquering heroes.
On beholding the characters traced upon them from right to left, with heads,
beaks, and paws, they brought  to my recollection the lit tie fly-catchers oi
my palm-tree.
  Vol. II.                     S 
U8
STUDIES OF NATURE.
hatched.  You would sometimes  take the slate-coloured wag-
tail, when perched on the extremity of the leaves of a reed, for
the flower of the iris.
   It would be a very  great curiosity to collect a great number
of these oppositions, and of those analogies.  They would lead
us to a discovery of the  plant which is peculiarly adapted to
each animal.  Naturalists  have paid to those adaptations no
great degree of attention; such of them as have written the His-
tory of Birds, class them according to the feet, the bill, the nos-
trils. They sometimes speak of the seasons of their appearance,
but scarcely ever of the trees which they frequent.  Those only
who, employed in making collections of butterflies, are frequent-
ly under the  necessity of looking for them in their  state of
nymph, or caterpillar, have sometimes distinguished those in-
insects  by  the names of the vegetables  on which they found
them.   Such are the caterpillars of the tithymal, of the pine, of
the elm, and so on, which they discovered to be  peculiarly ap-
propriated to these vegetables.   But there  is not an animal  ex-
isting but what may be referred to it's own particular  corres-
ponding 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 and
herbs,  as animals  likewise  are into  volatile and quadrupeds,
Nature does  not  associate the two kingdoms  in consonances,
but in  contrasts;  chat  is, she does not attacn the great animals
to the  great vegetables; but unites them contrariwise, by asso-
ciating  the class of trees with that of  the small animals, and
that of herbs with the great quadrupeds: and by means of these
oppositions, she bestows adaptations of protection to the feeble,
and of accommodation to the powerful.
  This Law is so general, that I have remarked in every coun-
try,  where  there is no great variety in  the species of grasses,
those of the  quadrupeds  which live  upon them are but few in
number; and that wherever the species of  trees are multiplied,
those of volatiles are likewise so.  The truth of this may be as-
certained by consulting the herbals of many  parts of America,
and among others those of Guyana and of Brasil, which present
lj>ut few varieties in the grasses, but a great number in the trees. 
STUDY XI.
139
Ii is well known that those countries have in fact few quadru-'
peds natural to them, and that they are peopled, on the contrary,
with an infinite variety of birds and insects.
   If we cast a glance on the relations of grasses to quadrupeds,
we shall find  that,  notwithstanding their apparent  contrasts,
there is actually between them a multitude of real correspon-
dencies.  The  moderate elevation of  the gramineous  plants
places them within  reach  of the jaws  of quadrupeds, whose
head is  in a horizontal position, and frequently inclined toward
the ground. Their delicate shoots seem formed to be laid hold
of by 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 be-
ing ligneous, present soft litter to  ponderous bodies.
   If, on the contrary, we examine the  correspondencies which
exist between trees and birds, we  shall find that the branches of
trees may be easily clasped by the four-toed feet of most birds,
which Nature has disposed in such a manner, 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, the Sun, and the
cold, toward which the thickness  of the trunks farther contri-
bute.   The apartures formed in  these,  and the mosses which
grow upon them, furnish situations for building their nests, and
materials for lining them.   The  round  or oblong seeds of trees
are accommodated to  the  form  of  their bills.   Such as bear
fleshy fruits are resorted to by birds, which have beaks pointed,
or crooked like a pick-axe.
   In the islands of the  regions situated between  the Tropics,
and along the banks  of the  great rivers of America, the greatest
part of  maritime and fluviatic trees, among others, many spe-
cies of the palm-tree, bear  fruits  inclosed  in very hard shells,
whereby they are enabled to float on  the surface of the waters,
which re-sow them at a great distance ; but their covering does
not secure them from  the  attack of the birds.   The  different
tribes of paroquets which have made them their habitation, and
of which I have reason to  believe that there is a species appro-
priated  to each species of palm-tree, easily  find means  to oper
their hard cases with' hooked bills.„ which pierce like an awl and
hold fast like pincers. 
140             STUDIES OF NATURE.

  Nature has farther accommodated animals of a third order,
which find in the bark, or in the flower of a plant, as many con-
veniences as the quadruped has in a meadow, or the bird in the
whole tree: I mean the insects.  Certain  Naturalists have di-
vided them into six great tribes, which they have characterized
according to custom, but to very little purpose, by Greek names.
They class them into coleopterous, or cased insects, as the scarab
tribe, such are our may-bugs, or  chafers:  into  hemipterous, or
half cases, as the gallinsects, such is the kermes :  into tetrapte-
rous farinaceous, or four-mealy-winged, as butterflies: into te-
trapterous, without any addition, or four-naked-winged, as bees:
into dipterous, or two winged, as  the  common fly:  and into
apterous, or wingless, as the  ant.   But these six classes admit
of a multitude of divisions and of subdivisions, which unite spe-
cies of insects of forms and instincts the most dissimilar;  and
separate a great many others  of them which have otherwise a
very striking analogy among themselves.
  Whatever  may be in this,  the order  of animals in question
appears to be particularly appropriated to  trees.  Pliny observes
that ants are singularly 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  diminuitive should destroy  the seed of one of
the largest trees in the World. I believe we  never shall be able
to establish in the different tribes of insects, a real order, and in
the study of  them, that pleasure  and utility  of  which it is sus-
ceptible,  except by referring them to the different parts of vege-
tables.  Thus we might refer to the nectars  of  the flowers, the
butterflies and flies which are furnished with a proboscis for sip-
ping up their  juices ; to their stamina, those flies which, like
the bee, have spoon-mouths scooped out  in  their thighs, lined
with hair, for collecting their powder, and four wings to assist
them in carrying off their booty; to the  leavies of plants, the
common flies and gallinsects,  which have pointed and hollow
prongs for making incisions in them, and  for drinking up their
fluids; to the  grains,  the scarab race,  as the weevil, which is
designed to force it's way into the heart of the seed to feed up-
on  it's meal, and which is provided with wings inclosed in cases,
to prevent their being injured, and with a file to open for itself 
STUDY XL
141
a passage; to the stem, those worms which are quite naked,
because the)  have no need of being clothed in a substance of
wood to shelter them on every side, but they are furnished with
augers, by the help of which they sometimes go nigh to destroy
whole forests:  finally,  to  the wreck of every sort, the ants
which come armed with pincers, and with an instinct of advanc-
ing in hosts,  to cut to pieces and to  carry off every thing that
suits their purpose.
  The desert of this vast vegetable banquet is hurled down by
the rainy torrents  to the rivers, and thence to the Sea, where it
presents a new order of relation with the fishes.   It is worthy
of remark, that the most attractive baits which can be presented
to them are deduced from the vegetable kingdom, and particu-
larly  from the grains, or  from the substances of plants having
the aquatic characters  which  we have  indicated,  such as the
hard  shell of the Levant, the rush of Smyrna, the  juice of the
tithymal, the Celtic spikenard, the cummin, the anise, the nettle,
the sweet-marjoram, the root of  the birthwort, and the seed of
the hemp.   Thus the relations of these plants with fishes con-
firm what has been said of those of their grains with the waters.
   By referring the different  tribes of insects to the  different
parts  of plants, and in that way only, can we discern the reasons
for which Nature has been determined to bestow on those  di-
minutive animals figures so  extraordinary.   We should then
comprehend the uses of their utensils, of which the  greater part
is hitherto unknown; and we should have continually new oc-
casion to admire the  Divine Intelligence, and to perfect our own.
On the other hand, such progress in knowledge would diffuse
the clearest light over many parts of plants, the utility of which
is a world unknown to Botanists, because they have consonan-
ces only with animals.
   I am persuaded that 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.   As
Nature has divided  each genus of plants into different species,
in order to render them capable  of growing in different situa-
tions ;  she has in like manner divided each genus of insects into
different species,  in order to adapt them to  inhabit different
species of plants.  For this reason she has painted and number-
ed in a thousand different but  invariable  v/avs, the almost infi 
142
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 nite divisions of the same branch.  For example, we constantly
 find on the elm the beautiful butterfly, called the gold-brocade,
 on account of it's rich colouring.  That which goes by the name
 of the four omicrons, and which lives  I know not where, always
 produces descendants impressed with  that Greek character four
 times  on their wings.  There is a species of bee with five claws,
 which lives on radiated flowers only ; without those claws, she
 could  not  cling fast  to the plane  mirrors of those flowers, and
 load herself from their stamina, so easily as the common bee,
 which usually  labours  at  the  bottom of those with a deep
 corolla.
   Not that I imagine any one  plant nourishes  in  it's different
 varieties all the  collateral branches of  one family of insects.   I
 believe that each genus of these extends much farther than the
 genus  of plants which serves as  it's principal basis. In this Na-
 ture manifests another of her Laws, by virtue of which she has
 rendered that the best which is the most common.   As the ani-
 mal is of a nature superior to the vegetable, the species of the
 first are more multiplied and more generally diffused than those
 of the  second.   For  example, there are not so many as sixteen
 hundred species  of plants in the  vicinity of Paris; but within the
 same compass there  are enumerated near six thousand species
 of flies.  This leads  me to presume therefore that the different
 tribes of plants cross with those of animals, which renders their
 species susceptible of different harmonies.  Of this  a judgment
 may be formed  from the varietyr of tastes in birds of  the same
 family.  The black-headed yellow-hammer nestles  in the ivy ;
 the red-headed in walls in the  neighbourhood of hemp-fields;
 the brown yellow-hammer builds on trees by the highway's-side,
 where  she finishes off her nest with horse hair. A dozen species
 of that bird are enumerated in our climates, each of which has
 it's particular department. Our different sorts of larks are like-
 wise apportioned to  different situations; to the  woods, to the
 meadows, to the heaths, to arable lands,  and to  the shores of
 the Sea.
  Very interesting observations may be made respecting the du-
ration of vegetables,  which  are unequal, though subjugated to
the influences of the  same elements.   The oak serves as a mo-
 nument to the nations ;  and the nostocium, which grows at his
foot, lives only a single day.  All I shall say upon this head iv 
STUDY XL
143
general is, that the period of their decay is by no means regulat-
ed in conformity to that of their growth; neither is that of their
fecundity proportioned to their weakness, to climates, or to sea-
sons, as  some have pretended.  Pliny * quotes  instances  of
holmes, of plane-trees,  and of cypresses,  which existed  in his
time, and which  were  more ancient than Rome, that is more
than seven hundred years old.   He  farther tells us, that there
were still to be seen near Troy, around the tomb of Ilus, oaks
which had been there from  the time that Troy took the name
of Ilium, which carries us back to an antiquity much more re-
mote.
  I have seen in Lower Normandyr, in a village church-yard, an
aged yew planted in the time of William the Conqueror; it is still
crowned with verdure,  though it's trunk cavernous and through
and through pervious to the day,  resembles the staves of an old
cask. Nay there are bushes which seem to have immortality con-
ferred upon them. We find  in many parts of the kingdom haw-
thorns which the  devotion of the Commonalty has  consecrated
by images of the Virgin, and which have lasted for several ages,
as may be ascertained by the inscriptions upon the chapels rear-
ed in the vicinityr.
  But in general  Nature has proportioned the duration and the
fecundity of plants to  the demands  of animal life.   A great
many plants expire  as  soon as  they  have yielded their seed,
which they commit 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.
  The fecundity of plants is by no means regulated according
to their size ;  but proportionally to the fecundity of the anima1
k pedes which  is to feed upon them.   The pannic and the small
millet, and some other  gramineous plants, so useful to man and
beast, produce incomparably more grains than many plants both
greater and smaller  than  themselves.  There  are many herbs
which perpetuate themselves by their seeds only once a year;
but the chickweed renovates itself by it's seeds up to seven or
eight times, without being interrupted in the  process even by
* Natural History, book xvi. chap. 44 
144             STUDIES OF NATURE.
 Winter.   It produces ripe seeds within  six  weeks from the
 time of it's being sown.  The capsule which contains them then
 inverts  itself,  turning toward the earth,  and half opens to
 leave them at liberty to be carried away by the winds and the
 rains, which sow thnn again every where.   This plant insures
 the whole year through the subsistence of the small birds of our
 climates.  Thus Providence is so much the more powerful as
 the creature is more feeble.
   Other plants have relations to animals the more tenderly affect-
 ing, in  proportion as climates and seasons seem to exercise 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 in every sea-
 son.  Wherefore, for example, do most of the trees of the North
 shed their leaves in Winter;  and wherefore do those of the
 South retain theirs all the  year round ? Wherefore, in defiance
 of the Winter's cold in the North, do the firs there continue al-
 ways clothed with verdure ?  It is a matter of no small difficulty
 to discover the cause of this ;  but  the end  is obviously discer-
 nible.  If the  birch and the larch of the North drop their fo-
 liage on  the approach of Winter, it is to furnish litter to the
 beasts of the forest; and if the pyramidical fir there  retains
 it's leaves, it is to afford them shelter amidst the snows.  This
 tree presents to the birds  the  mosses which are suspended on
 it's branches, and it's  cones replenished with ripe kernels.  In
 their vicinity oftentimes thickets of the service-tree  display for
their use the shining clusters of their scarlet berries.
  In the Winters of our climates, many evergreen shrubs, as
 the ivy, the privet, and others,  which remain loaded with black
 or red fruit, contrasting strikingly with the  snow, as the prime-
print, the thorn, and the eglantine,  present to the winged crea-
tion both  a habitation and food.  In the countries of the Torrid
 Zone the earth is clothed with fresh liannes, and shaded with
trees  of a broad foliage, under which animals find a cool retreat.
The trees themselves of those climates seem afraid of exposing
iheir  fruits to the  burning heat of the Sun : instead  of rearing
them as a cone, or exhibiting  them  on the circumference of
their heads, they frequently conceal them under a thick foliage,
and bear them attache'! to  their trsinks, or  at the sprouting of
their branches : such are the jacquier, the banana, the palm-tree 
STUDY XI.
145
of every species, the papayer, and a multitude of others.  If
their fruits invite not the animals externally, by vivid  colours,
they call them by the noise which they excite.   The  lumpish
cocoa-nut, as it falls from the height of the tree which  bears it,
makes the earth resound to a considerable distance.   The black
pods  of the canneficier when ripe, and agitated by the wind,
produce, as they  clash against each other, a sound resembling
the tic-tac of a mill.  When the grayish fruit of  the genipa of
the Antilles comes  to  maturity,  and  falls  from the tree,  it
bounces on the ground with a noise like the report of a pistol.*
Upon this signal, more than one guest no doubt resorts thither
in quest of a repast.   This fruit seems particularly destined to
the use of the land-crabs, which are eagerly fond of it, and very
soon grow fat on  this kind of food. It would have answered no
purpose for them to see it on the tree, which they are incapable
of climbing: but they are informed of the  moment wheR it is
proper  for food, by the  noise of it's fall.
  Other fruits, as the jacque and mango, affect the  sense of
smelling in animals so powerfully, as to be perceptible more than
the quarter of a  league distant, when the fruit is to windward.
I believe that this property of emitting a powerful perfume is
likewise common to such  of our fruits as lie concealed under
the foliage, apricots for instance.  There are other vegetables
which manifest themselves to animals, if I may use that expres-
sion, only in the  night-time.  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, or nun, which is a native
of the same country, emits in the  dark a phosphoric light, ob-
served for the first time inJEurope by a daughter of  the cele-
brated Linnaeus.
   The properties of these plants convey  a happy idea of those
delightful climates, in  which the  nights are sufficiendy calm,
and sufficiently luminous  to disclose  a new order of society
among animals.   Nay there are insects which stand in no need
 of any pharos to assist them in steering their nocturnal courses.
They carry their lanterns about them ; such are the species of
luminous flies. They scatter themselves sometimes in the groves
of orange-trees, of papayas, and of other fruit-trees, in the midst

              * Father du Tc .'.•■>•'.? History of the A<'tiH«:-.
   Vol. II.                    T
X 
 US             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 of the darkest nights.   They dart at once, by several reiterated
 beatings of their wings, a dozen of fiery streams, which illumi-
 nate the foliage and fruits of the trees whereon they settle with
 a golden  and  bluish  light ;* then, all at once repressing their
 motion, they plunge again into obscurity.  They alternately re-
 sume and intermit this  sport during the whole night.  Some-
 times there are detached  from them  swarms of brilliant sparks
 of light, which rise into the air like the emanations of a fire-
 work.
   Were we to study the relations which plants have to animals,
 we should perceive in them the use of many of the parts which
 are frequently considered as productions of  the  caprice and of
 the confusion  of Nature.  So widely extended are those rela-
 tions, that it may be confidently affirmed that  there is not a down
 upon a plant, not an intertexture of a shrub, not a cavity, not a
 colour  of leaf, not a prickle, but what has it's  utility.  Those
 wonderful harmonies  are especially to be  remarked with rela-
 tion to  the lodgings and the nests of  animals.  If in hot coun-
 tries there are plants loaded with down, it is because there are
 moths entirely naked, which clip off  their fleece  and weave it
 into clothing.  There is found, on the banks of the Amazon, a
 species of reed from twenty-five to thirty feet high, the summit
 of which is terminated by a large ball of earth.  This ball is the
 workmanship of the ants, which retire thither at the time of the
 rains, and of the periodical inundations of that river : they go
 up, and descend along the cavity of  this reed,  and live on the
 refuse which is then swimming around them on the surface of
 the water.
   It is, I presume, for the purpose of furnishing similar retreats
 to many small  insects, that Nature has hollowed  the  stems of
 most of our plants of the shore.  The valisneria, I which grows

              " * Consult the same Work of Du Tertre.
  | Consult, with regard to the Valisneria, the voyage of an anonymous Eng-
 lish traveller performed in the year 1750, to France, Italy, and the Islands of
 t he Archipelago, in four small volumes, vol. I. It is stored with judicious ob-
 servations of every kind.  Consult likewise,  respecting the genipa, and the
different fruits, plants, and animals of southern countries, the sprightly Fa-
ther du Tertre, the patriotic Father  Charlevoix, John de Laet, the Historian,
and all travellers who have written on the subject of Nature, without the spi-
rit of system, assisted by the light of reason alone. 
STUDY XL
W
«n the stream of the Rhone,* and carries it's flower on a spiral
stem, capable of being drawn out in proportion to the rapidity
of the sudden swellings of that river, has holes pierced through
at the basis of it's leaves, the use of which is much more extra-
ordinary.  If you take up this plant by the root, and put it into
a large vessel full of water, you perceive at the basis  of it s
leaves masses of bluish jelly, which insensibly lengthen into py-
ramids of a beautiful red.   These pyramids  presently furrow
themselves into flutings, which disengage from the  summit, in-
vert themselves all around, and present, by their expansion, very-
beautiful flowers formed of purple, yellow, and blue rays.   By
little and little,  each of these flowers advances out of the cavity
in which it is partly contained, and withdraws to some distance
from the plant, remaining however attached to it by  a small fila-
ment. You then perceive each of the rays of which those flow-
ers are composed assume  a motion  peculiar  to itself, which
communicates a circular movement to the water, and precipitates
to the centre of each of them  all  the small bodies which are
floating around.  If those wonderful expansions are disturbed
by any sudden  shock* immediately every filament contracts, all
the rays close, and all the pyramids retire  into their cavities ;
tor those pretended flowers are polypuses.
   There are in certain plants parts which may be considered as
characters of uncultivated Nature,  but which  are,  like all  the.
rest of her Works, evident proofs of the wisdom and providence
of her Author ; such  are  die  prickles.   Their forms are va-
ried without end, especially in hot countries.  Some are shaped
like saws, like hooks, like needles,  like the head of a halberd,
and like caltrops.   Some of them are  round  like  awls, some
triangular, like the  shoemaker's piercer, and some flattened like
n lancet.  There is no less variety in their aggregations.   Some
are arranged on the leaves in balls, like those  of the opuntia j
others in stripes, like those ®f the Peruvian taper.  Some are

   - The Vallisneria also grows in the Delaware, in James-river, and in many
of the lakes of North-America.  Its real and well-ascertained history is, in-
deed, very wonderful: but I fear the whole of what Saint-Pierre has said con-
rcrning it, is not to be depended upon. It is to be observed, that he does not
m em to speak of the plant from his own observation.  He has mentioned the
spiral scape, or stem, of the (female) plant in a former page. See pa-,. 70
 of<hi«vol"'»T'--B " »    ' 
148            STUDIES OF NATURE.

invisible, as those of the shrub of the Antilles, known by the
name of captain's-wood.   The leaves of this  formidable plant
appear on  the upper  side smooth and shining ; but they arc
covered  on the under side with very delicate prickles, which are
inserted  in such a manner, that  apply your hand to them ever
so cautiously, it is impossible to avoid pricking your fingers.
   There are  other thorns planted only on  the stems of plants,
others are  on their branches. In our climates  they are scarcely
ever to be  found, except on shrubbery, and on a few trees ; but
in both Indies they are scattered over a great many species of
trees. Their very various forms and dispositions have relations,
of which the  greatest  part are to us unknown,  to the security
and defence of the birds  which live upon them.  It was neces-
sary that many of the trees of those countries should be armed
%vith thorns,  because many quadrupeds are there to be  found
capable of climbing them, to eat the eggs and the young of
birds,  such as the monkey, the  civet-cat, the tiger, the wild-
cat, the musk-rat,  the opossum, the wild rat, and even the com-
mon rat.
   The Asiatic acacia* presents to it's winged inhabitants a re-
treat absolutely inaccessible  to their enemies.  It bears no pric-
kles on it's trunk,  and in  it's branches ;  but at the height often
or twelve feet, precisely  at the place where the tree begins to
branch off, there is a belt of several rows of large thorns, from
ten to twelve  inches in length, presenting an impenetrable ram-
part of spikes nearly resembling the iron head of a halberd. The
collar of the tree is encircled by  it in such a manner, that it is
impossible for any quadruped to get up.  The acacia of  Ame-
rica, improperly called the false-acacia, has it's prickles formed
tnto hooks, and scattered over it's branches, undoubtedly from
some unknown relation of opposition to the species of quadru-
ped which makes  war on the bird that inhabits it.

  * There is a plant of the Asiatic acacia to be seen in  the beautiful garden
adjacent to the iron gate of Chaillot, which formerly belonged to the virtu-
ous Chevalier de Gensin. As to the name of false-acacia, given to the acacia
of America, I must observe that Nature produces nothing false. She has giv-
en varieties of all her productions, in all Countries, in order to bestow upon
them relations adapted to the  elements and to animals ;  and when we do not
find in these the characters which we have assigned to  them, the charge of
falsehood is n<jt in justice tr» be fixed on her Wo#vS<- but An our systems. 
STUDY XI.
149
  There are in the Antilles Islands trees which have no thorny
prickles, but which are much more ingeniously protected than
if they had.  A plant known in those countries by the name of
the prickly thistle, which is a species of creeping taper, attaches
it's roots, similar to filaments, to the trunk of one of those trees,
and runs to the ground all  around it, to a considerable distance,
crossing it's  branches one  over another, and forming an inclo-
sure of them which no quadruped dares to approach.   It like-
wise produces a fruit very  grateful to the palate. On beholding
a tree, the foliage of which is harmless, filled with birds that
have there fixed there habitation, surrounded about the roots by
one of those prickly thistles, you are presented with the idea of
one of those commercial defenceless cities, apparently accessible
on  every side, but protected all around by a citadel, encompas-
sing it with extended entrenchments.  Thus the tree is on one
side, and it's thorn on the  other.
   Quadrupeds which live  on the eggs of birds would be redu-
ced to  great distress,  did not Nature sometimes produce, on
the summits of those very  trees, a vegetable of very extraordi-
nary form which opens a passage to them. It is in every respect
the opposite of the prickly  thistle.  It consists of a root of two
feet in length,  as thick as  a man's leg, pricked, as if pierced
with a bodkin, and adhering to a branch of the tree by a multi-
tude of filaments, somewhat in the same way that the prickly
thistle is affixed to the under part of it's trunk. Like the other,
it derives it's nourishment  from the tree, and  emits from ten to
twelve  great leaves in form of a heart,  of about three  feet in
length and two in breadth, resembling the leaves  of the nym-
phsa. Father du Tertre calls it the false-root of China. What
is still more  extraordinary, it lets fall from the top of the tree
on which it is placed,  in a perpendicular direction, very strong
cordage, of the size of a quill the whole length through, which
takes root on reaching the ground.   The plant itself emits no
smell, but this cordage savours strongly of garlic. Undoubtedly,
when a monkey, or some such clambering animal perceives this
broad standard of verdure, to  no purpose does the tree oppose
around it's root a fortification of thorns, this signal announces
that he has a friend within the fortress : the  smell of the cor-
dage,  which descends down to the ground, directs him to the
scaling ladder, eyen during the night; and while  the birds are 
 L50             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 sleeping in security on their nests,  confident in the strength of
 their bulwark, the enemy gets possession of the town through
 the suburbs.
   In those countries, the thorns upon the trees  afford protection
 even to the insects.   Bees there carry on their honey-making
 processes  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 abode
 in domestic hives, because they did not consider themselves as
 there in a state of security; but might perhaps have been in-
 duced 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 per-
 secution of common flies.   She has in  truth bestowed on those
 which are  the 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 dioncea
 muscipula.  This plant bears on one and the same branches op-
 posite 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.

  • I have shown, in an express memoir on the subject, that the common ho-
 ney-bee, (apis mellifica,) is not a native of America. So far I agree with Saint-
 Pierre : and  I agree with him, also, that nature has withheld from several of
the native honey-making species a sting. But on the other hand, it is certain
that South-America at least, produced some species of honey-bees with stings.
As to what our author has s,aid of the attachment of the defenceless species
of bees to prickly trees, &c, it is an assertion, or hypothesis, which can dfiJ
majjd no serious notice.—B. S. B. 
                        STUDY XL                     l51

   There is another species of the dioncea which catches those
 insects with it's flowers.   When a fly attempts to extract it's
 nectareous juices, the corolla, which is tubulous, shuts at the
 qollar, seizes the insect by the proboscis, and  thus puts  it to
 death.  This plant is cultivated in the Royal Garden.   It is ob-
 servable, that it's cup-formed flower is white, radiated with red,
 and that these two colours universally  attract flies, from their
 natural avidity of milk and blood.
   There are aquatic plants armed with thorns proper for catch-
 ing  fishes.  You may  see in  the Royal Garden an American
 plant called martinia, the flower of which has a very agreeable
 odour, and which, from the form of it's rounded leaves, the sleek-
 ness of their tails and of their stems, has all the aquatic charac-
 ters which have been indicated.   It  has this farther character
 peculiar to itself, that it transpires so copiously  as to appear to
 the touch in a state of continual humidity. I can have no doubt
 therefore that this plant grows in America on the brink of the
 water.  But the shell which envelops it's seed possesses a  very
 extraordinary nautical character.  It resembles a fish half-dried,
 white and black, with a long fin upon the back.   The tail of this
 fish  is drawn out  into great length, and terminates in a  very
 sharp point, bent into the form of a fish-hook. This tail usually
 separates into two, and thus presents a double hook.  The  con-
 figuration of this vegetable fish is completely similar in size and
 in form to the hook which is employed at sea for catching gold'
 neys, and at the head of which  is figured,  in  linen, a  flying-
 fish, with this  exception, that the  goldney-hook has but one
 curve and barb, whereas the shell of the  martinia has two, which
 mii6t render it's effects  more infallible.   This shell contains se-
 veral black seeds, shrivelled, and similar to the globules of the
 sheeps dung flattened.
   As I possess but few books on Botany, I did not know of what
 country the martinia was  a native; but having lately consulted
the Work of Linnceus, I find  that we got it from  Vera-Cruz.
The celebrated Naturalist whom I have just mentioned, dis-
covers in this shell no  resemblance but that of a  woodcock's
head ;  but had he ever seen the hook for goldnevs he could not
possibly have hesitated about preferring this similitude in the
appearance, in as much as the extremity of this pretended beak
bonds back into two hooks, which prick  like needles, and are^ 
132
STUDIES OF NATURE.
as well  as the whole shell, and the tail by which it is united to
the stem, of a ligneous and  horny substance not easily broken
asunder.  John de Laet* tells us, that the land of Vera-Cruz
is on a level with the Sea, and that it's port, called St. John de
Hulloa,  is formed by a small island no higher than the  water; so
that, says he, when the tide rises very high, the land wholly dis-
appears.
  Such  inundations  are very  common  at the  bottom of  the
Gulph of Mexico, as we learn from the relation which Dampier
has given us of the bay of Campeachy, which is in that vicinity.
Hence I presume  that the  martinia, which grows on the inun-
dated shores  of Vera-Cruz, has  certain relations, which  we
know nothing of, to the fishes  of the Sea; in as much as  the
seeds of several trees and plants of  those countries,  described
by  John de Laet, possess  very curious nautical  forms.  A
drawing of the martinia,  taken from nature, is presented in
this Work.
  But there is no occasion to resort to foreign plants for ascer-
taining  the existence  of vegetable relations to  animal.  The
bramble, which affords in every field through which  we pass a
shelter to so many birds, has it's prickles formed into hooks ; so
that it not only prevents 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, as a re*
prisal for hostility committed,  and an indemnification for  ,da^
mages sustained.  Pliny alleges that this gave rise  to the pre*
tended animosity between the linnet and the ass.  This quad-
ruped, whose palate is proof against prickles, frequently browses
on the shrub in which the linnet builds her nest.  She is so ter-
rified at his voice, that on  hearing it, says he, she  kicks down
her eggs;  and her callow brood die with the terror of it.  But
the makes war upon him in her turn, by fixing her attack on the
scratches made in his hide by the prickles, and by picking the
!lesh in those  tender parts to the very bone.  It must be a very
amusing spectacle  to view the combat between the little melodi-
ous  songster, and the  dull, braying, but otherwise  inoffensive
animal.  .
' History of the West-Indies, bo<jk v. chap. 1&. 
STUDY XL
153
  Did we know the animal relations of plants, we should possess
sources of intelligence respecting the instincts of the brute cre-
ation with which we are totally unacquainted. We should know
the origin of their friendships and of their animosities, at least
as  o those which are formed in society ; for with regard to such
as are  innate,  I do not believe that the cause of them was ever
revealed to any man. These are of a different order, and belong
to another world.   How should so many animals have entered
into life under the dominion of hatred,  without having been
offended; furnished with skill and industry, without having ser-
ved an apprenticeship ; and directed by an instinct more infalli-
ble than experience ? How came the electrical power to be confer-
red  on the torpedo, invisibility on  the cameleon, and the light
of the  stars themselves  on a fly ?  Who taught the aquatic-bug
to slide along  the waters, and another species of the same deno-
mination to swim  upon the back ; both the one and the other
for  catching their  prey, which hovers along the surface ? The
water-spider is  still more ingenious.  She incloses a bubble of
air in a contexture of filaments, takes her station in the middle,
and plunges to  the bottom of the brook, where the air-bubble
appears like a globule of quick-silver. There she expatiates under
the shade of the nymphaea, exempted from the dread of every
foe.  If in this species two individuals different in sex happen
to meet, and to suit each other, the two globules, being in a state
of approximation, become united into one, and the two insects
are in the same atmosphere.  The Romans who constructed on
the shores of  Baise saloons underneath the waves of the Sea, in
order  to enjoy  the coolness  and the murmuring noise of the
waters, during  the heats of  Summer, were less dexterous, and
less voluptuous.  If a man united in himself those  marvellous
faculties which are the portion of insects, he would pass for a
god with his fellow-creatures.
   It is of importance for us to be acquainted with at least such
insects as destroy those which  are offensive to  Man. We might
turn their mutual hostility  to good account, by converting it into
the means of  our own repose.  The spider catches" the flies in
nets ; the formicaleo surprises  the ants in a tunnel of sand ;  die
four winged ichneumon, seizes the butterflv on  the wing. There
is another ichneumon, so small and so cunning, that it lavs an
egg in the anus of the vine-fretter.   Man has it in his power
   Vol. II.                  U 
164
STUDIES OF  NATURE.
to multiply at pleasure the families of insects which are useful
to him ; and may find means of diminishing such as make de-
predations on his agricultural possessions.   The small birds of
our groves tender him, to the same effect, services of still great-
er extent, aad accompanied with other circumstances inexpres-
sibly agreeable.   They  are  all  directed by instinct  to live in
this vicinity, and about the pastures and habitations of his flocks
and herds.   A single species of them, might frequently be suffi-
cient to protect  the cattle from the insects  which infest  them
through the Summer,
   There is in the  North a gadfly, called Kourbma by the  Lap-
landers, and by the Learned, astrus- rangiferinus, which tor-
ments the domestic rein-deer to such a degree as to force them
in agony to the mountains, and sometimes actually plagues them
to death, by depositing it's eggs in the skin of the animal.  Ma-
ny dissertations have, as the  custom is, been composed on this
subject, but no remedy for the evil has been proposed.  I am
convinced there must be birds in Lapland which would deliver
the rein-deer from this formidable insect, did not the Laplan-
ders  terrify  them away by the noise of their fowiing-pleces.
These arms of  civilized  Nations have overspread with barba-
rism all our plains.  The birds, destined to  embellish the habi-
tation of Man, withdraw from it, or approach with timidity and
mistrust.   The  sound of musquetry ought  to be prohibited at
least around the haunts of the harmless cattle.  When the birds
are not scared away by the fowler they follow their instincts.
   I have frequendy seen in the Isle of France a species of star-;
ling, called martin, imported thither from India, perch famili-
arly on the back and horns of the oxen to pick them clean.  To
this bird that  island  stands indebted at the  present day for the
destruction of the locusts, which in former times committed
such ravages upon it.   In those of our European  rural scenes
which still exhibit, on the part of Man,  some degree of hospi-
tality toward the innocent warblers, he has the pleasure of see-
ing the stork build her nest on the ridge  of his house, the swal-
low flutter about  in his apartments,  and the wagtail, along the
bank of the river, frisk around his sheep to  protect them from
the gnats.
  The  foundation of all this variety of pleasant and useful
knowledge is laid in-the study of plants.   Each of them is the 
STUDY XL
155
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, arrived in his annual progression at the
sign of the Ram, has given the signal of Spring to our Hemis-
phere, the rainy and warm winctof the South takes it's depar-
ture from Africa, swells the Seas, elevates the rivers above their
banks, so that they inundate the adjacent plains, and fatten them
with their  fertilizing slime ; and levels in the  forests the aged
trees, the decayed trunks, and every thing that presents an ob-
stacle to future vegetation.   It melts >, the snows which cover
our  fields, and forcing it's way to the very Pole, it breaks to
pieces and dissolves the enormous  masses of ice which Winter
had there accumulated.  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 nor-
thern Hemisphere that can escape his heat.
   Every step  he advances in his course through the Heavens a
new plant makes it's appearance on the Earth.  Each of them
arises in succession, and occupies it's proper station at the hour
assigned to it; at one and the same instant it receives  the light
in it's flowers and the  dew of Heaven on it's foliage.   In pro-
portion to it's progress  in growth, the different insect-tribes
which thence  derive their  nourishment likewise display their
existence,  and unfold their characters.   At this epocha too each
species of bird resorts to the species of plant with which she is
acquainted, there to build her nest, and to feed her young with
the animal prey which it presents to her, to supply the want of
the seeds which it has not as yet produced.  We presently be-
hold the tribes of birds of passage flock thither in quest of the
portion  which Nature has provided for them likewise.  First
comes the swallow to  preserve our  habitations from the vermin,
by  planting her nest around us.  The  quail  forsakes Africa,
and grazing the billows of the Mediterranean in troops innume-
rable, is scattered over the boundless meadows of the Ukraine,.
The heathcock pursues his course northward as far as Lapland.
 The wild  ducks and geese, the silvery swans,  forming long tri-
 angular squadrons in  the air, advance to the very islands adja-
 cent to the Pole.  The stork, in former times adored in Egypt.
 which  she abandons, crosses over Europe,  halting here and 
150
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 there to take  repose, even in great cities, on  the roofs of the
 houses of hospitable Germany. All these birds feed their young
 on the insects and reptiles which the newly expanded plants
 have fostered into life.
   Then too it is that the fishes issue in legions  from the nor-
 thern  abysses of the Ocean, allured to the mouths of rivers by
 clouds of insects, which are confined entirely to their 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 ; others, as the north-capers, suffer
 themselves to be  swept into the general current of the Atlantic
 Ocean, and  appear in form of a ship's bottom on the coasts of
 Brasil, and on those of Guinea.
   Quadrupeds themselves likewise  then undertake long pere-
 grinations.  Some proceed from the South to the North, with
 die Sun;  others from East to  West.   There are some which
 coast along the rugged chains of mountains ; others follow the
 courses of rivers  which have  never been navigated.   Length-
 ened columns of black cattle pasture in America, along the banks
 of the  Mechassipi, which they cause to resound with their bel-
 lowing.   Numerous  squadrons of horses traverse the  rivers
 and  the deserts  of  Tartary ;  and wild sheep stray  bleating
 amidst it's vast solitudes.  These flocks have neither overseer
 nor shepherd to guide them through the desert, to the music of
 the pipe : but the expansion of herbage  which they know, de-
 termines the moment of their departure, and the limits of their
 progress.   It is  then  that each animal inhabits  his  natural
 situation,  and reposes under the shade of the vegetable of his
 fathers.   It  is then that the chains of harmony  exert all their
 force,  and that all, being animated by consonances, or by con-
 trasts,  the air, the waters,  the  forests,  and the rocks,  seem to
be vocal, to  be impassioned, to be transported with  delight.
  But  this vast concert can be comprehended by celestial In-
telligences only.  To  Man it  is sufficient, in order  to study
 Nature with  advantage,  that he  limit his  researches  to the
study of one single  vegetable.   It would be necessary for this
purpose to make choice of an aged tree in some solitary situation.
From  the characters which have been indicated, a judgment
might  easily be formed whether it be in it's  natural position;
but still better from it's beauty, and from the  accessories which 
STUDY XI.                    157
Nature uniformly places in connection with it, where the hand
of Man has not  interposed to derange  the  operations.   The
student would first observe it's elementary relations, and  the
striking characters which distinguish the different species of the
same genus, some of  which grow at the  sources of rivers, and
others at the place of their discharge iuto the Ocean. He would
afterwards examine it's convolvuluses, it's mosses, it's mistletoes
it'a scolopendrae, the mushrooms of it's roots, nay  the  very
grasses which  grow under it's  shade.   He would perceive in
each of it's vegetables new elementary relations, adapted to the
places which they occupy, and to the tree which sustains or shel-
ters them.
   His attention might next be directed to the  various species
of animals which resort to it as a  habitation, and he would pre-
sently be convinced, that from the snail up to the squirrel, there
is not a .single one but what has determinate  and characteristic
relations to the dependencies of it's vegetation.
   If the tree in question were growing in a forest, itself too of
considerable antiquity, it would most probably have in it's vici-
nity the tree which Nature designed should contrast with it in
the same site,  as for example the  birch and the fir. It is farther
probable that the accessory vegetables and animals of  this last,
would in like  manner form a  contrast with those of the  first.
These two spheres of observation would mutually illuminate each
other, and would diffuse the clearest light over the manners of
the  animals which frequent  them.  We should  then have a
complete chapter of that immense and sublime History of Na
ture, the alphabet of which is hitherto unknown to us.
   I am fully convinced that without fatigue, and almost without
any trouble,  discoveries  the  most curious  might  be made.
Were we to restrict our  enquiries  but to one single comparti-*
ment, we should discover a multitude  of the most enchanting
harmonies.   In order to enjoy some imperfect sketches of this
kind we must have recourse to travellers.  Our Ornithologists
fettered by methods and system, only think of swelling their
catalogue, and distinguish nothing in birds save the feet and the
bill.  It is not in the nests that they observe them, but in hunt-
ing, and in their pouch.  They even  consider the colours of
their plumage as accidents.   It was not by chance  however that
Nature, on the shores of Brasil,  bestowed a  beautiful carnation 
158
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 colour, with a border of black, on the extremity of the wings of
 the Ouara, a species of curlew inhabiting the sea-green foliage
 of the paletuvier, which grows in the bosom of the waves, and
 bears no apparent flowers. The savia, another bird of the same
 climate, is yellow over the belly, with the rest of the plumage
 gray.   It is about the size of a sparrow, and perches on  the
 pepper-plant, the  flowers of which have no lustre, but  whose
 grains  are eaten by this bird, and re-sown wherever she takes
 her flight;.
   To those correspondences must be added such as pertain to
 site, which itself derives so much  beauty from the overshadow-
 ing vegetable.  These harmonies are detailed by Father Francis
 d"*Abbeville.  If credit is to be given to the History of Voyages
 byr the Abbe Prevost, there is on the banks of the Senegal a  flu-
 viatic tree, the leaves of which are  thorny,  and the branches
 pendent, in form of an  arch.  It serves as a habitation to birds
 called kurbalos, or fishers, of the size of a sparrow, variously
 coloured.  Their bill is very long, and armed with little teeth
 resembling  a saw.  They build a nest  of the bulk of a pear,
 composed of earth, feathers, straw, moss, and  attach it to a long
 thread, suspended from the  extremity of the branches  which
 project over the river,  in order to secure it from the serpents
 and monkeys, which  sometimes contrive to  clamber up after
 them.   You would take those nests, at a little distance, for  the
Jfruit of the tree: and some of those trees contain to the number
 of a thousand.   You perceive the kurbalos fluttering incessandy
 along the water, and entering into their nests with a motion that
 dazzles the eyes.
   According to Father Charlevoix, there grows in Virginia, on
 the brink of the lakes, a laurel-leafed yew-tree which pushes  se-
 veral stems from it's root, the branches of which embrace all  the
 surrounding trees, and climb to the height of more than sixteen
 feet.   They form in Summer   an  impenetrable shade,  and in
 Winter a temperate retreat for the birds.   It's flowers have no
 very striking appearance, and it's fruit grows in round clusters,
 loaded with black grains.  This yew has for it's principal  in-
 habitant a very beautiful kind of jay.  The head  of that bird is
 adorned with a long black crest which it  can  erect at pleasure.
 It's back  is of a deep purple.   The wings are black on the  in-
 side, blue externally, and white  at  the extremities, with white 
STUDY XL
159
 stripes across every feather.   It's tail is blue and marked with
 the same stripes as the wings; and  it's cry is far from being
 disagreeable.
   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, confounded with the co-
 lour of it's bark, and motionless, he becomes invisible.  But he
 presently  animates the  obscure retreat 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  the situations which have been assigned to them
 by Nature,  I never can  consider a  landscape as possessing all
 it's beauty unless I perceive  in it at least  one little hut.   The
 habitation of Man confers on every species of vegetable a new
 degree of interest or of majesty.  Nothing  more is necessary in
 many cases than a tree, in order to characterize in a country the
 wants of a whole Nation,  and the care of Providence.  I love
 to see the family of an  Arab under the date-tree of the desert,
 and the boat of an islander of the Maldivias loaded with cocoa-
 nuts,  under  the cocoa-trees of their gravelly strands.  The ho-
 vel of a poor unindustrious Negro gives me pleasure, under the
 shade of a great gourd-plant, which exhibits his complete set of
 household furniture.  Our magnificent hotels in great cities arc
 the habitations of tradesmen merely : in the country, they arc
 transformed into castles,  palaces, temples.   The long avenues
 which announce  them confound  themselves with  those which
 form  the communication of empires.   This is not in truth what
 I consider as  most interesting in rural scenery.-  To the most
ostentatious  exhibition of  splendor I have frequently preferred
the view of  a little hamlet of fishermen, built by the side of a
river.  With  inexpressible delight have I  sometimes  reposed
under the shade of the willows and  of  the poplars, on which
were suspended the bow-nets composed of their own branches. 
160
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   I shall now proceed, in my usual superficial manner, to take
a rapid glance of the harmonies of plants with man;  and that I
may introduce at least something of order into a subject so rich
in matter,  I  shall farther divide those harmonies, relatively to
Man himself, into elementary, into vegetable^ into animal, and
into 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 relations
of strength and magnitude, we shall find it divided, with a  suf-
ficient degree of  generality,  into three great classes, namely,
into herbs, into shrubs, and into trees.   It is to be remarked, in
the first place, that herbs are of  a substance pliant and soft.
Had they been ligneous  and  hard, like the young boughs of
trees, to which it might appear they ought naturally to have a
resemblance, as they grow on the same soil, the greatest part of
the Earth would  have  been inaccessible to the foot of Man, till
the fire  or the hatchet had  cleared the way for him.  It was
not by chance therefore that so many grasses, mosses, and herbs
assumed a soft and yielding texture, nor from want of nourish-
ment, or of the  means of expansion; for some of those herbs
rise to a very great height, such as the banana of India, and se-
veral ferulaceous 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 for the
most part on rugged and steep  places, affording to Man the
means of clambering up with facility, for they shoot out of the
very clefts of the rocks.  But as there are  rocks which have no
clefts, and which present the  perpendicularity of a  wall, there
are likewise creeping plants which take root at their bases, and
v, hich, fixing themselves to their sides, 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 southern regions.
   Were the Earth covered with vegetables of this sort, it  would
be impossible to walk over it. It is very remarkable that when
uninhabited islands were discovered,  some were found clothed 
STUDY XL
161
with forests, as the Island of Madeira ;  others in which there
was nothing but herbage  and rushes,  as the Malouine  Islands,
at the entrance of Magellan's Strait; others carpeted with mos-
ses simply,  such as several little isles on the coasts of Spitzber-
gen ; others,  in great number,  on which these several vegeta-
bles were blended ; but I do not know of a single one which
was found to contain only shrubbery and liannes.  Nature has
placed this class only on places not easily to be scaled, in order
to facilitate  access to Man.  It may be affirmed, that no preci-
pice presents a  surface so perpendicular as to be  insurmounta-
ble with their assistance. Thus aided the ancient Gauls were on
the point of storming the  capitol.
   As to trees, though they are replenished with a vegetative
force which elevates  them to a very  considerable height, the
greater part of them do not send out their first branches but at
a certain distance from the ground. So that though they form,
when they have attained a certain degree of elevation, an inter-
texture impenetrable  to the Sun,  which they extend to a great
distance around, they leave however about their roots, avenues
sufficient to render them accessible, so that die 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 shrubbery
as a scaling ladder to his hands ; and the  trees are so many pa-
rasols over  his  head.   Nature, after having established those
proportions between them, has distributed them in  all  the va-
rieties of situation, by bestowing on them, abstractly- from their
particular relations to the  elements, and to the animal creation,
qualities the best adapted  to minister to the necessities of Man,
and to compensate  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 research-
es be limited. We have just been considering plants according to
their shape  and size, after the manner of gardeners ;  we pro-
ceed farther to examine them as is done by the wood-feller,  the
huntsman, the carpenter,  the  fisherman, the shepherd, the sai-
lor, nay, the nosegay-maker.  It is of small importance whether
we be learned, provided we cease  not to be men.
   Vol. II.                     X 
162
STUDIES OF  NATURE.
   It is in the countries of the North, and on the summit of
cold mountains, that the pine grows, and the fir and the cedar,
and most part of resinous trees, which shelter man from the
snows by the closeness of their foliage,  and which furnish him
during the Winter season with torches^and fuel for his fire-side.
It is very remarkable that the leaves of those ever-green  trees
are filiform, and extremely adapted by this configuration, which
possesses the farther advantage  of reverberating the heat like
the hair of animals, for resistance to the impetuosity of the
winds that beat with peculiar violence  on elevated situations.
The Swedish Naturalists have observed that the fattest pines
are to be found on the  dryest and most sandy regions of Nor-
way.  The larch, which takes equal pleasure in the cold moun-
tains, has a very resinous trunk,
   Mathiola, in his useful commentary on  Dioscorides, informs
us, that there is no substance more proper than the  charcoal of
those trees for promptlyTmelting the iron minerals,  in the vici-
nity of which they peculiarly thrive.   They are besides loaded
with mosses, some species of which catch fire from the slighest
spark.  He relates, that 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 there a  great quantity  of
larclies (larix) bearded all over, to use his own expression, and
completely whitened with moss.  The Shepherds of the place
willing to amuse him, set fire  to the mosses of some of those
trees, which was immediately communicated with the rapidity
of gunpowder touched with the match.   Amidst the obscurity
of the night,  the flame and the sparks seemed  to ascend up to
the very  Heavens. They diffused, as they burnt, a very agree-
able perfume.   He farther remarks, that  the best agaricum
grows upon the larch, and that  the arque-busiers of his  time
made use of it for keeping up  fire, and for making matches.
Thus Nature, in crowning the summit of cold and ferruginous
mountains with  those  vast  vegetable torches, has  placed the
match in their branches, the 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 it's
leaves painted as a fan,  attached to a long tail, and similar,
when completely displayed, to a  radiating Sun of verdures 
STUDY XL                    163
Two of those trees are to be seen in the Royal Garden. The
leaf of the banana resembles a long and broad girdle, which un-
doubtedly procured for it the name  of Adam's fig-tree.  The
magnitude of the leaves of  several species of trees increases in
proportion as we approach  the Line.   That  of the  cocoa-tree
with double fruit, of the Schelles islands, is from twelve to fif-
teen feet long, and from seven to eight broad.  A single one
is sufficient to cover  a numerous family.  One of those leaves
is likewise to be seen in the Royal Cabinet of Natural History.
That  of the talipot of the  Island of Ceylon is of nearly the
same size.
  The interesting and unfortunate Robert Knox, who has given
the best account of Ceylon  which I am acquainted  with, tells
us, that one of  the leaves of the talipot  is  capable of covering
from fifteen to twenty persons.   When it is  dry, continues he,
it is at once strong and pliant, so that you may fold and unfold
it  with pleasure, being naturally painted like a fan.  In this
state  it is not  bigger  than  a man's arm, and extremely light.
The natives cut it into triangles,  though it is naturally  round,
and each  of them carries one of those sections over his head,
holding the angular  part before, in his hand, to open for him-
self a passage  through the bushes.  The  soldiers employ this
leaf as  a  covering to their tents.   He considers it, and with
good reason, as one of the greatest blessings of Providence, in  a
country burnt up by the Sun, and inundated by the rains for six
months of the year.
   Nature has provided in those climates parasols for  whole vil-
lages ; for the  fig-tree, denominated in India the fig-tree of the
Banians,  a drawing of which may be seen  in Tavernier, and in
several other travellers, grows on the very burning sand of the
sea-shore, throwing from the extremity of it's branches a m• lati-
tude of shoots, which drop to the ground,  thore take root, an J
form around the principal trunk, a great  number of covered ar-
cades, whose shade is impervious to the rays  of the Sun.*

  * The following is extracted from my Elements of Botany, printed at Phi-
ladelphia, in 1803.  " The leaves of certain vegetables acquire  a very great
size.  It is  curious, too, to remark that it is only in the hot or hottest portions
of the giobe, that we find the largest leaves. I believe that the cold climates,
and even those which-are.moderatch warm, do  not furnish U9  with any in,
p.tuni r-s f-f very Lr^e lenv»d trees.  I  doe-' seem, flv.'. <(|^r magnitude of the 
164             STUDIES OF NATURE.

   In our temperate climates we experience a similar benevo-
lence on the part of Nature.   In the warm and thirsty season,
she  bestows upon  us  a variety of fruits replenished with  the
most refreshing juices, such as cherries, peaches, melons ; and
as Winter approaches, those which warm and comfort by their
oils, such  as the almond and the walnut.   Certain Naturalists
have considered even  the ligneous shells  of these fruits as a
preservative against the  cold of the gloomy season; but these
are, as Ave have  seen, the means of floating and  of navigating.
Nature employs others, with which we are  not acquainted, for
preserving the substances of fruits from the impressions of the
air.   For  example she  preserves through the whole  Winter
many species of apples and pears, which have  no  other cover-
ing than a pellicle so very thin that it is impossible to determine
how fine it is.
   Nature  has placed other vegetables in humid  and dry situa-
tions, the qualities  of which  are  inexplicable on the principles
of our  Physics, but which admirably harmonize  with the ne-
cessities of the men who inhabit those places.    Along the wa-
ter's side grow  the plants and the trees which are the dryest,
the lightest, and consequently the  best adapted  to the purpose
of crossing the stream.   Such are reeds which are hollow, and
rushes which  are filled  with an  inflammable marrow.  It re-
quires but a very moderate bundle of rushes to bear the weight
of a very heavy man upon the water.  On the banks of the lakes
of the North are produced those enormous birch-trees, the bark
of a single one  of  which is sufficient to form a  large  canoe.

leaves of certain species of tree increases as we approach the line. *  In the
cold climates, we find no Palms, nor any other trees, with leaves so large as
to be capable of sheltering whole families from the inclemency of the wea-
ther.  Why should we doubt (when a vast system of benevolence is so con-
spicuous in the earth) that in giving to the vegetables of hot climates such ca-
pacious leaves, the Author of the universe had consulted the health, the com-
forts, and the pleasures cf the human inhabitants, destined to live beneath the
scorching rays of the sun ? But man is not the only animal that derives ad-
vantages from  the large-spreading leaves of tropical trees.  The  birds and
many other animals are equally benefited.  Destitute of this shelter, many
species would be nearly incapable of subsisting in the countries in which they
reside ; and, in particular, they would be incapable (unless their instinctive
operations were essentially varied) of rearing their youug." Part 1. p. 62.
                                                        B. S. B.
              ' " The amiable Bernardir. De Saint-Pierre."" 
STUDY XL
IG,;
This bark  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, per-
fectly sound, though it had lain there from the time of Peter the
Great.
  If we may depend on the testimony of Pliny and of Plutarch,
there were  found at Rome, four hundred years after the death
of Numa, the books which that great  King had commanded to
be deposited with his body in the tomb.  The body was en-
tirely consumed; but the books which treated of Philosophy and
Religion, were in such a state  of preservation, that Petilius, the
Pretor, undertook to read them by command of the Senate.  On
the report which he made respecting their contents, they were
ordered to  be burnt.  They were written on the  bark  of the
birch-tree.   This bark consists of an accumulation 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.
She has planted on the banks of the rivers of India the bamboo,
an enormous reed which rises  there sometimes to the height of
sixty feet,  and swells  to the size of a man's thigh.  The part
comprehended between two of it's joints is sufficient to bear a
man up on the water.   The Indian places  himself upon it a-
straddle, and so crosses a  river, swimming along by the motion
of his feet.  The Dutch Navigator, jfohn Hugo de Lmschoten,
an  author  of reputation,  assures us that the crocodile never
touches persons who are passing rivers in this manner, thought
he  frequently attacks canoes, and even the boats of Europeans.
Linschoten ascribes  the abstinence of this voracious animal to an
antipathy which he has to that species of reed.
  Francis  Pyrard, another traveller, who has observed  Nature
with a careful eye, informs us  that there grows on the shores of
the Maldavia Islands a tree called candou, the wood of which  is
so light that it serves as cork for the fishermen,*  I think I  was
once possessed of a log of wood of that species.   It was strip-
p: d of the bark, perfectly white, of the thickness of my arm,
about six feet long, and so light that I could easily lift it by mv
finger  and thumb.   In these   same islands, and on the sam~

        " Sec Pyard's Voyage to the Maldavia Islands, page 38, 
 166             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 strands, rises the cocoa-tree, which there attains a higher de-
 gree of beauty than any where else in the World.   Thus the
 tree of all others most useful to mariners grows on the shores  of
 the Seas most frequented by men of that description.  All the
 world  knows that the vessel is there constructed of it's timber,
 that it's leaves are formed into sails, that the trunk serves for
 a mast, that the hempen substance called caira, which surrounds
 it's fruit, is wrought into cordage, and when the whole is ready
 for sea, a cargo of cocoa-nuts is  the lading.  It  is farther re-
 markable that the cocoa-nut, before it comes  to perfect matu-
 rity, contains a liquor which is  an excellent antiscorbutic.
   Is it not then a miracle of Nature, that this  fruit, replenished
 with such milk, should come to perfection on the barren strand,
 and within the washing of the briny Deep ?  Nay it is only on
the brink of the Sea that the tree which bears it arrives at it's
 highest beauty; for few are to be seen in the interior of countries.
   Nature  has  placed  a palm-tree of the same family, but  of
different species, on the summit of the mountains of the same cli-
 mates: it is the palmist.  The stem of this tree is sometimes
 above  a hundred feet high, it is perfectly straight, and bears on
 it's summit all the foliage which it has, a bunch of palms, from
 the midst of which issues a long roll of painted leaves resemb-
ling the staff of a lance.  This  roll contains, in a sort  of coriac-
 eous sheath, leaves ready to shoot, which are very good for eat-
 ing before their expansion.  The trunk of the palmist is woodyr
 only at the circumference, and it is so hard as  to resist the edge
of the best tempered hatchet.   It may be cleft with the utmost
 case from end to end, and is filled inwardly with a spongy sub-
 stance  which may be easily separated.  Thus prepared it serves
 to form, for conducting waters frequently diverted from their
 course by the rocks which are at the summit of mountains, tubes
 which  are not corruptible by humidity.   Thus the  palm-tree
 gives to the inhabitants  of those regions the means of construct-
 ing aqueducts at the source of rivers, and ships at the place  of
 their discharge.
   Other species of trees render them the same services in other
 situations. On the shores of the Antilles Islands grows the acajou,
 there called, but improperly, the cedar, on account of  it's incor-
 ruptibility.  It arrives at such a prodigious size, that out of one
 log of  it they make a boat capable of carrying so many as forty 
STUDY XL                      1C7
men.*  This tree possesses another quality, which in the judg-
ment of the best observers ought to render it invaluable for the
marine service; namely this, it is  the only one of those shores
which is never attacked by the  sea-worm, an insect so formi-
dable to every other species of timber which  floats in the seas
of that region, as to  devour whole  squadrons in  a very little
time, and in order to preserve them, lays us under the necessity
for many years past, of sheathing their  bottoms with copper.
But this beautiful tree has found enemies more dreadful  than
the worm, in the European inhabitants  of those  Islands, who
have almost extirpated the whole race of them.
  The manner in which Providence has contrived a supply for
the thirst of Man in  sultry places is no less worthy of admira-
tion.  Nature has placed amidst the burning sands of Africa, a
plant whose leaf, twisted round like a cruet, is always filled with
a large glassfull 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 it's  fill of water,
which continues fresh and  cool in the greatest heats, by means
of the tufted foliage  which crowns it's summit.  Finally, she
has placed vegetable fountains on the parched  rocks of the An-
tilles.  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, on a level with the  Sea, are
almost entirely inundated in the rainy season, and become so
parched on the return of dry weather, that many huntsmen who
happen to miss their way in the  forests with which thev are co-
vered, actually  perish with thirst.  The  celebrated travellci
Dampier relates that he several times escaped  this calamity, by
means of a very extraordinary species of vegetation, which had
been pointed out to  him on the trunk of a kind of pine very
common there ; it resembles a packet of leaves piled one ove\
* Consult Fathers Labat and Du Te-tre. 
 Ib8            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 another in tiers; and  on account of it's 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 with a knife, there
 immediately flows from it a good pint of very clear  and whole-
 some water.   Father du Tertre informs us that he has  several
 times found a similar refreshment in the leaves, rounded like a
 cornet, of a species  of balizier, which grows on the sandy plains
 of Guadaloupe.   I  have been assured by many of  our sports-
 men, that nothing was more proper for the quenching of thirst
 dian the  leaves of the mistletoe, which grows on many trees.
   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 that
 every Latitude, and every season, has it's own, which  are ap-
 propriated to it, and that  every  parallel varies  them in every
 degree of Longitude.

          Fegetable Harmonies of Plants with Man.
   Were  we now to  examine the vegetable relations of plants to
 Man, we should find them to be infinite in number;  they are
 the perpetual sources of our arts,  of our manufactures, of our
 commerce, and of our enjoyments; but in our usual way, we
 shall just run over a few of their natural and  direct  relations,
 with which Man has intermingled nothing of his own.
   To begin with their  perfumes,  Man appears to me the only-
 being endowed with sensibility who is affected  by these.  Ani-
mals, it is granted, and especially bees and  butterflies,  have cer-
 tain plants proper to themselves, 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
 dog himself, who from his domestic habits assumes so power-
ful a tincture of the  manners and of the tastes of Man, appears
totally insensible to  that  enjoyment.   The impression  which
flowers make upon us seems connected with some moral affec-
 tion ; for there are some which enliven us, whereas others dis-
 pose us  to melancholy, without our being able to assign any 
STUDY XL
169
other reasons for it than those which I have endeavoured to
unfold in examining some general Laws of Nature.
   Instead of distinguishing them as  yellow, red, blue, violet,
we might divide them into gay, into serious, into 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, which present dingy colours and offensive smells.  There
is a species of arum which grows in the morasses of Magellan's
Strait, whose flower exhibits the appearance of  an ulcer, and
exhales an odour so strong of putrid flesh, that the flesh-fly re-
sorts to it to deposit her eggs.
   But the number of fetid plants is of no great extent.  The
Earth is clothed with flowers which  for the most part have very
pleasing hues and perfumes.   I wish  time would  permit me to
say something of the simple aggregation of flowers.  This sub-
ject is so vast and so rich, that I hesitate not to affirm that it
presents ample enployment for the most famous Botanist in
Europe, through his whole life, by discovering to him every day
some new beauty, and that without  removing above  a league
from his own habitation.  All the art with which jewellers dis-
pose their gems disappears before that which  Nature displays in
the assortment of flowers.
   I shewed jf. jf. Rousseau  the  flowers of different trefoils
which I  had picked up, as I was walking  with  him: some of
them were disposed in crowns, in half crowns, in ears, in sheaves
with  colours endlessly varied.   While they were yet on their
stems they had besides other aggregations, with the plants which
were frequently opposed to them, in  colours and  in forms.  I
asked him whether Botanists gave themselves any trouble about
those harmonies: he  told me   no ;  but that he  had advised a
young Painter of Lyons to learn Botany, with a particular view
to study in it's  forms and the assemblages of flowers;  and that
he had thus become one of the most celebrated pattern-drawers
in Europe.  On this  subject I quoted to him a passage from
Pliny  with  which  he was highly  delighted : it relates to  a
Painter of Sicyon, named  Pausias,  who learned  by  means of
this study to paint flowers  at least as well as he of Lyons knew
   Vol. II.                     Y 
 170            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 how to draw them ;  he had in truth a master as skilful as Na-
 ture herself, or rather one and the same with her, namely Love.
   I shall give this story  in the simplicity  of style of the old
 Translator of Pliny, in order to preserve all  it's vivacity.*  " In
 " his youth he became enamoured of a nosegay girl of the same
 " city with himself;  her name was Glycera; she was very pretty,
 " and had a singularly elegant taste in assorting a thousand diffe-
 " rent ways the flowers of nosegays and chaplets :  so that Pau-
 " sias, copying after Nature the chaplets and nosegays of his
 " mistress, rendered himself at length perfect  in that art.  Last
 " of all, he painted  her seated in the attitude of  composing a
 " a chaplet of flowers;  and this picture  is considered  as his
 u great master-piece : he called it Stephano-Plocas, the garland
 " weaver, because Glycera had no other means of relieving the
 " pressure  of poverty,  but making and selling garlands and
 <c nosegays.  And it is confidently affirmed  that  L,. Lucullus
 " gave to Dionysius of Athens two talents, for a simple copy of
 " this picture."
  This anecdote must  have been singularly pleasing to Pliny,
 for he has repeated it in another place :f " Those  of Pelepone-
 " sus," says he, " were the first who regulated the colours and
 " smells  of the flowers of which chaplets were  composed.  It
 u was however originally the  invention of Pausias, a Painter,
 " and of a  nosegay-girl named Glycera  with whom he was vio-
" lently in love ; whence he was engaged to imitate  to the life
 " the chaplets and nosegays  which she composed.  But the girl
" varied in so many  ways the arrangement of the flowers of her
" chaplets, in order to teize  and employ her  lover,  that it affor-
" ded very high amusement to behold the skill  of the  Painter
" Pausias,  and the natural production  of Glycera, striving for
 " the superiority."
  Ancient Nature is still  better acquainted with  the  subject
than is the young Glycera.   As it is impossible to  follow her in
her infinite variety, we  shall make at least one observation re-
 specting her regularity.   It  is  this, that there is  not any one
odoriferous flower but what grows at the foot of Man, or at least
within reach  of his  hand.  All those  of this description are

            * Pliny's Natural History, book xxxv.  chap 2-
                  f Idem, book xxi. chap. 2. 
STUDY XI.                     171
placed on herbage, or on shrubbery, as the heliotrope, the pink,
the gilly-flower, the violet, the rose, the lilach.   Nothing simi-
lar to these grows on the lofty trees of our forests ; and if some
flowers of brilliant appearance are displayed on certain tall trees
of foreign countries, such as the tulip-tree, and the great ches-
nut of India,  they have no very pleasant smell.   Some trees of
India, it is admitted, as the spice-bearing plants, are perfumed
all over; but their flowers are not very showy, and do not par-
take of the odour of their leaves.   The flowers of the cinnamon-
tree smell  like human excrement:  this  I  know to be true by
experience ; if however the trees which were shewed  to me in
the Isle of France, in a plantation belonging to Mr. Magonf
were the real cinnamon.  The beautiful and fragrant flower of
the magnolia grows on the lower part of the plant.  Besides the
laurel which  bears it is, as well as spice-trees,  a plant of no
great elevation.
   It is possible I may be mistaken* in some of my observations;
but supposing them multiplied with respect to the same object,
and attested by persons of veracity and exempted from the spi-
rit of system, I am able to deduce  general consequences from
them which ought not to be a matter of indifference to the hap*
piness of Mankind, by demonstrating to him the invariable in-
tentions of benevolence in the Author of Nature.  The varie-
ties of their adaptation reflect mutual light;  the means are dif-
ferent, but the end is constantly the same. The same goodness
which has placed the fruit destined for the nourishment of Man
within reach  of his hand, must have likewise disposed his nosc-

   • You are, indeed, mistaken. And it would be an easy task to write a dis-
sertation to expose the debility of your system in this part of the work.  Yet
even here you preserve your ingenuity, and proclaim your holy homage to the
Creator.  For this you can never be too much praised. How many vile-smel-
ling flowers, spread themselves upon the carpet of the earth!   How many
grow upon vegetables not higher than ourselves !  If it be true that the frag-
rant flowers of the magnolia grow on the lower part of the tree, it is also true
that they grow at a considerable height above the ground, and often far
beyond the reach of man.  But in another species of magnolia, the umbrel-
la-tree (magnolia tripetala), the flowers  grow,  in great numbers, within the
the reach of the hand : and the odour of these flowers is at once  vile and op-
pressive  In the I'i- ar.klinia, as we Americans cull it#hc goi\lma pubescens)
\w have an odour much more delicate than that of the finest magnolia : but<
the flower of this noble American tree, or shriib, seems to prefer the higher
:»hJ terminating branche-  - IV S  B. 
172
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 gay with similar attention to his conveniency.  It may be here
 remarked, that our fruit-trees are easily scaled, and different in
 this respect from most forest-trees.   Farther,  all those  which
 produce fruits that are soft when in a state of perfect maturity,
 and which would have been liable to be bruised in falling, such
 as the fig, the mulberry, the plumb, the peach, the apricot, pre-
 sent their crop at a small distance from the ground :  those, on
 the contrary, which yield hard fruit, and such as have nothing
 to risk from falling far, carry it aloft,  as walnut-trees, chesnuts,
 and cocoas.
   There is no less marvelousness of adaptation in the forms and
 sizes of fruits.   Many of them are moulded for the mouth  of
 Man, such as cherries and plumbs ; others for his hand, such as
 pears and apples ;  others much larger, such a melons, have the
sub-divisions marked,  and seem destined to be a social  family
 repast: nay there are  some in India,  as the jacque, and with
 ourselves the pumpion, large enough to be divided  among a
neighbourhood.  Nature appears  to  have observed  the same
proportions in the various sizes of the fruits destined to the nu-
triment of Man, as in the magnitude of the leaves which  are
designed to afford him a shade in hot countries ;  for  of these
some   are contrived to be a shelter for a single person,  others
for a whole family, and others for all the inhabitants of the same
hamlet-
   I shall not  dwell long on the other relations which plants have
wijh the habitation of Man, from their greatness and  their atti-
tude, though  many very curious observations might be suggest-
ed on that subject.  There are few of them but what are capa-
ble of embellishing his  field, his roof, or his wall.   1 shall only
remark that the vicinity of Man is beneficial to  many plants.
An anony-mous missionary- says it is firmly believed by the In-
dians, that the cocoa-trees which have houses around their roots
become much more beautiful  than those where there are  none;
as if that useful tree took delight in being near the habitation of
Man.
  Another missionary,  a bare-footed Carmelite,  called Father
 Philippe, positively asserts that when  the cocoa-tree is planted
close  by houses or huts, it is rendered  more  fruitful by the
smoke, by the ashes, and by other circumstances connected with
a human dwelling, so as to produce double the quantity of fruit. 
STUDY XL                     l-j
He adds that, for this reason, the places in India which consist
of palm-plantations are crowded with houses and little cabins; and
that the proprietors of those plantations give, at first, a pecuniary
premium as an inducement to come  and live there, together
with part of the crop when it is reaped.  He farther adds, that
though their fruits, which are very large and hard,  frequently
fall down from the trees when they have attained a state of full
maturity, either by the gnawing of the rats, or by the violence
of the winds, there is not a single instance known of any person's
being hurt by the fall.  This appears to me no less extraordi-
nary than it did to him.*
  I might extend the influences of Man  to several of our fruit-
trees, especially to the  apple-tree and the vine.  I never saw
finer apple-trees in the Pais de Caux, than those which grow
around  the habitations of the peasantry.  It is true that the at-
tention of the proprietor may have greatly contributed to this.
I have sometimes felt myself stopped in the streets of Paris, to
contemplate with delight small vines, the roots of which are in
the sand, and under the pavement, enriching with their clusters
the complete front of a guard-house.   One  of them, I think
about six or seven years ago, produced two crops in one year,
as was announced in the public prints.

           Animal Harmonies of Plants with Man.
   But Nature was  not satisfied with having given to Man a
bower,  and a carpet, loaded with  fruit: this would not have
thoroughly availed him, had she not  likewise furnished him,
in the vegetable order itself, with the means  of defence against
the depredations of wild beasts.  In vain would he have watched
over the preservation of his propeity through the day,  had it
been  exposed to pillage during the night.   She has bestowed
a prickly shrubbery to enclose him round and round.  The far-
ther we advance southward we  find the greater variety  in the*
species of these. But on  the contrary we see few, if any, of those
thorny shrubs  in the North,  where they appear useless, there
being no orchards to defend.  They seem to be  produced in
both Indies  for ever)- kind of situation.  Though I  have been

  • Sie Voyage to the East, of/?. P. Philippe, a white friar.  Book vii. clwp.
chap- 5, sect. 4. 
174
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 only on the selvage, as I may say, of those countries, I  have
 seen there a great number of such shrubs, the study of which
 presented a great variety of curious remarks to a Naturalist.
   Among others, I took particular notice of one in a garden of
 the Isle of France, which to me 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 it's summit.   It's bark is bristled all
 over with very strong and very 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, or 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 Man himself,  accustomed as he is to force his away
 through  every  obstacle.  Robert Knox  whom I  have before
 quoted, informs us, that the avenues of the kingdom of Candy
 in the  Island of  Ceylon, are blockaded only with  faggots of
 those thorns, with which the inhabitants obstruct the passes of
 their mountains.
   Man finds in vegetables protection not only against ferocious
 animals,  but against reptiles and insects.  Father du  Tertre
 tells us that he one day found,  in the Island of Guadaloupe, at
 the foot of a tree, a creeping plant, the stem of which presented
 the figure of a  serpent.  But he was much more surprised on
 perceiving seven or eight  snakes  lying dead around it.   He
 communicated this discovery to a medical man, who by means
 of it performed many  wonderful cures, by employing it in the
 cases of persons bitten by those dangerous reptiles.  It is gene-
 rally diffused over the rest  of  the Antilles Islands, in which it
 is  known by the name  of snake-wood.   It is  likewise found in
 the East-Indies.  John  Hugo de Linschoten ascribes to it the
tame figure and the same qualities.
   We  have in  our own climates vegetables which present  very
 strange correspondencies and contrasts with reptiles. Pliny tells
 us that serpents are very fond  of the juniper and of the fennel, 
STUDY XI.
176
but that they are rarely found under the fern, the trefoil, the
ash-weed, and  the  rue ;  and that betony kills them.  Other
plants, as has already been mentioned,  destroy flies, such as
certain species of the dionsea.  Thevenot assures us that in the
Indies grooms  defend their horses from the flies, by rubbing
them every morning with  the flowers of the pumpion. The flea-
bane, 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 it's seed formed like the head of a vi-
per, 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 the opposiuons between plants and animals. I
am disposed to  believe that each genus of insect has it's destruc-
tive vegetable with which we are unacquainted. In general, all
vermin shuns perfume.
   Nature has farther given us, in plants,  the  first patterns of
nets for hunting and fishing. There grows on certain heaths in
China a species of ratan  so  interwoven and so strong,  as to
catch and hold fast the stag, though in full vigour.   I myself
have seen on the sands of the sea-shore  in the  Isle of France a
species of lianne,  called the false-potatoe, which  covers whole
acres like a vast fishing-net.  It  is so perfectly adapted to this
very purpose that  the  Negroes actually employ  it in fishing.
They form with the stems and foliage of it a very  long series of
cordages, which they cast into the sea ;  and having disposed
them in a chain encompassing a great space on the water, they
draw it ashore by the two extremities.  They scarcely ever fail
to bring out fish,*  for the fishes are terrified not only by  a net
which incloses them, but by every unknown  substance which
forms a shade on the surface of the water.   By  employing an
industry equally simple, and nearly similar, the inhabitants ol
the Maldivia Islands carry on fisheries to a prodigious extent-
employing no  other means to decoy the fish into their recepta
cies, except a cord floating on the water  with the help of stick-

         Human, or elementary,  Harmonies of Plants.
   There is not a single plant on the face of the Earth but whai
has certain relations to the necessities of Man, and which doe^

            * See Francis FvrartTs Voyage to the Maildivias. 
 176             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 not serve, somewhere or another, for clothing to him, for a shel-
 ter, for pleasure, for medicine, or at least for fuel. Some which
 with  us are entirely useless are in high estimation in other parts
 of the World.  The Egyptians put up frequent and fervent pray-
 ers 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.   But those general re-
 lations, being innumerable, I shall confine myself to a few par-
 ticular observations respecting  the plants which minister to  the
 first of human wants, I mean the food of Man.
   We remark, first,  that  corn,  which serves for  the general
 subsistence of the Human  Race, is not produced by vegetables
 of a  lofty stature, but by  simple grasses.  The principal sup-
 port of human  life is  borne on  herbage, and is exposed to  the
 mercy of every breath of wind. There is reason to believe that
 had we ourselves been entrusted with the  safety of our crops,
 we should not have failed  to place them on great trees ; but in
 this, as well as  in every thing else, we are bound to admire Di-
 vine  Providence, and to mistrust our own wisdom.   Had our
 harvests been the produce  of the forests,  in the event of these
 being destroyed by war,  or set  on fire through our own impru-
 dence, or rooted up by the winds, or ravaged by inundations,
 whole ages would have  been requisite  to  re-produce  them in
 a country.  Farther, the fruits  of trees are much more liable to
 drop off than the  seeds of  grasses.  The grasses, as has been
 already observed, cany 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  the water which falls from  Heaven.
 The drops of the  rain cannot drown them, as  they do flowers
 radiated, in  disks, in  roses, and in umbels, the forms of which
nowever are  adapted  to  certain places and  to certain seasons;
 but those of the grasses are adap-f-d to every exposure.
   When they are borne  in flowing and drooping plumesv such
 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
 inform and capillaceous  leaves, they escape the violence of the 
STUDY XL
177
winds.   Their weakness avails them more  than strength does
the great trees.   Like small fortunes, they are re-sown  and
multiplied by the very same tempests which lay waste the vast
forests.
   They  farther resist the effect of excessive  dryness 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 slightest 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 coun-
tries 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 re-producing themselves
in  three different ways, by shoots which push away  from their
roots, by creeping branches,  which  they extend to a distance,
and by grains extremely volatile or indigestible, which the winds
and the animals scatter about on every side.   The greatest part
of trees, on the contrary,  naturally regenerate themselves only
by their seeds.  Add to the general advantages of grasses, an
astonishing variety of  characters in their  florification  and in
their attitudes, which renders them more proper than vegetables
of every 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 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.   Homer, who  had studied  Nature so accurately', fre-
quently characterizes each  country- by the vegetable peculiar to
it.  One island he  celebrates for it's grapes, another for it's
olive-trees, a third for it's  laurels, and a fourth for it's palms ;
but to the Earth only he gives the general epithet of Zifiu.x, or
corn-giving.  Nature in fact  has formed it  for  growing in all
situations,  from  the Line to the very border of the  Frozen
Ocean. One  species is adapted to the humid places  of warm
   Vol. II.                    Z 
178
STUDIES OF NATURE.
countries, as the rice of Asia, which grows in vast abundance
in the muddy swamps by the side of the Ganges.  Another is
suited to the marshy grounds of cold countries ; such is a kind
of false  oats which naturally grows on the banks of the rivers
of North-America, and of which many savage Nations annually
raise immense crops.*
  Other kinds  of corn thrive  wonderfully well on warm and
dry lands, as the millet and the pannic of Africa, and the maize
of Brasil.  In our climates wheat agrees best with a strong soil,
rye with a sandy one, buck-wheat with  rainy  declivities,  oats
with humid plains, barley with stony ground.   Barley succeeds
in the very bosom of the North.   I have seen as far up as the
sixty-first degree of North-Latitude, amidst  the rocks of  Fin-
land, crops of this grain as beautifid as ever the plains of Pales-
tine produced,
  Corn  affords an abundant supply  to all  the necessities  of
Man.   With it's straw he  enjoys the means of lodging, of co-
vering,  of warming himself,  and  of feeding his sheep, his  cow,
and his horse;  with it's 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 Dantzick.  The  Chir
nesef extract from rice a wine as agreeable  as the best wines
of Spain.  The  Brasilians prepare their ouicou with maize.   In
a word,  with oats torrified 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 sa-
vour 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.
  We may distinguish in the barley and the oats, the  elemen-
tary characters  which have been formerly indicated, and which
vary the species of plants of the same genus in a conformity  to
the situations where they are designed  to grow.  The barley
destined to dry places has leaves  broad and open at their base,

  * Consult Father tlennepin, a Franciscan : Champlain, and other Traveller?;
through North-America.
* Journpv to China, by Islrand IJct. 
STUDY XL                    1TL»
which convey the rain-water to the root of the plant. The long
beards which surmount the coat that is wrapped round  the
grain, are bristled  with denticulations, very much  adapted to
the purpose of making them adhere to the hair of animals, and
of resowing them  in lofty and  dry situations.  The oats,  on
the contrary, destined to humid places, have narrow leaves, ga-
thered close around the stem, in order to intercept the rain-
water.   The coats of this plant distended, similar to two long
half-bladders, and  not  very closely adhering to the grain, ren-
der it proper for floating, and for crossing the Avater by the help
of the winds.   But here we  are presented with a still more
wonderful fact, which will confirm what has been advanced re-
specting the uses of the different parts of plants relatively to the
elements, and which extends the views of Nature even beyond
the fructification, though we have considered this as the deter-
mining character;  it is that barley, in rainy years, degenerates
into oats, and that oats, in dry seasons, change into barley.
   This observation, related by Pliny, Galen, and Mathiola, the
Commentator of Dioscorides^ has been  confirmed by the ex
periments of several modern Naturalists.   Mathiola indeed al-
ledges that this transformation of barley is not into oats proper-
ly so called, which  he denominates  Bromos, but  into a plant
which at first sight resembles it, and to which he gives the name
of JEgilops.  This transformation,  demonstrated  by the  fre-
quently repeated experiments of the  husbandmen  of his coun-
try, and by that which the father of  Galen made expressly for
his  own satisfaction ;  together with that of the flowers of the
linarium, and of the leaves  of many vegetables, are sufficient
proof that the elementary relations of plants are only secondarv,
and that animal or human relations are the primarv. Thus Na-
ture has placed the character of a plant not only in the form of
the  fruit, but in the substance  of that  very fruit.
   Hence  I presume, that having formed in general ofa mealy
substance the basis of  human  life,  Nature  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 sea-
son  or of  climate, she  has formed  other combinations of it,

            •See .Mathiola on Diosccidei, book iv. page 43C. 
 180            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 which she has deposited  in  leguminous plants, such as pease
 and beans, which the Romans  comprehended in  the class of
 corn-plants ;  that finally  she has  formed  another sort of it,
 which she has laid up in the fruits of trees, such as chesnuts, or
 in roots, as potatoes, and other farinaceous under-ground vege-
 tables.
   Those adaptations of substance to every climate are so infal-
 libly certain, that in every country the fruit most common there
 is the best and most wholesome.   Hence I farther presume that
 fdie has followed the same plan with respect to medicinal  plants ;
 and that having diffused  over various  families of vegetables,
 virtues relative to our blood, to our nerves, to our humors, she
has modified them in every Country conformably to the diseases
 which the  climate  of each particular country generates,  and
 has placed them in opposition with the particular characters of
 those same diseases.  It is in my opinion from the neglect of
 these observations, that so many  doubts and disputes have 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 manglier of Mexico,
 is a remedy for the fevers of America, of a kind 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, as  it would lead me
 into a deviation from my  subject;  but if Physicians would pay
the attention to it which it merits, they must study more care-
 fully the plants of their own country, and not prefer to them as
iheyr generally do, those of foreign climates, which they are un-
der the  necessity of  modifying a thousand different ways, in
order to give them, as chance may direct, an adaptation to local
maladies.  One thing is certain, namely, that 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 it's principal virtue.   Thus
having placed the cochlearia (scurvy-grass), that powerful  anti-
scorbutic, even on the foggy shores of  Spitsbergen, she has re-
peated the savour and the  medicinal qualities of it, in the  cresses
rf our brooks, in the garden cresses, in the nasturtium, which is 
STUDY  XL
181
a cress of the rivers of Peru; in a word, in the very grains of the
papaya, which grows in  humid places of the Antilles Islands.
We find in like manner the savour, the smell, and the medicinal
qualities ef our garlic, in the woods, the barks, and the mosses
of America.*

  * I must here observe  that 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 disorders to which women are subject.  Of
this I have had repeated experience.   Nay Pliny goes so far as to assure us
that it is a cure for the epilepsy. It is besides an antisceptic ; and every plant
which has it's smell has also the same virtues.  It is very remarkable that
plants which smell like garlic, usually grow in marshy places, as a remcdy
provided by Nature  against the putrid emanations thence exhaled. Such is,
among others, the scordium.  Galen relates, that it's antiseptic virtue became
demonstrable from this, that after a battle, the dead bodies which happened
to be in contact with plants of the scordium, were found to be in a much less
putrid state than tiiose which were not;  and that those bodies remained fresh
and sound chiefly in the parts which actually touched the plant  But the ex-
periment which the  Baron Busbeyvius  made with it upon living bodies, is
still  more striking.  That great Man, on his return from the first Journey
which  he made to Constantinople, was  attended by  a numerous retinue.  A
Turk of his suit was attacked with the plague, and died. His companions  re-
solutely divided his  spoils among themselves, in defiance of the remonstran-
ces of the  Physician of  Busbequius, who assured them that  the  pestilence
would  thereby be immediately communicated. In fact, a few days after, the
symptoms of that dreadful malady became apparent among them.
  But let us permit the intelligent and virtuous Ambassador himself to give
an account of the consequences of this alarming event.  " The day after our
departure for Adrianople," says he,  " they all came to him (the Physician)
" with a sad and dejected air, complaining ofa violent head-ach, and implor-
" ing relief.  They were  perfectly sensible that they were affected with the
" first  symptoms of the pestilence. My physician repremanded them severc-
" ly, saying he was astonished how they dared to apply to him for a remedy
" for an evil of which he had forewarned them, au J which they had obstinate-
" ly persisted in bringing upon themselves.  Not however that he intended
" to  withhold any assistance which might be in his power.  On the contrary ^
" he became extremely uneasy about the means of  relieving  them : But.
" where was the possibility of finding medicine on a  road frequently subject-
" to a failure of the most common necessaries of life ? Providence became our
" only refuge, and we  were effectually succoured in this trying hour. I shall
" relate in what manner.
  " It was my custom, on our arrival at the different  halting places on the
" road, to go a walking in the viciniu,  and to take a view of every thing cu-
" rious.  That day I was so fortunate as to bend my course to an adjacent
" meadow.   -My eye happened to catch sight of a plant with which I was un-
" acquainted :  I picked up some of it's leaves, and put them to my nose: they
'• smelled of gurlic.  I handed them to my Physician, asking him if he 1;tk v.- 
182             STUDIES OF NATURE.

   These considerations induce me to believe that the elementary
characters of plants, and their entire configuration,  are only se-
condary means, and that their principal character is referable to
the necessities of Man.   Thus, in order to establish in plants an
order simple and agreeable, instead of running over  successively
their elementary,  vegetable, animal, and human harmonies,  it
would be  more proper to invert this order, but without changing
it, and to set out with the plants which present to Man a supply
for his  first wants, to proceed thence to the use which animals
derive from  them, and  to  conclude with the situations  which
determine their varieties.
   This order may be followed so  much the more easily, that
the first point of departure is fixed by the  smell and the taste.
The testimony of these two  senses is far from being contemp-
tible ; for they assist us in ascertaining the intimate qualities  of
plants, much better than the decompositions of Chemistry;  it
may be extended to the whole vegetable kingdom,  inasmuch  as
there is not  a single genus of plants, varied into umbelliferous,
rose-formed, papilionaceous, and the rest, but what presents food
to Man in some part or another of the Globe.   The  ciperus of
Ethiopia bears at it's root bulbs which have  the taste of almonds.
That which in Italy is called Trasi produces bulbs which taste
like chesnuts.*   We have found in America the potatoe  in the
class of solana, which are poisons.  It is  a  jasmine of Arabia
which supplies us with the coffee-berry.  The eglantine with us
produces berries fit only for the use of birds; but that of the
land of Yesso, which grows there among rocks and the shells on

" the plant.  After having attentively examined it, he replied that it was the
" scordium. He lifted up his hands to Heaven, and gave thanks to God for
" the seasonable relief which He had sent us. He  instantly gathered a con-
" siderable quantity, put it into a large kettle, and boiled it thoroughly.  Then,
" calling for the patients, desired them to take courage, and  without  the
" loss of a moment made them drink copiously of the decoction of that plant,
" with a slight infusion of the earth of Lemnos : he then had them well warm-
" ed and put to bed, desiring them not to go to sleep till they had fallen into
" a profuse perspiration, with which they exactly complied.  The next day
" they felt themselves greatly relieved.  A similar dose was repeated, and
" the whole ended in a perfect cure.  Thus through the goodness  of God
" we escaped a death which stared us immediately in the face." (Letters
of the Baron Busbequius,\o\. I. pages 197 and 198.)
  * Seethe Catalogue of Garden-Plants of Bologne,by Hyacinth Ambrosino> 
STUDY XL                     18J
the sea-shore, bears cups  so  large and so nourishing, that they
sene for food to the inhabitants of those shores for a considera-
ble part of the year.*  The ferns of our hills are unproductive;
but there grows in North-America a species of this plant, call-
ed Filix baccifera, loaded  with berries which are very good to
eat.f   The tree itself of  the  Molucca Islands, called Libbi by
the inhabitants and palm-sago by travellers, is in the judgment
of our Botanists merely a fern.  This fern contains in it's trunk
the sago, a substance lighter and more delicate than rice.  In a
word, there are even certain species of sea weed which the Chi-
nese eat with delight, among others  those which compose the
nests of a species of swallow.
   By disposing in this order therefore the plants which produce
the principal subsistence of Man, as the grasses, we should have,
first for our own country, the wheat of strong lands, the rye of
the sands, the barley of the rocks, the oats of humid places, the
buck-wheat of rainy declivities ; and for other climates and ex-
posures, the pannic, the millet, the  maize, the Canadian oats,
the rice of Asia, some species of which thrive in dry situations;
and so of the rest.
   It  would be  farther useful to ascertain on the Globe the places
to which  the several origin of each alimentary plant might be
referred.   What I have to advance on this subject maybe con-
jecture merely, but it appears  to me to have an air of probability.
I am of opinion then, that Nature has placed in islands the spe-
cies of plants which are 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,
for there is no one but what  enjoys the influences of all the ele-
ments, being completely surrounded by the winds and the seas,
and frequently in it's interior possessing  the  combined advan-
tages of plains, of sands, of lakes, of rocks and of mountains.
An island is a little world in epitome.  Secondly, their particu-
lar temperature is so varied,  that you find some of them in all
the principal points of Longitude and Latitude, though there be
a considerable number  still unknown to us, particularly in the
South Seas.  Finally, experience demonstrates that there is not

             * Consult Collection of Voyages by Thevtnof
            j Se Father Charlevoix, his History of Ww France 
184
STUDIES OF NATURE.
a single fruit-tree in Europe but what becomes more beautiful
in some of the islands along the coast, than in the Continent.
   I have spoken of the beauty of the chesnut-trees of Corsica
and Sicilv : but Pliny, who has preserved to us the origin of the
fruit-trees which were in Italy in his time, informs us that most
of them had been imported from the islands of the Archipelago.
The walnut  came  from Sardinia ; the vine, the fig-tree,  the
olive, and many other fruit-trees, were natives of the other isl-
ands of the Mediterranean.   Nay 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.
Tavernier, who had so many times traversed the Asiatic Con-
tinent, assures us  that no  olive-trees are to  be seen  beyond
Aleppo.   An anonymous  English traveller,  whom I have al-
ready quoted with approbation, positively asserts that no where
on the Continent are there to be found fig-trees, once to be com-
pared, either as to magnitude or fertility,  with those of the
Archipelago, notwithstanding the carelessness and  indolence of
the wretched possessors.   To  these I  might add a great many
other vegetables, which thrive only in those islands, and which
furnish to the commerce  of Europe,  gums, mannas, and dye-
stuffs.  The  apple-tree, so common  in  France, produces no
where  such fine fruit, and of species so varied, as on the shores
of Normandy, under the breath of the sea-breeze from the West.
I have no doubt that the fruit  which was proposed as the prize
of beauty had, like  Venus herself, some favourite isle.
   If we carry our remarks even into the Torrid Zone, we shall
find that it is neither from Asia nor from Africa that we obtain
the clove, the nutmeg, the cinnamon, the pepper of the  best
quality,  the  benzoin,  the sandal-wood, the  sago, and many
others, but from the Molucco Islands, or from those  which are
in the same seas. The cocoa-tree attains it's perfect beauty only
in the  Maldivia Islands.   Nay there are in the archipelagos of
those Seas a great number of fruit-trees  described by Dampier
which  have not yet been transplanted into the Old Continent;
such as the grape-tree.   The  double  cocoa is to be found  only
in the  Sechelles  Islands.   The islands recently discovered in
the South-Sea, such as that of Otaheite, have presented us with
trees hitherto unknown, as the bread-fruit and the mulberry-tree,
the bark  of which serves to make cloth.   As much may be said 
STUDY XI.
185
 of the vegetable productions of the Islands of America relatively
 to their Continent.
   These  observations might be extended even to the very birds
 and quadrupeds, which are more beautiful, and of species more
 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 su-
 periority.  One  thing is  certain,  they fetch a higher price all
 over Asia than any others. In a word, travellers the most wor-
 thy of credit, and who have made the  most accurate observa-
 tions,  as  the English Dumpier,  Father du Tertre, and some
 others, assure us, that there is  not a shallow in the seas lying
 between the  Tropics but what is distinguished  by some  sort of
 bird, of crab, of turtle, or  of fish, which is no where else to be
 found, either of species  so varied, or in so great abundance.   I
 presume that Nature  has  thus  scattered  her  choicest benefits
 over the islands, in order to allure men thither,  and to pervade
 the Earth. These are only conjectures I grant,  but they rarely
 deceive us when they are  founded on the wisdom 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 original-
 ly found.   Fable has  immortalized this discover)-, by making
 that island the scene of the amours of Ceres; as well as the birth
 of Bacchus, in the Isle of Naxos,  because  of the beauty  of it's
 vines.  This much is  certain, that corn is no where indigenous
 but in Sicily, if however it still re-perpetuntcs itself there spon-
 taneously, as the Ancients affirm.*
   After having determined in the  same manner the other hu-
 man accommodations of the grasses to different situations of
 ground, we might examine  the grasses which exhibit marked
 relations to our domestic animals, such as the ox, the horse, the
sheep, the  dog.  We  might characterize them by  the name of
 these animals.  We should have the gramen bovinum, equinum,

  * The native or original country of the wheat, or corn, is not known.  It is
not probable that it was indigenous in Sicily.  It is much nunc probable that
it's native country is some  part of Hindustan, or Persia.  The spelt, which is
a species of wheat, is, unquestionably, indigenous in Persia, where it is still
t'mnd wild in some of the delightful vallies oi'that country.—II. S. B.
   Vol. II.                    \  a 
 186            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 ovinum, caninum.  The different species of each of these genera
 might afterwards be distinguished by the names of the different
 places where they  are  found by the several animals ;  on the
 banks of rivers, among  rocks, on sands, on mountains ;  so that
 by the addition of  the  epithets, fluviatile, saxatile, arenosum,
 montanum, you might supply in two words, all the verbose phra-
 seology of our  botanical compositions.
   We might apportion, in like manner, the other grasses to the
 different quadrupeds of our forests, as to the stag, to the hare, to
 the wild boar, and so on.   These first determinations would re-
 quire certain experiments to be made on the tastes of animals,
 but they would be very instructive, and highly amusing.   They
 would have no  mixture of cruelty, as most of those of our mo-
 dern physics have, by which the wretched animal is flayed alive,
 poisoned, or suffocated, in order to  come  at the knowledge of
 it's propensities.  Our experiments would study their appetites
 only7, and not their convulsions.  Besides, there are a great ma-
 ny of those preferred and rejected plants already well known to
 our shepherds.   One of them shewed me,  in  the vicinity of
 Paris, a gramineous plant which fattens sheep more in a fort-
 night than the  other species can do in two months.  The mo-
 ment too that the animals perceive it, they run after it with the
 utmost avidity.   Of this I have been an eye-witness.  I do not
 mean however  to assert that each species of animal limits it's
 appetite to a single species of food.   It is quite sufficient, in or-
 der to establish the order which  I  am proposing, that  each of
 them gives, in  every genus of plant, a  decided preference to
 some one species; and  this is confirmed beyond all doubt by
 experience.
   The great class of the gramineous plants being thus appor-
 tioned to Man  and animals,  other plants would present still
 greater facility  in their  appropriations, because they are much
 less numerous.  Of the fifteen hundred and fifty species of plants,
 enumerated by Sebastian le Faillant in the country adjacent to
 Paris, there are  more  than  a hundred families, among which
 that of the grasses comprehends, for it's share, eighty-five spe-
 cies, exclusive of twenty-six varieties, and our different sorts of
 corns.  It is the most numerous next to that of mushrooms,
 which contains  a hundred and ten species, and that of mosses,
vrhicb. contains  eighty--six. Thus, instead of the systematic clas- 
STUDY XT.                    U7
 sification of botanic Writers, which gives no explanation of the
 uses of most of the vegetable parts, which frequently confounds
 plants the most heterogeneous, and separates those of the same
 genus, we should have an order simple, easy, agreeable, and of
 an infinite extent, which passing from Man to animals, to vege-
 tables and to the elements, would discover to us the plants which
 serve to our use and to  that of other sensible beings, would
 render to each of them  it's elementary relations, to each site on
 the Earth it's vegetable beauty,  and would 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
 comprehended in the benediction which it's Author pronounced
 upon our first parents, saying unto them :* " Behold,  I have
 " given unto you every herb bearing seed, which is  upon the
 " face of all the Earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit;
 " of a tree yielding seed, after it's  kind: to you it shall be for
 " meat: and to every beast of the  Earth,  and to every fowl of
 " the air, and to  every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
 " Earth, wherein there is  life, I have given every green herb
 " for meat."
   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.  Linnceus has
 presented to them from eight to nine hundred plants which Swe-
 den produces, and he  remarked that of these, the  cow eats two
 hundred and eighty six; the goat four hundred and fifty eight;
 the sheep four hundred and seventeen ;  the horse two hundred
 and seventy-eight: the hog one hundred  and seven.  The first
 animal refuses only one hundred and eighty-four of them ; the
 the second ninety-two ; the third one hundred and twelve ; die
 fourth two hundred and seven ; the fifth one hundred and nine-
 ty. In these enumerations he comprehends only the plants which
 those animals eat  with avidity, and those which they obstinately
 reject.   The others are  indifferent to them.  They  eat them
 when necessity requires, and  even with pleasure, when they are
 tender.  Not one of them goes to waste.  Those which : re re-
jected bv some  are a high delice to others.  The most acrid and
* Ccnosi», chip i. ver. 29, "0 
188             STUDIES OF NATURE.

even the most venomous, serve to fatten one or another.   The
goat browses on the ranunculus of the meadow, though hot as
pepper, on the tithymal and the hemlock.   The hog devours
the horsetail and henbane.  He did not put the ass to this kind
of proof, for that animal does not live in Sweden, nor the rein-
deer, which supplies the want of him to so much advantage in
northern regions,  nor the other domestic animals, such as the
duck, the goose, the hen, the pigeon, the cat, and the dog.
   All these animals united, seem destined to convert to our ad-
vantage every thing that vegetates, by  means of their universal
appetites, and especially by that inexplicable instinct of domes-
ticitv  which attaches them to Man ; whereas no art can commu-
nicate it either to that timic! animal the deer, nor even to some
of the smaller birds, which seek to live  under our protection,
such as the swallow, who builds her nest in our houses.  Na-
ture has bestowed this  instinct of  sociability with Man only on
those whose services might  be useful to him at  all seasons ; and
she has  given them a configuration wonderfully adapted to the
different aspects of the  vegetable kingdom.
   I say nothing of the  camel  of the Arabian, which can travel
under a load for several days together without  drinking, in tra-
versing the burning sands of Zara ;  nor of the rein-deer of the
Laplander, whose deeply-cleft hoof can fasten, and run along on
the surface of the snow ; nor of the rhinoceros of the Siamese
and of the Peguan, who with the folds of his skin, which he can
distend at pleasure, is able to disengage himself out of the  mar-
shy grounds of Siriam  ; nor of the Asiatic  elephant whose foot
divided into five ergots is so sure on the steep  mountains of the
Torrid Zone ; nor of the lama of Peru, who with his forked feet
scrambles over the rocky heights of the Cordeliers. Every ex-
traordinary situation is maintaining for Man a useful and com-
modious servant.
   But without removing from our own hamlets, the single-hoof-
ed horse pastures in the plains, the  ponderous  cow in the bot-
tom of  the valley, the bounding sheep on  the declivity of the
hill, the scrambling goat on  the sides of the rocks ; the hog, fur-
nished with a proboscis, rakes up the morass from the bottom ;
the goose  and the duck  feed on  the fluviatic plants; the hen
picks  up every  grain that was scattered about and in danger of
K'ing lost in the  field  ; the four-winged bee collects a tribute 
STUDY XL
189
from the small dust of the flowers ;  and the rapid pigeon has-
tens to save from loss the grains which the winds had conveyed
to inaccessible rocks.  All these animals, after having occupied
through the day the various sites of vegetation, return in the
evening to the habitation of Man, with  bleatings, with murmur-
ings, with cries of joy, bringing back to him the delicious pro-
duce of the vegetable creation, transformed by a process alto-
gether inconceivable, into honey, into milk, into butter, into eggs,
and into cream.
   I take delight in representing to myself those early ages of
the World when men travelled over the face of the Earth, at-
tended by their flocks and herds, laying the whole vegetable
kingdom under  contribution.   The Sun going before  them in
the Spring invited them to advance to the farthest extremities
of 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.  While the Ort) of day is ad-
vancing from the Tropic of Capricorn  to that of Cancer, a tra-
veller  departing on foot from  the Torrid Zone may arrive on
the shores  of the Frozen Ocean, and return  thence  into the
Temperate  Zone when the sun traces backward his progress,
at the rate of only four, or at most five leagues a day, without
being incommoded the whole journey through with either the
sultry heat of Summer, or the frost of Winter.  It is by regu-
lating 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 it's
first inhabitants, while every thing was as yet in it's place, and
Nature not yet degraded  by the injudicious labours or the des-
perate madness  of Man !  I suppose them taking their depar-
ture from the banks of the Indus, that land which is the cradle
of the Human  Race, on  a progress  northward.   They  first
rrossed the lofty mountains  of Bember, continually covered
with snow, which like a rampart encompass the happy land of
Cachemire, and separate  it from the burning kingdom of La-
hor.*  They presented themselves to their eyes like vast amphi-
theatres of verdure, clothed to the South with all the vegetables
of India, and to the North with all those of Europe. They de-

         * f:onsuH Be'-nier's  Description of the Mogul Country 
190            STUDIES OF NATURE.
 scended into the vast bason which contains them, and there they
 beheld a part of the fruit-trees which were 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 the  brooks of living water which bedew  their roots.  On
 leaving the ever-green valleys of Cachemire,  they quickly pe-
 netrated into the forests of Europe, and went to repose under
 the foliage of the stately beech and tufted elm, which had as
 yet shaded only the loves of the feathered race, and which no
 Poet had hitherto sung.  They crossed the boundless meadows
 which are washed by the Irtis, resembling Oceans of verdure,
 here and there diversified with long beds of yellow lilies, with
 stripes of ginzeng, and tufts of broad-leaved rhubarb.  Follow-
 ing the track of it's current, they plunged into the forests of the
 North, under the  majestic branches of the  fir, and the moving
 foliage of the birch.
   What smiliilg 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 un-
 known 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, 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.  The flocks which had accompanied them must there un-
 doubtedly have perished; but even there Nature had  still made
 provision for the necessities of Man.  Those shores were com-
posed of  massy beds of coal.*   The seas swarmed with fishes,
and the lakes with fowls.   Theyr must find among the animal
tribes servants and  assistants: the rein-deer  appeared  in the
* Professor Gmelin's Journey Siberia. 
STUDY XI.
191
middle of the mosses: she presented to those wandering fami-
lies the  services of the horse in her agility, the fleece of the
sheep in her fur; and shewing 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.
  But the East must have been the part of the Globe which
first attracted the attention of Mankind.  That place of the Ho-
rizon 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 that he there had a fixed habitation, and that he had
another where he  set, as a place  of rest.  Such  imaginations
confirmed by  the testimony of their eyes, were, it must be ad-
mitted, natural to men destitute of experience, who had attempt-
ed  to erect a tower which should reach to Heaven, and who
even  in the illumination  of 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 The-
tis.   I  presume they would be determined to  go  in  quest of
him rather toward the East than toward the West, under the
persuasion that they would greatly abridge their labour by ad-
vancing to meet him.
   It  must have been this conviction, I  am disposed to think,
which left the West, for  a long time, in a deserted state, under
the very same Latitudes which in the East were swarming with
inhabitants, and which first sent men in crowds toward the  eas-
tern part of our Continent, where the earliest and most populous
Empire of the World, that of China, was formed.   What con-
firms me farther in the belief that the first men who advanced
toward the East were engaged in this  research, and  were in
haste to reach their object, is this, that having taken their de-
parture from  India, the  cradle of  the Human  Race, like the
founders of other  Nations, they did not like them people the
Earth progressively, as  Persia, Greece, Italy, and Gaul wen
successively, in a westerly direction ; but  leaving desert the vast
and fertile countries of Siam, of Cochinchina, and of Tonquin,
which are to this day half  barbarous and uninhabited, they ne-
ver gave up the pursuit  till they were stopped  by the  Eastern 
192
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 Ocean; and they gave to the islands which they perceived at a
 distance, and on which they did not for a long time acquire the
 skill to land, the name of Gepuen, which we have  transformed
 into Japan,  and which in the Chinese language  signifies birth
 of the  Sun.
   Father Kircher * assures us, that when the first Jesuit Astro-
 nomers 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  they7  issued next day at the time of  rising;
 and, finally, that  the Earth was  a plane  and smooth furface.
 Tacitus, who has  written  History7 with such profound judg-
 ment, does not deem it to be beneath him, in that of Germany,
 to relate the traditions of  the western Nations, who  affirmed
 that toward the North-west was the place where the Sun went
 to bed, and  that diey could hear the noise which  he  made on
 plunging into the waves.
   It was from  the quarter of the East, then, that the  Orb of
 Day first attracted the curiosity of Mankind.  There were like-
 wise tribes which directed their course toward that point of the
 Globe, taking their departure from the southern part of India.
 These  advanced along the  peninsula of Malacca ; and famili-
 arized  with the  Sea, which  they coasted most of  the way, they
 were induced to form the  resolution of availing themselves of
 the united accommodation which the two elements  present to
 travellers, by navigating from island to island.  They thus per-
 vaded  that vast belt of  islands, which Nature has thrown into
 the Torrid Zone, like a bridge intersected by canals, in order
 to facilitate the  communication of the two Worlds.  When re-
 tarded  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, and a season
more favourable, encouraged them to venture to sea again.
  Thus it was that the early mariners performed  their voyages,
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
the account given of it by Herodotus, f
                 * See China Illustrated, chap, ix
                     r Herodotus, book iv 
                       STUDY XL                    193

  The first Navigators, when they no longer saw islands in the
Horizon, paid attention to the seeds which the  Sea cast upon
the shore of those where they were, and to the flight of the
birds which were withdrawing from it.  On the faith of these
indications they directed their course  toward lands which they
had never yet seen.  Thus were discovered the immense  Ar-
chipelago of the Moluccas, the Islands of Guam, of Quiros, of
the Society, and  undoubtedly many others which  are still un-
known to us.  There was not one but what invited them to land,
by presenting some attractive accommodation.  Some stretched
out along the waves  like Nereids, poured from their urns  rills
of fresh water into the Sea:  it was thus that the island of Juan
Fernandez, with it's rocks and cascades, presented itself to  Ad-
miral Anson in the midst of the South-Sea. Others, on the  con-
trary, in the same Ocean, having their centres  sunk, and their
extremities elevated, and crowned with cocoa-trees, offered to
their canoes basons at all seasons tranquil, swarming with  fish-
es  and sea-fowls: such is that known by the name of Woester-
land, or the Land of Water, discovered by the  Dutch Naviga-
tor Schouton.   Others, in the morning, appeared to them in the
boson* of the azure main,  all over  irradiated with the light of
the Sun, as that one of the same Archipelago which goes by the
name of Aurora.   Some announced themselves  in the darkness
of  night by the  flames of a  volcano, as a pharos blazing  aloft
amidst the waters, or  by the odoriferous emanations of their
perfumes.
   There was not one of them of which the woods, the hills, and
the downs, did not maintain some animal, naturally familiar and
gentle, but which becomes  savage  only from the cruel experi-
ence which it acquires of  Man.   They  saw fluttering around
them, 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, am-
bergris ; but the most agreeable, beyond all doubt, were the ve-
getables.   Sumatra displayed on her shores, the pepper plant;
Banda, the nutmeg; Amboyna,  the  clove: Ceram, the pahn-
sago;  Flores,  the  benzoin  and sandalwood:  New-Guinea,
groves of cocoa-trees ;  Otaheite, the bread-fruit.  Every island
arose in the midst of the Sea like a vase which supported a pre-
   Vol. II.                    B b 
194
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 cious vegetable.  When they discovered a tree ladened with
 unknown fruit, they gathered  some branches of it, and  ran to
 meet their companions with shouts of joy, exhibiting this new
 benefit bestowed by Nature.
    From those early voyages, and from those ancient customs it
 is, that there has been diffused over all Nations, the practice of
 consulting the flight of birds before engaging in any enterprize,
 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 among 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 admira-
 tion, or  inspired 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
 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.
   From similar attractions it was, that from island to island the
 Nations  of Asia made their way to the New World,  where thev
 landed on the shores of Peru.  Thither they carried the name
 of children  of that Sun whom  they were  pursuing.   This bril-
 liant chimera emboldened them to attempt the passage to Ame-
 rica.   It was not dissipated till they reached the shores of the
 Atlantic 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.*

   * I do not mean to affirm, however, that America was peopled qnly from
 the islands of the South-Sea. I believe that a passage was  opened into it like-
 wise by the North of Asia and of Europe.  Nature always presents to Man-
 kind different means for the attainment of the same end.   But the principal
population of the New "World came from the islands of the South-Sea   This, 
STUDY XI.
195
   Mankind, encompassed with so many blessings, continues to
be wretched.  There is not a single genus of animal but what
lives in abundance and liberty, the greatest part without labour,

I am able to prove by a multitude of  monuments still existing, and to the
most remarkable of which I shall confine myself.   It is demonstrated then by
the worship of the Sun, established in  India, in the islands in the South-Sea,
and in Peru, as well  as by the title  of Suns, or Children of the Sun, assumed
by many families of those countries ; by the traditions of tlie Caraibs scattered
over tlie Antilles, and in Brasil, who give themselves out as originally from
Peru ;  by the very establishment of the Monarchy of Peru, as well as that of
Mexico, situated on the  western coast of America, which looks toward the
islands of the South-Sea, and by the populousness of their Nations, which were
much more considerable and more polished  than  those which inhabited tlie
eastern coasts, which supposes the former to be ofa much higher antiquity;
by the  prodigious  diffusion of the Otaheitan language, the different dialects
of which are spread over most of the islands of the South-Sea, and of which
words innumerable are to be found in the language of Peru, as has lately been
proved by a gentleman of great learning, and even in that of the Malays in
Asia, 6ome of which  I myself was able to distinguish, particularly the word
mate", which signifies to  kill; by the practices common and peculiar to the
Nations of the Peninsula of Malacca, of the  islands of Asia, and those of the
South-Sea and of Brasil, which are not the inspiration of Nature, such as
that of making fermented and intoxicating liquors, and of chewing herbs and
roots;  by tlie channels of the commerce of antiquity which flowed in this di-
rection, such as that of  gold, which was very common in Arabia and in the
Indies, in the time  of tlie Romans, though there  be very few mines of that
metal in Asia ; but  above all, by the trade of emeralds, which must have run
in that track from remote antiquity, in order to reach the Old Continent,
where  no mine of that gem is to be found.  Hear what is said on this subject
by Tavcrnier, who is  worthy of credit when he speaks of tlie commerce of
Asia, especially as  it relates to jewels.  " It is an error of long standing,"
says he, " which many persons have fallen into, to believe that the emerald
" was found originally in the East.  Most jewellers, on first looking at a high.
'' coloured emerald are accustomed to say, this  is  an Oriental emerald.   But
" they are mistaken, for I am well assured, that the East never produced one,
'' either on the Continent, or in it's islands.   1 have made accurate enquiries
" into this, in all the voyages 1 made."   He had travelled six times by land
through India.   Hence it must be concluded, that the so highly valued eme-
ralds of the ancients, came to them from America, through the islands of the
South-Sea, through those of Asia, through India,  the lad  Sea, and finallv
through Egypt, from whence they had them.
  To this may be  objected the difficulty of navigating against tlie regular
easterly winds, in order to pass from Asia to America, under the Torrid Zone .
but relatively to  this subject, I  shall repeat, that  the regular winds do not
blow there from  the  East, but from the North-east and South-east, and de-
pend so much ihc  more on  tlie two Poles, the  nearer you approach toward
tlie Line.  Tliis oblique direction of the wind was  sufficient for persons who 
196              STUDIES OF  NATURE.

all at peace with their species, all united to the objects of their
choice, and  enjoying the felicity of re-perpetuating themselves
by their families; whereas more  than the half of  Mankind  is

navigated from island to island, and who had contrived barks  the least liable
to deflection, such as the double pros of the isles of Guam, the form of which
seems to have been preserved in the  double balses of the  coast of Peru.
Schouten found one of those double pros sailing more than six hundred
leagues  from the Island of Guam toward America.  Besides, it appears like-
wise that the South-Sea has it's monsoons,  which have not hitherto been ob-
served.   Hear the remarks made, on the  variation  of those winds, by  an
anon} mous English Navigator, who sailed round the World, with Sir Joseph
Banks and INlr. Solander,  in  the years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771, page 83.
" The inhabitants of Otaheite trade with those of the adjacent islands which
" lie to the eastward, and which we had discovered on our passage.  During
" three months of the year, the winds which blow from the West quarter are
" very favourable to them for carrying on this traffic."  Admiral Anson like-
wise met with  winds from the West in those Latitudes, which retarded him.
  Certain  Philosophers explain the correspondencies to be found between
the inhabitants of the islands and those of Continents, by supposing islands
to be lands once united to the Continent, but now swallowed up by the Ocean,
the summit only, and a few of the inhabitants upon it, remaining above the
water.  But enough has been already said  in this Work, to evince that mari-
time islands are not fragments separated from the Continent, and that they
have mountains, peaks, lakes, hills, proportionable to their extent, and di-
rected to the regular winds which blow over their seas.  They have vegeta-
bles peculiar to themselves, and which no where else attain the same  degree
of beauty.  Farther, had those islands formerly constituted part of our Con-
tinent, we should find  in them all those of our quadrupeds which are to be
met with in all climates ; there were no  rats nor mice in America, and in the
Antilles, previous to the arrival of the Europeans, if we may believe the tes-
timony of the Spanish Historian Herrera, and of Father du Tertre. We should
likewise have found in them the ox, the ass, the camel, the horse,  but they
contained none of these animals ;  but plenty of our common poultry,  ducks,
dogs, swine, as well as among the Islanders of the South-Sea, who themselves
had no other of our domestic animals.  It  is obvious that the first animals,
such as the horse and the cow, being ofa bulk and weight too considerable,
could not possibly, be their utility ever so  great,  cross the seas in the small
canoes of the early Navigators, who on the other hand would have been very
careful not to transport with them such vermin as rats and mice.
  •Finally, let us revert to the general  Laws of Nature.  If all the islands of
the South-Sea once formed a Continent, there must have been no sea then  in
the space which they occupy.  Now it is indubitably certain, that were you at
this day to take away from around them  the Ocean by which they are en-
compassed, and the regular winds which blow over it, you would blast them
with sterility.  The islands of the South-Sea form, between Asia and Ame-
rica, a real bridge of communication, with a few arches alone of which  we are
acquainted, and of wh*u it wsuld not be difficult to discover the rest, from 
STUDY XL
197
doomed to celibacy.  The other half curses the bands which
have matched him.  The greater part tremble at the thought of
rearing a progeny, under the apprehension of being incapable to
find subsistence for  them.  The greater part, in order to pro-
cure subsistance for themselves, are subjected to painful labours,
and are reduced to the condition of slaves to their fellow-crea-
tures.  Whole Nations are exposed to perish by famine: others,
destitute of territory,  are piled a-top of each other, while the
greatest part of the Globe is a wilderness.
  There are many lands which never have been cultivated; but
there is not one, known to Europeans, which has not been pol-
luted 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, to all appearance so
flourishing by their arts and their monuments, pride and craft,
superstition and impiety, violence and perfidy, are in a state of
incessant warfare, and keep the wretched  inhabitants in per-
petual alarm.  The  more that 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 ?  Why should the  Empire of the Globe have
been conferred on the  single animal which had not  the govern-
ment of it's own passions ? How comes it that Man, feeble and
transitory, should be animated by passions at once ferocious and
generous, despicable and  immortal ? How is it that, born with-
out instinct, he should have been able to acquire such various
knowledge ?  He has happily imitated all the arts of Nature, ex-
cept 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 form-
ing his reason only by the study of universal reason, displayed
in the  Works of Nature, and in the  hopes which virtue inspires;

the other harmonies of the Globe. But here I restrain my conjectures on this
subject.  I have said enough to prove, that the same hand which has covered
the Earth with plants and animals for the service of Man, has not neglected
'he different parts of his habitation 
198             STUDIES OF NATURE.

that by such means alone he can be enabled to rise above tl>e
animal, beneath the level of which he is sunk, and to re-ascend,
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 hamlets, honour in palaces,
and virtue  in temples.  His glory  and  his religion consist 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 landscape.   A tree, under the
shade of which a virtuous man  is reclined to rest, suggests to
him sublime recollections ; the poplar in the forest recals to his
mind the combats of Hercules;  and  the foliage  of the oak re-
minds him  of the crowning garlands of the Capitol. 
STUDY XII.
             OF SOME MORAL LAWS OF NATURE.

Weakness of Reason ; of Feeling ; Proofs of the Divinity, and
        of the Lmmortality of the Soul, from Feeling.

   SUCH are the physical proofs of the existence of the De-
ity, as far  as the feebleness of my reason has enabled me to
produce and arrange them.  I have collected perhaps ten times
as many ; but I perceived that I was after all but at the begin-
ning of my  career ; that the farther I advanced, the farther it
extended  itself before  me ; that my  own labour would  soon
overwhelm me ; and that,  conformably to the idea of Scripture,
nothing would  remain to  me  after a complete survey of the
Works of Creation, but the  most profound astonishment.
   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 it's smaller ramifications, we are unable to remain con-
stantly attached to them.  Wherefore has  the sentiment which
yesterday exalted me to Heaven, at sight of a new relation of
Nature—wherefore has it disappeared to-day ? Archimedes did
not remain  always in an ecstacy, from the discovery of the re-
lations 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 con-
templated at length with  indifference the  square of the hypo
thenuse, for the discovery of which he had vowed, it is said, v
whole hecatomb  of oxen  to Jupiter.  I recollect that when I
first  became master of the demonstration 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 diis 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 
 200             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 give him pleasure to-morrow : he fixes for himself a boundary
 which he never exceeds ;  what is sufficient for him, always ap-
 pears to him beautiful and good. The ingenious bee constructs
 commodious cells, but never dreams of rearing triumphal arch-
 es, 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 py-
 ramids,  of towers, of kiosques ?
   What then is  that versatile faculty, called  reason, which I
 employ in observing Nature ? It is, say the Schools, a percep-
 tion of correspondencies, which essentially distinguishes Man
 from the beast.   Man enjoys reason, and  the  beast is merely
 governed by instinct.  But if this instinct always points out to
 the animal what is best adapted to it's situation, it is therefore
 likewise  a reason, and a reason more precious than ours, in as
 much as it is invariable,  and is 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 this, 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 associ-
 ations, may give currency  to the greatest absurdities ; for the
 argument of those Philosophers is  a direct attack on  the Su-
 preme Intelligence  itself,  which is invariable  in it's plans, as
 animals are in their instinct.  If bees uniformly construct their
 cells of the same  figure, it is because Nature always makes bees
 of the same character.
   I do not mean  however tc affirm that the reason of beasts and
 ihat 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 an universal reason, Must it not be be-
cause his wants are universal ?  He  likewise discerns it is true
the wants  of other animals ; but may it not be  relatively to
himself that he has made this his study ?  If the dog gives him-
self 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 wouljd  demonstrate our
natural superiority7, were it not at the same time a proof of our 
STUDY XII.
201
 wretchedness.  Animals are  under no necessity to kindle fires,
 and to cast seed into the ground, for they are clothed and fed by
 the hand of Nature.  Besides, many of them have in them-
 selves  faculties far superior to our sciences, which are, if the
 truth might be told, foreign to us.  If we have discovered some
 phosphoric substances, the luminous fly of the Tropics has  in
 itself a focus of light which  illuminates it during the night.
 While we are amusing  ourselves in making experiments on
 electricity,  the  torpedo is employing it in self-defence: and
 while the Academies and States  of Europe are proposing con-
 siderable prizes to the person who  shall  discover the means  of
 determining the Longitude at Sea, the  paillencu and the frigat
 are every day performing a flight of  three  or four hundred
 leagues between the Tropics, from'East to West, without ever
 failing to find in the evening the rock  from which they took
 their departure in the morning.
   Another mortifying insufficiency presents itself, when Philo-
 sophy attempts to employ, in combating the Intelligence of Na-
 ture, that very reason which can  be of no use but to discern 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, sceptical Montagne; but you
 have not provided for me another home.   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 re-
 ward of all my services; I have experienced nothing but in-
 gratitude 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
 niyr 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 becoming as  vicious as they are.   What good purpose-
does it serve to have studied virtue ?  It  shudders at such re-
collections, and even without any  reflection, merely  at the sight
of men.  The first  thing that fails me is that very reason on
  Voi. II.                  C c 
202
STUDIES OF NATURE.
which yon desire me to lean for support.  All your  fine  logic
vanishes, precisely at the moment when I have most need of  it.
Put a reed into the hand of a sick person: the very first thing
that will drop from him, when attacked by a fit of illness, is that
same reed;  if he  ventures to rest his whole weight upon  it,
most probably it will break,  and perhaps run through his hand.
Death, vou  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 rea-
soning no longer, still however feeling and suffering.*
   What is, once more, that reason of  which  we boast so tri-
umphantly ?  As it is nothing more than the relation of objects
to  our wants, it is reduced  then to  mere  personal interest.
Hence it is that we have so manyT family reasons, reasons of as-
sociations, reasons  of state ; reasons of all  countries,  and of  all
ages ; hence it is, that the reason of a young man is one thing,
and that of an old man another; that the reason of a woman
differs  from that of  a hermit, and a soldier's from a priest's.
Every body, says the Duke de la Rochfoucault,  has reason  (is

  * Thus, Religion has greatly the superiority  over Philosophy, in as much
as she supports us not by our reason but by our  resignation.  She  would
have us not on foot and stirring about, but sU'etched 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 com-
posed. When books,  honours, fortune, and friends forsake us, she presents
us as a pillow for our head, not the recollection of our frivolous and theatri-
cal virtues, but that of our insufficiency ; and instead of the arrogant maxims
of Philosophy, she demands of us only  calmness, peace, and filial confidence.
  I must make one reflection more respecting this  reason, or which amounts
to tlie same thing, respecting this ingenuity of which we are so vain :  name-
ly this, that it appears to be the result of our miseries. It is very remarkable,
that the Nations which have been most celebrated for their wit, their arts,
and their industry, were the most miserable on the face of the Earth, from
their government, their passions, or their discords. Read the history of  the
lives of most men who have been distinguished by the superiority of their
intellectual powers, and you will find that they were extremely miserable,
especially in their childhood. One-eyed persons, the lame, the hump-backed
have in general more wit than other men, because, from being more disagree-
ably conformed, they apply their reasoning powers toward observing with
more attention the relations of Society, in the view of  skreening themselves
against it's oppression. Their humour it is true is commonly of the sarcastic
kind, but this  character is sufficiently applicable to what passes in the World
for wit.  Besides it was not Nature which rendered them malignant, but the
raillery, or the contempt, of those with whom they have liv<:*., 
STUDY XII.
203
in the right).  Yes,  undoubtedly, and it is because every one
has reason, that no one agrees with another.
   This sublime  faculty farther undergoes, from the first mo-
ments  of it's expansion, a shock so violent, that it is rendered
in some  sort incapable of penetrating into the field of Nature.
I do not speak of our methods and  systems, which diffuse false
lights over the first principles of human knowledge, by shewing
us truth only in books, involved in machinery, and displayed on
theatres. I have said something of those obstacles, in the objec-
tions which I have ventured to propose against the elements of
our Sciences ; but the maxims instilled into us from our earliest
infancy, make a fortune, be the first, are alone sufficient to sub-
vert our natural reason ; they exhibit to us the just and the un-
just only as they  stand related to our personal interests, and to
our ambition;  they usually  attach us to the fortune of some
powerful and reputable corps, and  render us as it may happen
atheists or devotees, debauched or continent, Cartesians or New-
tonians, just as they affect the cause which has become our mo-
ving principle.
   Good  cause then we have to mistrust-reason, as from the very
first step it misleads us in our researches after truth and happi-
ness.   Let us enquire, whether  there  is not in Man some
faculty more noble, more invariable, and of  greater  extent.
Though, in prosecuting this  enquiry, I  have  to present only
views vague and indeterminate, I hope that men more enligh-
tened than I can pretend to be, may one day fix them, and carry
them much farther.  In this confidence, with the  feeble powers
which I possess,  I  am  going  to engage in a career, which is
well worthy the Reader's  most serious attention.
   Descartes lays this down as the basis of the first natural truths:
I think, therefore J exist.   As this  Philosopher has acquired a
very high degree of reputation, which he merited besides by
his knowledge  in Geometry, and above  all by his virtues, his
argument in proof of existence  has  been greatly extolled, and
dignified with the title of  axiom.   But, if I am not  mistaken,
this argument labours under an essential defect,  in that it 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 haven proof of hfe existence.  It follows farther, that
the animal creation,  to which Descartes denied the power of 
2U4            STUDIES OF NATURE.

thought, had no proof that they existed ;  and that  the greatest
part of beings are in a state of non-existence with respect to us
inasmuch as they  excite  in us  simple  sensations merely, of
forms, of colours,  and of 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 sceptic Pyrrho, this reasoning, like all the ope-
rations of the human understanding,  falls under well-grounded
suspicion.
   I substitute therefore  in place  of the argument of Descartes,
that which follows, as it appears to me both more simple and
more general;  I feel,  therefore I exist.   It  extends  to all our
physical sensations, which  admonish  us much more frequendy
of  our  existence than thought does. It has for  it's moving
principle an unknown faculty of the soul, which I call sentiment,
or mental feeling, to which thought itself must refer; for the evi-
dence to which we attempt to subject all the operations of our
reason is itself simply  sentiment.
   I shall first make it appear, that this mysterious faculty differs
essentially from physical sensations, and from the relations pre-
sented to us by reason, and that it blends itself in a manner con-
stant and invariable in every thing that 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 that Iphigenia at the altar gives  us an impression of a
very different nature from that produced by the  taste of a fruit,
or by the perfume ofa flower ; and as to that which distinguishes
it from  a process of the understanding,  it is certain that the
tears and the despair of Clytemnestra excite in us emotions of a
very different kind 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  me to be
the result of Laws of Nature, as reason is the result of political
Laws.
  I shall give no farther definition of this  obscure principle, but
I shall render it sufficiently intelligible, if I am  so happy as to 
STUDY XII.
20.}
make it felt.  And here  I  flatter myself with  success by first
stating an opposition between it and reason.  It is very remark-
able that women, who are always nearer  to Nature, from their
very irregularities, that men with their pretended wisdom, never
confound these two  faculties, and distinguish the  first by  the
name of sensibility, or sentiment, by way of excellence, because
it is in truth the source of our most delicious affections.   They
are continually on their guard against confounding, as most men
do, the understanding and the heart, reason and sentiment. The
one as we have seen is frequently our own work;  the other is
always the work 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 infu-
sion of reasoning.
   This is a fault which the  most celebrated Writers have com>
mitted, in all the ages in which Society completes it's separation
from  Nature.  Reason produces many men of intelligence in
ages  pretendedly polished; and sentiment,  men of genius, in
ages pretendedly barbarous.  Reason varies from age to age,
and sentiment is always the same.  The errors of reason are
local and changeable, but the truths of sentiment are invariable
and universal.  Reason makes the I Greek, the I  Englishman,
the I Turk ;  and sentiment, the I Man, and the I  Divine.  We
stand in need at this day of commentaries, in order to understand
the books of  antiquity which are the work of reason, such as
those of most Historians, and  Poets, satyrical and comic, as
Martial, Plautus, Juvenal, and even those of the  past age, as
Boileau and Moliere; but none will ever be necessary in order to
be moved by the supplications of Priam at the feet of Achilles.,
by the despair of Dido, by the tragedies of Racine, .and the
lively fables of La Fontaine.  We  frequently stand in need of
many combinations,  for the purpose of bringing to light some
concealed reason  of Nature ; but the simple and pure sentiments
of repose, of  peace,  of gentle melancholy, which  she inspires,
comes to us without effort.
   Reason, I grant, procures for us pleasures of a certain kind ;
but she discovers to us some small portion of the  order of the
Universe, she exhibits to us at the same  time our own destruc-
tion attached  to the  Laws of it's preservation ; she presents to
us at gnce  the  evils which arc past, and those which are to 
"206            STUDIES OF NATURE.

come; she furnishes arms to our passions at the very time when
she is demonstrating to us their insufficiency. The  farther that
she carries us, the more are the proofs which she accumulates,
when we come back to ourselves, 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 it's desires, embraces the
monuments of all countries, and of all ages; it is soothed to a
delicious complacency in  the midst of  ruins, of combats, and of
death itself, in contemplating an undescribable eternal existence ;
it pursues, in all it's appetites, the  attributes of Deity, infinity,
extension, duration, power, grandeur, and glory ; it  mingles the
ardent desires of these with all our passions ; it thus communi-
cates to them a certain sublime impulse ; and, by subduing our
reason,  itself becomes the most noble,  and the  most delicious
instinct of human life.
  Sentiment demonstrates to  us, much  better than reason, the
spirituality of the  soul; for reason  frequently proposes to us as
an end the gratification of our grossest passions,* whereas sen-
timent is ever pure in it's propensities.  Besides, a great many
natural  effects which escape the one, are under the controul of
the other ;  such is, as has been observed, evidence itself, which
is merely a matter of feeling,  and over which reflection exerci-
ses no restraint :  such too is our own  existence.  The proof of
it is not in the province of reason ; for  why is it that I exist ?
where is the reason of it  ? But I feel that I exist, and this sen-
timent is sufficient to produce conviction.
  This being laid down,  I proceed to demonstrate that there
are two powersf in Man, the one animal, and the other intellec-

  * Listen to the voice of reason, is the  incessant  admonition of our moral
Philosophers.  But do they  not perceive that they are  putting us into
the hand of our greatest enemy ? Has not every passion a reason at com-
mand !
  f It is from want of attention to those two powers,  that so many celebrated
performances,  on the subject  of Man, present a false colouring.  Their Au-
thors sometimes represent him to us as a metaphysical object You woidd be
tempted to think that the physical wants, which stagger even the Saints, are
only feeble accessories of human life. They compose it merely of monads, of
abstractions, and of moralities  Others discern nothing in man but an ani-
mal, and distinguish in him only the coarsest grossness of sense. They never
study him without the dissecting knife in their hand, and when he is dead, 
STUDY XII.
207
tual, both of an opposite nature, and which by their union con-
stitute human life ; just as the harmony of every thing on Earth
is composed of two contraries.

that is to say,  when he is man no longer.  Others know him only as a politi-
cal individual : they perceive him only through the medium  of the corres-
pondencies of ambition. It is not man that interests them ; it is a Frenchman,
an Englishman, a  Prelate, a Gentleman.  Homer  is  the only Writer with
whom I am acquainted who has painted Man complete : all others, the  best
not excepted,  present nothing but a skeleton of him.  Tlie Iliad of Homer, if
I may be allowed to judge, is the painting of every Man, and it is that of all
Nature. All the passions are there, with their contrasts and their shades, the
most intellectually refined, and the most sensually  gross.  Achilles sings the
praises of the  Gods to the sound of his lyre, and tends the cookery of a leg
of mutton in a kettle.  This last trait has given grievous offence to our thea-
trical writers,  who deal in the composition of artificial heroes, namely such
as disguise and conceal their first wants, as their authors themselves dis-
guise their own to Society.  All  the passions of the human breast are to be
found in the Iliad:  furious wrath in Achilles, haughty ambition in Agamem-
non, patriotic  valour in Hector,• in JVestor, unimpassioned wisdom ; in Ulys-
f.cs, crafty prudence; calumny in Thersites,- voluptuousness in Paris; faith-
less love in Helen ; conjugal love in Andromache ;  paternal affection in Pri-
am ; friendship in Patroelus,- and so on : and  besides this, a multitude of
intermediate shades of all these passions, such as the inconsiderate courage
of Diomedes, and that of Ajax, who dared to challenge the Gods themselve>
to the combat: then the oppositions of situation  and of fortune which detach
those characters ; such as a wedding, and  a country festival,  depicted on
the formidable buckler  of Achilles; the remorse  of Helen, and tlie restless
 solicitude of Andromache ; the flight of Hector, on  the point of perishing un
 der the  walls of his native  city, in the sight of his people,  whose only de-
 fender he was ; and the peaceful objects presented  to him  at that tremev.
 dous moment, such as the grove of trees, and the fountain to  which the Tro-
 jan young women were accustomed  to resort to  wash their robes,  and where
 they loved to  assemble in happier days.
   This divine Genius having appropriated to his heroes a leading passion oi
 tlie human heart,  and having put it in action in  the most remarkable phases
 of human life, has allotted in like manner the attributes of Goo to a variety
 of Divinities, and has assigned to them the different kingdoms of Nature; to
 .Xeptune, the Ocean ; to Pluto, the infernal regions ; to Juno, the air ; to Vul-
 can,  the fire; to  Diana the forests ; to Pan,  the  flocks; in  a  word, the
 Nymphs, the Naiads, nay the very Hours, have all a certain department on the
 Earth,  There is  not a single flower but what is  committed to the superin-
 tendence of some Deity.  It  is thus that he has contrived to render the  habi-
 tation of Man celestial.  His Work is the most sublime of Encyclopedias. All
 the characters of it are so exactly in the human heart, and in Nature, that
 the names by  which he has designated them have become immortal. Add t<-
 the majesty of his plans a truth of expression which is not to be ascribed
 alone to the beauty of his language, as certain Grammarians  pretend, but to
 the vast extent ef his observation of Nature.  It is thus f.»r example, that he 
 ..jo*              STUDIES OF NATURE.

    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  it is necessary that
 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  which he wa-
 ges with them, or in the care which he exercises over them, he
 is frequently constrained to drop his attitude of  emperor, and
 to  assume that of a 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 other
 animals, each species of which invariably preserves it's proper
 character; but of two  opposite natures, each of which is itself
 farther subdivided into several passions, which form a contrast.
 In  virtue of one  of these natures he unites in himself all the
 wants, and  all the passions of animals; and in  virtue of the
 other, the ineffable sentiments of the Deity.  It is  to this last
 instinct, much  more than to his reflective powers, that he  is
 indebted for the conviction which  he has  of the existence of
 God ; for I suppose that having by means of  his  reason, the
 faculty of perceiving the correspondencies which  exist between
 the objects of Nature, he found  out the relations which subsist
 between an island and a tree, a tree and a  fruit, a fruit and his
 own  wants;  he would readily feel himself determined, on see-
 ing an Island, to look for food upon it: but  his reason, in shew-
 ing him the  links  of four natural harmonies, would  not refer

calls the sea impurpled, at the moment that the Sun is setting; because that
then the reflexes of the Sun in the Horizon render it of that colour, as I my-
self have frequently remarked. Virgil, who has imitated him closely, abounds
in these beauties  of observation, to which Commentators pay very little if
any attention.  In the Georgics, for instance, Virgil gives to the Spring the
epithet of blushing; vere rubenti, says he.  As his Translators  and Commenta-
tors have taken no pains to convey this, any more than a multitude of similar
touches, I was long impressed with the belief that this epithet was introdu-
ced  merely to fill up the measure of the verse : but having remarked that
early in Spring, the shoots and buds of most trees assumed a ruddy appear-
ance, previously to throwing out their leaves, I thence was enabled  to com-
prehend what was the precise moment of the season which the Poet intend-
ed to describe by vere rubeuti.. 
STUDY XII.
209
the cause of them  to an invisible Author, unless he had the
sentiment of it deeply impressed on his heart.   It  would stop
short at the point  where his  perceptions stopped, and Avhere
those of animals terminate.   A wolf which should swim over a
river in  order to reach an island on which he perceived grass
growing, in the hope  of there  finding sheep likewise, has an
equal conception of the links which connect the four natural re-
lations of the island, the grass, the sheep, and his own appetite:
but he falls not down prostrate before the intelligent Being who
has established them.
  Considering man as an animal, I know of no one to be com-
pared with him  in respect  of wretchedness.   First of all he is
naked, exposed to insects, to the wind, to the rain, to the heat,
to the  cwd, and laid under the necessity, in all countries, of find-
ing  himself clothing.   If his  skin  acquires in time sufficient
hardness to resist the attacks of the elements, it is not till after
cruel experiments which sometimes flay him from top to toe.
He knows nothing naturally as other animals do.   If he wants
to cross a river, he  must learn to swim; nay, he must in his in-
fancy be taught to walk and  to speak.*  There  is no country so
happily situated in which he is not  obliged to  prepare his food
with considerable care and trouble.   The banana and the bread-
fruit tree give him  between the Tropics provisions  all  the year
round; but then he  must plant those trees, he must enclose them
with thorny fences to preserve  them from the beasts; he  must
dry part of the  fruits for a supply during the hurricane season;
and must build  repositories in which to lay them up.   Besides
those  useful  vegetables  are reserved  for  certain privileged
.islands alone ; for over the rest of the Earth the culture of ali-
mentary grains  and roots requires a great multitude of arts and
preparations.  Suppose him to have collected around him every
blessing that  his heart can  desire, the love and the  pleasure
which flow from abundance, avarice, thieves, the incursions of
the enemy, disturb  his enjoyment.  He must have laws, judges,
magazines, fortresses, confederacies, and regiments, to protect
from without  and from within  his ill-fated corn-field.   Finally,
when it is in his power to enjoy with all the tranquillity ofa sage

  * The very name of infant is derived from the Latin word infans, that is to
-:iy, one who cannot speak.
   Vol.  II.                  Dd 
216i
STUDIES OF NATURE.
languor takes possession of his mind; he  must have comsdies,
balls, masquerades, amusements to prevent him from reasoning
with himself.
   It is impossible to conceive how a Nation could exist with
the animal passions simply.   The sentiments of natural justice,
which are the basis of legislation, are not the results of our mu-
tual wants, as has been  by some pretended.  Our passions are
not retrogressive ; they have ourselves  alone for their centre.
A family of savages, living in the midst of plenty, would be no
more concerned about the misery of their  neighbours perishing
for want, than we concern ourselves at  Paris to think that our
Sugar and coffee are costing Africa rivers of tears.
   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, no->
thing 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.
   Let us first suppose a state entirely governed by Love, such
as that on the banks  of  the Lignon, imagined by the ingenious
d'Urfeius.   I beg leave to ask,  Who would be at the trouble of
building  houses  there, and of labouring the  ground r Must we
not suppose,  that such a country would  contain servants whose
industry  should  compensate the idleness of their masters I Will
not those servants be reduced to the necessity of abstaining from
making love, m  order that their masters may be incessantly em-
ployed in it? Besides, in what manner  are  the  old people of
both sexes to pass their  time ? A fine spectacle for  them truly,
to behold their children always indulging in the dalliance of the
tender passion!  Would not such a spectacle become to them a
perpetual source of regret, of ill-humour, of jealousyr, as it is
among those of our own country ?  Such a government, in truth,
were it 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 with discord and
oppressed with languor.
   But, on the supposition that the principle of social reason were
to oblige every family to  labour each for  its own support, and
to introduce more variety into their way of  living,  by inviting
to it our  arts and sciences ; it would quickly accelerate their de-; 
STUDY XII.
211
struction. We must by no means depend on ever hearing there
any of those affecting dialogues which dJUrfeius puts into the
mouth of Astraa and  Celadon;  they are dictated neither by ani-
mal love nor by enlightened reason.   Both of these employ a
very different logic.   When a lover, illuminated there with the
science which he had  borrowed of us,  wished to inspire his mis-
tress with a mutual passion, if however it were needful to em-
ploy discourse in order to accomplish this, he would talk to her of
springs, of masses, of attractions, of fermentations, of the elec-
tric spark,  and of the other  physical causes which determine,
according to our modern systems, the propensities of the two
sexes, and  the movements  of the  passions.  Political  reasons.
would  interpose, and affix the seal to their union, by stipulating,
in the melancholy and mercenary language of our contracts, for
dowries, maintenances, redemptions, pin-monies, post-obits*
But the personal reason of each contracting party would  quickly
separate  them.   As soon as a man saw his wife overtaken with
disease, he would  say to her:  " My temperament calls for a
" wife who enjoys health, and  constrains me to abandon you.'?
She would answer him  undoubtedly,  in order to preserve con-
sistency : " You do well to  obey the dictates of Nature.  I
" should in like manner,  have looked out  for  another husband
" had you  been in my place."  A  son would  say  to his aged
and declining father:  " You  begot me for your pleasure, it is
" time that I should live  for mine."  Where should we find
citizens disposed to unite for maintaining the laws of such a so-
ciety ?  Where find soldiers disposed  to meet death in defence
of it, and a magistrate who would undertake to govern it ? I say
nothing of an infinite number of other disorders, which follow
in the train of that blind and  headstrong passion, even when di-
rected  by cool and  dispassionate reason.
   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 by means of it's own citizens.   It is,
first, difficult to imagine how it could be reduced to form, under
the authority of one Legislator, for how  can we conceive the
possibility  of ambitious men voluntarily submitting to another
man ? Those who have united them, as Romulus, Mahomet, and
all founders of Nations, have  commanded attention and obe-
dience only by  :waking in the name of the  Deitt.  But sup- 
212
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 posing this union by whatever means accomplished, Could such
 an association ever be happy ? Let Historians extol conquering
 Rome ever so highly, Is it credible that her citizens then de-
 served the appellation of  fortunate? What, while they were
 spreading terror over the Globe, and causing floods of tears to
 flow, were there at Rome no hearts oppressed with terror, and
 no eye overflowing for the  loss of a son, of a father, of a hus-
 band, of a lover ? Were the slaves, who constituted by far the
 greatest part of  her  inhabitants, were they happy ?  Was the
 General of the Roman army himself happy, crowned with lau-
 rels as he was, and mounted on a triumphal car, around which,
 in conformity to a military law, his  own soldiers were singing
 songs in which his fault3 were exposed, to  prevent his waxing
 proud and forgetting himself ? And when Providence permitted
 Paulus Emilius to triumph  over a King of the Macedonians,
 and his poor children, who  stretched out their little  hands to
 the Roman people to excite compassion, it was so ordered that
 the conqueror should at that very season suffer the loss of his*
 own children, that no one might  be  allowed to  triumph with
 impunity over the tears of Mankind.
   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, following the order
 of destiny,  was to become  at length  the capital of the World.
 She armed her ambition with a celestial reason, in order to ren-
 der her victorious over powers the most formidable, and to curb
 by means of it the ferocity of her own citizens, by inuring them
 to tlie practice of sublime virtue.   What would they have be-
 come, had  they given themselves up without restraint to that
 furious instinct ? They would have resembled the savages of
 America, who burn their enemies alive, and devour their flesh
 still  streaming with blood.   This Rome at last experienced,
 when her  Religion presented no longer any thing to  her en-
 lightened inhabitants except unmeaning imagery.  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, proscriptions, murders,
poisonings, conflagrations, and  giving her up a prey to barba- 
STUDY XII.
213
rous Nations.  The Theutates of the Gauls then issuing from
the forests of the North, and arriving at the Capitol, made the
Roman Jupiter to tremble in his turn.
   Our reasons of state are in modern times less sublime, but are
not for that less  fatal to  the  repose of  Mankind, of which a
judgment  may be formed by  the wars of Europe,  which are
continually disturbing the  Globe.  A Nation delivered up to
it's passions, and to simple reasons of state, would speedily ac-
cumulate upon itself all the miseries incident to humanity; but
Providence has implanted  in the  breast of  Man a sentiment
which serves as a  counterbalance to the weight of these, by di-
recting his desires far beyond the objects of  this World; the
sentiment I mean  is that of the existence of the Deity.   Man
is not Man because he is a reasonable animal, but because he is
a religious animal.
   It is remarked by Cicero and  Plutarch, that there was not a
single People known up to their time, among whom there were
no traces of religion to be found.  The sentiment of DriTY is
natural to  Man.   It is that illumination  which St. John deno-
minates the true Light, which lighteth every Man that cometh in-
to the World.   I find great fault  with certain  modern Authors,
and even some of them  Missionaries,  for having asserted that
certain  Nations were destitute of all sense of Deity.*  This is
in my apprehension the blackest of calumnies with which a Na-
tion can be branded, because it of course entirely strips  them
of the existence of every virtue ; and if such  a Nation betrays
any appearance of virtue, it can  only be under the impulse of
the most abominable of vices, which is hypocrisy : for there can
be no virtue distinct  from Religion.   But there is not a single
one of those inconsiderate Writers, who does not at the  saint,
time himself furnish the means of refuting his  own imputation ;
for some of them acknowledge that these very atheistical Na-
tions on certain days present homage to the Moon ; or that they

  * I agree,  in this respect, with our author.  A nation  without seme sense
of Deity, I do not believe does exist.  It has, indeed,  been said, that the
Gipsies, a vagabond race from Hindustan, acknowledge not the existence of
a superior being, and have no intimations, however obscure, of a future state.
If this be true (but I am well persuaded it is not true),  it is one of tlie nnj.v;
remarkable facts in the history of the heman species.—B. S. 11. 
214
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 retire into the woods to perform certain ceremonies, the know-
 ledge of which they carefully conceal from strangers.
   Father Gobien, among others, in his History of the  Marian-.
 nes Islands, after having affirmed that their inhabitants had no
 knowledge of any  Deity, and discovered not  the slightest idea
 of Religion, tells us immediately after, that they practise invo-
 cation of the dead, to whom they give the appellation of anitis,
 whose skulls they preserve  in  their houses, and to  which they
 ascribe the power  of  controlling the elements, of changing the
 seasons, and of restoring health ; that they are persuaded of the
 immortality of the soul,  and  acknowledge a Paradise and a
 Hell.  Such opinions clearly demonstrate that 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 harmo-
 ny 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 fertilizes his plains;
 the black Iolof, the Ocean, which cools his 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 the forests plentiful  fishing and hunting seasons.  Many
 Nations worship their Kings.   There is not one of them which,
 in order  to render more dear to men those  august dispensers
 of their felicity, have not called in the intervention of some Di-
 vinity for the purpose of  consecrating their origin.  Such  are
 in general the Gods of the Nations: but when the passions in-
terpose, and darken among them this divine instinct, and blend
 with it either the madness of ambition, or the seduction of vo-
luptuousness, you  behold them prostrating themselves before
serpents, crocodiles, and other gods  too  abominable  to be men-
tioned.  You  behold them  offering in sacrifice the blood  of
their  enemies and  the virginity of their daughters.  Such as is
the character of a People such is it's religion.  Man is carried
along by this celestial impulse so irresistibly, that when he  cea-
ses 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 one animal, the
other divine.   The first is incessantly giving him the sentiment 
STUDY XII,
215
of his wretchedness; the second constandy awakening in him
that of his own excellence: and  from  their  conflicts are pro-
duced the varieties and the contradictions of human life.
   By means of the sentiment of our wretchedness it is that  we
become alive  to every thing which presents to us  the  idea of
asylum and protection,  of ease and accommodation.  Hence it
is that most men cherish the thought of calm retreats, of abun-
dance, and of all the blessings which bountiful Nature has pro-
vided on the Earth to supply our wants.   It is  this sentiment
which gave to  Love  the  chains  of Hymen, in order that man
might one day  find the companion of his pains in that of  his
pleasures ; and  that children might be insured of the assistance
of their parents.   It  is this whfch renders the warm and easy-
tradesman so eager after relations of court-intrigues, of battles,
and descriptions of tempests, because dangers external and dis-
tant increase internal happiness and security.  This sentiment
frequently mingles with the moral affections : it looks for sup-
port in friendship,  and  for encouragement in commendation. It
is this which renders us attentive to the promises of the  ambi-
tious man, when we are 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.*
Jt was this which conducted Love to the altar, and dictated to

   * Whenever anyone 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 arc
insufferably dry and uninteresting? Tiny sometimes fill you with astonish-
ment, but never do they touch the heart.  They exhibit caricatures only, or
gigantic ideas.  They are totally destitute of order, of proportion, of sensibi-
lity. I do not exempt from this censure any one except the poem of Lucretiui
But this very exception, as has been said before, only confirms the truth ot
my observation ; for when this Poet wished to please, he found himself under
the necessity of introducing Deity, as it is evident from his exordium, which
commences with that beautiful apostrophe : Alma Venus, &.c\ Every where
else, when he sets  about a display of the Philosophy of Epicurus his insipidi
ty becomes absolutely insupportable^
  f I cannot agree  in sentiment with Saint-Pierre, that Lucretius and the othei
Epicureans were Atheists.   I grant that the notions of God entertained b;,
these Philosophers were much less sublime than those which have been  con-
veyed to us through the  medium of the Sacred Writings : or than those
which «rise in/he mind of the virtuous Philosopher, who has studied with 
 216              STUDIES OF NATURE.

 the lips of the Lover the first vows of fidelity ; it devoted the
 first children to Heaven, while as yet there was no such thing as
 political Law; it rendered Love sublime, and Friendship gene-
 rous ;  with one hand it succoured the miserable,  and opposed
 the other to tyrants ; it became  the moving principle of genero-
 sity7 and of every virtue.  Satisfied with  the  consciousness of
 having deserved well of Mankind, it nobly disdained the recom-
 pense  of applause.  When it shewed itself in arts and sciences,
 it became  the ineffable charm which transported us in contem-
 plating them : the moment it withdrew from them, languor suc-
 ceeded.   It  is this sentiment which confers immortality  on the
 men of genius who discover to us in Nature new relations of in-
 telligence.
  When these two sentiments happen to cross each other, that
 is, when we attach the divine instinct to perishable objects, and
 the animal instinct to things divine, our life becomes agitated
by contradictory passions.   This is the cause of those innume-
rable frivolous hopes and fears with which men are tormented.
 My fortune is made, says one, I  have enough to last me for ever;
 and tomorrow 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
 Michael  Montaigne, by the merest toys ;  by a  glass:  yes, and
wherefore ? Because the sentiment of immortality is impressed

 •utention, the forms, the structure, the functions, and the uses, of the animal
and vegetable bodies, by  which we are surrounded. I say nothing of the
other parts of Nature.—I think Mr. Good, in his truly valuable work,  which I
have already quoted, has ably vindicated the Epicureans from the charge of
Atheism :  and I do not hesitate to agree in sentiment with this learned wri-
ter, that Lucretius, in the following inimitable lines, but  not in these alone,
 mphatically acknowledges the existence ofa Supreme Being :
         " Usque adeo res human as Visabdita quxdam
         " Obterit: et pulchros fasces saevasque secures,
         ' Proculcare, ac ludibrio sibi habere, videtur."
                    T hus translated by Good.
         ,; So, from his awful shades some Power unsee\
         " O'erthrows all human greatness ! U*eads to dust
         " Rods, ensigns, crowns—the proudest pomps of state,
         -' *nd laughs at all the mockery of man !"
                       The .Vature of things Book v. I. 1260.—1263.
                                                    —B  §  B 
STUDY XII.                    217
on that glass.  If life and death frequently appear insnpportable
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 to die in compo-
sure, do  no let  your Laws  offer violence to those  of  Nature.
Consider that at death, all the  troubles of the animal come to a
period; the cravings of the body, diseases, persecutions, calum-
nies, slavery of every kind, the rude combats of man's passions
with himself,  and with others.  Consider that at death, all the
enjoyments of a moral being commence ;  the rewards of virtue,
and of the slightest acts of justice and of humanity, undervalued
perhaps or despised by the World, but which have in some mea-
sure brought us nearer, while we were upon the Earth, to a Be-
ing righteous and eternal.
   When these two instincts unite in the same place, they confer
upon us the highest pleasure of which our nature is susceptible;
for in that case  our two natures,  if I may thus express myself,
enjoy at once.*  I am going  to trace a slight sketch of the com-
bination of their harmonies ;  after which we  shall pursue the
track of the celestial sentiment which is natural to us, as mani-
fested in our most ordinary sensations*
   Let me suppose you  then,  Reader, disgusted,  and wearied
out with the disorders of Society, in search  of some happy spot
toward the extremity of Africa, on which the foot of European
never alighted.  Sailing along the Mediterranean, your vessel is
tossed by the violence of the tempest, and shipwrecked upon a
rock, just as  it is beginning to grow dark. Through the favour
 of Heaven you scramble safe  to land : you  flee for shelter to a
 grotto, rendered visible by the glare of the lightning, at the bot-
 tom of a little valley.  There, retired  to the covert of this asy-
lum, you hear all night long the thunder roaring,  and the rain
 descending in torrents.   At  day break  you discover behind vou
 an amphitheatre of enormous rocks, perpendicularly steep as a
 wall.   From their bases, here and there start out clumps of fig-

   • To these two instincts may be  referred all the sensations of life which
 frequently seem to be contradictory.  For example, if habit and novelty be
 agreeable to us, it is that habit gives us confidence respecting our phvsical
 relations, which are always the same ; and novelty promises new points of
 view to our divine instinct, which is ever aiming at the extension of it's en-
 joyments.
   Vol. II.                      E e 
218             STUDIES OF NATURE.
 trees, covered over with white and purple fruit, and tufts of ca-
 robs loaded with brown pods ; their summits are crowned with
 pines, wild olive-trees, and cypresses bending under  the vio-
 lence of the winds.  The echoes of these rocks repeat in the air
 the confused howling of the  tempest, and the hoarse noise of
 the raging Sea, perceptible to the  eye at a distance.   But  the
 little  valley where yrou are is  the  abode  of tranquillity and re-
 pose.  In it's mossy  declivities the sea-lark builds her nest, and
 on these solitary strands the  mavis expects the ceasing of  the
 storm.
   By this time the first fires of Aurora are lengthening over the
 flowery stachys, and over the  violet beds of the thyme  which
 clothe the swelling hillocks .   The brightening rays disclose to
 view, on the summit of an adjoining eminence, a cottage over-
 shaddowed with trees. Out of it issue a shepherd, his wife, and
 his daughter, who take the path that leads to the grotto, with
 vases and baskets on their heads.   It is  the spectacle of your
 distress which attracts these  good people toward you.   They
 are provided with fire, fruits,  bread, wine, clothing, for your re-
 lief.  They vie with each other in rendering you the offices of
 hospitality.  The wants of the body being satisfied,  those of the
 mind begin to call for gratification.  Your eye eagerly wanders
 along the surface of the  deep, and you are enquiring within
 yourself, u On what part of the  World am I  thrown?"  The
 shepherd perceives  your anxiety,  and removes it, addressing
 you in these words: " That distant Island which you see to  the
 *l  North is Mycone.  There  is Delos a  little  to the  left, and
 "  Paros directly in front.   That in which we are is Naxos; you
 "  are on that very part of tlie island where Ariadne was formerly
 "  abandoned by  Theseus,   It was on that long bank of white
 "  sand which projects below into the Sea, that  she passed  the
 "  days, with her  eyes rivetted on that  point of the  Horizon
 "  where the vessel of her faithless lover at length ceased to be,
 "  visible: and into this very grotto where you now  are, she re-
 -' tired at night to mourn over his  departure.  To the right be-
 :' tween these two little hills,  on the top of which  you behold
 •' some confused ruins, stood  a flourishing city named Naxos,
" It's female inhabitants, touched  with  the misfortunes of  the
 ■c daughter of Minos, resorted hither to look for her, and  to
^ comfort her.   They endeavoured at first to divert her atten- 
STUDY XII.
219
" tion  by amusing conversation;  but nothing could give her
" pleasure but the name and the recollection of her beloved
" Theseus.  These damsels then counterfeited letters from that
" Hero, breathing the tenderest affection, and  addressed to Ari-
" adne.  They flew to deliver them to her, and said, Take com-
" fort, beautiful Ariadne, Theseus  will soon return: Theseus
" thinks of nothing but you.  Ariadne, in an ecstacy of delight,
" read the letters, and with a trembling hand hastened to answer
" them.   The Naxian  girls  took  charge of her answers, and
" promised to have them speedily conveyed to Theseus, in this
" manner they amused her grief.  But when they  perceived
" that the sight of die Sea plunged her more and more into me-
" lancholy, they decoyed her  into  those extensive groves which
" you  observe below in the plain.  There they invented every
" species of festivity that could  lull her  fond  regret  to rest.
" Sometimes they  formed around her coral dances, and repre-
" sented, by the linking of their hands, the various windings of
" the labyrinth of Crete, out of which by  her aid escaped the
" happy  Theseus:  sometimes they affected to put to death the
" terrible Minotaur.   The  heart  of Ariadne expanded  to the
" perception of joy at the sight of representations which called
" to her remembrance the power of her  father, the glory of her
" lover, and the triumph of her own charms, which had repair-
" ed the destiny of Athens: but when the winds conveyed to her
" ear,  through the music of the tabor and  of  the flute, the dis-
" tant  noise of the billows  breaking on the shore from which
" she saw the cruel Theseus take his departure,  she turned her
" face toward the Sea and began  to Weep.  Thus the Naxians
" were made sensible that unfortunate love can find, in the very
" lap of gaiety, the means of embittering it's anguish ; and that
" the  recollection of pain  is to  be lost only by losing that of
" pleasure.   They endeavoured therefore  to remove Ariadne
" from scenes and sounds which  were continually recalling the
" idea of her lover.   They persuaded her to visit their citv,
" where  they provided for her magnificent banquets, in supurb
" apartments raised on columns of granite.  Into these no male
" was permitted to enter, and  no noise from without could make
" itself heard.  They had  taken  care to  cover  the pavement,
'' the walls,  the doors, and the windows, with the richest tapes-
,l try, on which were represented  meadows, vineyards, and en 
 220             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 " chanting solitudes. A thousand lamps and torches dazzled the
 " eye.   They made Ariadne seat herself in the midst of them
 " on cushions; they placed a coronet of ivy, with  it's  black
 " clusters, upon her flaxen hair, and around here pale forehead;
 " then they  arranged at her feet urns of alabaster replenished
 " with the choicest wines; they poured them out into  cups of
 u gold,  which they presented to her, saying;  Drink,  lovely
 " daughter of Minos; this island produces the richest presents
 " of Bacchus.  Drink, wine  dissipates care.  Ariadner with a
 " smile,  suffered  herself to be  persuaded-  In a little  time the
 " roses of health  re-appeared on her countenance, and a report
 " was immediately spread over Naxos that Bacchus was come
 " to the relief of the mistress  of  Theseus.   The inhabitants,
 " transported with joy, reared a temple to  that God, of which
 a you still see some columns and the frontispiece on that rock in
 " the midst of the waves.   But wine only added fuel to the love
 " of Ariadne.  She gradually  pined away, a victim to her sad
 " regrets, and even to her fond hopes.  See there at the extremi-
 " ty of this valley, on a little hillock covered with marine-worm-
 " wood,  is her tomb, and her statue  still looking toward the Sea.
 " You can scarcely now distinguish in it the figure of a female ;
 " but there is even now  discernible in  it the restless attitude of
 " a lover.  This monument, as well as every other of the coun-
 " try, has been mutilated by time, and  still more by the hand of
 " barbarians; but the memory of suffering virtue is not, on the
 " Earth, at the mercy of tyrants.   The tomb of  Ariadne is in
 " the possession of the Turks, and her crown is planted among
 " the stars.  As  for us, escaped from the notice of the powers
 u of this World, by means of  our very obscurity,  we have
 " through the goodness of Heaven  found liberty at a distance
 " from the Great, and happiness in a  desert.  Stranger, if you
 kl are still capable of being affected  by the blessings of Nature,
 u it is in  your power to share them with us."
   At this recital, the gentle tears of humanity trickle down the
 cheeks of his spouse,  and of his  youthful daughter, as  she
 breathes  a sigh to the memory of Ariadne; and I greatly doubt
 whether  an Atheist himself, who acknowledges nothing else in
 Nature but the Laws of matter and of motion, could be insen-
 sible to those present correspondencies, and those ancient recol-
lections. 
STUDY XII.
221
  Voluptuous men ! Greece alone, you tell me, presents scenes
and points of  view so tenderly affecting.   Ariadne accordingly
has a place in every garden; Ariadne presents herself to view in
every collection of painting.  From the turret of your own cas-
tle, throw your eye  over the  plains below.  As the  prospect
gradually extends, it terminates  in a horizon much more beau-
tiful than that of desolated Greece.   Your apartment is more
commodious than  a  grotto, and your  sophas much softer than
the turf.  The undulation  and the murmuring  sound of your
flowery meadows are more grateful to the sense than those of the
billows of the Mediterranean.  Your money and your own gar-
dens can supply you with greater variety of the choicest wines
and fruits than all the islands of the Archipelago could produce.
Would you blend with these delights that of the Deity ? Behold
on yonder hill, that small parish church encircled by aged elms.
Among the young women who there assemble, under it's rustic
portico, there may be undoubtedly some forlorn Ariadne, betray-
ed by a faithless lover.* She is  not made of marble but of liv-
ing flesh and blood ; she is not a Greek but a French-woman
she is not comforted but insulted by her companions. Visit her
humble abode,  and sooth her  anguish.  Do  good  in  this life,
which is passing away with the rapidity of a torrent.  Do good,
not out of ostentation, and by  the hands of a stranger; but for

  * There are in our own  plains young females  much more respectable
than Ariadne, to whom our Historians, who make such a parade of virtue, pay
no manner of attention.  A person of my acquaintance observed one Sunday,
at the gate ofa country church, a young woman at prayer, quite alone, while
thev were chanting vespers within.   As he remained some time in the place,
he observed, for several Sundays successively, that same young woman, who
never once entered the church during the service,  Ik mg mightily  struck
with this singularity of behaviour, he enquired into the meaning of it of some
others of the female peasants, who  answered him that it must be her own
will merely that determined her to stop in the porch, as they knew of nothing
that shonld prevent her going in,  adding, that they had frequently urged her
to accompany them, but in vain.  At last, desirous of having tlie  solution o.1'
this mvstcry, he addressed himself to the young woman herself whose con
duct  appeared to him so very extraordinary. She appeared at first somewha;.
disconcerted, but presently  collecting  courage, "  Sir,"  said she, " I had a
" lover, who took advantage of my frailty. 1 became pregnant, and my love;
" falling sick., died, without  making me his wife.  It is my desire, that a vo-
" luntary exclusion from church for life should serve as some atonement for
" my fault, and as a warning to my companions " 
222
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 the  sake  of heaven, and with your own hand.   The fruit of
 virtue looses it's flavour when gathered by another and not your-
 self.   Ah! if you would, in person, speak an encouraging word
 to her, under that load of depression; if by your sympathy you
 raise her in her own esteem, you will perceive  how, under a
 sense of your goodness, her forehead is overspread with a blush,
 her  ey-es suffused with tears, her convulsive lips move without
 speaking,  and her heart, long oppressed with shame, expand to
 the approach ofa comforter, as to the  sentiment of the Deity.
 You will then perceive in the human figure, touches far beyond
 the reach of the chisels of Greece, and the pencil of a Van Dyk.
 The felicity of an unfortunate young woman will cost you much
less than the statue of Ariadne: and instead of giving celebrity to
the name of an artist in your hotel, for a few years, this will im-
mortalize your own, and cause it to last long after you are gone
 from hence, every time she  says to her companions and  to her
children :  " It was a god came to succour me in the day of my
" distress."
  We now proceed to trace the instinct of Divinity in our phy-
sical sensations, and shall conclude this Study by the sentiments
of the soul which are purely intellectual.  Thus we shall attempt
to convey a faint idea of the Nature of Man.
                 OF PHYSICAL  SENSATIONS.
  All the  physical sensations are in themselves so many testi-
monies of our misery. If Man is  so sensible to the pleasure  of
the touch  it  is  because he is naked all his body over.  He is
under the necessity, in order to  clothe himself, of stripping the
 quadruped, the plant, and the worm.   If almost all vegetables
and  animals  are laid under contribution  to  supply him with
 food, it is because he is obliged to employ a great deal of cook-
ery, and many combinations,  in preparing his aliments. Nature
has treated him with much severity ;  for he is the only one  of
animals for the wants of which she  has made no immediate pro-
vision.  Our philosophers have not sufficiently reflected on this
perplexing distinction.  How!  a worm provided with it's au-
gur or it's  file ;  the insect enters  into life in the midst of a pro-
fusion of fruit proper for his subsistence ; he by and by finds
in himself the means of spinning and weaving his own garment;
after that, he transforms  himself  into a gaudy  butterfly, and
ranges uncontroled,  abandoning himself to  all the delights of 
STUDY XII.                   223
love, and re-perpetuating his species without anxiety, and with-
out remorse ;  whereas the son of a king is born completely na-
ked, 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, from within, or
from without, and frequently finding in himself his most formi-
dable enemy!  Of a truth, unless we are  all only children of
dust, it would be a thousand times better to enter upon exis-
tence under the form of an insect, than under that  of an  Em-
peror.   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 which re-
lates to eating and drinking; all Nations, in the  savage state,
have entertained the belief that the Divinity had need  to sup-
port life by the same means  that men do :  hence in all religions
the origin of sacrifice.  Hence also has farther 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 right 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 departed suckling.*  This
is positively affirmed by the Jesuit Charlevoix, who was fre-
quently 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 animal, and especially
with maternal tenderness.
  But Man has not satisfied himself with admitting intellectual
beings to a share of his repast,  and in some measure with in-
viting them to his table ; he has found the means of  elevating
himself to their rank, by the physical effects  of those very ali-
ments.  It is singularly remarkable, that several savage Nations,
have been discovered, who scarcely possessed industry sufficient
See Father Charlevoix's Travels through America 
224
STUDIES OF NATURE.
to procure food for themselves ; but  not one who had not in-
vented the means of getting drunk. Man is the only animal who
is sensible of that pleasure.   Other animals  are  content to re-
main in  their sphere.   Man is making perpetual efforts to get
out of his.   Intoxication elevates the mind.   All religious fes-
tivals among Savages, and even among 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 re-
nounces  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 cele-
brating in  their songs,  Bacchus, Mars,  Venus, or  the God of
Love.   It is farther very remarkable, that men do not abandon
themselves to blasphemy till they arrive at a state of  intoxica-
tion ;  for  it is an Instinct as  common to the soul, to cleave to
the Deity when in it's natural state, as to abjure Him when it
is 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, and which are common to him with
most animals.   Man alone is sensible to perfumes,* and em-
ploy's them to give more energy to his passions.  Mahomet said
that they elevated his soul to Heaven. Whatever may be in this,
the use of them has been introduced into all the religious cere-
monies, and into the political assemblies, of many Nations. The
Brasilians, as well as all the Savages of North-America,  never
deliberate on any object  of importance without smoking tobacco
in a calumet.  It is from  this practice  that the calumet is be-
come, among all those Nations, the symbol of peace, of war, of
alliance,  according  to  the accessories with which it is accom-
panied.

  * This is, without doubt, a mistake. Not only is tlie sense of smelling very
extensively diffused through the animal world, but I believe it is a fact, that
many animals, besides  man,  enjoy the " pleasures" of smell.  What other
explanation than this of the attachment of the cat to the odour of valerian,
and that of the Seneca-grass of  the United States ? I could mention other in-
stances.  I believe however, that man, more than any other animal, derives
pleasures from the odours of bodies.—B. S. B. 
STUDY XII.                     225
   It is undoubtedly from the same  custom of smoking, which
was common to the Scythians, as Herodotus relates, that the ca-
duceus of Mercury, which has a striking resemblance to the ca-
lumet of the Americans, and which appears like it to have been
nothing but a pipe, became the symbol  of commerce.   Tobac-
co increases in some measure the powers of the understanding,
by producing a species of intoxication in the nerves of the brain.
Lery tells us that the \ .rasilians smoke tobacco till it makes them
drunk.  It is to be observed, that those nations have found out
the most cephalic  plant of  the whole  vegetable kingdom, and
that the use of it  is the most universally  diffused of all those
which exist on the Globe, the vine and the corn-plants not ex-
cepted.   I have seen it cultivated in Finland, beyond Viburg,
in  about the sixty-first  degree of North Latitude.   The habit
of using it becomes so powerful, that a person who has acquir-
ed it, will rather forego bread for a  day than his tobacco. This
plant is nevertheless a  real  poison ; it  affects at length the ol-
factory nerves, and sometimes the sight.  i>ut Man is ever dis-
posed  to  impair  his physical constitution, provided  he can
strengthen in himself the intellectual sentiment.

                   Of the Sense of Seeing.
   Every thing that has been said, in detailing certain  general
Laws of Nature, harmonies, conformities, contrasts, and oppo-
sitions, refers principally to  the sense of seeing. I do not speak
of adaptation or correspondence ; for this belongs to the senti-
ment of reason, and is entirely distinct  from  matter.  The
other relations are in truth  founded on the reason itself of Na-
ture,  which communicates  delight  to  us  by means of colours
and forms generative and generated, and  inspires melancholy
by those which announce decomposition and destruction.   But
without entering upon  that  vast and inexhaustible  subject, I
shall at present confine  myself  to certain optical t fleets, which
involuntarily excite in us the sentiment of some of the attributes
of Deity.
   One of  the  most obvious causes of the pleasure which we
derive from the sight of a great tree, arises from die sentiment
of infinity  kindled in us, by it's pyramidical form.  The de-
crease of  it's different tiers of branches and  tints of verdure,
which are always lighter at the extremities of the tree than in
   Vol. II.                   F f 
 226            STUDIES OF  NATURE.

 the rest of it's foliage, give it an  apparent elevation which ne-
 ver terminates.  We experience the same sensations  in the ho-
 rizontal plan of landscapes,  in which we frequently perceive
 several successive  hilly elevations flying away one behind the
 other, till the last  melt away into the  Heavens.  Nature pro-
 duces the same effect in vast plains, by means of the vapours
 which rise from the banks of the lakes, or from the channels of
 the brooks and rivers that wander through them; their contours
 are multiplied in proportion to the extent of the plain, as I have
 many a time remarked.  Those vapours present themselves on
 different  plans ; sometimes they stand still, like curtains drawn
 along the skirts of the forests ; sometimes they mount  into co-
 lumns over the brooks which  meander  through the meadows:
 sometimes they are quite gray ; at other times they are illumi-
 ned and penetrated by the rays of the Sun.  Under all these as-
 pects  they display  to us, if I may venture to use the expression,
 several perspectives of infinity in  infinity itself.
   I say nothing of the delightful spectacle which the Heavens
 sometimes present to us in the disposition of the clouds.   I do
 not know of any Philosopher who has so much as  suspected
 that their beauties  were subjected to Law.   One thing is cer-
 tain, namely, that no one animal which lives in the light  is in-
 sensible to their effects.   I have spoken in another place some-
 what  of their characters of amabilityr or terror, which  are the
 same  with those of  amiable  or  dangerous animals and  vege-
 tables, conformable to those  of the days and of the  seasons
 which they announce. The Laws of them which I have sketch-
 ed, will suggest delicious subjects of meditation to any person
 disposed  to study them, excepting those who are determined to
 apply the  mechanical medium of barometers  and thermome-
 ters.  These instruments are good  for nothing but the regula-
tion of the atmosphere of our chambers.  They too frequently
 conceal from us the action of Nature; they announce, in most
 instances, the same  temperatures in the days which  set the
 birds  a-singing, and in those which reduce  them to silence.
The  harmonies of Heaven are to be felt only  by the heart of
 Man.  All  Nations, struck byr their ineffable language, raise
 their hands and their eyes to  Heaven in the  involuntary  emo-
tions of joy or of grief. 
STUDY XIL
■227
  Reason however tells them that God is every where.  How
comes it that no one stretches  out his arms toward the Earth,
or to the Horizon, in the attitude of invocation ? Whence comes
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, corrupted, de-
stroyed, and confined, seems to present something celestial in
it's substance ?
  It is to the sentiment of infinity which the sight of the Hea-
vens inspires, that we must  ascribe the taste of all nations for
building temples on the summit of a mountain, and the invin-
cible propensity which the  Jews  felt, like  other Nations, to
worship  upon high places.  There is not a mountain  all  over
the islands of the Archipelago but what has it's church ;  nor
a hill in China  but what has it's pagoda.   If, as some Philo-
sophers pretend, we never form a judgment of the nature of
things but from the mechanical results of a comparison  with
ourselves, the elevation of mountains ought to humiliate our in-
significance.  But the truth is that these  sublime objects, bv
elevating us toward Heaven, elevate thither the soul of  Man byT
the sentiment of infinity ; and  disjoining us from things terres-
trial, waft us to the enjoyment of beauties of much longer du-
ration.
  The works of Nature frequently present to  us  several kinds
of infinity at once ; thus, for example, a great tree, the trunk of
which is cavernous and covered with moss,  conveys to us the
sentiment of infinity as to time, as well as that of infinity in point
of elevation.  It exhibits a monument of ages when we did noj:
exist.   If to this is added infinity of extension, as when we per
ceive through it's solemn branches objects prodigiously remote,
our  veneration increases.  Go on, and add to all these,  the dif-
ferent ridges of it's mass, in contrast with the profundity of the
valleys, and with the level  of the plains ; it's venerable half-
lights, which oppose themselves, and play with the azure of the
Heavens ;  and  the sentiment of our own wretchedness, which it
relieves, by the ideas of the protection  which it affords in the
thickness of it's trunk immoveable as the rock, and in it's au-
gust summit agitated by the winds, the majestic murmurs of
which seem to sympathize with  our distress: a tree,  with all 
228
STUDIES OF NATURE.
these harmonies, seems to inspire an inexpressible religious awe.
Pliny says, in conformity- to this idea,  that the  trees were the
first  temples of the Gods.
  The sublime impression which  they produce becomes still
more profound, when they recal to us some sentiment of virtue,
such as the recollection of the great men who planted them, or
of those whose tombs they shade.  Of this kind were the oaks
of lulus at Troy-.  It is from an effect of this sentiment that the
mountains of Greece and Italy appear to  us more respectable
than those of the rest of Europe, though they are of no higher
antiquity on the Globe, because their monuments,  in  ruins as
they are, call to our remembrance the virtues of the persons who
inhabited them.   But this  subject  belongs not  to the present
article.
  In general, the different sensations of infinity  increase by the
contrasts of the physical  objects which produce them.  Our
Painters  are not sufficiently attentive to the choice of  those
which  they introduce  into the  fore-ground of their pictures.
They would give a much more 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. Thus,
for example, if the Artist wished to communicate an affecting
interest to a cheerful and smiling landscape, he  would do well
to present it through a magnificent  triumphal arch,  crumbling
into  ruin by length of time.  On the contrary, a city filled with
Tuscan and Egyptian monuments would have a  still  greater air
of antiquity-, when viewed  from under a bower of verdure and
flowers.  We ought to imitate Nature,  who never produces the
most lovely plants in all their beauty, such as mosses, violets,
and  loses, but at the foot of rustic rocks.
  Not but that consonances likewise produce a very powerful
effect, especially when  they seem to unite objects which are
distinct from each other.  It is thus, for instance, that the cupo-
la of the College of the Four Nations presents a magnificent
point of view, when seen  from the middle of the court of the
Louvre,  through the arcade  of that palace which is opposite,
Cor then  you view it  complete,  with a portion of the Heaven
under the arch, as if it were a part of the Louvre.  But in this
very consonance, which gives such an extent to our vision, there 
STUDY XII.
229
is likewise a contrast in the  concave form of  the  arcade, with
the convex form of the cupola.
  The great art of moving is to oppose sensible objects to intel-
lectual.  The soul in that case takes a daring flight.  It soars
from the visible to the invisible, and enjoys, if I may be allowed
the expression, in it's own way, by extending itself into the un-
bounded fields of sentiment and of intelligence. Among certain
Tartar tribes, when a great man dies, his groom, after the inter-
ment, leads out the horse  which his master was accustomed 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.
  When the  suppressed circumstances multiply and unite them-
selves to some virtuous affection, the emotions of the soul are
greatly heightened. Thus when, in the Mne'id, lulus is promis-
ing to make  presents to Nisus and Euryalus,  who are going in
quest of his father to Palenteum, he says to Nisus:

         Bina dabo argento perfecta atque aspera signis
         Procula, divecta genitor quae cepit Arisba ;
         Et tripodes geminos, auri, duo magna talenta,
         Cratera antiquum quern dat Sidonia Dido.*
                                         ASneid. Lib. ix. v. 26".

  " I will present you with two silver cups  of exquisite work-
" manship, with  curious figures in alto-relievo.   They became
" my father's property at  the capture of Arisba.  To these I
" will add a pair of twin tripods;  two talents of massy gold ;
" and an ancient goblet, a token of affection from Queen Dido."
  He promises to the two youthful friends, united to each other
in the tenderest bonds, double presents,  two cups,  two tripods
to serve as stands for them, after  the manner of the  ancients,
two talents of gold to replenish them with wine, but  only  one
bowl from which they  might drink together.   And then, what
a bowl! he boasts neither  of  the materials of  which it is com

        * Two silver cups, emboss'd with nicest art,
         I'll give, of warlike spoils my father's part,
         When fam'd Arisba  fell; two tripods oldj
         A double talent, too, of purest gold ;
         Sidonian Dido's gift shall crown the rest,
         A bowl antique, of ■-,<-' uerous. love the test 
230            STUDIES OF NATURE.

posed, nor of the workmanship, as in the case of the other pfe>
sents ; he  connects it with moral qualities infinitely- more in-
teresting to the heart of friendship.   It is antique ; it was not
the prize of violence but the gift of love.  Lulus no doubt re-
ceived it as a mark of affection from Dido, when she considered
herself to be the wife of JEneas.
   In all the scenes of passion where the intention is to produce
strong emotions, the more that the  principal object is circum-
scribed, the more  extended is the intellectual  sentiment result-
ing from it.  Several reasons might be assigned for this,  the
most important of which is,  that the  accessory contrasts,  as
those of  littleness and greatness, of weakness and strength, of
finite and infinite,  concur in heightening the contrast of the sub-
ject.   When Poussin conceived the idea of  a  picture of the
universal deluge, he confined it to the representation of a single
family.  There you see an old man on horseback,  on the point
of drowning; and in a boat, a man,  perhaps his son, presents to
his wife, who has made shift to scramble up a  rock, a little
child dressed in a red  petticoat,  who, on it's part, is making
every effort with it's little feet to get upon the rock. The  back-
ground of the landscape is frightful from it's black  melancholy.
The herbage and the trees are soaked in water, the Earth itself
is penetrated by it, which is rendered visible by that long ser-
pent in eager haste to quit it's hole.  The torrents are gushing
down on every side ; the Sun appears in  the Heavens like  an
eye thrust out of it's socket: but the most powerful interest in
the piece bears upon the feeblest object: a father and a mother,
ready themselves to perish, are wholly engrossed in the preser-
vation of their infant.   Every- other feeling is extinguished on
the Earth, but maternal tenderness is still alive.   The human
race is destroy-ed because of it's crimes, and innocence is going
to be involved in the punishment.  These unrestrained torrents
that deluged Earth, that lurid Atmosphere,  that extinguished
Sun,  those desolated solitudes, that  fugitive family, all the ef-
fects  of this universal ruin of the World, are wholly- concentra-
ted in an infant.   There is no one, however, who on viewing the
small group of personages which surround  it, would not exclaim:
" There's the Universal Deluge !" Such is the nature of the hu-
man soul -, so far from being material it lays hold  only of cor- 
STUDY XII.
231
rcspondencics.  The less your 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 sup-
pose 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 them-
selves bodies.  Besides, these two senses convey to us only the
sentiment of correspondencies and harmonies, without involving
us in matter as smelling does, which is affected only by the ema-
nations from bodies ; tasting by their fluidity ;  and touching by
their solidity, by their softness, by their heat, and by their 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 ah ideot, as some have
pretended.   The  soul sees and hears by all the senses.  This
has been demonstrated in the case of the blind Princes of Persia,
whose fingers, according to Chardin's report, are so astonishingly
intelligent, that they can trace and calculate all the figures of
Geometry on tables.  Such are likewise the deaf and the dumb,
whom the Abbe de VEpee is teaching to converse together.
   I have no occasion to be diffuse on the subject of the intellec-
tual relations of hearing.  This sense is the immediate organ of
intelligence; it is that which is adapted to the reception of speech,
a faculty^ peculiar  to man, and which, by it's infinite modulations,
is the expression of all the  correspondencies of Nature, and of
all the  feelings of the human heart.   But there is another lan-
guage which seems to appertain still more  particularly to this
first principle of ourselves, to which we have given the name of
sentiment: I mean music.
   I  shall not dwell on the incomprehensible power which it pos-
sesses of rousing and quieting the passions, in a manner inde-
pendent of reason, and  of kindling sublime  affections disenga-
ged  from intellectual perception: it's  effects  are  sufficiently
known.  I shall only observe, that 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 fa*
it only in polished society, the very languages of which at length
lose their accentuation.   The fact is, that a  multitude of social 
232
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 relations destroy in a state of refinement the correspondencies
 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 there is not a situation upon
 the Earth but  what has it's singing bird.  The linnet of the
 Canaries usually frequents, in those islands, the flinty gutters of
 the mountains.  The goldfinch delights in sandy downs, the lark
 in the meadows, the nightingale in woods by the side of a brook,
 the bullfinch, whose note is so sweet,  in the white thorn: the
 thrush, the yellow-hammer, the greenfinch, and all other singing
 birds, have their favourite  post.  It is very remarkable that 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 around it.  Nay,
 none  are to be  found except in  places  which are inhabited.   I
 have  travelled  more than six hundred leagues through the fo-
 rests  of Russia, but never met with  small birds, except in the
 neighbourhood of villages. On making the tour of the fortified
 places of Russian  Fin and,  with the General Officers of the
 Corps of Engineers in which I served, we travelled sometimes
 at the rate of twenty leagues  a  day, without seeing on the road
 either village or bird.  But when  we  perceived  the  sparrows
 fluttering about  we concluded we  must be drawing  near some
 inhabited place. In this indication we were  nev< r once deceiv-
 ed.   I relate it  with the more satisfaction that it  may  some-
 times  be  of service to persons who have tost their way in the
 woods.
  Carcillaso de  la Vega informs us that his father having  been
 detached from Peru, with  a  company of Spaniards,  to  make
 discoveries bevond the Cord-tiers, was in danger of  perishing
 with hunger in  the midst of th-rir uninhabited valleys and quag-
 mires.  He never could  have got out  had he not perceived in
the air a flight of paroquets, which suggested a hope that there
might be some  place of habitation at no  great  distance.   He
directed his march to that point of the compass  which the pa-
roquets had pursued, and  arrived after  incredible fatigue at a
colony of Indians, who cultivated fields of maize.
  It is to be  observed, tint  Nat  re  has  not given a musical
voice  to any one sea or river bird, because it would have been 
STUDY XII.
23S
 lost in the noise of the waters, and because the human ear could
 not have enjoyed it  at  the  distance  which they  are  destined
 to live from  the  land.   If there are  swans which sing, as  has
 been alleged by some, their song must consist but of very  few
 modulations, with some  resemblance to the uncouth sounds ut-
 tered by the duck and the goose. That of the wild swan which
 came lately and settled at Chantilly has only four  or five notes.
 Aquatic birds have shrill and piercing cries, by means of which
 they can make  themselves heard in the regions  of wind  and
 tempests where they inhabit, and are  in perfect correspondence
 with their noisy situations, and w-ith their melancholy solitudes.*
   The melodies of song-birds have similar relations to the sites
 which they  occupy, and even to the  distances  at 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 after he is no longer
 perceptible to the eye.  The. swallow, who graxes 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  a  distance of more than half a league.
 He  mistrusts the vicinity of man; and  nevertheless  always
 places  himself  within sight  of  his habitation, and v/ithin the
 reach of his ear.   He chooses, for this effect, places which are
 the  best conductors of sound, in order that their  echoing may-
 give more action  to his voice.  Having stationed himself in his
 orchestra, he warbles an  unknown drama,  which  has it's exor-
 dium, it's exposition, it's recitative, it's catastrophe, intermin-
 gled sometimes with the  most extravagant bursts of joy, some-

  * " The notes of all sea-fowl," says Mr. Pennant, " are most harsh and in-
 " harmonious.  I have often rested under rocks like those " of Flumboiougb-
 " Head," attentive to the various sounds over my head; which, mixed  with
•" the deep roar of the waves slowly swelling, and retiring from the vast ca-
 " vcrns beneath, have produced a fine effect.  The sharp voice of the gulls,
 " the frequent chatter of the  guillemots, the loud notes  of the  auks, the
 ' scream of the herons, together with the deep periodical croak of the  cor-
" moranls, which seems as a bass to the rest, have often furnished me with
" a concert, which, joined to the wild scenery  surrounding inc, afforded in an
" high degree that species of pleasure which results from the novelty and the
u gloomy majesty of the entertainment." Introduction to the  Arctic Zoology
[.■"age xv.—B. S. B.
  Vol. II,                    G  g 
2J4
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 times with bitter and plaintive notes of recollection, which he
 expresses by long  and deep sighs.   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 rest-
 less career which lies before him.
   Every bird has a voice adapted to the times and stations of
 it's  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, in the meadow, invites
 the swains and shepherdesses to the dance; the voracious thrush,
 which appears only in Autumn, summons the rustic vine-dresser
 to the vintage.  Man alone, on his part, is attentive to the ac-
 cents of the feathered 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 head toward
 her, and say : " Solitary bird, behold in what manner Man re-
 " wards his servants !"
   Nature has refused these distractions, and these consonances
 of fortune over volatile beings, in order that our soul, suscepti-
 ble as it is of every woe, finding every where occasions of ex-
 tending that susceptibility, might every where be enabled  to al-
 leviate the pressure. She has rendered insensible bodies them-
 selves capable of these communications. She presents to us fre-
 quently in the midst of scenes which pain the eye, other scenes
 which delight the ear, and soothe the mind with interesting re-
 collections. It is thus that  from the bosom of forests she trans-
 ports us to the brink of the waters, by the rustling of the aspins
 and of the poplars.  At other times she conveys to us, when we
 arc by the side of the brook, the noise of the Sea, and the ma-i
nceuvres 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, of the meadows, and of the
valleys, sounds ineffable, which excite in us pleasing reveries^
and plunge us into profound, sleep.

                 Of the Sense of Touching.
  I shall make but a few reflections on the sense of touching, i;
is Hie most obtuse  of  all our senses, and nevertheless it  is in 
STUDY XII.                   235
Some sort the seal of our intelligence. To no purpose is an ob-
ject 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 proceeds per-
haps from our weakness, which seeks in those approximations
points of protection.   Whatever may  be in  this, the sense in
question, blunt as it is, may be made the channel  of communi-
cating intelligence, as is evident from the example adduced by
Chardin, of the blind men of Persia, who traced geometrical fi-
gures 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,
which is  diffused over the whole surface of  our skin, in  our
hands and  feet, which are the members the best adapted to
judge of  the quality of bodies.  But in order that they might
not be exposed to the loss of 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 resis-
tance in their callous and prominent parts, and an exquisite sen-
sibility in the retreating.
   It is matter of astonishment to  me, however, that Nature
should have diffused the sense of touching over the whole sur-
face of the human body, which becomes thence exposed to va-
riety  of  suffering, while  no considerable benefit seems to re-
suit from it.  Man is  the only animal laid under the necessity
of clothing  himself.   There  are indeed  some  insects which
make cases for themselves, such as the moth ;  but they are pro-
duced in places where their clothing is, if I  may say so, ready
made.  This necessity, which is become one of the most inex-
haustible sources of human vanity, is in my opinion one of the
most humiliating proofs of our wretchedness.  Man is the only
being who is ashamed of appearing naked.   This is a feeling
of which I do not discern the reason in Nature, nor the simili-
tude  in the instinct of other animals.   Besides,  independently
of all sense of shame,  he  is constrained by powerful  necessity
to clothe  himself, in even- variety of climate. 
 236             STUDIES OF NATURE.

   Certain Philosophers, wrapped up in good warm cloaks, and
 who never stir beyond the precincts of our great cities, have
 figured to themselves a  natural Man on the Earth, like a sta-
 tue of bronze in the middle of one of our squares.  But to say
 nothing of the innumerable inconveniencies which must in such
 a state  oppress  his  miserable  existence from without, as the
 cold, the heat, the wind, the rain, I shall insist only on one in-
 convenience, which is but slightly felt in our commodious apart-
 ments, though it would  be absolutely insupportable to a naked
 man, in the most genial  of temperatures, I mean the flies.  I
 shall quote, to this purpose, the testimony of a man whose skin
 ought to have been proof against this  attack :  it is that of the
 free-bootcr Raveneau du  Lussan, who in the year 1688, crossed
 the isthmus  of Panama, on his return from the  South  Seas.
 Hear what he says, speaking of the Indians of Cape de Gracias
 a Dios: " When they are  overtaken  with an inclination to go
 " to sleep, they dig a hole in the  sand, in which they lay them-
 " selves along, and then cover themselves all over with the  sand
 a which  they had dug out; this they do to shelter themselves
 "' from the attack of the musquitos, with which the air is so fre-
 k' quently loaded.  They  are a kind of little flies that are rather
 " felt than seen, and are armed with a sting so keen, and so
 " venomous,  that when they fix on any one, they seem to dart a
 u shaft of fire into the blood.
  " The poor wretches are so grievously tormented with those
 u formidable insects, when it does not blow, that they become
 u like lepers ; and I can  affirm it as a serious truth, for I know
 k' it from my own  experience, that it is no slight evil to be at-
 " tacked by  them ; for besides their preventing all rest in the
 *•' night-time,  when we were obliged to trudge along with our
 u backs naked for want of  shirts, the unceasing persecution of
 u those merciless little animals drove  us almost to madness and
" despair."*
  It is, I am disposed to believe, on account of the troublcsome-
 ness of the flies, which are very common, and  very necessary,
 in the marshy and humid places of hot countries, that Nature
has placed but few quadrupeds with hair on their shores, but
quadrupeds with scales, as the tatou, the armadillo, the tortoise,

          * Join:-.-I of a Voyage to the South Sea in 16SS 
STUDY XII.                   237
the lizard, the crocodile, the cayman, the land-crab, bernard-
the-hermit, and other scaly reptiles, such as serpents, upon which
the flies have not the means of fastening. It is perhaps for this
reason likewise that hogs and wild-boars,  which take pleasure
in frequenting such places,  are furnished with hair, long, stiff,
and bristly, which keep volatile insects at a distance.
   Once more,  Nature has not employed,  in this respect, any
one precaution in behalf  of Man.   Of a truth, on contemplat-
ing the beauty of his  forms,  and his complete nakedness, it is
impossible for me not to admit the ancient tradition of our ori-
gin.   Nature, in placing him  on the Earth, said  to him : " Go,
" degraded creature, animal 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 toward  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 com-
mandments of the Law.

             OP THE SENTIMENTS OF THE SOUJ.

               And first, of Mental Affections.
   I shall speak of mental affections, chiefly in the view of dis-
tinguishing them from the  sentiments of the soul: they differ
essentially from each  other.  For example, the pleasure which
comedy bestows is widely different from that of which tragedy-
is the source.  The emotion  which excites laughter is an affec-
tion 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 of the soul  two powers of a different nature  ;
but it seems to me, as has been already- said, that the one is to
the other what sight is to the body ; mind is a faculty, and soul
is the principle of it:   the soul is, if I may venture thus to ex-
press myself, the  body of our intelligence.  I consider the mind
then as  an intellectual eye,  to which may be referred the other
faculties of the understanding, as the imagination, which appre-
hends things future ;  memory, which contemplates things that
are past; and judgment,  which discerns their correspondencies.
 The impression made  upon us by these  different acts of vision.
sometimes excites in us a sentiment which is denorr::nated n'- 
238             STUDIES OF NATURE.
dence; and in that case, this last perception belongs immediate*
ly to the soul; of this  we are  made  sensible  by the delicious
emotion which it suddenly excites in us;  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 enjoyment-
   As our education and our manners direct us  toward our per-
sonal interest, hence it comes to pass, that the mind employs itself
only about social conformities, and that reason, after all, is no-
thing more than the interest of our passions ; but the soul, left to
itself, is incessantly pursuing the conformities of Nature, and our
sentiment is always the  interest of Mankind.
   Thus, I repeat it, mind is the perception of the Laws of So-
ciety, and sentiment is  the perception  of the Laws of Nature.
Those who display to us the conformities of Society,  such  as
comic Writers, Satirists, Epigrammatists, and even the greatest
part of  Moralists, are men of wit: such were the Abbe de Choi-
sy, La Bruyere, St. Evremont, and the like. Those who  discover
to us the conformities of Nature, such as tragic and other Poets
of sensibility, the Inventors of arts, great Philosophers, are men
of genius : such were  Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Newton,
Marcus Aurelius, Montesquieu, La Fontaine,  Fenelon, J.  J.
Rousseau.  The first class belong to one age, to  one season,  to
one nation, to one junto ; the others to posterity and to Mankind.
   We  shall be still more sensible of the difference which sub-
sists between mind and  soul, by tracing their affections  to oppo-
site  progresses.  As  often, for example, as  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 interest; because, as has been said, they awaken  a
feeling within us.  But  w-hen  we go about to analyze our feel-
ings, and refer them to the examination of the mind, or reason-
ing power, the  sublime emotions which they excited vanish
away ; for in  this case we do not fail to refer them to some ac-
commodation of society, of fortune, of system, or  of 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, at the  long-run, to the
study of Nature, than the reasoning powers of Man ; for though
they may catch here and there some natural  conformities, thev 
STUDY XII.                   239
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 litde so-
cial or scientific order within which it is circumscribed. Thus,
for example, if it takes a glimpse of the celestial spheres, it will
refer the formation of them to the labour of a glass-house ; and
if it admits the existence of a creating Power, it will represent
him  as a mechanic out of employment, amusing  himself with
making globes, merely to have the pleasure of seeing them turn
round.   It will conclude, from it's own disorder, that there  is
no such thing  as order in nature ; from  it's own immorality,
that there is no morality-.   As it refers every thing to it's own
reason, and seeing no reason for existence when it shall be  no
longer on the Earth, it thence concludes that in fact it shall not
in that  case exist.  To be consistent, it  ought equally to con-
clude on the same principle that it does  not exist now ; for it
certainly can discover neither in itself nor in any-  thing around
an actual reason for it's existence.
  We are convinced of our existence by- a power  greatly supe-
rior to our mind, which is sentiment, or intellectual feeling. We
are going to carry this  natural instinct along with us into oui
researches respecting the existence of the Deity, and the  im
mortality of the soul; subjects on which our versatile reason ha?
 ,o 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 career, \vr
presume  to hope  that our perceptions, nay our very mistakes.
may encourage men of genius to enter upon it.  These sublime
and  eternal truths  seem to us so deeply imprinted on the human
heart, as to appear themselves the principles of our  intellectual
feeling, and to  manifest themselves in our most ordinary affec-
tions, as in the  wildest excesses of our passions.

            OF THE SENTIMENTS OF  INNOCl.NCi:.
  The sentiment of innocence exalts us toward the Di.ity, and
prompts us to virtuous deeds.  The  Greeks and  Romans em-
ployed little children to sing in their religious festivals, and  t<
present their offerings at the altar, in  the view of rendering the
Gods propitious to their Country by the spectacle of infant in-
nocence.  The  sight of infancy calls men back to the sentiment0 
24v            STUDIES OF NATURE.

of Nature.  When Cato of Utica had formed the resolution to
put himself to death, his friends and servants concealed his
sword ; and upon his demanding it with expressions of violent
indignation, they  delivered it to him by the hands of a child:
but the corruption of the age in which he lived had stifled in h'i6
heart the sentiment which innocence ought to have excited.
  Jesus Christ recommends to us to become as little children;
We call them innocents, non nocentes, because they have never
injured any one.   But notwithstanding the claims of their ten-
der age, and the authority of the  Christian Religion, To  what
barbarous education are they they not abandoned ?

                          Of 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 cer-
tain Philosophers pretend, because  the  resources and hopes of
the child are inferior; for they are in truth greater than those of
the old  man, who is frequently infirm and hastening to dissolu-
tion, whereas the child is entering into life ; but the child 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.  This accounts  for the idea of the good La Fontaine,
in describing the  Deluge, in his fable of Baucis and Philemon.

               .....................Tout disparut sur I'heure.
         Les vieillarus deploroient ces severes destins :
         Les animaux perir !  Car encor les humains,
         Tous avoient du tombcr sous les celestes armes,
         Raucis en repandit en secret quelques larmes.

         AH disappeared in that tremendous hour.
         Age felt the weight  of Heaven's insulted power :
         On guilty M.in the stroke with justice fell,
         But harmless brutes !—the fierceness who c"in tell
         Of wrath divine ?—At thought of this, some tears
         Stole down the cheeks of Baucis..........

  Thus the sentiment of innocence develops,  in  the heart of
Man, a  divine character, which is that of generosity-.   It bears
not on  the calamity abstractedly  considered, but  on  a moral 
STUDY XII.                   241
tjuality, 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
of all animals is  susceptible of it;  and this not by a secret re-
trospect to himself, as some enemies of the Human Race have
pretended; for were that the case, on stating a comparison be-
tween a child and  an old man, both  of  them  unfortunate, we
ought to be more affected by the misery of the old man, con-
sidering that we are removing from the wretchedness of child-
hood, and drawing nearer to that of old age : the contrary- how-
ever takes place, in virtue of the moral sentiment which I have
alleged.
   When an old man is virtuous, the moral sentiment of his dis-
tress is excited in us with redoubled force ; this is an evident
proof that pity  in  Man is by  no  means an animal affection.
The  sight of a Belisarius is accordingly a most affecting object.
If  yo"u heighten it by the introduction of a child holding out
his little hand to receive the alms bestowed on that illustrious
blind beggar, the impression of pity is still more powerful..But
let me put a sentimental case.  Suppose  you had fallen in with
Belisarius soliciting charity, on the one hand, and on the other,
an  orphan child blind and wretched,  and that y-ou had but one
crown, without the possibility of dividing it, To wliether of the
two would you have given it ?
   If on reflection you find that the eminent services rendered
by Belisarius to his ungrateful Country, have inclined  the ba-
lance of sentiment too decidedly in his favour, suppose the child
overwhelmed with the woes of Belisarius,  and at the same time
possessing some of his virtues, such as having his eyes  put out
by his parents, and nevertheless continuing to beg alms for their
relief ;* there would in my opinion be  no room for hesitation,
provided a man felt only : for if you reason,  the case is entirelv
altcred  ; the talents, the  victories, the renown of the  Grecian
General, would  presently absorb  the calamities of an obscure

   * The rector of a country village,  in the vicinity  of Paris, not far from
Dravct, underwent in his infancy a piece of inhumanity not less barbarous,
from the hands of his parents.  He suffered castration from his own father,
who was by profession a surgeon :  he nevertheless supported that unnatural
parent in his old aefe.  I believe both f ..her and son :.re still in lift-.
   Vol. II.                   Hh 
24-2
STUDIES OF NATURE.
child.  Reason will recall you to the political interest,  to the i
human.
   The sentiment of innocence is a ray of the Divinity.   It in-
vests the unfortunate person  with a celestial radiance which
falls on the human heart, and recoils, kindling it into generosity,
that other flame of divine original.  It alone renders us  sensible
to the distress of virtue, by representing it to us 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.

                    Of the Love of Country.
   This sentiment is,  still farther, the source of love of Coun-
try, because  it brings to our recollection the gentle and  pure af-
fections of our earlier years.  It increases with extention,  and
expands with the progress of time, as a sentiment of a  celestial
and immortal nature.  They  have  in  Switzerland  an ancient
musical air,  and extremely simple, called the  rans des vaches.
The music of this air produces an effect so powerful, that it was
found necessary to prohibit the playing of it, in Holland and in
France,  before the Swiss soldiers, because it set them all a-de-
serting one after another.   I imagine that the  rans des vaches
must imitate the lowing and bleating of the cattle, the repercus-
sion of the echos, and other associations, which made the blood
boil in the veins of those poor  soldiers,  by  recalling to their me-
mory, the valleys,  the lakes, the mountains of their  Country,*
and at the same time the companions of  their early life,  their
first loves, the recollection of their indulgent grand-fathers, and
the like.

  * I have been told that Poutaveri, tlie 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, the tear
started to  his eye, and clasping it in his arms, he exclaimed : Ah ! tree of
my country ! I could wish it were put to the trial,  whether on presenting to
a foreign bird, say a paroquet, a fruit of it's country, which it had not seen
for a considerable time, it would  express some extraordinary emotion.
Though physical sensations attach us so strongly to Country,  moral senti-
ments alone can give them a vehement intensity.   Time,  which blunts the
former, gives only a keener edge to the latter. For this  reason  it is that
veneration  for a monument is always in proportion to it's antiquity, or to
it's distance ; this explains that expression of Tacitus ■• Major e hngivaur re-
uercfitia •  distance increases reverence. 
STUDY XII.
243
  The love of Country seems to strengthen in proportion as it
is innocent and unhappy.  For this reason Savages are fonder
of their Country than polished Nations are;  and those who in-
habit regions rough and wild, such as mountaineers, than those
who live in fertile countries and fine climates.  Never could the
Court of Russia prevail upon a single Samoiede to leave the
Bhores of the Frozen Ocean, and  settle at Petersburg.  Some
Greenlanders were brought in the course of the last century to
the Court of Copenhagen, where they were entertained with a
profusion of kindness, but soon fretted  themselves to  death.
Several of them were drowned in attempting to return to their
country in an open boat. They beheld all the magnificence of the
Court of Denmark with extreme indifference; but there was
one in particular, whom they observed to weep every time he saw
a woman with a child in her arms; hence they  conjectured that
this unfortunate man was a father.  The gentleness of domestic
education, undoubtedly,  thus powerfully attaches those poor
people to the place of their birth.   It was this which inspired
the Greeks and Romans with so much courage in  the defence of
their  Country.  The sentiment  of innocence  strengthens the
love  of it, because it  brings back all the affections of early life,
pure, sacred, and  incorruptible.   Firgil was  well  acquainted
with the  effect of this sentiment, when he puts into  the mouth
of Nisus, who was  dissuading Euryalus from undertaking a
nocturnal expedition fraught with danger, those  affecting words :

              Tc snperesse velim : tua vita dignior setas
              If thou survive me, I shall die content:
              Thy tender age deserves the longer life.

   But among Nations with whom infancy is rendered misera
ble, and  is corrupted by irksome, ferocious, and unnatural edu-
cation, there is no more love of Country than there  is of inno-
cence.  This is one  of the causes which sends so many Euro-
peans a-rambling over the World, and which accounts for our
having so few modem monuments in Europe, because the next
generation never fails to destroy the monuments  of that which
preceded it.   This is the reason that our books, our fashions,
our customs,  our ceremonies, and our languages,  become obso-
lete so soon, and are entirely different this age  from what they 
244            STUDIES OF NATURE.

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-
tion 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 re-
collection 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 in us by  an object which
inspires 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
is, we are told, the effect of education merely-,  in the course of
which frequent mention is made of the name of God ; but men-
tion 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 standing in need of support, in
such unexpected concussions we  never exclaim, Ah, my King I
or, if Science were concerned, Ah, Newton !
  It is certain that if the name of God be frequently mentioned
to us in the progress of our education, the idea of it is quickly
effaced in the usual train of the affairs of this World; why then
have we recourse to it in  extraordinary emergencies ? This sen-
timent of Nature is  common to all Nations, many of whom give
no theological instruction to their children.  I have remarked it
in the Negroes of the coast of Guinea, of Madagascar, of Caf-
rerie,  and Mosambique, among the Tartars, and the Indians of
the Malabar coast;  in a word among men of  every quarter of
the World.   I never saw a single one who, under the extraor-
dinary emotions of surprize or of admiration, did not make, in
his own language, the same exclamation which we do, and who
did not lift up his hands and his eyes 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 are hunting after it  continually,  and every where, and  we 
STUDY XII.
245
diffuse it principally over the commencement and the close of
human life : hence it is that the cradles and the tombs of so great
a part of Mankind have been enveloped  in fiction.   It is the
perennial source of our curiosity ; it discloses itself from early
infancy, and is long the companion of innocence.  Whence could
children derive the taste for the marvellous ?   They must iiave
Fairy-tales ;  and men must have epic  poems  and operas.  It
is the marvellous which constitutes one of the  grand charms of
the antique statues of Greece and Rome, representing heroes or
gods, and which contributes more than is generally imagined to
our delight, in the perusal of the ancient History of those  Coun-
tries.  It is one of the natural reasons  which may be  produced
to the President Henault, who expresses his astonishment diat
we should be  more enamoured  of ancient  History than of
modern, especially than that of our own country.  The truth is,
independently of  the patriotic sentiments which serve at least
as a pretext to the intrigues of the great men of Greece  and
Rome, and which were so entirely unknown to ours,  that thev
frequently embroiled their country in maintaining the interests
of a particular house, and sometimes in asserting  the honor of
precedency, or of sitting on a joint-stool; there is a marvellous
in the religion of the Ancients, which consoles and elevates hu-
man nature, whereas that of  the Gauls terrifies and debases it.
The gods of the Greeks and the Romans were patriots, like
their great men.   Minerva had given them the olive, Neptune
the  horse.  Those deities  protected the city and the people.
But those of the ancient Gauls were tyrants, like their Barons;
they  afforded protection  only to  the  Druids.  They must be
glutted with human  sacrifices.  In a word, this religion was so
inhuman, that two successive Roman Emperors, according to
the testimony of Suetonius and Pliny, commanded it to be abo-
lished.   I say nothing of the modern interests of our History ;
but sure  I am that the relations of our politicks will  never re-
place in it, to the heart of Man, those of the Divinity.
  I  must observe that as  admiration is an involuntary move-
ment of the soul toward Deity-, and is  of consequence sublime,
several modern Authors have strained  to multiply this ki d of
beautv in their productions, by an accumulation of surprising
incidents ; but Nature employs them sparingly in her's, because
Man is incapable of frequently undergoing concussions s'-1 vio- 
 246            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 lent.  She discloses to us by little and little the light of the Sun,
 the expansion of flowers, the formation of fruits. She gradually
 introduces 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 Mystery.

  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 about through the forests, flowers scarcely half-
 opened, and timid shepherdesses, excite in us the sweetest and
 the most lasting emotions.  The  loveliness and respectability of
 objects are increased by their mysteriousness.   Sometimes it is
 that of antiquity which renders so many monuments venerable
 in our eyes ;  sometimes it is that of distance, which diffuses so
 many charms over objects in the Horizon; sometimes it is that
 of names.  Hence the  Sciences which retain the Greek names,
 though they frequently denote only the most ordinary things,
 have a more imposing air of respect than those which have only
 modern names, though these may in many cases be more inge-
 nious and more  useful.  Hence, for example, the  construction
 of ships, and the art of navigation, are more lightly prized by
 our modern literati, than several other physical sciences of the
 most frivolous nature, but which  are dignified by Greek names.
 Admiration,  accordingly, is not a relation of the  understand-
 ing, or a perception of our  reason, but a sentiment of the soul,
 which arises in us from a certain undescribable instinct of Dei-
 ty,  at  sight of extraordinary  objects, and from the very mys-
 teriousness in which they are involved.  This is so indubitably
 certain, that admiration is destroyed by the  science which en-
 lightens us.   If I exhibit to a savage an eolipile darting out a
 stream of inflamed spirit of wine, I throw him into an ecstacy
of admiration ; he feels himself disposed to fall down and wor-
 ship the machine ; he venerates me as the God of Fire, as long
as he comprehends it not; but no sooner do I explain to him 
STUDY XII.
24r
the Hature 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 of those
universal instincts of Deity, it is, that ignorance is become the
inexhaustible source of  delight to  Man.  We must take care
not  to confound, as all our Moralists do, ignorance and error.
Ignorance is  the work of Nature, and in many cases a blessing
to man;  whereas error is frequendy the fruit of our pretended
human Sciences, and is always an evil.   Let our political Wri-
ters say what they will, while  they boast of our wonderful pro-
gress in knowledge, and oppose to it the barbarism of past ages,
it was not ignorance which then set all Europe on fire,  anc
inundated it with blood, in settling  religious disputations.
race of ignorants would have kept themselves quiet.   The mit
chief was done by persons who were under the power of erroi,
who at that time vaunted as much perhaps of their superior il-
lumination, as we  now-a-days  do of  ours, and into each of
whom the European spirit of education had instilled  this error
of early infancy, Be the First.
   How  many  evils does ignorance  conceal  from us, which wt
are doomed one day to encounter in the course of human life,
beyond the possibility of escaping!  the  inconstancy of friends.
the revolutions of fortune,  calumnies, and the hour of death it-
self so tremendous to most men.   The knowledge of ills like
these would  mar all the  comfort of living.   How many bles-
sings does ignorance render sublime ! the illusions of friendship,
and those of love, the perspectives of hope, and the very trea
sures which  Science unfolds.   The Sciences inspire delight on-
ly when  we enter upon the study of them, at the period when

  • For this reason it is that we admire only that which is uncommon. Were
there to appear over the horizon of Paris one of  those  parhelia which are sc
common at Spitsbergen,  tlie whole inhabitants  of the city would be in tlie
streets to gaze at it, and wonder.  It is nothing  more however than a reflec-
tion of die Sun's disk in the clouds ;  and no one stands still to contemplate
the Sun himself, because the Sun is an object too well known to be admired.
  It is mystery which constitutes one of the charms of Religion.  Thost
who insist  upon a geometrical demonsu-ation on this subject, betray a pro
found ignorance at once of the Laws of Vatnrc. and of the dc-nands of'th.
human heart 
 248             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 the mind, in a state of ignorance, plunges into the great career.
 It is the point of contact between light and darkness which pre-
 sents to the eye the most favourable state of vision :  this is the
 harmonic point which excites our admiration, when we are be-
 ginning to see clearly; but it lasts only a single instant.   It va-
 nishes  together with  ignorance.  The elements of  Geometry
 may  have impassioned young minds, but never the aged, unless
 in the case of certain illustrious Mathematicians who were pro-
 ceeding from  discovery to discovery.  Those sciences only, and
 those passions, which are subjected to doubt and chance, form
 enthusiasts at  every age  of life,  such as chemistry,  avarice,
 play, and love.
   For one pleasure which Science bestows, and causes to perish
 in the bestowing, ignorance presents us  with 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 con-
 ducted 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 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 it's joys and it's woes ; to Man's wed-
 ding, and to his grave: Science discerns nothing in  either ex-
 cept the elements merely.  She has abandoned Man to  Man,
 and thrown him upon the Earth as into a desert.  Ah!  what-
 ever may be the names which she gives to the different kingdoms
 of Nature, celestial Spirits undoubtedly regulate their combina-
 tions  so ingenious,  so varied, and so uniform;  and Man, who
 could bestow nothing  upon himself, is not the only being in the
 Universe who  partakes of intelligence.
   It is not to  the illumination of  Science that the Deity com-
municates 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 day--time I see but
one Sun ;  during the night I discern thousands.  Are those vt ry
stars so variously colo- red r ally Suns i  re those planets vhieh
revolve  around  ours actually- inhabited as it is ?  From whence 
STUDY XII.
249
came the planet Cybele,* discovered but yesterday by a German
of the name of Herschel P It has been running it's race from the
beginning of the  Creation, and was till of late  unknown to us.
Whither go those uncertainly revolving comets, traversing the
regions of unbounded space ? Of what consists that Milky Way
which divides the firmament of Heaven ? What are those two
dark clouds placed toward the  Antartic Pole, near the cross of
the South ?  Can  there  be stars  which diffuse  darkness, con-
formably to the belief of the Ancients ? Are there places in the
firmament which  the light never  reaches ? The Sun discovers
to me only a terrestrial infinity, and  the night  discloses an in-
finity' altogether celestial.  O,  mysterious ignorance, draw thy
hallowed curtains over those enchanting spectacles! Permit not
human  Science to apply to them it's chearless compasses.   Let
not virtue be reduced henceforth to look  for her reward from
the justice and the sensibility of a Globe !  Permit her to think
that there are, in the Universe, destinies far different from those
which fill up the  measure of woe upon this Earth.
   Science is continually shewing us the boundary of our reason,
and ignorance is for ever removing it.  I take care  in my soli-
tary rambles not  to  ask  information  respecting the name  and
quality  of the person who owns the castle which I perceive  at a
distance.  The history of the master  frequently disfigures that
of the landscape.   It is not so with the History-of Nature ;  the
more her Works  are studied the more is our admiration excited.
There is one case only in which the knowledge of the works of
men is  agreeable  to us, it is when the  monument which we con-
template has been the abode of goodness.  What little  spire is
that which  I perceive at Montmorency ?  It is that of Saint-Gra-
tian, where Catinat lived the life of a sage, and under whicli
his ashes are laid to rest.  My soul,  circumscribed within the
precincts of a small village, takes it's flight, and ranges over the
capacious 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.  When I am  incapable  of pro-
curing  for myself such perspectives as these, ignorance of places
answers my- purpose much better than the knowledge of them

  * The  English, in compliment to  their Sovereign George III. give it the
name of  Georgium Sidut.
   Vol. II.                     I i 
2J0             STUDIES OF NATURE.

could do.   I have no occasion to be informed that such a forest
belongs to an Abbey or to  a Dutchy, in order to feel how ma-
jestic it is.  It's ancient trees, it's profound glades, it's solemn,
silent solitudes, are sufficient for me.  The moment I cease  to
behold  Man there, that moment I feel a present Deity.  Let
me give ever so little scope to my sentiment, there is no land-
scape but what I am able to ennoble.  These vast meadows arc
metamorphosed into oceans; these mist-clad hills are  islands
emerging above the horizon ; that city below is a city of Greece,
dignified by the residence of Socrates and of  Xenophon. 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 complete the illusion, I make that enchanted spot
the habitation of virtue,

            OF THE SENTIMENT OF MELANCHOLY.
   So beneficent is Nature that  she converts  all her phenomena
into  so many sources of pleasure to Man; and if we  pay atten-
tion  to her procedure, it will be found that  her most common
appearances are the most agreeable.
   I  enjoy pleasure, for example, when the rain descends in tor-
rents, when I see the old mossy walls dripping, and when I hear
the whistling of the wind, mingled with  the clattering of the
rain.  These melancholy sounds, in the night-time,  throw mo
into  a soft and profound sleep.   Neither am I the only person
susceptible of such affections.   Pliny tells us of a Roman Con-
sul, who when it rained had his couch spread under the thick
foliage of a tree, in order to hear the drops clatter as they fell,
and to be lulled to sleep by the  murmuring noise.
   I cannot tell to what physical law Philosophers may refer the
sensations of melancholy.   For my own part I consider them
as the most voluptuous affections of the soul, Melancholy, says
Michael Montaigne, is dainty.  It proceeds, if I am  not mista-
ken, from it's gratifying at once the two powers of which we
are formed, the bodyr and the soul; the sentiment of our misery,
and that of our excellence.
  Thus, for example, in bad weather, the sentiment of my hu-
man misery is tranquillized by  seeing it rain, while I am under
cover ; by hearing the wind blow violendy while I am comfort-
able  in bed.  I, in this case, enjoy a negative  felicity.   With 
STUDY XIL
251
this are afterwards blended some of those attributes of the Di-
vinity, the  perceptions of which communicate such exquisite
pleasure to  the soul;  such as infinity of extension, from the dis-
tant murmuring of the wind. This sentiment may be heighten-
ed from  reflection on the  Laws of Nature,  suggesting to  me
that this rain, which comes for the sake of supposition, from the
West, has been raised out of the bosom of the Ocean, and per-
haps from the coasts of America; that it has been sent to sweep
our great cities into cleanliness ; to replenish the reservoirs of
our fountains ; to render  our rivers navigable ;  and whilst the
clouds which pour it  down are advancing eastward, to convey
fertility even to the vegetables of Tartary, the grains and the
garbage  which it carries  down our  rivers,  are hurling away
westward, to precipitate themselves  into the Sea  to feed the
fishes of the Atlantic Ocean.  These excursions of my under-
standing convey to the soul an  extension corresponding to it s
nature, and appear to me  so much the more pleasing, that the
body, which for it's part loves repose, is more tranquil and more
completely protected.
   If I am in a sorrowful  mood, and not disposed to send my
soul on an excursion  so extensive, I still feel much pleasure in
giving way to the melancholy which the bad  weather inspires.
It looks as if Nature were then conforming to my situation, like
a sympathizing friend.  She  is besides at all times so interest-
ing, under  whatever  aspect she exhibits herself, that when it
rains I think I see a beautiful woman in tears.  She seems to be
more beautiful the more that she wears the appearance of afflic-
tion.   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, of journeying, which in
such circumstances would put me into bad humour, from being
contradicted.   Much  less  ought our two component powers to
cross, or clash against each other, that is, to  let  the sentiment
of infinity bear upon our misery, by thinking that this ram will
never have an end ; and that of our misery to dwell on the phe-
nomena of Nature, by complaining that  the  seasons are quite
deranged, that order no longer reigns  in the elements, and thus
giving into all the peevish, inconclusive reasonings, adopted by
a man who is wet to  the skin.   In order to  the  enjoyment of
bad weather, our soul must be travelling abroad, and the body 
252
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 at rest.  From the harmony of these two  powers of our con-
 stitution it is, that the most terrible revolutions of Nature  fre-
 quently interests us more than her gayest scenery.  The volca-
 no near Naples attracts  more travellers to that city than  the de-
 licious gardens which adorn  her shores; the plains  of  Greece
 and  Italy, overspread with ruins, allure more than  the richly
 cultivated lawns  of England;  the  picture of a tempest, more
 connoisseurs than that of a calm ; and the fall of a tower, more
 spectators than it's construction.

                    The Pleasure of Ruin.
   I was for some time impressed with the belief that Man  had
 a certain unaccountable  taste  for destruction.  If the populace
 can lay their hands  upon a monument they are sure to  destroy
 it.   I have seen at  Dresden,  in the gardens of  the  Count de
 Bruhl,  beautiful statues of females,  which  the  Prussian  sol-
 diery had  amused themselves with mutilating by musket-shot
 when they- got possession of that city.   Most of the common
 people have a turn for slander;  they take pleasure in levelling
 the reputation of all that  is exalted.  I'ut this malevolent instinct
 is not the production of Nature.   It is infused by the  miseiy
 of the individuals, whom education inspires with an ambition
 which is interdicted by Society, and which throws them into a
 negative ambition.  Incapable of raising any thing, they are  im-
 pelled to lay every thing low.   The taste for ruin in this case
 is  not natural,  and is simply the exercise of the power  of  the
 miserable.   Man  in a savage state destroys the monuments
 only of his enemies ; he preserves with the most  assiduous care
 those of his own Nation; and what proves him to  be naturally
 much better than Man in a state of Society, he never slanders
 his  compatriots.
  Be it as  it may, the passive taste  for ruin is universal. Our
 voluptuaries embellish their gardens with artificial  ruins;  sa-
 vages take  delight in a 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  it was the curiosity of seeing this pro-
 duced, combined with cruelty, which impelled Nero to  set Rome
on fire, that he might enjoy the spectacle of a vast conflagration.
Th^  sentiment  of humanity  out of the question, those long 
STUDY XII.
25 :■
streams of flame which,  in the middle  of  the  night, lick  the
Heavens, to  make use of Virgil* t expression, those  torrents of
red and black smoke, those clouds of sparks of all colours, those
scarlet reverberations in the streets, on the summit  of towers,
along the surface of the waters,  and on the distant  mountains,
give us pleasure even in pictures and in descriptions.
   This kind of affection,  which is by no means connected with
our physical wants, has induced  certain Philosophers to allege,
that  our soul, being in a state of agitation,  took pleasure in all
extraordinary emotions.   This is the reason, say they, that such
crowds assemble in the Place de Greve to see the execution of
criminals.  In spectacles  of this  sort, there is in fact no pic-
turesque effect whatever.   But they have advanced their axiom
as slightly as  so many others with whom their  Works abound.
First, our soul takes pleasure in rest as much as in  commotion.
It is a harmony very gentle, and very easily  disturbed by vioient
emotions; and granting it to be in it's own nature a movement,
I  do not see that it ought to take pleasure in those which
threaten  it with destruction.  Lucretius has, in  my  opinion.
come much nearer to the  truth, when he says that tastes of this
sort arise from the  sentiment  of our own security,  which is
heightened 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.   It is undoubtedly from this reference to self, that  the
common  people take delight in relating by the fire-side, collect-
ed in a family way during the Winter evenings, frightful stories
of ghosts, of men  loosing themselves by night in the woods, of
highway  robberies.   From the same  sentiment likewise it is,
that the better sort take pleasure in the representation of trage-
dies, and in reading the  description  of battles, of shipwrecks,
and of the crash of empire.  The security of the snug trades-
man is increased by the danger to which the soldier, the  mari-
ner, the courtier is exposed.   Pleasure of this kind arises from
the sentiment of our miserv, which is as has been said one of
the instincts of our melancholy.
   But there is in us besides a sentiment more sublime, which
derives pleasure from ruin independently of all picturesque  ef-
fect, and  of everv  idea of personal security  ; it is that of Deity,
which  ever  blends  itself with our melancholy affections,  and
which  constitutes their principal charm.   I  shall attempt to un- 
 254            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 fold  some of the characters of it,  following the impressions
 made upon us  by ruins of different kinds.   The subject  is
 both  rich and new ; but I possess neither leisure nor ability to
 bestow upon it a profound investigation.   I shall however drop
 a few words upon it by the  way, in the view of exculpating and
 of exalting human nature with what ability I have.
   The heart of Man  is so  naturally disposed to benevolence,
 that the spectacle of a ruin which brings to our recollection only
 the misery of our fellow men, inspires us with horror, whatever
 may be the picturesque effect which it presents.   I happened
 to be at Dresden in the year 1765, that is several years after  it
 had been bombarded.  That small but very beautiful and com-
 mercial citv, more than half composed of little palaces charm-
 ingly arranged,  the fronts of which were adorned  externally
 with paintings, colonades, balconies, and pieces of sculpture, at
 that time presented a pile of ruins.   A considerable part  of the
 enemy's bombs had been directed against the Lutheran church,
 called St.  Peter's, built in form  of a rotundo, and arched over
 with so much solidity that a  great number of those bombs  struck
 the cupola, without being  able to  injure it, but rebounded on
 the adjoining palaces,  which they set on fire and partly consu-
 med.   Matters were still in  the  same state at the conclusion of
 the war, at the time of  my arrival.  They had only piled up
 along some of the streets, the stones which encumbered them ;
 so that they formed on each side long parapets  of blackened
 stone.  You  might'see halves  of palaces standing,  laid open
 from  the roof down to the cellars.   It was easy to distinguish
 in them the extremity of stair-cases, painted ceilings, little clo-
 sets lined  with Chinese paper, fragments of mirrors, of marble
 chimneys,  of  smoked  gildings.   Of others  nothing remained
 except massy stacks of chimneys rising amidst the rubbish, like
long black and white pyramids.    More than a third part of the
city was reduced  to this deplorable condition.   You saw the
 inhabitants moving backward and forward with a settled gloom
on their faces, formerly so gay that they were called the French-
men of Germany.  Those ruins, which exhibited a  multitude
of accidents singularly  remarkable,  from their forms, their co-
lours, and their grouping, threw the mind into  a deep melan-
choly  ; for you saw nothing in them but the traces of the wrath
of a King, who had not levelled his  vengeance against the pon- 
STUDY XII.
255
Herous ramparts  of  a warlike  city, but against  the  pleasant
dwellings of an industrious people.  I observed even more than
one Prussian deeply  affected at the sight.   I  by no means felt,
though a stranger, that reflection of self-security which arises in
us on seeing a danger against which we are  sheltered ;  but on
the contrary a voice  of affliction thrilled through my heart, say-
ing to me, If this were thy country .'
   It is not  so with  ruins which are the effect of time.   These
give pleasure by launching us into infinity ; they carry us seve-
ral ages back, and interest us in  proportion  to their antiquity.
This  is  the  reason that 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  first antique monument which  I had ever seen was in the
vicinity of Orange. It is a triumphal arch which Marius caused
to be erected to commemorate his victory over the Cimbri. It
stands at a small distance from  the city in the midst of fields.
 It is  an oblong mass, consisting of three arcades, somewhat re-
sembling the gate of St. Dennis.  On getting near I became all
eyes  to gaze at it.  What! exclaimed I, a work of the  ancient
 Romans ! And imagination instantly hurried  me away to Rome,
 and to the  age of Marius.  It would not be  easy for me to de-
 scribe all the successive  emotions which  were excited in my
 breast.  In  the first  place, this monument,  though erected over
 the sufferings of  Mankind, as all  the triumphal arches in Eu-
 rope  are, gave me no pain ; for I recollected that the Cimbri had
 come to invade Italy, like bands of robbers.   I remarked, that
 if this  triumphal arch was a  memorial of the victories of the
 Romans  over the Cambri, it was likewise  a  monument of the
 triumph of Time over the Romans.  I could distinguish  upon it,
 in the bass-relief of the frize, which represents a battle, an ensign
 containing  these characters clearly legible, S. P. Q. R.  Scnatus
 Populus §>iie Romanus ;  and another inscribed with M. O. the
 meaning of which I could not make out.  As to the warriors,
 they are  so completely effaced  that neither their arms nor then-
 features are distinguishable.  Even the limbs of some of them
 are worn out. The mass of this monument is, in other respects,
 in excellent preservation, excepting one  of the  square pillars
 that support the arch, which a vicar in the neighbourhood had
 demolished to repair  his parsonage-house.   This modern ruin 
 256             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 suggested another train of reflection,  respecting the  exquisite
 skill of the Ancients in the construction of their public monu-
 ments ; for, though the pillar which supported one of the arch-
 es on one side, had been demolished, as I have mentioned, ne-
 vertheless that part of  the arch which rested upon it  hung un-
 supported in the  air,  as if the pieces of the vaulting had been
 glued  to each other.  Another idea likewise struck me, namely,
 that the demolishing parson  might perhaps have been  a de-
 scendant from the ancient Cimbri,  as we modern French trace
 up our descent to the ancient Nations of the North which inva-
 ded Italy.  Thus, the demolition excepted, of which I  by no
 means approve, from the respect I  bear to antiquity, I mused
 upon the vicissitudes of all human affairs, which put the victors
 in the  place of the vanquished,  and the vanquished  in that of
 the victors.  I settled  the matter  thus therefore in my own
 mind,  that as Marius had avenged the honour of the Romans
 and levelled the glory of the Cimbri, one of the  descendants of
 the Cimbri had,  in his turn, levelled that of Marius ;  while the
 young people of the vicinity, who might come perhaps on their
 days of festivity  to dance under the shade of this  triumphal
 arch,  spent  not a single thought about either the person who
 constructed, or the person  who demolished it.
  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.  As she  is alwayrs
 building up, even when she destroys,  she  calls forth from the
 clefts of our monuments the yellow  gillyflower, the chenopodi-
 um,  grasses of various sorts, wild cherry-trees, garlands of
 bramble, stripes of moss, and all the saxatile plants,  which by
 their flowers and their attitudes form the most agreeable con-
 trasts with the rocks.
  I used to  stop formerly with a high degree of pleasure in the
 garden of the  Luxembourg, at the extremity of the alley of the
 Carmelites, to contemplate a piece of architecture which stands
there,  and which had been originally intended to form a foun-
tain.   On one side of the pediment which crowns it is stretch-
 ed along an ancient River-god, on whose face time has imprint-
 ed wrinkles  inexpressibly more venerable than those which had
been traced by the chisel of the Sculptor :  it has made one of
the thighs to drop off, and has planted a maple tree in it's place. 
STUDY XII.
257
Of the  Naiad  who was opposite, on the other side of the pe-
diment, nought remains except the lower  part of the body.
The head, the shoulders, the arms, have all disappeared.   The
hands are still  supporting an urn, out of which issues, instead
of fluviatic plants, some of those which thrive in the driest situ-
ations, tufts of yellow gillyflowers, dandelions, and long sheaves
of saxatile grasses.
   A fine style of Architecture always produces beautiful ruins.
The plans of Art, in this case, form an alliance with the majes-
ty of those of  Nature.  I  know  no object which presents a
more imposing aspect than the antique and well-constructed
towers which our ancestors reared on the summit of mountains,
to discover their enemies  from afar, and out of the coping of
which now shoot out tall trees, with their tops waving majesti-
cally in the wind.  I have seen others, the parapets and battle-
ments of which, murderous in former times, were embellished
with the lilach in flower, whose shades, of a bright and tender
violet hue, formed enchanting oppositions with the cavernous
and embrowned stone-work of the tower.
   The interest  of a ruin is  greatly heightened when some mo-
ral sentiment is blended with it; for example, when those de-
graded towers are considered as having been formerly- the resi-
dence of rapine.   Such has been, in the Pais de  Caux, an an-
cient fortification called the  castle  of Lillebonne.  The lofty
walls which form it's precinct are ruinous at the angles, and  so
overgrown with ivy that there are very few spots where the lay-
ers of  the stones are perceptible.   From  the middle of the
courts,  into which I believe it must have been no easy matter
to penetrate, arise lofty towers with batdements, out of the sum-
mit of which spring up great trees, appearing in the  air like a
head-dress of thick and bushy locks.  You perceive  here and
there through the mantling of  the ivy which clothes  the  sides
of the casde, Gothic windows, embrasures, and breaches which
give a glimpse  of  stair-cases, and resemble  the entrance  into a
cavern.   No bird is seen flying around this  habitation of deso-
lation, except the  buzzard  hovering over it in silence ; and if
the voice  of any of  the feathered race makes itself sometimes
heard there, it  is that of some  solitary  owl  which has retired
thither  to build her nest.   This castle is situated on  a  rising
ground, in the middle of a narrow valley formed by mountains
   Vol. II.                    K k 
258
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 crowned with forests.   When I recollect, at sight of this man-
 sion, that it was formerly the residence of petty tyrants, who
 before the royal authority was sufficiently established over the
 kingdom, from thence  exercised  their self-created right of pil-
 lage over their miserable vassals, and even over inoffensive pas-
 sengers who fell into their hands, I imagine to myself that I am
 contemplating the  carcase, or the skeleton, of some huge, fero-
 cious beast of prey.

                   The Pleasure  of Tombs.
   But there are no monuments more interesting than the tombs
 of men, and especially  those of our own ancestors.  It is re-
 markable  that every Nation, in a  state of Nature, and even the
 greatest part of those which are civilized, have made the tombs
 of their  fore-fathers the centre of  their devotions, and an es-
 sential part of  their religion.  From these however must be
 excepted the people whose fathers render themselves odious to
 their children by a gloomy and  severe education, I mean the
 western and southern Nations of  Europe.  This religious me-
 lancholy is diffused every where  else.  The tombs of progeni-
 tors are all over China  among the principal embellishments 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  pro-
 posed 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 considered this objection as
 insurmountable.
   Tombs  have  furnished to the poetical talents of Toung and
 Gesner, imagery the most enchanting.   Our voluptuaries, who
 sometimes recur to the sentiments of Nature, have factitious
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 funeral melancholy, in the
very midst of pleasure ? Must it not have been from the per-
suasion that something still subsists after we are gone ? Did a
tomb suggest to their imagination, only the idea of what it is
designed to contain, that  is 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 
STUDY XII.
259
some moral sentiment  must undoubtedly be united.  The vo-
luptuous melancholy resulting from it, arises, like every other
attractive sensation, from the harmony of the two opposite prin-
ciples ;  from the sentiment of our fleeting existence, and that
of our immortality ;  which unite on beholding the last habita-
tion of Mankind.  A tomb is a monument erected on the con-
fines of the two Worlds.
   It first presents to us the end of the vain disquietudes of life,
and the image of everlasting repose : it afterwards awakens in
us the confused sentiment of a blessed immortality, the proba-
bilities of which grow  stronger and  stronger, in proportion as
the person whose memory  is recalled was a virtuous character.
It is there that our veneration fixes.  And this is so unques-
tionably true, that though  there be no difference between the
dust of Nero and that of Socrates, no one  would grant a place in
his grove to the remains of the Roman Emperor, were they de-
posited 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 only a vase of clay.
   It is from this intellectual instinct therefore in favour of vir-
tue, that the tombs of great men inspire us with a veneration so
affecting.   From the same sentiment too it is, that those which
contain objects that  have been lovely excite  so much pleasing
regret; for, as we shall make appear presently, the attractions
of love arise entirely out of the appearances of virtue.  Hence
it is that we  are moved  at the sight of a little  hiilock which
covers the ashes of  an amiable infant, from the recollection of
it's innocence: hence again it is, that we  are melted into ten-
derness on contemplating the tomb  in which  is laid to repose a
young female, the  delight and the hope of her family by reason
of her virtues.   In order to render such monuments interesting
and respectable there is no need of bronzes, marbles, and gild-
ings.  The more  simple that they are  the more energv they
communicate to the  sentiment of melancholy-.   They produce a
more powerful effect when poor rather than rich, antique rather
than modern, with details  of misfortune  rather than with  titles
of honour, with the attributes of virtue rather than with those of
power.   It is in  the country- principally that their impression
makes itself  felt in  a very lively manner.  A simple, unorna-
mentcd grave there, causes more tears to flow than the gaudy 
260
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 splendor of a cathedral interment.*   There it is diat grief as-
 sumes sublimity;  it ascends with the aged yews in the church-
 yard ;  it extends with the surrounding hills and plains ;  it allies
 itself with all the  effects of Nature, with the dawning of the
 morning, with the  murmuring of the winds, with the setting of
 the Sun, and with  the darkness of the night.
   Labour  the  most oppressive,  and  humiliation the most de-
 grading, are incapable of extinguishing the impression of this
 sentiment  in the breasts of even the most miserable of Mankind.
 " During the space of two years," says Father du  Tertre, " our
 " negro Dominick, after the death of his wife, never failed for
 " a single  day, as soon as he returned from the place of his em-
 " ployment, to take the little boy and girl  which he had by her,
 '' and to conduct them to the grave of the  deceased, over which
 " he sobbed  and wept before them for more than  half an hour
 " together, while the poor children frequently caught the infec-
 " tion of his sorrow."f  What a funeral oration for a wife and a
 mother!  This man however was nothing but a wretched slave.i.

   * Our Artists set statues of marble a-weeping round the tombs  of the
 Great.   It is very proper to make statues weep where men shed no tears. I
 have been many a time present at the funeral obsequies of the rich ; but rare-
 ly have I seen any one  shedding a tear on such occasions, unless it were, now
 and then, an aged domestic, who w.ts perhaps left destitute. Some time ago
 happening to pass through a little-frequented street of the Fauxbourg Saint-
 .Marceau, I perceived a coffin at the door of a house of but mean appearance.
 Close by the  coffin was a woman on her knees in earnest prayer to GOD, and
 who had all the appearance of being absorbed in grief. This poor woman hav-
 ing caught with her eye, at the farther end of the street, the priests and their
 attendants coming to carry off the body, got upon her feet and run off, putting
 her hands upon her eyes, and crying bitterly.  The neighbours endeavoured
 to stop her and to administer some consolation ; but all to no purpose.   As
 she passed close by me, I took the liberty to ask if it were the loss of a mo-
 ther or of a daughter  that she lamented so piteously.  " Alas ! Sir," said
 she, the tears gushing down her cheeks, " I am mourning the loss of a good
 ** lady who procured me the means of earning my poor livelihood ;  she kept
 " me employed from day to day."  I informed myself in the neighbourhood
 respecting the condition of this beneficent lady : she was the wife of a petty
joiner.   Ye people of wealth, What use then do you make of riches, during
 your life-time, seeing no tears are shed over your grave !

           f History  of the Antilles, torn. viii. chap. 1. sect. 4.

  % I am somewhat  surprised that our author has not, in this place, made
 mention of the fine  French print engraved by Ingouf the younger, after a
 painting by Le Barbier Paine', painter to the last King of France,  Itrepre* 
STUDY XII.                     261
   There farther results,  from the view of ruins, another senti*
 ment independent of all reflection: it is that of heroism.  Great
 Generals have oftener  than once employed their sublime effect
 in order to exalt the courage of the soldiers.  Alexander per-
 suaded his army, loaded with the spoils of Persia, to burn their
 baggage ; and the moment that the fire was applied, they are on
 tiptoe to foUow him all over the World.   William,  Duke of
 Normandy, as soon as  he had landed his troops in England, set
 fire  to his own ships, and the conquest of the kingdom was ef-
 fected.
   But there are no ruins which excite in us sentiments so sub-
 lime as those which the ruins of Nature produce. They  repre-
 sent to us the vast prison of the Earth in which we are immured
 subject itself to destruction ; and they detach us at once from
 our  passions and prejudices, as from a momentary and frivolous
 theatrical exhibition. When Lisbon was  destroyed by  an  earth-
 quake, it's  inhabitants on making their escape from their houses
 embraced each other ;  high and low, friends and enemies, Jews
 and  Inquisitors, known  and unknown ; every one  shared his
 clothing and  provisions with those who had saved nothing.  I
 have seen something similar to  this  take  place on board  a ship
 on the point of perishing in a storm.   The first effect of calami-
 ty, says a celebrated Writer, is,to strengthen  the soul, and the
 second is to melt it down.  It is because the  first emotion in
 Man,  under the pressure of calamity, is to rise  up toward the
 Deity ; and the second, to fall back  into physical wants.  This
 last  effect is that of reflection ; but the  moral and sublime senti-
 ment,  almost always, takes possesion of  the heart at sight of a
 magnificent destruction.
                       Ruins of Nature.
   When the  predictions of the approaching dissolution of the
 World spread over Europe, some ages ago, a very great number

 sents two Canadians, a woman and her husband, at the tomb of  their child
 The print is founded upon a story related by l'-avnal: I was going to say, nv
 matter whether the story be an authentic one.  At all events, such feelings
 are far  from  being incompatible with the character and  condition of the
 American savage.  I have myself witnessed the tender bewailings  of a young
 Indian woman, at the grave of her child, recently interred : her mourning',
there could be no reason to doubt, was sincere.  It was in the solitude, as V
 were, ofa wilderness, and she knew not that she was seen of *nv one.—B. S. B. 
262
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 of persons divested themselves of their property; and there is no
 reason to doubt that the very same thing would 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, such as the  rocks  which
 roughen it's  surface in so many places, have their utility.  Rocks
 have the appearance of ruins in our eyes only because they are
 neither square nor polished, like the stones of our  monuments ;
 but their anfractuosities are necessary to the vegetables and ani-
 mals which are destined to find in them nourishment and shelter.
 It is  only for  beings  vegetative and sensitive that Nature has
 created  the  fossil kingdom ;  and as soon as man raises useless
 masses out of it to these objects on the surface of the Earth, she
 hastens to apply her chisel to them, in order to employ them in
 the general harmony.
   If we attend to the origin and the end of her Works, those of
 the most renowned Nations will appear perfectly frivolous.  It
 was  not necessary that mighty Potentates should  rear such enor-
 mous masses of stone, in order one day to inspire me with re-
 spect from their antiquity.  A little flinty pebble in one  of our
 brooks is more ancient than the pyramids of Egypt.   A multi-
 tude of cities have been destroyed since it was created.  If I
 feel  myself disposed to blend some moral sentiment with the
 monuments of  Nature, I can say to myself, on seeing a rock:
 " It  was on this place perhaps that the  good Fenelon reposed,
 " while meditating the plan of his  divine Telemachus; perhaps
 " the day will come when there shall be engraved  on it, that he
 u had  produced a revolution in  Europe, by instructing Kings
 " that  their  glory consisted in rendering Mankind happy:  and
" that  the happiness of Mankind  depends on  the  labours of
" agriculture: posterity will gaze with delight on the very stone
" on which my eyes are at this moment fixed."  It is thus that
 I embrace at  once the past and the future, at sight of an insensi-
ble rock, and which, in consecrating it to virtue,  by a simple in-
scription, I render infinitely more venerable than by decorating
 it with the five orders of Architecture. 
STUDY XII.
263
                 Of the Pleasure of Solitude.
  Once more, it is melancholy which renders solitude so attrac-
tive.   Solitude flatters our animal  insticct 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 open-
ing to us  perspectives in which natural and moral beauties pre-
sent themselves with all the attraction of sentiment.  From the
effect of these contrasts, and of this double harmony, it comes to
pass, that  there is no solitude more soothing than that which is
adjoining to a great city; and no popular festivity more  agreea-
ble  than that which is enjoyed in the bosom of solitude.

                OF THE SENTIMENT OF LOVE.
  Were love nothing superior to a  physical sensation, I would
wish for nothing more  than to leave two lovers to reason and to
act, conformably to the physical laws of the motion of the blood,
of the filtration of the chyle, and of the other humours of the bo-
dy, were it my object to give the grossest libertine a disgust for
it.  It's principal act itself is  accompanied with the sentiment of
shame, in the  men of all countries.  No nation permits public
prostitution; and though enlightened Navigators may have ad-
vanced that  the inhabitants of Otaheite conformed to this infa-
mous practice, observers more  attentive have  since adduced
proof,  that as to the island in question it was chargeable only
on  young women in the lowest rank of  Society, but that the
other classes there preserved the sense of modesty common to
all mankind.
  I am incapable of discovering in Nature any direct cause of
shame.   If  it be alleged that Man is  ashamed of the venerial
act because it renders him similar to the animal,  the reason will
be found insufficient; for sleep, drinking, and eating, bring him
still more frequently to the similitude of the animal, and yet no
shame attaches to these.  There is in truth a cause of shame in
the physical act: but whence  proceeds that which occasions the
moral sentiment of it ?  Not only is the act carefully kept out of
sight, but  even the recollection of it.  Woman considers it as a
proof of her weakness : she opposes long resistance to the soli-
citations of Man.  How comes it that Nature has planted this 
264
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 obstacle in her heart, which in many cases  actually triumphs
 over the most powerful of propensities, and the most headstrong
 of passions?
   Independently of the particular causes of shame, which are
 unknown to me, I  think  I discern  one in the  two powers of
 which Man is  constituted.   The sense of love being, if I may
 so express myself, the centre toward which all the physical sen-
 sations converge, as those of perfumes, of music, of agreea-
 ble colours and forms, of the touch, of delicate temperatures and
 savours ;  there results from these a very powerful opposition to
 that other intellectual power from which are derived the senti-
 ments of divinity and immortality.   Their contrast is so much
 the more  collisive, that the act of the first is in itself animal and
 blind, and that the moral sentiment which usually accompanies
 love,  is more expansive and more sublime.  The  lover accord-
 ingly, in order to render his  mistress propitious, never fails to
 make this take the lead,  and to employ every effort to  amalga-
 mate  it with the other sensation.   Thus shame arises, in my
 opinion, from the combat of these two powers ;  and this is the
 reason that children naturally havt it not, because the sense of
 love is not yet unfolded in  them; that young  persons have a
 great  deal of it, because these two  powers are acting in  them
 with all their energy ; and that most old people have none at all,
 because they are past the sense of love from a decay of Nature
 in them, or have lost it's moral sentiment from the corruption of
society; or, which is a common case, from the effect of both to-
 gether, by the  concurrence of these two causes.
  As Nature has assigned to the province of this passion, which
 is designed to be the means of  re-perpetuating  human life, all
 the animal sensations, she  has likewise united in it all the  sen-
 timents of the soul; so that love presents to two  lovers not only
 the sentiments which blend with our wants, and with the instinct
 of our misery, such as those of protection, of assistance, of  con-
 fidence, of support, of repose, but all the sublime instincts be-
 sides  which elevate Man above humanity.  In  this sense  it is
 that Plato defined love to  be, an  interposition of the  Gods in
behalf of young people.*

  * It was by means of the sublime influence of this passion that the Thebans
formed a battalion of heroes, called the sacred band ;  they all fell together
in the battle of Cheronea.  They were found extended on the ground, all in 
STUDY XII.                       265
   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 of which I have spoken, and a multitude
of others which I have neither time nor talents to unfold.   We
shall remark, first, that this natural affection discloses, in every
being, it's principal character, by giving it all the advantage of
a complete extension.  Thus, for example, it is in the season
when each plant re-perpetuates itself  by  it's  flowers  and  it's
fruit, that it acquires all it's perfection, and the characters which

the same straight line, transfixed with ghastly wounds before, and with their
faces turned toward the enemy.  This spectacle drew tears from the eyes of
Philip himself, their conqueror.  Lycurgus had likewise employed the power
of love in the education of the Spartans, and rendered it  one of the great
props of his republic.   But as the animal counterpoise of this celestial senti-
ment was no longer found in the beloved object, it sometimes threw the
Greeks into certain irregularities, which have justly been  imputed to them
as matter of reproach.  Their legislators considered women as the instru-
ments merely of procreating children; they did not perceive that by favour-
ing love between men, they enfeebled that which ought to unite the sexes,
and that in attempting to strengthen their political bands, they were bursting
asunder those of Nature.
  The Republic  of Lycurgus had besides  other natural defects ;  I mention
only one, the slavery of Helots  These two particulars however excepted, 1
consider him  as the most sublime genius that ever existed : and even as to
these he stands in some measure excusable, in consideration of the obstacles
of every kind which he had to encounter in the establishment of his Laws.
  There are in the harmonies of the different ages of human life relations so
delightful,  of the weakness of children to the vigour of their parents, of the
courage and the  love between young  persons of the two sexes to the virtue
and the religion of unimpassioned  old people,  that I am  astonished no at-
tempt has been made to present a picture, at least,  of a human  society thus
in concord with all the wants of life, and with the Laws of Nature. There are
it is true some sketches of this sort in the Velemachus,  among others, in the
manners of the inhabitants of Boctica ; but they  are indicated merely.  I am
persuaded that such a Society, thus cemented  in all it's parts, would attain
'Jie highest degree of social felicity of which human nature is susceptible in
this World, and  would be able to bid  de fiance to all the storms of political
agitation.  So far from being exposed to the fear of danger on the part of
neighbouring States, it might make an easy conquest  of them  without the
use of arms, as ancient China did,  simply by  the spectacle of it's felicity,
and by the influence of it's virtues.  I once entertained a design,  on the sug-
gestion of /. J. Rousseau, of extending this idea, by composing  the History
of a Nation of Greece, well known to the Poets,because it lived conformably
to Nature, and for that very reason almost altogether unknown to our politi-
cal Writers; but time permitted me only to trace the outline of it, or at most
to finish the first Book
   Vol. II.                     LI 
266
STUDIES OF NATURE.
invariably determine it.   It is in the season of love that  the
birds of song redouble their melody, and that those which excel
in the beauty- of their colouring array themselves in their finest
plumage, the various shades of which they delight to display,
by swelling their throats, by rounding their tail into the form of
a wheel,  or by extending their wings along the ground.  It is
then that the lusty bull presents his forehead, and threatens with
the horn ; that the nimble courser frisks along the plain ; that
the ferocious animals fill the forests  with the  dreadftd noise of
their roaring,  and the  tigress, exhaling the odour of carnage,
makes the solitudes of Africa to resound with her hideous yells,
and appears clothed with every horrid,  attractive grace, in  the
eyes of her tremendous lover.
   It is likewise in the season of loving, that all the affections
natural to the heart of Man,  unfold  themselves.  Then it is
that innocence, candour, sincerity, modesty, generosity,  hero-
ism, holy faith, piety, express themselves 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
betake themselves to flight, far from the tumultuous assemblies
of the city, and from the  corruptive paths of ambition, in  quest
of some sequestered spot, where upon the  rural altar they may
be at liberty to mingle  and  exchange the tender vows of ever-
lasting affection.  The fountains, the woods,  the  dawning Au-
rora, the constellations of the night, receive by turns the sacred
deposit of the oath of  Love.  Lost at times in a religious  h>
toxication, they consider each other as beings of a superior or-
der.  The mistress is a goddess, the lover becomes an idolater,
The grass under their feet, the  air which they breathe,  the
shades under which they repose, all, all appear consecrated in
their eyes from filling the same atmosphere  with them.  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  it to ages of infinite duration,
and death seems to them only the transition to eternal union.
   But should cruel destiny separate them from each other, nei-
ther the prospects of fortune, nor the friendship of companions
the most endeared, can afford consolation under the loss. They
had reached Heaven, they languish on the earth, they are hur-
ried in their despair into the retirement of the cloister, to em 
STUDY XII.                   26r
ploy the remaining dregs of life in re-demanding of GOD the
felicity of which they enjoyed but one transient glimpse.   Nay
many an irksome year after  their separation, when the cold
hand of age has frozen up the current of sense;  after having
been distracted by a thousand  and a thousand anxieties foreign
to the heart, which so many times made them forget that they
were human, 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 Hea-
ven.  Unfortunate Heloisa ! what sublime emotions were kin-
dled in thy soul by the ashes of thy Abelard?
   Such celestial  emotions  cannot possibly be the effects of a
mere animal act.  Love is not a slight convulsion,  as the di-
vine Marcus-Aurelius calls  it.   It is to the charms of virtue, and
to the sentiment of her divine attributes, that love is indebted
for all that enthusiastic energy.   Vice  itself, in order to please,
is under the necessity of borrowing it's looks and it's language.
If theatrical female performers crptivate so many lovers, these
duction is carried on by mcaig of the illusions of innocence, of
benevolence, and of magnanimity, displayed in the characters
of the shepherdesses, of the  heroines, and  of the goddesses,
which they  are accustomed to represent.  Their boasted graces
are only the appearances of the virtues which they counterfeit.
If sometimes, on the contrary, virtue becomes displeasing, it is
because she exhibits herself in the disguise of harshness, ca-
price, peevishness, or some other repulsive bad quality.
   Thus beauty is the  offspring  of virtue, and ugliness that of
vice ; and these characters frequently impress themselves from
the earliest  infancy by means of education.   It will be objected
to me that there  are men  handsome  yet vicious,  and others
homely yet virtuous.   Socrates  and  Alcibiades have been ad-
duced as noted instances in ancient times.   But these verv ex-
amples confirm my position.   Socrates was unhappy and vicious
at the time  of  life when the physionomy assumes it's principal
characters, from infancy up to the age of seventeen years.  He
was born in a poor condition ; his farther had determined, not-
withstanding his own declared reluctance, to breed him  to the
art of sculpture.  Nothing less than the authority of an  oracle
could rescue him  from this  parental tyranny.  Socrates acknow-
ledged, in  conformity to the 'Vcicion  of a  Phvsionomist. thst 
268
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 he was addicted to women and wine, the vices into which mea
 are usually- thrown by the pressure of  calamity: at length he
 became reformed, and nothing could be  more beautiful than this
 Philosopher when he discoursed about the Deity.  As to the
 happy Alcibiades, born in the very lap of fortune, the lessons of
 Socrates, and the love of his parents  and fellow-citizens, ex-
 panded in him at once beauty  of person  and soul; but having
 been at last betrayed into irregular courses, through the influence
 of evil communications, nothing remained but the bare physio-
 nomy of virtue.   Whatever seduction may be apparent in their
 first aspect,  the ugliness of vice soon  discovers itself on the
 faces of handsome men  degraded into wickedness.   You can
 perceive, even  under  their smiles, a  certain marked trait  of
 falsehood and perfidy-.  This dissonance is communicated even
 to the voice. Every7 thing about them is masked like their face.
   I beg leave farther to observe, that all the forms of organized
 beings express intellectual sentiments,  not only to the eyes of
 Man, who studies Nature, but to those  of animals, which are
 instructed at once by their instinct, in such particulars of know-
ledge as are in mdny respects so  obscure to us.  Thus, for ex-
ample, every species of animal has certain traits which are ex-
pressive of it's character.  From the sparkling and restless eyes
of the tiger  you may discover his ferocity  and perfidy.   The
gluttony of the hog is announced by the vulgarity of his attitude,
and by- the inclination of his head toward the ground.  All ani-
mals are perfectly7 well acquainted with those characters, for the
Laws of Nature are universal.   For instance, though there be
in the eyes of man, unless he is very attentive, an exceedingly
slight exterior difference between a fox and a species of dog
which resembles him, the hen will never mistake the one for the
other.   She will take no alarm on the approach of the dog, but
will be seized with horror the instant that the fox appears.
   It is still farther to be remarked, that every animal expresses
in it's features some one ruling passion, such as cruelty, sensu-
ality, cunning, stupidity.   But Man alone, unless he has been
debased byr the vices of Society, bears upon his countenance the
impress of a celestial origin.   There is no one trait of beauty
but what may be referred to  some virtue :  such an  one belongs
to innocence, such another to candour, those  to generosity, to
modesty, to heroism.  It is to their influence that Man is indebt- 
STUDY XII.                    269
ed, in every country, for the respect and confidence with which
he is honoured by the brute creation, unless they have been for-
ced out of Nature by unrelenting persecution on the part of Man.
   Whatever charms may appear in the harmony of the  colours
and forms of  the human figure, there is no visible reason why
it's physical effect should exert an influence over animals, unless
the impress of some moral power were combined with it. The
plumpness of form, or the  freshness of colouring, ought rather to
excite the appetite of  ferocious animals, than their respect or
their love.  Finally, as we  are  able to distinguish their impas-
sioned character, they in like  manner  can distinguish  ours, and
are capable of forming a very accurate judgment as to  our being
cruel or pacific.  The game-birds, which fly the sanguinary
fowler, gather confidently around the  harmless shepherd.
   It has been affirmed that beauty is arbitrary in every Nation ;
but this opinion has been already refuted by an appeal to matter
of fact.   The mutilations of the Negroes, their  incisions  into
the skin, their flattened noses, their compressed foreheads ; the
flat, long, round, and  pointedJfcads of the savages of  North-
America  ; the perforated lips of the Brasilians;  the large ears
of the people of Laos, in  Asia,  and of some Nations of Guiana,
are the effects of superstition, or of a faulty education.   The fe-
rocious animals themselves are struck at sight of these deformi-
ties.   All travellers unanimously concur in their testimony that
when lions or tygers are famished, which rarely happens, and
thereby reduced to  the necessity of attacking caravans  in the
night time, they fall first upon the beasts of  burden,  and next
upon the  Indians, or the  black  people.   The European  figure,
with it's simplicity,  has a much more imposing effect upon them,
than when disfigured by African or Asiatic characters.
   When  it has not been degraded  by the vices of Society, the
expression of the human face is sublime.  A Neapolitan of the
name of John-Baptiste Porta,* took it into his head to trace in

  * Porta was a man of genius, and of much imagination, but his writings.
from the general extravagance of their tenor, are now hardly read, and not
at all respected.  His principal work, the one referred to by Saint-Pierre, is
entitled  De Humana Physiognomia, in four books, first printed in 1586.  He
also published a work, in six books, De Physiognomia Ccelesti. I do not doubt
that those who attach themselves to such researches, may glean from Porta's
books some valuable facts, and many useful hints : but  I cannot believe, what 
270
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 it relations to the figures of the beasts.  To this effect he has
 composed a book embellished with engravings, representing the
 human head under the forced resemblance of the head of a dog,
 of a horse, of a sheep, of a hog, and of an ox.  His system is
 somewhat favourable to certain modern opinions, and forms a
 very7 tolerable alliance with the hideous changes which the pas-
 sions produce in the human form.  But  I should be glad to
 know after what animal Pigale has copied that charming Mer-
 cury which I  have seen at Berlin; and after the passions of
 what brutes the Grecian Sculptors produced the Jupiter of the
 Capitol, the Venus pudica,  and the Apollo of the Vatican ?  In
 what animals have they studied those divine expressions ?
   I  am thoroughly persuaded, as I have said already, that there
 is not a single beautiful touch in a figure but what may be allied
 to some moral sentiment, relative to virtue and to Deity.  The
 traits of ugliness might be in like manner  referred to some vi-
 cious affection, such  as jealousy, avarice, gluttony, or rage.  In
 order to demonstrate to our Philosophers how far they are wide
 of the  mark, when they atteiJk to make the passions the only
 moving principles of human life; I wish they could be presented
 with the expression of all the passions  collected in one single
 head ;  for example, the wanton and obscene leer of a courtezan,
 with the deceitful and haughty air of an ambitious courtier;
 and accompanied with an infusion of some touches of hatred
 and envy, which are negative ambitions. A head which should
 unite them all would be more  horrid than that of Medusa; it
 would  be a likeness of Nero.
   Every passion has an animal  character as John-Baptiste Por-
 ta excellently observed.  But every virtue too has it's animal
 character ;  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 it  is that modesty  appears so lovely on  the face of a
young  female, because it is the  conflict of  the most powerful of
 animal passions with a sublime sentiment.  The expression of
 sensibility likewise renders a face extremely interesting, because

a certain writer has asserted, that these books contain at 1e.T=t as manv truth*
as errors.—B. S. B 
STUDY XII.
271
the soul, in this case, shews itself in a state of suffering, and
because the sight of this excites a virtue in ourselves, namely
the sentiment of compassion.   If the sensibility of the figure in
question is active, that is if it springs itself out of the contem-
plation of the misery of another, it strikes us still more, because
then it becomes the divine  expression of generosity.
   I have a conviction that the most celebrated statues and pic-
tures of Antiquity owe  much of their high reputation entirely
to the expression of this double character, that is to the harmo-
ny arising out of the two  opposite sentiments of passion and
virtue.  This much is certain, that the most justly boasted mas-
ter-pieces  in  sculpture and painting among the Ancients,  all
presented this kind of contrast.  Of this abundance  of  exam-
ples might be adduced from their statues, as the Venus pudica,
and the dying Gladiator, who  preserves  even when  fallen,  re
spect for his own glory, at the moment he is  sinking into the
arms of death.  Such likewise was that  of Cupid hurling the
thunder  after the infant Alcibiades, which Pliny  ascribes  to
Praxiteles, or to Scopas. An arable child, launching from his
little hand the dread thunderbo^Wf Jupiter, must excite at once
the sentiment of innocence, and that of terror.   With the cha-
racter of the God was blended that of a man equally attractive
and formidable.
   I  believe that the paintings of  the Ancients expressed still
better those harmonies of opposite sentiments.  Pliny, who has
preserved to us the memory of the most noted of them,  quotes
among others a  picture by Athenian of Maronea, which repre-
sented the cautious  and crafty Ulysses detecting Achilles under
the disguise of a young woman, by7 presenting an assortment of
female trinkets, among which  he  had carelessly,  and without
appearance  of art,  introduced a  sword.  The lively emotion
with which Achilles lays hold of that sword, must have exhibited
a charming contrast with the habit,  and the composed deport-
ment of his nymph character.  There must have resulted ano-
ther no less interesting, in the character of Ulysses, with  his air
of reserve, and the expression of his satisfaction under the re-
straint of prudence, fearful lest in discovering Achilles he should
at the same time betray himself.
   Another piece still more affecting, from the pencil of Aristides
of Thebes, represented Biblis languishing to death of the love 
272            STUDIES OF NATURE.
 which she bare to her own brother. In it there must have been
 distinctly represented the sentiment of virtue repelling the idea
 of a criminal passion, and that of fraternal friendship, which re-
 called the heart  to love under the very appearances of  virtue.
 These cruel consonances ; despair at the thought of being be-
 trayed by her own heart,  the desire of dying, in order to con-
 ceal her shame,  the desire of life to enjoy the sight of the be-
 loved object, health wasting away under the pressure of con-
 flicts so painful,  must have expressed, amidst the  languors  of
 death and of life, contrasts the most interesting, on the counte-
 nance 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 together with her milk.   Alex-
 ander 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 persona^suffering! Poussin, as  we have
 seen, has borrowed from this virtue the principal expression  of
 his picture of the Deluge.
  Rubens has employed it  in a most wonderful manner in giv-
 ing expression to the face of his Mary de Medicis, in which you
 distinguish at once the  anguish and the  joy of  child-bearing.
 He  farther heightens the  violence of the physical passion, by
 the careless attitude into which the Queen is thrown, in an easy-
 chair, and by her naked  foot, which has shaken off  the slipper;
 and on  the other hand, he conveys the sublimity of the moral
 sentiment awakened in her by the high destiny of her infant,
 who is presented to her by a God, reposed in a cradle of bunches
 of grapes and ears of corn, symbols of the felicity of his  reign.
  It is thus that the great Masters, not satisfied with opposing
 mechanically groupes of figures and vacuity, shades  and lights,
 children and old nun, feet and hands, pursue with unremitting
 care those contrasts of our internal powers which express  them-
 selves on  " the human face divine." in touches ineffable, and
 which must constitute the  eternal charm of their productions.
The Works  of Le Sueur abound in these contrasts of sentiment,
and he places them in such perfect harmony  with those of the
elementary nature, that the  result from them is the sweetest and 
STUDY XII.
273
the most profound melancholy.   But it has been much easier
for his pencil to paint, than for my pen to describe them.
   I shall adduce but one example more to my present purpose,
taken from Poussin, an Artist most admirable for his skill in
graphic composition, but whose colours have suffered conside-
rably7 from the hand of time.   The piece  to which I refer is his
picture  of the rape of the Sabine women.  While the Roman
soldiery are carrying off by force in  their arms the terrified
young women of the Sabines, there  is a  Roman officer, who is
desirous of getting possession of one extremely- beautiful as well
as young.  She has taken  refuge in the arms of her mother.
He dares not presume to offer violence to her, but seems to ad-
dress the  mother with all the ardour of love tempered with re-
spect ; his countenance thus speaks; " She will be happy with
" me !  Let    e be indebted for  her to love, and not to fear!  I
" am less eager to rob you of a  daughter,«than to  give you  a
" son."   It is thus that, while he conforms himself in dressing
his characters to the simplicity of the  age which rendered all
conditions nearly similar, he  hfs distinguished the officer from
the soldier not by his garb but by his manners.  He has caught,
as he usually does, the moral character of his subject, which pro-
duces a very different effect from that of mere costume.
   I should have been extremely happy had we been favoured
from the pencil of the same ingenious Artist, with a representa-
tion of these same female Sabines, after they had become wives
and mothers, rushing in between the two contending armies of
the Sabines  and Romans, " Running,"  as Plutarch tells us,
" some on this side, others on that, in tears, shrieking, exclaim-
" ing;  thrusting themselves through the clashing of arms, and
" heaps of the dead strewed along the ground, like persons fran-
" tic or possessed with a spirit, carrying their sucking infants in
" their  arms, with hair dishevelled, appealing now to  Romans,
" now to Sabines, by every tender adjuration that can reach the
" heart of Man."*
  The most powerful effects of love, as has been said, arise out
of contradictory feelings  melting into each other, just as the e
of hatred frequently are  produced * from similar sentiments
which happen to clash. Hence it is that no feeling can be more

                  * Plutarch's life of Rumulus.
  Vol. II.                  M m 
2r4             STUDIES OF NATURE.

agreeable than to find a friend in a man whom we considered as
an enemy ; and no mortification so poignant as meeting an ene-
my in the man whom we  depended  upon as a friend.  These
harmonic  effects often render a slight and transient kindness
more estimable than a continued series of good offices ; and a
momentary offence more outrageous than the declared  enmity
of a  whole life-time ; because in the first case, feelings  diame-
trically opposite graciously unite ; and in the second congenial
feelings violently clash.  Hence too it is that a single blemish,
amidst the valuable qualities of a man of worth, frequently ap-
pears more offensive than all the vices of a libertine who dis-
plays only a solitary virtue, because from the effect of contrast
these two qualities become more prominent,  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 in framing it's decisions.
It is impossible to enumerate the errors into which we are every
day  falling for want of studying these elementary principles of
Nature.   It  would be  possible  undoubtedly to extend them
much farther; it is sufficient for  my  purpose, if I have given a
demonstration of their existence, and inspired others with an
inclination to apply them properly.
   These harmonies acquire greater energy from the adjoining
contrasts which detach  them,  from the  consonances which re-
peat them, and from  the other elementary Laws which have
been indicated :  but if with these are blended some one of the
moral sentiments of which I have been presenting a faint sketch,
in this case the effect resulting from  the whole is inexpressibly
delightful.   Thus, for example,  a harmony becomes in some
sort  celestial, when it contains a mystery, which always suppo-
ses something marvellous  and divine.  I one day felt a  most
agreeable effect, as I was looking over a collection of old prints
which represented  the history of Adonis.   Venus had stolen the
infant Adonis from Diana, and was educating him with her son
Cupid.  Diana was determined to recover him, as being the son
of one of her nymphs.  Venus then  having on  a certain da}
alighted from her chariot  drawn by doves, was walking with
the two boys in a valley of Cythera.   Diana, at the head of her
armed retinue, places herself in  ambush  in a forest  through 
STUDY XII.
275
which Venus was to pass.  Venus as soon as she  perceived her
adversary approaching, and incapable either to escape or to pre-
vent the  recapture of Adonis, was  instantly  struck  with the
thought of clapping wings on his shoulders, and presenting Cu-
pid and him together  to Diana,  desired her to take either  of
the children which she believed to be her property.  Both be-
ing equally beautiful, both of the same age, and  both furnished
with wings, the chaste Goddess of the woods was deterred from
choosing either the one or the other, and refrained  from taking
Adonis for fear of taking Cupid.
   This fable  contains  several sentimental beauties.   I related
it one day to J.  J. Rousseau, who was highly delighted with it.
" Nothing pleases me so much,"  said he, " as an  agreeable
" image which conveys  a moral sentiment."  We were  at that
time   in the plain of Neuilly,  near a park  in which we saw aj
group of Love and Friendship, under the forms of a young man
and young woman of fifteen or sixteen years of age, embracing
each other with  mouth to mouth.    Having looked  at it he said
to me, " Here is an obscene image  presented after a charming
" idea.   Nothing could have been more agreeable than a repre-
" sentation of the  two figures in their natural state:  Friendship,
" as a grown young woman caressing an infant Cupid.**  Being
on this interesting subject, I repeated  to him the conclusion of
that touching fable of Philomela and Progne.

            Le desert est-il sait pour des talens si beaux '
            Venez faire aux cit£s eclater leurs merveilles :
               Aussi bien, en voyant les bois,
            Sans ccsse il vous souvient que Tense autrefois,
               Parmi des  demeures pareilles,
            Exerca  sa fureur sur vos divins appas.—
            Kt c'est le souvenir d'un si cruel outrage,
            Qui fait, reprit sa sceur, que je ne vous suis pas •
               En  voyant  les hommes, helas !
               II m'en souvient bien davantagc.

            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.

            \h ! sister dear, sad Philomel replies,
              'Tis this that makes me shun the haunts of men
            Tereus  and Courts the anguish'd heart allies,
              And hastes, for ■du Iter, t->  the  woo U again. 
 276            STUDIES OF NATURE.

   " What a series of ideas ! cried he, " how tenderly affecting
 " it is !" His voice was stifled, and the tears rushed to his eyes;
 I perceived that he was farther moved by the secret correspon-
 dencies between the talents  and the destiny of that bird, and his
 own situation.
   It  is obvious, then, in the two allegorical subjects of Diana
 and Adonis, and of Love and Friendship, that there are really
 within us two distinct powers, the harmonies of which exalt the
 soul, when the physical image throws us into a moral sentiment,
 as in the first example ;  and abase it, on the contrary,  when a
 moral sentiment recak us to a physical sensation, as in  the ex-
 ample of Love and Friendship.
   The suppressed circumstances contribute farther to the moral
 expressions, because they are conformable to the expansive na-
ture of the soul. They conduct it over a vast field of ideas. It
 is to these  suppressions that the fable of the Nightingale is in-
 debted for  the powerful effect which it produces. Add to these
 a  multitude of  other oppositions, which I  have not leisure to
 analyze.
   The farther that the physical  image  is removed from us the
greater extension is given  to the moral sentiment  ; and the
more circumscribed that the first is, the more energetic the sen-
timent is rendered.  It is this undoubtedly which communicates
so much force to our affections, when we regret the death of a
friend.  Grief in this case conveys the soul from one World to
the other, and from an object full of charms to a tomb.  Hence
it is that the following passage from Jeremiah contains a strain
of sublime  melancholy :  Vox in Rama audita est; ploratus &?
ululatus multus : Rachel plorans filios suos, £s? noluit consolari,
quia non sunt.   " A voice  was heard in  Ramah, lamentation
" and bitter weeping ; Rachel weeping for her children, refu-
" sed to be comforted, because  they are not."*  All  the conso-
lations which this World  can administer are dashed to pieces
against this word of maternal anguish, non sunt.
   The single jet d*eau of Saint-Cloud pleases me more than all
it's cascades.  However, though the physical image  should not
escape and lose itself in infinity, it may convey sorrow thither,
when it reflects the same sentiment.  I find in Plutarch a noble
* Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver 15. 
                      STUDY XIL                     277

effect of this progressive consonance. " Brutus" says he, " giv-
u ing all up for lost, and having resolved to withdraw from Ita-
" ly, passed by land through Lucania, and came to Elea which
" is situated on the sea-side.  Portia being to return from thence
" to Rome, endeavoured to conceal the grief which oppressed
" her in the prospect of their approaching separation ; but with
u all her resolution and magnanimity she betrayed the sorrow
u which was preying on her heart, on seeing a  picture which
" there accidentally caught her eye.   The subject of the piece
" was taken from the  Iliad, and represented the parting of Hec-
" tor and Andromache, when he was preparing to take the field,
" and at the instant when he was delivering the infant Astyana>t
" into the arms of his mother, while her eyes remain immove-
" ably fixed on Hector. The resemblance which the picture bore
" to her own distress made her burst into tears ; and several
" times a day she resorted to the place where it hung to gaze
" at it, and to weep before it. This being observed by Acilius,
" one  of the friends  of Brutus,  he repeated  the  passage from
iL Homer in which Andromache expresses her inward emotion :

           Ettrap ccTup cru fut 'to-cr) srccTjjf xmi -arorvix p-faae,
           H £t Kao-lyvtiT®-. cru H (Mil &cOifp'®* ZFttpxx.oiTti<i.

           Yet while my Hector still survives,  I see
           M\ father, mother, kindred, all in thee,
           My wedded Lord............

" Brutus replied with a smile, But I must not answer Portia in
" the words of Hector to Andromache:

           AAA' it( 'eixav ia<fct, ret e-etvrll^ cpyce xoftr^e,
           Iran t' uAomc«tjjv T5, k»i xptipizrifaiFi xtXtva.

               ...............___hasten to thy tasks at home,
           There guide the spindle, and direct the loom

" For though the natural weakness of her body prevents her from
" acting what the strength of men only can perform, yet she has
" a mind as valiant, and as active for the good of her  Country,
" as we have."
  This j.iuure was undoubtedly* placed under the peristyle of
some -emple built on the shore of the Sea.  Brutus was on the
point of einborkiug without pomp, and without a retinue.   His 
278            STUDIES OF NATURE.

wife, the daughter of Cato, had accompanied him, perhaps on
foot.   The moment of separation approaches; in order to soothe
her anguish shefixes her eyes on that painting consecrated to the
Gods.   She beholds in it the last long farewel of Hector and
Andromache; she is  overwhelmed;  and to reanimate her forti-
tude turns her eyes upon her husband.  The comparison is com-
pleted, her courage forsakes her, tears gush out, conjugal affec-
tion triumphs over love of Country. Two virtues in opposition!
Add to these the characters of a wild  nature, which blend so
well with human grief: profound solitude, the columns and the
cupola of that antique temple, corroded by the keen air of the
Sea, and  marbled over with mosses which give them  the ap-
pearance of green bronze ;  a setting Sun which gilds the sum-
mit of it; the hollow murmurs of the Sea at a distance, break-
ing along the coast of Lucania ; the towers of Elea perceptible
in the bosom of a valley between two steep mountains, and that
sorrow of Portia which hurries us  back to the age of Andro-
mache.  What a picture, suggested by  the contemplation  of a
picture !  O, ye Artists, could you but produce it, Portia would
in her  turn call forth many a tear.
   I could multiply without end proofs  of the two  powers by
which we  are governed.   Enough has been said on the subject
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 differ-
ent from  those  of digestion.   Our affections demonstrate the
immortality of the soul, because they expand in all the circum-
stances 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 innocence.

OF SOME OTHER SENTIMENTS OF DEITY, AND AMONG OTHERS, OF
                    THAT  OF VIRTUE.
  There are besides  these a great number of sentimental Laws,
which  it has not been in my power at present  to unfold : such
are those which  suggest presentiments, omens, dreams, the re-
ference of events fortunate and unfortunate to the  same epochs,
and the like. Their effects are attested among Nations polished
and savage, by Writers profane and sacred, and by every man who
pays attention to the  Laws of Nature.   These communications
of the soul with an order of things invisible, are rejected by the 
STUDY XII.
279
learned of modern times, because they come not within the pro-
vince of their systems and of their almanacs;  but how many-
things  exist, which are not reducible to the plans of our reason
and which have not been so much as perceived by it!
   There are particular laws which demonstrate  the immediate
action  of Providence on the  Human Race, and which are oppo-
site to the general Laws of Physics.  For example, the princi-
ples of reason, of passion, and of sentiment, as well as the organs
of speech and of hearing, are the same in men of all countries ;
nevertheless the language of Nations differs  all the world over.
How comes it that the art of speech is so various among beings
who all have the  same wants, and that  it should be constantly
changing in the transmission from father to son, to such a de-
gree 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 comprehend ours ?  The ox of Bengal bellows
like that of the Ulkraine, 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 it has been alleged by-
certain Writers of high reputation,  that languages are  charac-
terized by climates; for if  they were subjected to influence of
this kind, they would never vary in any country in which 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 pretends,  who in treating this point
has given far too great extension to  physical Laws.  The lan-
 guage of the Russias, in the North of Europe, is very soft, be-
 ing a dialect of the Greek ; and the jargon of the southern pro-
 vinces of France is  harsh and coarse.  The Laplanders, whe
 inhabit the shores of the Frozen Ocean, speak a language which
 is very grateful to the ear ; and the Hottentots, who inhabit the
 very temperate climate of the Cape of  Good-Hope, cluck like
 India  cocks.  The language of  the  Indians of Peru is loaded
with strong aspirations,  and consonants of  difficult pronuncia
 tion.*   Any one, without going out  of  his closet,  may distin

   * 1 do not think that this remark is correct. But the language of the Me\
 cans is, indeed, extremely harsh, and pregnant in consonants : much more
 so, than those of many of the tribes in the more northern parts of America. I
\ 
 280             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 guish the different characters of the  language of each Nation,
 by the names presented on the geographical charts of the Coun-
 try, and  may satisfy himself that their  harshness, or softness,
 has no relation whatever to those of Latitude.
   Other observers have asserted that the languages of Nations
 have been determined  and fixed by their great Writers.  But
 the great  Writers of the age of Augustus did not secure the
 Latin language from corruption, previously to the reign of Mar-
 cus Aurelius.  Those of the age of Louis XIV. already begin to
 be antiquated among ourselves. If posterity fixes the character
 of a language to the age which was productive of great Writers,
 it is not because,  as they allege, it is then at it's greatest purity ;
 for you find  in them as many of those inversions of phraseology,
 of those  decompositions of words, and of those embarrassed
 syntaxes, which render the  metaphysical study of all Grammar
tiresome and barbarous ; but it is because the Writings of those
 great men sparkle with maxims of virtue, and present us with a
thousand  perspectives of the Deity.   I have no doubt that the
 sublime sentiments which inspire them  illuminate them still in
 the order  and disposition of their  Works, seeing they are the
 sources of all harmony.   From this, if I am not mistaken, re-
 sults  the unalterable charm  which  renders the perusal of them
 so delicious, at all times, and to the men of all Nations.  Hence
 it is that  Plutarch has eclipsed most of the Writers of Greece,
 though he was of the age neither of Pericles, nor of Alexander;
 and that the translation of his Works into old  French by the
 good Amyot, will be more generally read by posterity than most
 of the original Works produced even in the age of Louis XIV.
 It is the moral  goodness of a period which characterizes a lan-
 guage, and which transmits it unaltered to  the generation fol-

deserves to be  mentioned, as a further support of the observations of Saint-
 Pierre, that the harsher and more difficult dialects of North-America were
found in the southern parts of this Continent.  The dialects of the Gtomies
and the Cherokees, in the south, are destitute of that sweetness which belongs
to not  a few of the more northern dialect6.  But I do not mean, by these ob-
 servations, to deny, " that languages  are characterized by climates." For
even the Mexicans, the Otomies, Sec, according to my theory, were originally
from the North ; and it might, with some degree of plausibility, be urged,
that these nations  had not resided sufficiently long in the South to receive
from climate that influence which it does, in mar.v respects at least, produce
oa the physical, themorah, and political condition of mankind.—B. S B 
STUDY XII.
281
 lowing.   This 16 the reason that the  languages, the customs,
 and even the form of dresses are in Asia transmitted inviolably
 from generation to  generation, because fathers, all over  that
 Continent,  make themselves beloved  by their children.   But
 these reasons do not explain the diversity of language which
 subsists between one Nation and another.  It must ever appear
 to me altogether supernatural, that  men  who enjoy the same
 elements, and are subjected  to the same wants, should not  em-
 ploy  the  same  words in expressing them.  There is but one
 Sun to illuminate the whole Earth, and he  bears a  different
 name in every different land.
   I  beg leave to suggest a farther  effect of a Law to which
 little attention has been paid; it is this, 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
 in some neighbouring Nation, an antagonist possessing talents,
 and a reputation, in  complete opposition: such were Democri-
 tus and  Heraclitus,  Alexander  and  Diogenes, Descartes  and
 Newton, Corneille and Racine, Bossuet and Fenelon, Voltaire and
 J. J. Rousseau.  I had collected on the subject of the  two  ex-
 traordinary  men last mentioned, who were contemporaries,  and
 who died the same year, a great number of  strictures, which
 demonstrate that through the whole course of life they present-
 ed a striking contrast in respect  of talents, of manners, and of
 fortune :  but I have  relinquished this parallel, in order to devote
 my attention to a pursuit which I deemed much more useful.
   This balancing of illustrious characters will  not appear extra-
 ordinary,  if we consider that it is a consequence from the  ge-
 neral Law of contraries which governs  the  World, and from
 which all  the harmonies of  Nature result: it must therefore
 particularly  manifest itself in the Human  Race,  which is the
 centre of the whole ;  and it actually  does  discover itself in  the
 wonderful equilibrium, conformably to which the two sexes are
 born in equal numbers.   It  does not fix on individuals in par-
 ticular, for we see families consisting wholly of daughters, and
 others all sons ; but it embraces the aggregate of a whole citv
and of a Nation, the  male and female  children of which are al-
ways produced very nearly  equal in  number.  Whatever ine-
quality of sex there may exist in the variety of births in iami-
  Vol. II.                   Nn 
 282             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 lies, the  equality is constantly  restored in the aggregate of a
 people.
   But there is  another  equilibrium no less wonderful,  which
 has not I believe become an object of attention.  As there are
 a great  many men who perish  in war, in sea-voyages, and by
 painful and dangerous employments, it would thence follow, that,
 at the long run, the number of women would daily go on in an
 increasing  proportion.   On the supposition that there perishes
 anno ally  one tenth part more of men than of women,  the ba-
 lancing  of the sexes must become more  and more unequal.
 Social ruin must increase from the very regularity of the natu-
 ral order.  This however does  not take place; the  two  sexes
 are always very nearly equally7 numerous: their occupations are
 different, but their  destiny is the same.   The women, who fre-
 quently impel men to engage  in hazardous enterprizes to sup-
 port  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  the men undergo in conse-
 quence 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, as  has  been elsewhere demonstrated, 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  knowledge  of all her Works, as it is
 the instinct of Deity which has  rendered Man superior to the
 Laws of Nature. It is this instinct, which, differently modified
 by the passions, engages the inhabitants of Russia to bathe in
the ices of the Neva, during the  severest cold  of Winter, as
 well as the Nations of Bengal  in the waters  of the Ganges  ;
 which, 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 
                       STUDY XII.                   283

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 extraordi-
nary 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 ; and the second
a benevolent disposition to communicate his discovery to men;
but the social reason  quickly recall him to personal interest.
As soon as  he sees a  certain number  of spectators assembled
round the object  of  his curiosity,  " It was I," says he,  " who
" observed it first."  Then, if he  happens to be a  scholar, he
fails not to apply  his system to it.  By and by he begins to cal-
culate how much this discovery will bring him in; he throws in
some additional circumstances, in order to heighten the appear-
ance of the marvellous, and he employs the whole credit of his
junto to put it off, and to persecute every one v-V> presumes to
differ from him in opinion.   Thus every natural sentiment ele-
vates us to God,  till the weight of our passions, and of human
institutions, brings us back again to self.  J. J. Rousseau was
accordingly in the right, when he said  that Man was good, but
that men were wicked.
   It was the instinct of Deity which first assembled men toge-
ther, and which became the basis of the Religion  and of the
Laws whereby their union was to be cemented. On this it was
that virtue found a  support, in proposing to herself the  imita-
tion of the  Divinity, not  only by the exercise of the Arts and
Sciences, which the ancient Greeks for this effect denominated
the petty virtues; but in the result of the divine power and in-
telligence, which  is benificence.   It consisted in  efforts  made
upon ourselves, for the good of Mankind, in the view of pleas-
ing God onlv.  It gave to Man the sentiment of his own excel-
lence, by inspiring him  with the contempt of terrestrial and tran-
sient enjoyments, and with  a desire after things celestial and
immortal.  It was this  sublime attraction which exited courage
to the rank of a virtue, and which made Man advance intrepir 
284
STUDIES OF NATURE.
ly to meet death amidst so many anxieties to preserve life.  Gal-
lant d'Assas, what had you to hope for on the Earth, when you
poured out your blood in  the night. without  a witness, in the
plains of Klosterkam, for  the  salvation of the  French army?
And you, generous Eustace de St. Pierre, what recompense did
you expect from your Country, when you appeared before her
tyrants with the haltar about your neck, ready to meet an infa-
mous death in  saving your fellow-citizens?  Of what avail to
your insensible ashes were the statues and the eulogiums which
posterity was one day to  consecrate  to  your memory? Could
you so much as hope for  this reward, in  return for sacrifices
either unknown, or loaded with opprobriousness ? Could you
be flattered in  ages to come with the  empty homage of a world
separated from you by eternal  barriers ? And you, more glori-
ous still in the sight of God, obscure citizens, who sink inglo-
riously into the grave ;  you, whose  virtues  draw down  upon
your heads shame,  calumny,  persecution, poverty, contempt,
even on the part of those w-ho dispense the honours ofa present
state, could you have forced your way through paths so dreary
and  so rude, had not a light from Heaven  illuminated  your
eyes ?*

  * It is impossible for virtue to subsist independently of Religion.  I do not
mean tlie theau-ical virtues which attract public admiration, and this, many a
time, by means so contemptible that they may be rather considered as so
many vices.  The very Pagans  have turned them into ridicule.  See what
Marcus Aurelius  has said on the subject.  By virtue I understand the good
which we do to men without expectation of reward on their part, and fre-
quently at the expense of fortune, nay even of reputation.  Analyze all those
whose traits have appeared to you the most striking; there is no one of them
but what points out Deity, nearer or more remote.  I shall quote one not ge-
nerally known, and singularly interesting from it's very obscurity.
  In the last war in Germany a Captain of cavalry was ordered out on a fo-
raging party.  He put himself at the  head of his troop, and marched to the
quarter assigned him.  It was a solitary valley in which hardly any thing but
woods cotdd be seen.  In the midst of it stood a little cottage ; on perceiving
it he went up, and knocked at the door; out comes an ancient Hernouten, with
a beard silvered by age. " Father," says the officer, " shew me a field where 1
" can set my troopers a-fqraging"....." Presently," replied the Hernouten. The
good old man walked before, and conducted them out of the valley. After a
quarter of an hour's march they found a fine field of barley : " There is the
" very thing we want," says the Captain.........."  Have patience for a few mi-
" nutes," replies his guide, " you shall be satisfied." They went on, and at
the distance of about a quarter ofa league farther they arrive at another field 
STUDY XII.
285
   This respect for virtue is the source of that which we pay to
ancient Nobility, and which has introduced, in process of time,
unjust and odious differences  among men, whereas originally,
it was designed to establish among them respectable  distinctions

of barley. The troop immediately dismounted, cut down the  grain, trussed
it up, and remounted. The officer upon this says to his conductor,  " Father,
" you have given yourself and us unnecessary trouble ; the  first field was
" much better than this."......." Very true, Sir," replied the  good old man,
" but it was not mine."
  This stroke goes directly to the heart. I defy an atheist to produce me any
thing once to be compared with it. It may be proper to observe, that the Her-
noutens are a species of  Quakers, scattered over some cantons of Germany.
Certain Theologians have maintained that heretics were incapable of virtue,
and that their good actions were utterly destitute of merit. As I am no The-
ologian I shall not engage in this metaphysical discussion, though I might
oppose to their opinion the sentiments of St. Jerome, and even those  of St.
Peter, with respect to Pagans, when he says to Cornelius the centurion : " Of a
" truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons ; but in every Nation,
" he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."f
But I should be glad to know what those Theologians think of the charity of
the good Samaritan, who was a schismatic.   Surely they wdl  not venture to
start objections against a decision pronounced by Jesus Christ himself. As
the simplicity and depth  of his divine responses form an admirable constrast
with the dishonesty  and  subtilty of modern doctors, I shall transcribe the
whole passage from the Gospel, word for word.
  " And behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master,
" what shall I do to inherit eternal life >
  " He said unto him, What is written in tlie law ? how readestthou ?
  " And he answering, said, Thou shalt love the Lo..d thy God with  all thy
" heart, and with all thy soul, and  with all thy strength, and with all thy
" mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself.
   " And he said  unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou
" shalt live.
  " But he, willing to justify himself, said unto  Jesus, And who is my  neigh-
" bour ?
  " And Jesus answering, said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to
" Jericho, and fell  among thieves,  which stopped him of his raiment, and
" wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
  " And by chance there came down a certain priest that way  ; and when he
" saw him, he passed by on the other side.
  " And likewise a Levite, when he  was at  the place, came and looked on
'' him, and passed by on the other side.
  " But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was ; and when
" he saw him, he had compassion on him.
  " And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and
" set him on his own beast, and brought him to  an inn, and took care of liin:

               t" Acts of the Apostles,  chap. x. w. ?A, 35. 
 286             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 alone.   The Asiatics, more equitable, attached nobility only to
 places rendered illustrious by virtue.   An aged tree, a well, a
 rock, objects of stability, appeared to them as alone adapted to
 perpetuate the memory of what was worthy of being  remem-
 bered.   There is not all over Asia an acre of land but what is
 dignified by a monument.  The Greeks  and Romans who is-
 sued out of it, as did all the other Nations of the World, and
 who did not remove far from it, imitated in part the customs of
 our first Fathers. But the other Nations which scattered them-
 selves over the rest of Europe, where they were long in an erra-
 tic state, and who withdrew from those ancient monuments of
 virtue, chose rather to look for them in the posterity  of their
 great men, and to see the living images of them in their chil-
 dren.   This is the reason, in my opinion, that the Asiatics have
 no Noblesse, and the Europeans no monuments.
   The instinct of Deity constitutes the charm of  the perform-
 ances  which we  peruse  with most delight.  The Writers  to
 whom we always return with pleasure, are not the most spright-

  " And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence and gave
 " them to  the host, and said unto him, Take care of him : and whatsoever
 " thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
  " Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was  neighbour unto him that
 " fell among the thieves ?
  "And  he said, He that shewed mercy on him.  Then said Jesus unto
" him, Go, and do thou likewise."-|-
  I shall be carefully on my guard against adding any reflections of my own
 on this subject, except this simple observation, that the action of the Sama-
ritan is far superior to that of the Hernouten ; for though the second makes
 a great sacrifice, he is in some sort determined to it by force ; a field must of
necessity  have been subjected to forage.  But the Samaritan entirely obeys
the impulse of humanity.  His action is free, and  his charity spontaneous
This stricture, like all those of the Gospel, contains in a few words a multi-
tude of clear and forcible instructions, respecting the duties inculcated in the
second table of the Law.  It would be impossible to replace them by others,
were imagination itself permitted to dictate them   Weigh all the circum-
stances of the restless and persevering charity of tlie Samaritan. He dresses
the wounds of an unfortunate wretch, and places him on his own horse ; he ex-
poses his  own life to danger, by stopping, and  walking on foot,  in a place
frequented by thieves.  He afterwards makes provision, in the inn, for the
future as  well as for the present necessities of the unhappy man, and con-
tinues his journey without expecting any recompense whatever from the gra-
titude of the person whom he had succoured.
f Luke, chap. x. ver. 25—37- 
STUDY XII.                   287
ly, that is, those who abound the most in the social reason which
endures but for a moment, but those who render the action of
Providence continually present to us.   Hence it is that Homer,
Virgil, Xenophon, Plutarch, Fenelon, and most  of the ancient
Writers, are immortal, and please the men of all Nations. For
the same reason it is, that books of travels, though for the most
part written very artlessly, and though decried by multitudes
of various orders in Society, who discern in them an indirect
censure of their own conduct, are nevertheless the most inter-
esting part of modern reading ; not only because they disclose
to us some new benefits of Nature, in the fruits and the animals
of foreign countries, but because of the dangers by land and by
water which their authors have escaped, frequently beyond all
reasonable expectation.   Finally,  it is because the greatest part
of our very learned  productions  studiously steer clear of this
natural sentiment, that the perusal of them is so very dry and
disgusting, and that posterity  will  prefer Herodotus to David
Hume, and the Mythology of the  Greeks to alhour treatises on
Physics ; 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, who, from his natural weakness, must have ever
been crawling on the ground of which he is formed. It balan-
ces in him the sentiment of his misery, which attaches him to
the pleasures of habit ;  and it exalts his soul, by infusing into
him continually the desire of novelty-.  It  is the harmony of hu-
man life, and the source of every thing delicious and enchant-
ing that we meet with in  the progress of it.  With this it is
that the illusions of love ever veil  themselves, always represent-
ing the beloved object as something divine.   It is this which
opens to ambition perspectives without end. A peasant appears
desirous of nothing in the World but to become the churchwar
den of his village.  Be not deceived in the man !  open to him
a career without any impediment  in his way ; he is groom, h<"
becomes highway-man, captain of the gang,  a commander in
chief of armies, a king, and never rests till he is worshipped a:-
a God.   He shall be a Tamerlane or a Mahomet.
  An old rich tradesman, nailed to  his easy-chair by die gout,
tells us that he  has no higher ambition than to die in peace. 
288
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 But he sees himself eternally renovating in his posterity.  He
 enjoys a secret delight in beholding them mount, by the dint of
 his money, along all the ascending steps of dignity and honour.
 He himself reflects  not  that the  moment approaches when he
 shall  have nothing  in common with that posterity, and that
 while he is congratulating himself on being the source of their
 future glory7,  they  are  already employing  the upstart glory
 which they have acquired, in drawing a veil over the meanness
 of their original.  The Athiest himself, with his negative wis-
 dom, is carried along by the same impulse.  To no  purpose
 does he demonstrate to himself the nothingness, and the fluctua-
 tion of all things :  his  reason is at variance with his heart.  He
 flatters himself inwardly with the hope that his book, or his mo-
 nument, will one day attract the homage  of posterity; or per-
 haps that the book, or the tomb, of his adversary will cease to be
 honoured.   He  mistakes the  Deity, merely  because  he puts
 himself in his  place.
   With the septiment 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 greatntss. This it was which conferred empire on Rome
 and Sparta, by shewing to their  poor and virtuous  inhabitants
 the Gods  as their  protectors  and fellow-citizens.  It was the
 destruction of this  sentiment which  gave them up, when rich
and vicious, to slavery ;  when they no longer  saw in the Uni-
 verse  any other Gods except  gold and pleasure.  To no pur-
 pose does a man make a bulwark around himself of the  gifts of
 fortune ; the moment this sentiment is excluded from his heart,
 languor takes  possession of it.   If it's absence is prolonged, he
 sinks into sadness, afterwards into profound and settled melan-
 choly, and finally into despair.  If this state of anxiety becomes
 permanent, he lays violent hands on himself.  Man is the only
 sensible being which  destroys itself in a state of liberty.  Hu-
 man life, with  all it's pomp, and all it's delights, ceases to him to
have the appearance of  life, when it ceases  to  appear to him
immortal and  divine.*

  * Plutarch remarks, that Alexander did not abandon himself to those ex-
cesses which sulhed the conclusion of his glorious career, till he  believed
himself to be forsaken of the Gods.   Not only does this sentiment become a
source of misery, when it separates itself from our pleasures; but when, 
STUDY XII.
289
   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 attri-
butes.   It presents to the Geometrician, the ineffable progres-
sions of infinity ; to the Musician, rapturous harmonies; to the
Historian, the immortal  shades of virtuous men.   It raises a
Parnassus for the Poet, and an Olympus for the Hero. It sheds
a lustre on the unfortunate days of the labouring poor.  Amidst
the luxury of Paris, it  extracts a sigh  from  the  breast of the
humble native of  Savoy after the sacred covering of the snows'
upon his mountains.  It expatiates along the vast Ocean, and re-
cals,  from the gentle climates of  India, the European mariner,
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 immortality.  It  reposes
in the  midst  of tumultuous  cities,  on the palaces of mighty
Kings, and on the  august  temples of Religion.  It frequently
fixes it's residence  in the desert, and attracts  the attention of
the Universe to a rock.   Thus it is that you are  clothed with

from the effect of our passions, or of our institutions, which pervert the Laws
of Nature, it  presses upon our miseries themselves. Thus, for example,
when after having given mechanical Laws to the operations of the soul, we
come to make the  sentiment of infinity to bear upon our physical and tran-
sient  evils ; in this  case, by a just re-action, our  misery becomes  insupport-
 able.   I have  presented only a faint sketch of the two principles in Man; but
 to whatever sensation of pain, or of pleasure, they may be applied, tlie dif-
 ference of their nature, and their perpetual re-action, will be felt.
   On the subject  of Alexander forsaken of tlie Gods, it is matter of surprise
 tome that the expression of this situation should not have inspired the ge-
 nius of some Grecian Artist.  Here is what I find on this subject in Addison .
 *• There is  in the same  gallery, (at Florence) a fine bust of Alexander  the
 " Great, witii the face turned toward Heaven, and  impressed with a certain
 " dignified air of chagrin and dissatisfaction.  I have seen two or three an-
 " cient busts  of Alexander, with the same air, and in the same attitude ; and
 '* I am disposed to believe that the Sculptor pursued the idea of the Conquer-
 " or sighing after new worlds, or some similar circumstance of his  History."
 Addison's Voyage to ludy.  I imagine that the circumstance of Alexander's
 History, to which those busts ought to be referred, is that which represents
 him complaining of being abandoned of the Gods.  I have no doubt that it
 would have fixed the exquisite judgment of Addison, had he recollected uV
 observation made by Pluturch.
   Vol. II.                      O o 
290
STUDIES OF NATURE.
majesty, venerable  ruins of Greece and Rome! and  you too,
mysterious pyramids of Egypt! This is the object which we
are invariably pursuing amidst all our restless occupations; but
the moment it discovers itself to us in some unexpected act of
virtue, or in some one of those events which may be  denomi-
nated strokes of Heaven, or in some of those indescribably sub-
lime emotions, which are called sentimental touches by way of
excellence, it's first effect is to  kindle in the breast a very ardent
movement of joy, and the second is to melt us into tears.  The
soul, struck with this  divine light, exults  at once  in enjoying a
glimpse of the heavenly country, and sinks at  the thought of
being exiled from it.

              ........Oenlis errant lbus alto
          Quaesivit ccelo lucern, ingemuitque reperta.
                                         Aineid, Book  IV
         With wandering eyes explor'd the heavenly light,
         Then sigh'd, and sunk into Ahe shades of night. 
STUDY XIII.
APPLICATION OF THE LAWS OF NATURE TO THE DISORDERS OF
                         SOCIETY.

  I HAVE exposed, in this Work, the errors of human opi-
nion, and the mischief which has resulted from them, as affect-
ing morals and social felicity.   I have refuted those opinions,
and have ventured to call in question even the methods of hu-
man Science ; I have investigated certain  Laws of Nature, and
have made, I am bold to affirm, a happy application of them to
the vegetable order: but  all this mighty exertion would, in my
own opinion, prove to be vain and unprofitable, unless  I employ-
ed it in attempting to discover some remedies  for the disorders
of Society.
  A Prussian Author, who has lately favoured the World with
various productions, carefully avoids saying  a word  respecting
the administration of the government of  his  own Country, be-
cause,  being only a passenger as  he alleges in the vessel of the
State, he does not consider himself as warranted to intermeddle
with the pilot's  province.  This  thought, like so  many others
borrowed from books, is a mere effusion of wit.  It  resembles
that of the man, who, seeing a house on the point of being seiz-
ed with the flames,  scampered off without making any attempt
to save it, because,  forsooth, the house  was not his.   For my
own  part, I think myself so much the more obliged  to take  an
interest in  the vessel of the  State, that  I am a passenger  on
board, and thereby bound to  contribute my efforts toward her
prosperous navigation.   Nay, I  ought to employ  my very lei-
sure, as a passenger, to admonish the steersman of any irregu-
larity,  or neglect, which I may have perceived in conducting
the business of  the  ship.  Such, to my apprehension, are the
examples set us by a Montesquieu, a Fenelon, and so many other
names, to be held in everlasting respect, who have in every  coun-
try consecrated their labours to the good  of  their  compatriots.
The  only- thing that can be with justice objected  to  me,  is my
insufficiency.  But  I have seen  much injustice committed; I
myself have been the  victim of it.  Images  of disorder have 
292            STUDIES OF NATURE.

suggested to me ideas of order.   Besides, my errors may per-
haps serve as a foil to the wisdom of those who shall detect
them.   Were I but to present one single useful idea to my So-
vereign, whose bounty has hitherto supported me, though my
services remain unrewarded, I  shall have received  the most
precious recompense that my heart can desire : if I am encou-
raged to flatter myself with the thought that I have wiped away
the tears from the eyes of but one unfortunate fellow-creature,
such a reflection would wipe  away mine own in my dying mo-
ments.
   The men who can turn the distresses of their Country to their
own private emolument, will reproach me with being its enemy,
in the hacknied observation, that things have always been so,
and that all goes on very well, because all goes on well for them.
But the persons who discover, and who unveil, the  evils under
which their Country7 labours, they are not the enemies which she
has to fear; the persons  who flatter her, they are her real ene-
mies.  The Writers assuredly, such as Horace  and Juvenal,
who predicted to Rome her downfal, when at  the very height
of her elevation, were much more sincerely attached to her pros-
perity, than those who offered incense to her tyrants, and made
a gain  of her calamities.  How long did the  Roman Empire
survive the  salutary warnings of the first?  Even  the good
Princes who afterwards assumed the government of it, were in-
capable of replacing it on a solid foundation, because they were
imposed upon by their contemporary Writers, who never had
the courage to attack the moral and political causes of the gene-
ral corruption.  They satisfied themselves with their own per-
sonal reformation, without daring to  extend it so much as to
their families.  Thus it was that a Titus and a Marcus Aurelius
reigned.  They were only great Philosophers  on the throne.
As far as I am concerned, I should believe that I had already
deserved well of my Country, had I only announced in her ear
this awful truth :  That she contains in her bosom more than
seven millions of poor, and that their number has been proceed-
ing in an increasing proportion from year to year, ever since the
age of Louis XIV.
  God  forbid that  I should wish or attempt to disturb, much
less destroy,  the different orders of the State.  I would only
wish to bring them back to the spirit of their natural Institution. 
STUDY XIII.
293
Would to God that the Clergy would endeavour  to merit, by
iheir virtues, the first place, which has been granted to the sa-
credness of their functions ; that the Nobility would give their
protection to the citizens, and render themselves formidable only
to the enemies of the people ; that the administrators of finance,
directing the treasures of the Public to flow in the channels of
agriculture and commerce, would lay open to merit the road
which leads to all useful and honourable employment; that every
woman, exempted by the feebleness of  her constitution from
most of the burthens of Society7, would occupy herself in fulfil-
ling the duties of her gende destination, those of wife and mo-
ther, and thus cementing the felicity of one family; that, invest-
ed with grace and beauty, she would  consider herself  as one
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 in-
dissolubly compact all the other bonds of national felicity!
   It is not my aim to attract the applause of the million; they
will not read my Book ;  besides, they  are  already sold  to  the
rich and the powerful.   They are continually, I grant, malign-
ing their purchasers, and even frequently- applaud the persons
who treat them with some degree of firmness; but they give
such persons up, the moment they are discovered  to be objects
of hatred to the rich ; for they tremble at the frown of the great,
or crawl among their feet on receiving the slightest token of be-
nevolence.  By the million I understand not only the  lowest
order in Society, but a  great number of others who consider
themselves as very far above it.
   The people is no idol of mine.   If the powers which govern
them are corrupted they themselves are  the cause of it.  We
exclaim against the reigns of Nero and Caligula; but those  de-
testable Princes were the fruit of the age in which they lived,
just as bad vegetable  fruits are produced  by bad trees: they
would not have been tyrants, had they not found among the Ro-
mans,  informers, spies, parasites,  poisoners, prostitutes, hang-
men, and flatterers, who told them that every thing went on very-
well.   I do not believe virtue to be the allotment of the people,
but I consider it as portioned out among  all conditions in  life,
and in very  small quantities, among  the little, among  the mid-
dling, and among the great; and so necessary to the support of 
294
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 all the orders of Society-, that were it entirely destroyed, Coun-
 try would crumble  to pieces like a  temple whose pillars had
 been undermined.
   But I am not particularly interested in the people, either from
 the hope of their applause, or respect to their virtues, but from
 the labours in which they are employed.  From the people it is
 that the greatest part of my pleasures and of my distresses  pro-
 ceed ; by the people I am fed,  clothed, lodged,  and they are
 frequently  employed in procuring superfluities for  me, while
 necessaries are sometimes wanting to  themselves; from them
likewise issue epidemic diseases, robberies, seditions ; and did
 they present nothing to me  but simply the spectacle  of their
 happiness or misery, I could  not remain in a state of indiffer-
 ence.  Their joy involuntarily inspires me  with joy, and their
 misery wrings  my  heart.  I  do not reckon my obligation  to
 them acquitted when I have paid them a pecuniary considera-
 tion for their services.   It is a maxim of the hard-hearted rich
 man," That artisan and I are quit," says he," I have paid him."
 The money which I give to a poor fellow for a service which he
has rendered me, creates nothing new for his use ; that money
 would equally circulate, and perhaps more advantageously for
 him, had I  never existed.  The people supports therefore with-
 out any return on my  part, the weight of my  existence :  it is
 still much worse when they are loaded with the additional bur-
 then of my irregularities.  To them I stand accountable for my
 vices and  my virtues,  more than to the magistrate.  If I de-
 prive 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 pres-
 sure of their  labours.   Besides, Religion lays me under an
 express injunction to love them.  When she commands me  to
love men,  it is  the people  she recommends  to me,  and not
 the Great:  to them  she attaches all the powers of Society, which
 exist only by- them,  and for them. Of a far different spirit from
 that of modern  politicks, which present Nations to Kings  as
their domains, she  presents  Kings to Nations  as their fathers
 and defenders. The people were not made for Kings, but Kings
 for the people.   I am bound, therefore, I who am nothing, and 
STUDY XIII.                  295
who can do nothing, to  contribute my warmest wishes at least
toward their felicity.
   Farther,  I feel myself constrained, in justice to the commo-
nalty of our own Country, to declare that I know none in Eu-
rope superior to  them  in point of generosity, though, liberty
excepted, they are the most miserable  of all with whom I have
had an opportunity to be acquainted.  Did time permit I could
produce instances innumerable of their beneficence.   Our wits
frequently trace caricatures of our fish-women, and of our pea-
santry, because their only object is to amuse the rich ; but they
might receive sublime lessons of virtue, did they know how to
study the virtues  of the common people  : for my own part, I
have oftener than once found ingots of gold on a dunghill.
   I have remarked, for example, that many of our inferior
shop-keepers sell their wares  at a lower price  to the  poor man
than to the  rich;  and when I asked the reason, the  reply was,
" Sir, every body must live."  I have likewise observed that a
great many of the lower  order never haggle, when they are buy-
ing from poor people like themselves: " Every one," say they,
" must live  by his trade."  I saw a little  child one day buying
greens from the herb-woman  : she filled a large apron with the
articles which he wanted, and took a penny : on my expressing
surprize at the quantity  she had given him, she said  to me, " I
" would not, Sir, have given so much to a grown person; but I
" would not for the world take advantage of a child,"  I knev»
a man of the name of Christal, in the rue de la Magdelaine, whose
trade was to  go about selling Auvergne-waters, and who sup-
ported for five months, gratis, an upholsterer of whom he had
no knowledge, and  whom a  law-suit had brought to Paris, be-
cause, as he told me, that poor upholsterer, the whole length of
the road, in a public carriage, had from time to time given an arm
to his sick wife.  That same man had a son eighteen years old,
a  paralytic and changeling from the womb, whom he maintain-
ed with the tenderest attachment, without once consenting to
his admission into the Hospital of incurables, though frequently
solicited to that effect by persons  who had interest sufficient to
procure it;  " God," said he  to me, " has given me the poor
" youth; it  is my duty to take care of him."  I have no doubt
that  he still continues to support him,  though he is  under the 
296            STUDIES OF NATURE.

necessity of feeding him with his own hands, and has the far-
ther charge of a frequently ailing wife.
  I once stopped, with admiration, to contemplate a poor men-
dicant seated on a post in the rue Bergere, near the Boulevards.
A great many well-dressed people passed by without giving him
any thing; but there  were  very few servant-girls, or women
loaded with baskets, who did not stop to bestow their charity.
He  wore a well powdered peruque, with his hat under his arm,
was dressed in a surtout, his linen white and  clean, and every
article so trim, that you would have thought these poor people
were receiving alms from him, and not giving them.  It is  im-
possible assuredly to refer this  sentiment of generosity in  the
common people to any secret suggestion of self-interest, as the
enemies  of mankind allege in taking upon them to explain the
causes of compassion.  No one of those  poor benefactresses
thought of putting herself in the place of the unfortunate men-
dicant, who, it was  said, had been a  watchmaker, and had  lost
his  eyre-sight; but they were moved by that sublime instinct
which interests us more in the distresses of the Great, than in
those of other  men;  because we estimate the magnitude of
their  sufferings by the standard  of their elevation, and of  the
fall  from it.   A blind  watchmaker was a Belisarius in the eyes"
of servant-maids.
  I should never have done, were I to indulge myself in de-
tailing anecdotes of this sort. They  would be found  worthy of
the  admiration of the rich, were  they extracted from the Histo-
ry of the Savages, or frbm that of the Roman Emperors ; were
they two thousand years old, or had they taken place  two thou-
sand leagues off.  They would  amuse  their imagination, and
tranquillize their avarice.  Our own  commonalty undoubtedly
well deserves to  be loved.  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
is indebted for the supplement to their miserable pittance of
payr, 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 PeopTe 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 Reformers, that 
STUDY XIII.
297
no Law can be of long duration, and no plan of reform reduced
into effect, unless the happiness of the people is  previously se-
cured.  Out of their miseries  abuses  spring,  are kept up, and
are renewed.  It is from want of having  reared the fabric on
this sure foundation, that so many illustrious Reformers have
seen their political  edifice  crumble into ruins.   If Agis and
Cleomenes failed in  their attempts to reform Sparta, it was be-
cause the wretched Helots observed with indifference a system
of happiness which  extended not to them.   If China has been
conquered by the Tartars, it was because the discontented Chi-
nese were groaning under the tyranny of their Mand .rins, while
the Sovereign knew nothing of the matter.   If Poland has,  in
our own days, been parcelled out by her neighbours, it was be-
cause her enslaved  peasantry, and her  reduced gentry, did not
stand up in her defence.  If so many efforts towards reform, on
the subject of the clergy, of the army,  of finance, of our courts
of justice, of commerce, of concubinage, have proved abortive
with us, it is because the misery of the people is  continually re-
producing the same abuses.
   I have not seen, in the whole course  of my travels, a country
more flourishing than Holland.  The capital is computed to con-
tain at least a hundred and fourscore thousand inhabitants. An
immense commerce presents in that city a thousand objects of
temptation, yet you never hear of a robbery committed.  Thuy
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 punished  capitally.   The Laws howev< r are very se-
vere in that Country ;  but the people who possess the means of
easily earning a livelihood, are under no temptation to infringe
them.  It is farther worth) of remark,  that though they have
gained millions by  printing all  our extravagances in morals,  in
politics, and in religion, neither their  opinions nor their moral
conduct have been  affected by- it, because  the people are con-
tented with  their condition.   Crimes spring up  only from the
extremes of indigence and opulence.
   When I was at Moscow, an aged  Genevois  who had lived
in that city from the days^of Peter  I.  informed  me, that from
the time they had opened to the people various channels of s in-
sistence, by the establishment  of manufactures and commerce,
seditions, assassinations, robberies, and wilful fires, had become
   Vol.11.                   Pp 
298
STUDIES OF NATURE.
much less frequent than they used to be. Had there not been at
Rome multitudes of miserable wretches, no Catiline would have
started up there.   The  police,  I admit, prevents at Paris very
alarming irregularities.  Nay it may be with truth affirmed, that
fewer crimes  are  committed in that capital, than in the other
cities of the kingdom in proportion to their population ; but the
tranquillity of the  common people in Paris  is  to be accounted
for, from their finding there readier means of subsistence, than
in the other cities  of the kingdom, because the rich of all the
provinces fix their residence  in the metropolis.   After all, the
expense of our police, in guards, in spies, in houses of correc-
tion, and in goals, is a burthen to that  very people,  and be-
comes an expense  of punishments, when they might be trans-
formed into benefits.  Besides,  these methods  are repercussions
merely, whereby the people  are  thrown into concealed irregu-
larities, which are not the least dangerous.
   The first step toward relieving the indigence of the common-
alty, is to diminish the  excessive opulence of the rich.  It is not
by7 them that the people live, as modern politicians pretend. To
no purpose do they institute calculations of the riches of a State,
the mass of them  is undoubtedly limited  ;  and if it is entirely
in the possession  of a small number  of  the  citizens, it is no
longer in the service of the multitude.   As they always see  in
detail men  for whom they care very little, and in overgrown
capitals, money which they love  very much, they infer it to be
more advantageous for the kingdom, that a revenue of  a hun-
dred thousand crowns  should  be in the possession of a  single
person, rather than portioned out among  a  hundred families,
because,  say  they, the proprietors  of  large capitals engage in
 great enterprizes. But here they fall into a most pernicious er-
 ror.  The financier who possesses them  only maintains a few
 footmen more, and extends the rest of his superfluity to object
 of luxury and corruption : moreover,  every one being at libei -
 ty to enjoy in his own way, if he happens to be a miser, this
 money is altogether lost to Society7. But a hundred families of
 respectable citizens  could live comf<(|ggibly on the same revenue.
 They will rear a numerous progenyjBp  will  furnish the means
 of living to a multitude of other faisjnies of the commonalty, by
 arts that are really useful, and favourable to  good morals. 
STUDY XIII.
299
  It would be necessary, therefore, in order to check unbound-
ed opulence, without however doing injustice to the rich, to put
an end to the venality- of employments, which confers them all on
that portion of Society which needs them the  least as the means
of subsistence, for it gives them to those who have got money.
It would be necessary to abolish pluralities, by  which two,
three,  four, or more offices,  are  accumulated on  the head of
one person ; as well as reversions, which perpetuate them in the
same families.   This abolition would undoubtedly destroy that
monied aristocracy, which is extending farther and farther in
the bosom of the monarchy, and which, by interposing an insur-
mountable barrier between the Prince and his subjects, becomes
in process of time the most dangerous of all governments. The
dignity of employments would thereby be greatly enhanced, as
they must  in this case rise in estimation, being considered as
the reward of merit,  and not the purchase of money ; that re-
spect for gold, which  has corrupted every moral principle,
would be diminished, and that which is due  to virtue would be
heightened :  the career of public honour would be laid open to
all the orders of the State, which, for more than a century past,
has been the patrimony of from four to  five  thousand families,
which  have transmitted all the great offices from hand to hand,
without communicating any share of them to the rest of the ci-
tizens, except in proportion as they cease to  be such, that is, in
proportion as they- sell to them their liberty,  their honour, and
their conscience.
   Our Princes  have  been taught to believe, that it was safer
for them to trust to the purses, than to the probity of their sub-
jects.   Here we have the origin of venality in the civil state;
but this sophism falls to the ground the moment we reflect that
it subsists not in either the ecclesiastical  or military7 order; and
that these great bodies still  are, as to the  individuals  which
compose them, the best ordered of any  in  the State, at least
with relation to their police, and to their particular interests.
   The Court employs frequent change of fashions, in order 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  at least to be converted, to its full extent, to the profit of
the  poor, bv a prohibition of the introduction of  every  article1 
 300             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 of foreign luxury into  France ; for it  would be very inhuman
 in the  rich, who engross all the money in the Nation, to send
 out of it immense sums annually, to the Indies and to  China,
 for the  purchase of muslins, silks, and porcelains, which are all
 to be had  within the kingdom.   The trade to India and China
 is necessary only to  Nations which have neither mulberry-trees
 nor silk worms, as the English and Dutch.  They  too may in-
 dulge themselves in the use of tea, because  their country pro-
 duces no wine.  But  every piece of callico we import from Ben-
 gal, prevents an inhabitant of our own  islands from cultivating
 the plant which would have furnished  the raw material, and a
 family in France from spinning and weaving it into cloth.  There
 is another  political and  moral obligation which ought to be en-
 forced,  that of giving  back to the female sex the occupations
 which properly belong to them,  such as  midwifery, millinery,
 the employments of the needle,  linen-drapery, trimming, and
 the like, which require only taste and address, and  are adapted
 to a sedentary  way of life, in order to rescue great numbers of
 them from idleness,  and from prostitution, in which  so many
 seek the means of supporting a miserable existence.
   Again, a vast channel of subsistence to the people might be
 opened  by  suppressing the exclusive  privileges of  commercial
 and manufacturing companies.   These companies,  we are told,
 provide a livelihood  for a whole country. Their establishments,
 I admit, on the first glance, present an imposing appearance,
 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 peasantiy more
 wretched than  in villages where privileged manufacturers are
 established.  Such exclusive privileges  contribute  more than
 is  generally-  imagined to check the industry of a  country.  I
 shall quote, on this occasion, the remark of an anony-mous Eng-
 lish Author, highly  respectable for the  soundness of his judg-
ment, and  for the  strictness  of his impartiality.   w I passed,"
says he, " through Montreuil, Abbeville,  Pequigni......The se-
 " cond of these cities has likewise it's castle : it's indigent in-
 ,c habitants  greatly cry up their broad-cloth  manufacture:  but 
STUDY XIII.
301
" it is less considerable than those of many villages of the coun-
"ty of York."*
   I could likewise oppose  to the woollen manufactures of the
villages of the county of York, those of handkerchiefs, cotton-
stuffs, woollens, of the villages of the Pais de Caux, which are
there in a very flourishing state, and where the peasantry are
very rich, because there are no exclusive privileges in that part
of the  country.  The privileged undertaker having no compe-
titor in a country, settles the workman's wages at his own plea-
sure.   They have a  thousand devices  besides  to reduce  the
price of labour as low as it can  go.  They give  them, for ex-
ample, a trifle of  money in advance, and having thereby in-
veigled them into a state of insolvency, which may be done by
a loan  of a few crowns, they have them thenceforward at their
mercy.  I know a considerable branch of the salt-water fishery
almost totally destroyed, in one of our sea-ports, 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 afterwards were at the expense of building  ves-
sels proper for the trade :  they proceeded next to advance money
to the  fishermens' wives, during the absence of their husbands.
These were reduced, on their return to the necessity- of becom-
ing hired servants to  the  merchant, in  order to discharge  the
debt.   The  merchant  having thus become master of the boats,
of the  fishermen,  and of the commodity, regulated  the  condi-
tions of the trade just as he pleased.  Most  of the  fishermen,
disheartened by the  smallness of their profits, quitted the em-
ploy ment ; and the fishery, which was 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 even-
order of Society, and on both sexes, much less would I consent
to a monopoly that should grasp at those which she has assigned
to every man in particular. For example, the Author of a book,
of a machine, or of any invention, whether useful  or agreeable,
to which a man has devoted his time, his attention, in a word
his genius, ought to  be at least as well  secured  in a perpetual

  * Voyage to  France, Italy, and the Islands of the Archipelago, in 1750
Four small volumes in 12mo. 
302
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 right over those who sell his book, or avail themselves of his in-
 vention, as a feudal Lord is to exact the rights of fines of alien-
 ation, from persons who build on his grounds, and  even from
 those who re-sell the property of such houses.  This claim would
 appear to me still better founded on the natural right, than that
 of fines of alienation. If the Public suddenly lays hold of a use-
 ful invention, the State becomes  bound to indemnify the Author
 of it, to prevent the glory of his discovery from proving a pe-
 cuniary  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.  We should not have seen, for instance, in our
 own days, the posterity of Corneille and of La Fontaine reduced
 to subsist on alms, while the booksellers of  Paris  have been
 building palaces out of the sale of their Works.
   Immense landed property is still more injurious than that of
 money and of employments, because it deprives the  other citi-
 zens, at once, of the social and of the natural patriotism.  Be-
 sides, it comes in process of time into the possession of those who
 have the employments and the money ; it reduces all the subjects
 of the State to dependence  upon them, and leaves  them no re-
 source for subsistence but the cruel alternative of  degrading
 themselves by a base flattery of the passions of those  who have
 got all the power and wealth in  their hands, or of  going into
 exile.  These three causes combined, the last especially, pre-
 cipitated the ruin of the Roman Empire, from the reign of Tra-
jan, as Pliny has very justly  remarked.  They have already
 banished from  France more subjects than the revocation of the
 edict of Nantes.  When I was in Prussia, in the year 1765,  of
 the hundred and fifty thousand  regular troops which the King
 then maintained, a full third was computed to consist  of French
 deserters.   I by no means consider that number as exaggerated,
 for I myself remarked, that all the soldiers on guard, wherever
 I passed,  were  composed, to a third at least,  of Frenchmen;
 and such guards are to be found at the gates of all the cities,
 and in all the villages on the great road, especially toward the
 frontier.
   When I was in the Russian service, they reckoned  near three
 thousand teachers of language of our nation in the city of Mos-
 cow, among whom  I knew a great many persons of respectable 
STUDY XIII.
303
families, advocates, young ecclesiastics, gentlemen, and even of-
ficers.   Germany  is filled with our wretched compatriots.  In
the Courts of the South and of the North, what is to be seen but
French dancers  and comedians ? This we have  in common at
this day with the Italians, and this we had in common with the
Greeks of the lower empire.   In order to  find  the means of
subsistence, we hunt after a country different from that to which
we owe our birth.  We do not find the other nations of Europe
in this erratic state, except the Swiss, who trade in the  human
species, but who all return home after having made their for-
tune.  Our compatriots  never return;  because die precarious
employments which they pursue do not admit of their amassing
the means of a reputable subsistence, one day, in their native
country.
   Men of letters  who were never out of their country,  or who
reflect superficially, are constantly exclaiming against the revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes.  But if they imagine  that the
restoration of  that Edict would bring back  to France the pos-
terity of the French Refugees, they are greatly mistaken. Those
surely who are rich, and comfortably settled in foreign coun-
tries, will never think of  resigning their establishments, and of
returning to the country of their fathers : none but poor  Protes-
tants therefore would  come  back.  But what  should they do
there, when so many national Catholics  are under the necessity
of emigrating for want of subsistence ? I have been oftener than
once astonished at hearing our pretended politicians loudly re-
 demanding so many citizens  to religion, while, by their  silence,
they abandon such numbers of them to  the insatiable avidity of
our great proprietors.   The  truth ought to  be told:  they have
written rather out of  hatred to priests, than from love to men.
The spirit of tolerance which  they wish to establish, is a vain
pretext, with which they conceal  their real  aim ; for the Pro-
 testants whom they arc disposed to recal, are just as intolerant
 as they accuse the Catholics of being; of which we had an in-
stance  a  few years ago,  in the very Land of Liberty, in Eng-
land, where a Roman-Catholic Chapel was burnt down to the
 ground.  Intolerance is a vice of European education, and which
manifests itself in literature, in systems, and in puppet-shows.
 There  is a farther reason to be assigned for these clamours :  it
 is the same reason which sets them a-talking for the aggrandize 
304
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 ment of commerce, and silences them on the subject of agricul-
 ture, which is from it's very nature the  most noble of all occu-
 pations. It is, since we must speak out, because rich merchants
 and great proprietors give splendid suppers, which are attended
 by fine women, who build up  and destroy reputations at their
 pleasure, w hereas the tillers of the ground, and persons starved
 into exile, give none. The table is now-a-days the main-spring
 of the aristocracy of the opulent.   By means of this engine it is
 that an opinion, which may  sometimes  involve the  ruin of  a
 State, acquires  preponderancy. There too it is, that the honour
 of a soldier,  of a bishop, of a magistrate, of a man of letters, is
 frequendy blasted by a woman who has  forfeited her own.
   Modern politics have advanced another very gross  error, in
 alleging that riches  always find their level  in a state. When the
 indigent are once multip.ied in it to a certain point, a wretched
 emulation  is produced among those poor people who  shall give
 himself away the cheapest.   Whilst, on the one hand, the rich
 man, teazed by his famished compatriots for employment, over-
 rates the value  of his money, the poor, in order to obtain a pre-
 ference, let down the price of their labour, till at length it  be-
 comes inadequate to their subsistence.   And then we behold,
 in the best countries, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce,
 all expire.   Consult, for this  purpose, the accounts given us of
 different districts of Italy, and among others what Mr. Brydone
 has advanced, in  his very sensible Tour,* notwithstanding  the
 severe strictures of  a canon  of Palermo, respecting the luxury
 and extreme opulence of  the  Sicilian nobility and  clergy, and
 the abject misery of the peasantry ;  and you will perceive whe-
 ther money has found its level in that island or not.
   I have been in Malta, which is in no respect comparable, as to
 fertility of soil,  with Sicily7;  for it consists entirely of one white

  * I quote a great many books of travels, because, of all  literary produc-
tions, I love and esteem them the most. I myself have travelled a great deal,
 and I can affirm with  truth, that I  have almost  always found them agreed,
 respecting the productions and the manners of every country, unless when
 warped by national or party spirit.  We must however except a small number,
 whose romantic tone strikes at first sight. They are run down by every body,
yet ever) body consults them.  They afford a constant supply of information
to Geographers, Naturalists, Navigators, Traders, Political Writers, Philo-
 sophers, Compilers on all subjects, Historians of Foreign Nations, and even
 "hose of our own Country, when they are desirous of knowing the truth. 
                       STUDY XIII.                  305
rock ; but that rock is extremely rich in foreign wealth, from
the perpetual revenue of the commanderies of the Order of St.
John, the capitals of which are deposited in  all the Catholic
States  of Europe, and  from the reversions, or spoils,  of the
Knights who die in foreign countries, and which find their way
thidvr every year.  It might be rendered still more opulent by
the commodiousness of its harbour, which is situated the most
advantageously  of any  in  the  Mediterranean: the peasant  is
there nevertheless in  a  most miserable  condition.   His whole
clothing consists  of drawers, which  descend no lower than his
knees, and of a shirt without sleeves.   He sometimes takes his
stand in the great square, his breast, legs, and arms quite naked,
and scorched with the heat of the Sun, waiting for a fare, at the
rate of  one shilling a  day, with a carriage capable of holding-
four persons drawn by a horse,  from day-break till midnight;
and thus equipped,  to attend travellers to any part of the island
they think proper, without any obligation on their part to give
either him or his beast so much as a draught of water. He con-
ducts his calash, running always bare-footed over the rocks be-
fore his horse, which he leads by the bridle, and before the lazy
Knight, who hardly- ever deigns to speak to him, unless it be  to
regale him with the appellation of scoundrel;  whereas the guide
never presumes to make a reply but with cap in hand, and with
the address of, Your most Illustrious Lordship.  The treasury
of the Republic is filled with gold and silver, and the common
people are never paid but in a copper coin called a piece of four
tarins, equivalent, in ideal value, to  eightpence of  our money,
and intrinsically worth little more than two farthings.   It  is
stamped with this device, non as,  sed fides ;  " not value, but
" confidence."  What a difference do exclusive possessions, and
gold, introduce between man and man !  A grave porter in Hol-
land demands  of y7ou in gout geuldt, that is, good money, for
carrying your portmanteau the length of a  street,  as much  as
the humble Maltese Bastaze receives for carrying you and three
of your friends, a whole day together around the island.   The
Dutchman  is well clothed, and  has his pockets lined with good
pieces of gold and silver.   His coin presents a very  different in-
scription from that of Malta : you read these words on it: Con-
iordia res parva: crescunt; "through concord  small things in-
"' crease."  There  is in truth as great a difference  between the
   Vol. II.                   Qq 
306
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 power and the felicity of one State and another, as between the
 inscriptions and the substances of their coin.
   In Nature it is that w-e 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; such are, among others, the whale, cod, and her-
 ring fisheries.  I admit at the same time on  the present occa-
 sion, that there are enterprizes which  require the concurrence
 of a great number of hands, as well for their preservation and
 protection, as in order to accelerate their operations, such as the
 salt-water fisheries: but it is the business of the State to see to
 the adminstration of them.  No one of our companies has ever
 been actuated by the patriotic spirit; they have been associated,
 if I may be allowed  the expression,  only for the purpose of
 forming small particular States.   It  is not so with the Dutch.
 For example, as  they carry on the herring-fishery7 to the north-
 ward of Scotland, for this fish is always better the farther North
 you go in quest of it, they have ships of war to  protect the  fish-
 ery.  They have others of a very large burthen, called busses,
 employed night and day in catching them writh the  net: and
 others contrived to sail remarkably  fast, which  take them on
 board, and carry them quite fresh to Holland.  Besides  all this,
 they have premiums proposed to the vessel which first brings
 her cargo of fish to market at Amsterdam.  The fish of  the first
 barrel is paid at the Stadthouse, at the rate of a golden ducat,
 or about nine shillings and sixpence  a-piece,  and those of the
 rest of the cargo  at the rate of a florin, or one shilling and ten-
 pence each.
   This is a powerful inducement to the proprietors of the fish-
 ing vessels, to stretch out to the North as far as possible, in or-
 der to meet the fish, which are  there of a size  and of a delica-
 cy of flavour far superior to those  which are caught in the vici-
 nity of our coasts. The Dutch 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 they thought
justly,  that  the  citizen  who procures for his country-  a new
 source of subsistence, and a new branch of commerce, deserves
 '.o rank  widi those who enlighten, or who defend it. From such
 attentions as these we  see with what vigilance they watch over 
STUDY XIIL
307
every thing capable of contributing to public abundance.   It is
inconceivable to what good account they turn  an  infinite num-
ber of productions, which we suffer to run to waste, and this
from  a soil sandy, marshy, and naturally poor and ungrateful.
   I never knew a country in which there was such plenty of
every thing. They have no vines in the country,  and there are
more wines in their cellars than in those of Bourdeaux : they
have no forests, and there is more ship-building timber in their
dock-yards than at the sources of the Meuse and  of the Rhine,
from which their oaks are transmitted.   Holland  contains little
or no arable ground, and  her  granaries contain  more Polish
corn than that  great kingdom reserves for the support of its own
inhabitants. The same thing holds true as to articles of luxury ;
for though they observe extreme  simplicity in dress, furniture,
and domestic economy, there is  more marble on sale in their
magazines than lies cut in the quarries of Italy and of the Ar-
chipelago ; more diamonds and pearls in their caskets than in
those of the jewellers of Portugal ; and more rose-wood, Aca-
jou,  Sandal, and India canes than there are in all Europe be-
sides, though  their own country produces nothing but willows
and linden-trees.
  The felicity of the inhabitants presents a spectable  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 sin-
gle pane of glass  deficient.   But the 'Change of Amsterdam is
the great object of admiration.  It is a very large pile of build-
ing,  of an architecture abundantly- simple, the  quadrangular
court of which is surrounded by a colonade. Each of its pillars,
and they are very numerous, has  its chapiter inscribed with the
name of some one of the principal cities of the World,  as Con-
stantinople, Leghorn, Canton, Petersburg, Batavia, and so on ;
and is,  in  propriety of speech, the centre of its  commerce in
Europe.  Of these are very  few  but what every day witnesses
transactions to the amount of millions.   Most of the good peo-
ple who there  assemble are dressed in brown, and without ruf-
fles.   This contrast appeared  to me so much the more striking,
that only five  days before  I  happened to be upon the Palais
Roval  at  Paris, at the same  hour of the day-, which was then
crowded with  people dressed in brilliant colours, with gold and
rilver laces, and  prating about  nothings, the  opera, literature, 
308
STUDIES OF NATURE.
kept mistresses, and such contemptible trifles, andVho had not,
the greatest part of them at least, a single crown in their pocket
which they could call their own.
  We had with us a young tradesman of Nantes, whose affairs
had been unfortunately deranged, and who had come to seek an
asylum in Holland, where he did not know a single person. He
disclosed his situation to my travelling companion, a gentleman
of the name of Le Breton.   This Mr. Le Breton  was a Swiss
officer in the Dutch service, half soldier, half merchant, one of
the best men living, who first gave him encouragement, and re-
commended him  immediately  on his arrival to  his own  elder
brother, a respectable trader, w ho  boarded in the same  house
where he had fixed.  Mr. Le Breton the elder carried this un-
fortunate refugee  to the Exchange, and recommended him
without ceremony7, and  without humiliation, to a commercial
agent, who simply asked of the young Frenchman a specimen
of his hand-writing ; he then took down his name and address
in his pocket-book, and  desired him to return  next day to the
same place at the same  hour.   I did not fail  to observe the
assignation in company with  him and  Mr. Le Breton.  The
agent appeared, and presented  my compatriot with a list of se-
ven or eight situations  of clerk, in different counting-houses,
some of  which were worth  better  than thirty guineas a-year,
beside  board  and lodging;  and others, about sixty pounds
without board.  He was accordingly  settled at once, without
farther solicitation.  I asked the elder  Mr. Le Breton whence
came the active  vigilance of this agent in favour of a stranger,
and one entirely unknown to him : He replied; " It is his trade;
" he receives,  as an acknowledgment, one month's salary of the
" person for whom he provides. Do not be surprised at this,"
added he, " every  thing here is turned to a  commercial ac-
" count, from  an  odd old shoe up to  a squadron of ships."
  We must not suffer ourselves to be dazzled, however, by the
illusions ofa prodigious commerce ;  and here it is that our po-
litics have frequently misled us.  Trade and manufactures, we
are told, introduce millions into a State ; but the fine wools, the
dye-stuffs, the gold and silver, and the  other preparatives im-
ported 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 it's cloths 
STUDY XIII.                   309
had been of the lowest quality, they would have been at least
converted to their use.  The unlimited commerce ot a country
is adapted to a people  possessing an ungracious and contracted
territory, such as the Dutch; they export, not their own super-
fluity, but that of other nations ;  and they run no risk  of want-
ing necessaries, an evil which frequently  befals many7 territo-
rial powers.  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(  Examples of such abuses  might easily be  adduced from
Poland, from  Spain, and from other countries, which  pass for
the most regularly  governed.
   It is in agriculture chiefly that France ought to look for the
principal means of subsistence  for her inhabitants.  Besides
agriculture  is the great support of morals and religion.  It ren-
ders marriages  easy, necessary, and happy.   It contributes to-
ward raising a  numerous progeny, which it employs, almost as
soon  as  they are  able to crawl, in collecting the fruits of the
earth, or in tending the flocks and herds; but it bestows these
advantages  only on small landed properties.  We have already
said,  and it cannot be  repeated too irequentlv,  that small pos-
sessions  double  and quadruple in a country both  crops, and the
hands which gather  them.  Great estates, on the contrary, in
the hand of one  man, transform a country into vast solitudes.
They inspire the wealthy farmers w ith a relish  for city pride
 and luxury, and with a dislike of country employments.  Hence
 they place their daughters in convents, that they may be  bred
 as ladies, and send their sons to academies, to prepare them for
 becoming advocates or abbes.   They  rob  the  children of the
 trades-people of their resources ; for if the inhabitants of the
 country are always pressing toward an establishment in town.
 those of the great  towns never look toward the plains, because
 they are blighted by tallages and imposts.
   Great landed properties expose the  State to another dange-
 rous inconvenience, to which 1 do not  believe that much atten-
 tion has hitherto been paid.  The lands thus cultivated lie in
 fallow one year at  least in three, and in many cases, once even
 other year.  It must happen accordingly, as in every  thing left
 to chance,  that sometimes e,t eat quantities  of such land lie fa!- 
 310             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 low at once, and at other times very little.  In those years un-
 doubtedly when the greatest part of those lands is lying fallow,
 much less corn must be reaped over the kingdom at large than
 in other years.  This source of distress, which has never as far
 as I know as yet engaged the  attention of Government, is one
 of the causes of that dearth,  or  unforeseen scarcity-  of grain,
 which from time to time falls heavy 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
 management  of the winds, the rain, the Sun, the expansion of
 the 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,
 their distribution, and  their police demand.  I  consider this
 remark as of sufficient importance to evince the necessity of ap-
 pointing a particular Minister of agriculture.*   If it should be
 found impossible for him to prevent chance combinations in the
 lands which might be in fallow all at once, he would have it at
 least in his  power to prohibit the transportation of the grain of
 the country, in those years when the greatest part of  the land
 was in full  crop, for it  is clear almost to a demonstration, that
 the following 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  such vicissitudes ; they are
 every year  productive,  and almost at all seasons.   Compare, as

  * There are many other reasons which militate  in favour of the appoint-
 ment of a Minister  of Agriculture.  The  watering canals absorbed by the
 luxury of the great Lords,  or by tlie commerce of the great Towns ; the
 puddles and laystalls which  poison the \illages, and feed perpetual focuses
 of epidemic disease ; the safety of the great roads, and the regulation of the
 inns upon them ; the militia-draughts and  imposts of the peasantry ; the in-
justice to which they are in many cases subjected, without daring so much
 as to complain, these would  present to him a multitude  of useful establish-
 ments which might be made, or of abuses  which might be corrected. I am
 aware that most of these fauctions are apportioned into divers departments ;
 but it is impossible they should harmonize, and effectually co-operate, till
 'he responsibility attache* t® a single individual 
STUDY XIII.                    3.11
I have already suggested, the quantity of fruits, of roots, of pot-
herbs, of grass, and of grain annually reaped, and without inter-
mission, on a track of ground in the vicinity of Paris called the
Pre Saint-Gervais, the extent of which is but moderate, situated
besides on a declivity, and exposed to the North, with the pro-
ductions of an equal portion of ground taken in the plains of the
neighbourhood, and managed on  the great scale  of agriculture ;
and you will be sensible of a prodigious  difference.  There is
likewise a difference equally striking in  the number, and in the
moral character of the  labouring poor  who cultivate them.   I
have heard a respectable Ecclesiastic declare, that the former
class went  regularly to  confession once a month, and that fre-
quently their confession contained nothing which called for ab-
solution.
   I say nothing of the  endless variety7 of delight which results
from their labours ; from their beds of pinks, of violets, of  larks-
heel ;  their fields of  corn, of pease, of  pulse ; their edgings of
lilach, of vines, by which the  small possessions are subdivided:
their stripes of  meadow ground  displaying alternately opening
glades, clumps of willows and poplars discovering through their
moving umbrage, at  the distance of several leagues, either the
mountains melting away into  the horizon, or unknown castles,
or the village-spires in the plain,  whose rural chimes from time
to time catch the ear.   Here and there  you fall  in with a foun-
tain of limpid water,  the source  of which  is covered with  an
arch  enclosed on every side  with large slabs of stone, which
give  it the appearance of an antique monument.  I have some-
times read the following innocent inscriptions  traced on the
stones with a bit of charcoal:

           Colin and Colette, this 8th of March,
           Antoinette and Sebastian, this 6th of M:i\

And I have been  infinitely7 more delighted with such inscrip-
tions than with those of the Academy of Sciences.   When the
families which cultivate this enchanted spot are scattered about,
parents and children, through it's glens, and along it's ridges,
while the ear  is struck  with the distant voice  of a  country lass
singing unperceived,  or while the eye is caught  by the figure of
a Iustv young swain,  mounted on an apple-tree, with his basket
and ladder, looking this way and that way, and  listening to the 
312
STUDIES OF NATURE.
song, like another  Vertumnus:  Where is the park with it's sta-
tues, it's marbles, and it's bronzes, once to be compared with it ?
  O ye rich !  who wish to encompass yourselves with elysian
scenery, let your park-walls enclose villages blest with rural fe-
licity.   What deserted tracks of land over the whole kingdom
might  present the same  spectacle ! I have seen Brittany, and
other provinces, covered as far  as  the  eye  could reach with
heath,  and where nothing grew but a species of prickly furze,
black and yellowish.  Our agricultural companies,  which there
to no purpose employ their large ploughs of new construction,
have pronounced those regions to be smitten with perpetual ste-
rility ;  but these heaths  discover, by  the ancient  divisions of
the fields, and by the ruins of old huts and  fences, that they7
have been formerly in a state of cultivation.   They are  at this
day surrounded by farms in a thriving  condition,  on the self-
same soil.  How many others would be still more fruitful, such
as those of Bourdeaux, which are covered over with great pines!
A soil which produces a tall tree is surely capable of bearing an
ear of  corn.
  In speaking of the vegetable order, we have indicated the
means  of distinguishing the natural  analogies  of  plants with
each latitude and each soil.  There is  actually no soil whatever,
were it mere sand, or mud, on  which, through a  particular
kindness of Providence, some one  or other of our domestic
plants  may not thrive.  But the first step to be taken is to re-
sow the woods which formerly sheltered those places, now ex-
posed  to  the action of the winds, whereby the germ of every
smaller plant is cankered as it shoots.  These means however,
and  many others of a similar nature, belong not to the jurisdic-
tion of insatiable companies, with their delineations on the great
scale,  neither are they- consistent with  provincial imposts and
oppression ; they depend on  the  local and patient assiduity  of
families enjoying liberty, possessing property which they can
call their own, not subjected  to  petty ty-rants, but holding im-
mediately of the Sovereign.   By such patriotic means as these
the Dutch have forced oaks to grow at Schevelling, a village  in
the neighbourhood of the Hague, in  pure sea-land,  of which I
have had the evidence from my own  eyes.  I repeat an asser-
tion already hazarded :   It is  not  on  the face of vast domains,
but into the basket of the vintager, and the apron of the reaper, 
STUDY XIII.
313
that God pours down from Heaven the precious fruits of the
Earth.
   These extensive districts of land in the kingdom lying totally
useless, have attracted the attention  of sordid cupidity ; but
there is a still greater quantity which has escaped it, from the
impossibility of forming such tracks into marquisates or seigno-
ries ; and because likewise the great plough is not at all appli-
cable to them. Thf se are, among others, the stripes by the high-
way side, which are innumerable.   Our great roads are, I ad-
mit, for the  most part rendered productive, being skirted with
elms. The elm is undoubtedly a very useful tree : it's wood is
proper for cart-wright's work. But we have  a  tree which is far
preferable to it, because it's wood is  never  attacked by the
insect; it is excellent for  wainscotting, and it produces abun-
dance of very nutrimental food : it is the chesnut-tree I mean.
A judgment may be formed of the duration and of  the beauty
of  it's wood, from the ancient wainscotting of the  market St.
Germain, before it was burnt down.  The joists were of a pro-
digious length and  thickness, and perfectly sound though more
than four hundred years old.  The  durable quality of this wood
may still be ascertained, by examining the wainscotting of the
ancient  castle of Marcoussi, built  in the  time of Charles VI.
about five leagues from  Paris.   We have of  late entirely ne-
glected this valuable tree, which is now allowed to grow only as
coppice wood in our forests.   It's  port however is very majes-
tic, it's  foliage beautiful, and it bears such a quantity of fruit, in
tiers multiplie€ one a-top of the other, that no spot of the same
extent sown with corn, could produce a crop of subsistence so
plentiful.*
   It must be admitted, as  we have seen, in discussing the cha-
racters of  vegetables, that this tree takes pleasure only- in dry
and elevated situations;  but we have another adapted to the
valleys and humid places, of not much inferior utility, whether
we attend to the wood or to the fruit, and whose port is equally
majestic :  it is the walnut-tree.  These beautiful trees would
magnificendy decorate our great  roads.   With  them might

  '  The chesnut of America, though I think specifically different from that
of Europe, is also a tree of great importance. It was, for a long time, much
neglected by us : but it has, at length, begun to solicit both attention and
protection from our farmers, &c—B. S. B.
  Vol. II.                    Rr 
 314             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 likewise be intermixed  other  trees peculiar  to  each district.
 They would announce to travellers the various provinces of the
 kingdom : the vine, Burgundy ; the apple-tree, Normandy ; the
 mulberry, Dauphiny ; the olive, Provence. Their stems loaded
 with  produce, would determine  much better than stakes fur-
 nished  with iron collars, and  than the tremendous gibbets of
 criminal justice, the limits of each province, and the gently di-
 versified seignories of Nature.
   It  may be objected, that the crops would be gathered by
 passengers ; but they hardly ever  touch the grapes  in the vine-
 yards which sometimes skirt the highway.  Besides if they were
 to pick  the fruit, what harm would be done ? When  the King of
 Prussia ordered the sides of many of the great roads through
 Pomerania to be planted with  fruit-trees, it was insinuated to
 him that the fruit would be stolen  : " The  people," replied he,
 " at least will profit by it."  Our cross-roads present perhaps
 still more lost ground than the great highways. If it is considered,
 that by  means of them the  communication  is kept up between
 the smaller cities, towns, villages, hamlets, abbeys,  castles, and
 even single country-houses ;  that several of them issue in the
 same  place, and  that every one must have at least  the breadth
 of a chariot; Ave  shall find the  whole space which they occupy
 to be of incredible magnitude.  It  would be proper to begin
 with applying the line to them  ; for most of them proceed in a
 serpentine direction, which in many cases  adds  a full third to
 their length beyond what is necessary.  I acknowledge at the
 same  time, that theset sinuosities are highly agreeable, especially
 along the declivity of  a  hill, over the ridge of a mountain, in
 rural situations, or through the midst of forests. But they might
 be  rendered susceptible of another kind of beauty,  by skirting
 them  with fruit-trees  which do not rise to a great height,  and
 which, flying off in perspective, would give a greater apparent
 extension to the landscape.  These trees would likewise  afford
 a shade  to travellers.   The husbandmen I know allege, that the
 shade so  grateful to  passengers, is injurious to  their standing
 corn.  They are undoubtedly in the right, as to several sorts of
grain; but there are some which thrive better in places somewhat
shaded than any where else, as may be seen in the Pre Saint
Gervais.   Besides, the farmer would be amply indemnified by
the wood of the fruit-trees, and bv the crops of fruit.  The )n- 
STUDY XIII.                   315
terests even of the husbandman and of the traveller might farther
be rendered compatible, by planting only the roads which  go
from  North to South, and the south side of those which run
East and West, so that the shade of their  trees should scarcely
fall on the arable lands.
   It would  be moreover necessary, in order to increase the na-
tional subsistence, to restore  to the plough great quantities of
land now in pasture.  There  is hardly  such a thing as a mea-
dow in all China, a country so extremely populous.  The Chi-
nese sow every where  corn and rice, and feed their cattle with
the straw.   They say7 it is better that the beasts should live with
Man, than Man with the beasts.  The cattle are not the less fat
for this.   The German horses, the  most -vigorous of animals,
feed entirely on straw  cut short, with a small mixture of barley
or oats.  Our farmers are every  day adopting practices the
direcdy  contrary of this economy.  They  turn, as I have ob-
served 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 tithe, which their cler-
gy do  not receive from pasture-lands.   I  have seen in Lower
Normandy  immense quantities of land, thus forced out of it's
natural state,  greatly to  the public  detriment.  The following
anecdote was told me, on my  taking notice  of an ancient track
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 all  the activity of which it
is susceptible unless it is restored to it's native dignity.  Means
ought therefore to be employed to induce a multitude of easy
and idle burghers, who  vegetate in our small cities, to go and
live in the  country.    In order to determine them to this, hus-
bandmen ought to  be exempted from  the humiliating imposi- 
316
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 tions of tallage, of seignorial  exactions, and even of those of
 the militia-service, to which they  are  at  present  subjected.
 The state must undoubtedly be served, when necessity requires;
 but wherefore affix characters of humiliation to the services
 which she imposes 1 Why not accept a commutation in money ?
 It would require a great  deal, our Politicians tell us.  Yes, un-
 doubtedly.   But do not our Burgesses likewise  pay many im-
 posts in our towns, in lieu of these very  services ? Besides, the
 more inhabitants that there  are  scattered over the country, the
 lighter will fall the  burthen on those who are assessable.   A
 man properly brought up, would much rather be  touched in his
 purse, than suffer in his self-love.
   By what fatal contradiction have  we  subjected the greatest
 part of the lands of France to soccage-tenures, while we have
 ennobled those of the  New  World ? The same husbandman
 who in France must pay tallage, and go with the pick-axe in his
 hand to labour on the high-road, may introduce his children in-
 to the King's Household, provided he is an inhabitant of  one
 of the West-India  Islands.   This  injudicious dispensation of
 nobility has  proved no less fatal to those  foreign possessions,
 into which it has introduced  slavery, than  to the  lands of the
 Mother-Country, the labourers of which  it has drained of many
 of their resources.  Nature invited  into the  wildernesses  of
 America the overflowings  of the European Nations: she had
 there disposed every thing,  with an  attention truly maternal, to
 indemnify the Europeans for the loss of their country.   There
 is no necessity7, in those regions, for a man to scorch himself in
 the Sun while he reaps his grain, nor to be benumbed with  cold
 in tending his flocks as  they feed, nor to  cleave the stubborn
 earth v/ith the clumsy  plough to make it produce aliment for
 him, nor to rake into it's bowels to  extract from thence 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 hu-
 man life.  She has there  deposited milk and butter in the nuts
 of the cocoa-tree; perfumed creams in the apples of the atte;
 table linen and provision in  the large  sattiny leaves, and in the
 delicious figs, of the banana ;  loaves ready for the fire  in the
potatoes, and  the  roots of the manioc;  down finer  than  the
wool of the fleecy sheep in the shell of the cotton  plant; dishes 
STUDY XIII.                   317
 of every form in the  gourds of the calabasse.  She had there
 contrived habitations, impenetrable by the rain and by the rays
 of the Sun, under the  thick  branches  of the Indian fig-tree,
 which rising toward Heaven, and afterwards  descending down
 to the ground where they  take root, form by their continued
 arcades palaces  of verdure.  She had scattered about, for the
 purposes at once of delight and of commerce, along the  rivers,
 in the bosom of the rocks, and in the very bed of torrents, the
 maize, the sugar-cane, the chocolate-nut, the tobacco-plant, with
 a multitude of 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 it's future  inhabitants to
 adopt, in their favour, the coffee-plant, the indigo, and the other
 most valuable vegetable productions of  Africa  and of Asia.
 Wherefore has the ambition of Europe inundated those  happy
 climates with the tears  and the blood of the human race ? 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, and to the happy temperature of
 the tropical regions!
   No fogs  or excessive heats are there to  be dreaded; and
 though the Sun passes twice a year over their Zenith, he every
 day brings with him, as he rises above the Horizon, along the
 surface of the Sea, a cooling breeze which all day long refreshes
 the mountains, the  forests, and  the valleys.   What delicious
 retreats might our poor  soldiers and possessionless 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 vir-
 tuous citizens! What nurseries of excellent seamen  might be
 formed by the turtle-fishery, so abundant on the shallows sur-
 rounding the islands, or by the still more extensive and profita-
 ble cod-fishery on the banks of Newfoundland!  It would not
 have  cost  Europe much more than  the expense of the setde-
 ment of the first families.  With  what facility might they have
been  successively 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!  Undoubt-
edly had  this natural  progression been  adopted, our power 
318
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 would at this day have extended to the very centre of the Ame-
 rican Continent, and could have bidden defiance to every attack.
   Government has been taught to believe that the independence
 of our colonies would be a necessary consequence of their pros-
 perity, and the case of the Anglo-American colonies has been
 adduced in proof of this.   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.   Britain was be-
 sides guilty of a great error, by introducing too great a mixture
 of strangers among her colonists.   There is farther a remarka-
 ble difference between the genius  of the English and ours. The
 Englishman carries his country with him wherever he goes : if
 he is making a fortune abroad,  he embellishes his habitation in
 the place where he  is settled, introduces  the manufactures of
 his own Nation into it, there he lives, and there he dies; or if
 he returns to his country, he fixes his residence near the place
 of his birth.  The Frenchman  does not feel in the same man-
 ner : all those whom I have seen in the Islands, always consider
 themselves as strangers  there.   During  a twenty years resi-
 dence in one habitation they will not  plant a single tree before
 the door of the house, for the benefit of enjoying it's shade ;  to
 hear them talk, they are all  on the wing to depart next  year at
 farthest.   If they actually happen  to acquire  a fortune away
 they go, nay frequently without having made any thing, and on
 their feturn home settle, not in  their native province or village,
 but at Paris.
   This is not the place to unfold the cause of that national aver-
 sion  to the place of birth, and of  that predilection in favour of
 the Capital;  it is an effect of several moral causes,  and  among
 others of education.  Be it as it may, this turn of mind is alone
 sufficient to  prevent for ever the independence of our colonies.
 The  enormous expense of preserving them, and the facility with
which they are captured, ought to have cured us of this preju-
 dice.  They are all in such a state of weakness, that if their
 commerce with the  Mother-country were to be interrupted but
 for a few years, they would presently be distressed for want  of
many articles essentially7 necessary.  It is even singularly re-
markable, that they do not manufacture there a single production
of the country.  They raise cotton of the very finest quality. 
STUDY XIII.
319
but make no cloth of it as in Europe; they do not so much as
practice the art of spinning it, as the savages do; nor do they,
like them, turn to any account the threads of pitte, of those of
the banana, or of the leaves of the palmist.   The cocoa-tree,
which is a treasure to the East-Indies, comes to great perfection
in our islands, and scarcely any use is made of the fruit, or of
the threaden husk that covers it.  They cultivate indigo, but
employ  it in no process whatever of dying.   Sugar then is the
only article of produce which is there pursued through the seve-
ral necessary processes, because  it cannot be turned to commer-
cial account till it is manufactured ; and after all it must be re-
fined in  Europe before it attains a state of full perfection.
   We have had, it must be admitted, some seditious  insurrec-
tions in  our Colonies ;  but these have been much more frequent
in their state of weakness than in that of their opulence.  It is
the injudicious choice of the persons sent thither which has 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 promoting the
peace and prosperity of a rising community ?  The Greeks and
Romans employed the  flower of their youth, and their  most vir-
tuous  citizens, in the plantation of their  colonies : and they be-
came themselves kingdoms and empires.  Far different is the
case with us;  bachelor-soldiers, seamen, gownmen, and those
of every rank ; officers of the higher orders,  so numerous and
so useless, have filled ours with the passions of Europe, with a
rage for fashion, with unprofitable luxury, with corruptive max-
ims and licentious manners.   Nothing  of this kind was to be
apprehended from our undebauched peasantry.  Bodily labour
soothes  to rest the solicitudes of the mind, fixes it's natural rest-
lessness, and promotes among the people health, patriotism, re-
ligion and happiness.   But admitting that in process of time
these  Colonies should be separated from France : Did Greece
waste herself in tears when her flourishing Colonies carried  her
laws and her  renown over the coasts of Asia, and along  the
shores of the Euxine Sea, and of the Mediterranean ? Did  she
take the alarm when they became the stems out of which sprung
powerful kingdoms and illustrious republics ?  Because they se-
parated  from her  were they transformed into her enemies : and
was she not,  on  the  contrary, frequently protected by them ? 
320
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 What harm would have  ensued had shoots  from the tree of
 France borne  lilies in America, and shaded the New World
 with their majestic 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  Sovereign quickly disappear.
 Our Politicians, by keeping the Colonies in a perpetual state of
 dependence, of agitation and penury, have discovered ignorance
 of the nature of Man, who attaches himself to the place which
 he inhabits only by the ties of the felicity which he enjoys.   By
 introducing into them the slavery of the  Negroes, they have
 formed a  connexion between them and Africa, and have broken
 asunder that which  ought to have  united them to their poor
 fellow-citizens.  They have farther discovered ignorance of the
 European character, which is continually apprehensive, under a
 warm  climate, of seeing it's blood degraded like that of  it's
 slaves; and which  sighs incessantly after new alliances with it's
 compatriots, for keeping up in the veins of those little ones  the
 circulation of the clear, and lively colour of the European blood,
 and the sentiment  of country still more interesting.   By giving
 them perpetually new civil and military rulers, magistrates en-
 tire strangers to them,  who  keep them under  a severe y7oke;
 men, in a word, eager to accumulate fortune, they have betray-
 ed ignorance of the  French character, which had no need of
 such barriers to restrain it  to the love of country, seeing it is
 universally7 regretting it's productions, it's honours, nay it's very
 disorders.  They  have accordingly succeeded neither in form-
 ing colonists for America, nor patriots for France; and they
have mistaken at once the interests of their Nation and of their
 Sovereigns, whom they meant to  serve.
  I have dwelt the longer on the subject of these abuses, that
they are not yet beyond the power of remedy in various respects,
and  that  there are still lands in  the New World on which a
change may be attempted in the  nature of our establishments.
But  this  is neither the  time nor the place  for  unfolding  the
means of these.  After having proposed some remedies for the
physical disorders  of the Nation, let  us now proceed to the mo-
ral irregularity which  is the source of them.   The principal
cause is the spirit  of division which prevails between the diffe- 
STUDY XIII.
321
vent orders of the State.   There are only two methods of cure;
the first, to extinguish the motives to division, the second to mul-
tiply and increase the motives to union.
   The greatest part of our Writers  make  a boast of our na-
tional spirit of society; and foreigners in reality look upon it as
the most sociable in Europe.   Foreigners are  in the  right, for
the truth is we receive and caress them with ardor; but our
Writers are under  a mistake.  Shall I  venture to expose it?
We are thus fond of strangers because we do not love our com*
patriots.   For my own part I  have never met with this spirit of
union either in families or in  associations, or in natives  of the
same province ; I except only the inhabitants of a single province
which I must not name; who as soon as they are got a little from
home,  express the  greatest ardor of affection for each other,
But as all the  truth must out,  it is rather from  antipathy to the
other inhabitants of the kingdom  than from love to their com-
patriots, for, from time immemorial, that province has been ce-
lebrated for intestine  divisions.   In  general, the  real spirit of
patriotism, which is the first sentiment of humanity, is  very rare
in Europe, and particularly among ourselves.
   Without carrying this reasoning  any farther, let us look for
proofs of the fact which are level to every capacity.  When we
read certain relations of the customs and manners of the Nations
of Asia, we  are touched with the sentiment  of humanitv, which
among them attracts men to  each other, notwithstanding the
phlegmatic taciturnity which reigns in their assemblies.  If, for
example, an Asiatic on a  journey  stops to enjoy- his repast, his
servants and camel-driver collect around him, and place them-
selves at his table.  If a stranger happens to pass by, he too sits
down with him, and after having made an inclination  of the
head to the master of the family, and given God thanks, he
rises and  goes on his way,  without being  interrogated by any-
one who he  is, whence he comes,  or w hither  he  goes.  This
hospitable practice  is common to  the Armenians, to the Geor-
gians, to the  Turks, to the Persians, to the Siamese,  to the
Blacks of Madagascar, and to different Nations of Africa and
of 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 there are a dozen tables spread, should twelve
persons arrive one after another, vou  see each of them take his
   Vol. II.                   S s 
322
STUDIES OF NATURE.
place apart at a separate table, without uttering a syllable,  if
new guests did not successively come in, each of the first twelve
would tat his morsel alone, like a Carthusian monk.  For some
time  a  profound  silence  prevails,  till some thoughtless fellow
put into good humor by his dinner, and pressed by an inclina-
tion to  talk, takes upon him to set the conversation a-going.
Upon this the eyes of the whole company are drawn toward the
orator,  and he is measured in  a twinkling from head to foot,
If he has  the air of a person of consequence, that is rich, they
give him the hearing.    Nay he finds persons disposed to flatter
him, by confirming his  intelligence, and applauding his  literary
opinion, or his loose maxim.   But if his appearance displays no
mark of extraordinary distinction, had he delivered sentiments
worthy  of a Socrates, scarce has he proceeded to the opening of
his thesis when some one interrupts him with a flat contradic-
tion.  His opponents are contradicted in their turn by other wits
who  think proper to enter the lists; then the  conversation be-
comes g.neral and noisy-.  Sarcasms, harsh names, perfidious
insinuations, gross abuse, usualL  conclude the sitting ; and each
of the guests retires  perfectly well-pleased with himself,  and
with a hearty contempt for the rest.
   You find the same scenes acted in our coffee-houses, and on
our public walks.  Men go thither expressly to hunt  for admi-
ration,  and to play the critic.  It is not the  spirit of Society
which allures us toward each  other,  but the spirit of  division.
In what is called good company matters  is still worse mana-
ged.  If  y7ou mean to  be well received  you must pay7 for your
dinner at  the expense of the family with whom you supped the
night before.  Nay you may think yourself very well  off if it
costs you only a few scandalous anecdotes  ; and if, in order to
be well with the husband, you are not obliged to bubble him, by
making love to his wife !
   The  original source  of these divisions is to be traced up to
our mode of education. We are taught from earliest infancy to
prefer ourselves to others, by continued suggestions to be the
first among our school-companions.   As this unprofitable emu-
lation presents not to far the  greatest part of the citizens, any
career to be performed on the theatre  of  the  World,  each of
them assumes a  preference from his province, his birth, his
rank, his figure,  his dress, nay the tutelary saint of his parish. 
STUDY XIII.

Hence proceed our social animosities, and all the insulting nick-
names given by the Norman to the Gascogn, by the Parisian to
the Champenois, by the man of family to the man of no family,
by the Lawyer to the Ecclesiastic, by the Jansenist to the Mo-
linist, and so on. The man asserts his pre-eminence, especially,
by opposing his own good qualities  to  the faults  of his neigh-
bour.  This is the reason that slander is so  easy, so agreeable,
and that it is in general the master-spring of our conversations.
  A person of high quality one day said to me, that there  did
not exist a man, however wretched, whom he did not find su-
perior to himself in respect of some advantage whereby he sur-
passes  persons of  our condition, whether  it be as to youth,
health, talents, figure, or in short some one good quality or  an-
other, whatever our superiority in other respects may  be. This
is literally true ; but this manner of viewing the members of a
Society belongs to the  province of virtue,  and that is  not ours.
The contrary maxim being equally true, our pride lays hold of
that, and  finds a determination to it from  the manners of  the
World, and from our very education, which from infancy sug-
gests the necessity of this personal preference.
  Our public spectacles farther  concur  toward  the increase of
the spirit of division among us.  Our most celebrated comedies
usually represent tutors cozened by their pupils, fathers bv their
children, husbands  by their wives, masters by  their servants.
The shows of the populace exhibit nearly  the  same pictures ;
and as if they were not already sufficiently disposed to irregula-
rity, they are presented with scenes of intoxication, of lewdness,
of robbery, of constables drubbed :  these instruct them to  un-
dervalue  at once morals and magistrates.   Spectacles draw to-
gether the bodies of the citizens, and alienate their minds.
  Comedy,  we are  told, cures vice by the power of ridicule ;
castigat ridendo mores.  This adage is  equally false with  many
others which are  made the basis of our morality.  Comedy-
teaches us to laugh at another, and nothing more. No one says,
when the representation is over, the portrait of this miser has a
strong resemblance of myself; but every one instantly discerns
in it the image and  likeness of his neighbour.  It is long since
Horace made this remark*   But on  the supposition that a nun
should perceive himself in th  dramatic representation, I do  not
perceive how the reformation ot vice would  ensue.  How  comd 
324
STUDIES OF NATURE.
it be imagined that the way for a physician to cure his patient,
would be to clap a mirror before his face, and then laugh at him ?
If my vice is held up as an object of ridicule, the laugh, so far
from  giving me  a  disgust at it, plunges me in the deeper.  I
employ- every effort to conceal it; I become a hypocrite :  with-
out taking  into the  account,  that the laugh is much more fre-
quently levelled against virtue than against  vice.  It is not the
faithless wife, or profligate son, who is held up to scorn, but the
good-natured husband or the indulgent father. In justification of
our own taste we refer to that of the Greeks ; but we forget that
their idle  spectacles directed  the public attention to the  most
frivolous objects ; that their stage frequently turned into ridicule
the virtue of the most illustrious citizens ;  and that their scenic
exhibitions multiplied among them the aversions and the jealou-
sies which accelerated their ruin.
   Not that  I would represent laughing as a crime, or that I be-
lieve, with  Hobbes,  it  must  proceed from pride.    Children
laugh, but most assuredly not from pride.   They laugh at sight
of a flower, at the sound of a rattle.   There is a laugh of joy,
of satisfaction, of composure.   But ridicule differs widely from
the smile  of Nature.   It is not, like this last, the effect of some
agreeable  harmony in our sensations, or in our sentiments :  but
it is the result of a harsh contrast between two objects, of which
the one is great, the other  little ; of which  the one is powerful
and the other feeble.   It is remarkably singular that ridicule is
produced  by the very- same oppositions which produce terror ;
with this difference, that in ridicule the mind makes a transition
from an object that is formidable to one that is frivolous, and in
terror, from an object that is frivolous to one that is formida-
ble.   The aspic of Cleopatra in a basket of fruit; the fingers of
the hand which wrote, amidst the  madness of a festivity, the
doom of Belshazzar; the sound of the bell which announces the
death of Clarissa;  the foot  of a savage imprinted  in a desert
island upon the sand, scare the imagination infinitely more than
all the horrid apparatus of  battles,  executions, massacres, and
death.   Accordingly,  in order to  impress an  awful terror, a
frivolous  and unimportant object ought to be  first  exhibited;
and in order to excite excessive mirth, you ought to  begin with
a solemn idea.   To this may be farther added some other con-
trast, sugIi as that of surprize,  and some one of those sentiments 
STUDY XIII.
325
which plunge us into infinity, such as that of mystery ;  in this
case the soul, having lost it's equilibrium, precipitates itself into
terror, or into mirth, according to the arrangement which has
been made for it.
  We frequently see these contrary effects produced by the same
means.   For example, if the  nurse  wants her child to laugh,
she shrowds her head in her apron ; upon this the  infant be-  «
comes serious; then all  at  once she shews her face,  and he
bursts into a fit of laughter. If she means to terrify him, which
is but too frequently the case, she first smiles upon the child,
and he returns it:  then all at once she assumes a serious air, or
conceals her face, and the child falls  a-crying.
  I shall not say a word more respecting these violent opposi-
tions, but shall only adduce this consequence  from them, that it
is the most wretched part of Mankind which has the greatest
propensity to ridicule.   Terrified by politkal and moral phan-
toms, they endeavour first of all to drown respect for them ; and
it is no difficult  matter  to succeed in this: for Nature, always
at hand to succour oppressed humanity,  has blended in most
things of human institution, the effusions of ridicule with those
of terror.   The  only thing requisite  is to invert the objects of
their comparison.   It was thus that Aristophanes, by his come-
dy of The Clouds, subverted the religion of his country. Attend
to the behaviour of lads at college ;  the presence of the  master
at first sets them a-trembling: What contrivance do they employ
to familiarize themselves to his idea ? They try to turn him into
ridicule, an effort  in which  they commonly succeed to admira-
tion.  The love of ridicule in a people is by no means there-
fore a proof of their happiness, but on the contrary- of their  mi-
sery.  This accounts for the  gravity- of the ancient Romans;
they were serious, because  they were happy: but their descen-
dants, who are at this day very miserable,  are likewise  famous
for their  pasquinades, and  supply all Europe with harlequins
and buffoons.
  I do not deny that spectacles, such as  tragedies, may have a
tendency to unite the citizens.  The Greeks frequently- employ-
ed 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
themstives had endured, and events borrowed from the Historv 
 326            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 of their own country.  Our tragedies excite a compassion whose
 object is foreign to us.  We lament the distresses of the family
 of Agamemnon, and we behold without shedding one tear those
 who are in the depth of misery at our very door.   We do not
 so much as perceive their distresses, because they  are not ex-
 hibited on a stage.  Our own heroes nevertheless well repre-
 sented in the theatre, would be sufficient to carry the patriotism
 of the people to the very height of enthusiasm.   What crowds
 of spectators have been attracted, and what bursts of applause
 excited, by the heroism of Eustace Saint-Pierre, in the Siege of
 Calais ! The death of Joan of Arc  would produce effects still
 more powerful, if a man of genius had the courage to efface the
 ridicule which  has been lavished on that respectable and unfor-
 tunate young woman, to whose name Greece would have  con-
 secrated altar upon altar.
   I will deliver my thoughts on the subject,  in a  few words,
 if perhaps it  may incite  some  virtuous man to undertake
 it.  I could wish them without  departing from  the  truth of
 History, to have her  represented at the  moment when she is
 honoured with  the favour of her Sovereign, the  acclamations of
 the army, and at the very pinnacle of glory, deliberating on her
 return to an obscure hamlet, there to resume the employments of
 a  simple  shepherdess,  unnoticed and unknown.  Solicited af-
 terwards by Dunois,  she  determines to brave new dangers in
 the service of her country.   At  last, made prisoner in an en-
 gagement, she falls into the hands of the English. Interrogated
 by inhuman judges, among whom are the Bishops of her own
 Nation, the simplicity and innocence of her replies render her
 triumphant over the insidious questions of her enemies.  She is
 adjudged by them to perpetual imprisonment.  I  would have a
 representation of the  dungeon in which she is doomed to  pass
 the remainder of her miserable days, with it's  long spiracles, it's
 iron grates, it's massy arches, the wretched truckle-bed provided
 for her repose, the cruise of water  and the black bread which
 are to serve her  for  food.  I  would draw from her own lips
the touchingly plaintive reflections suggested  by her condition,
on the nothingness of human grandeur, her innocent expressions
of regret for the loss of rural  felicity ; and then the gleams of
hope of being relieved by her Prince, extinguished by despair at
sight of the fearful abvss which has  closed over  her head. 
STUDY XIII.                  32r
  I would then display the snare laid for her by her perfidious
enemies  while she was asleep, in placing by her side the arms
with which she had combatted them.  She  perceives on awak-
ening those monuments of  her glory.  Hurried away  by the
passion at  once of a woman and of a hero, she covers her head
with the helmet, the plume of which had shewn the dispirited
French army the road to victory ; she grasps with  her feeble
hands that sword so formidable to the English; and at the in-
stant when the  sentiment of her own glory is making her eyes
to overflow with tears of exultation, her dastardly foes sudden-
ly present  themselves, and  unanimously  condemn  her to the
most horrible of deaths.  Then it is we should behold  a spec-
tacle worthy of the attention of Heaven itself, virtue conflicting
with extreme misery ;  we should hear her bitter complaints of
the indifference of her Sovereign whom she had so nobly serv-
ed ;  we should see her perturbation at the  idea of  the horrid
punishment prepared  for her,  and still  more at the apprehen-
sion of the calumny which is for ever  to sully her reputation ;
we should hear her, amidst conflicts so  tremendous, calling in
question the existence of a Providence, the protector of the
innocent.
  To death at  last however walk out she must.   At that mo-
ment it is I could wish to see all her courage rekindle. I would
have her represented on the funeral pile, where she is going to
terminate  her  days, looking  down on the empty hopes with
which the  World amuses those  who serve it;  exulting at the
thought of the  everlasting infamy with  which her death will
clothe her enemies, and of the immortal glory which  will for
ever crown the place of her birth, and even that of her execu-
tion.   I  could  wish that her last words, animated by Religipn,
might be more sublime than those of Dido,  when she exclaims
on  the fatal  pile:—Exoriare  aliquis nostris  ex  ossibus ultor.
" Start up some dire avenger from these bones."
  I could wish, in a word, that this subject, treated by a man
of genius, after the manner of Shakespeare,* which undoubted-

  * The compliment here paid to Shakespeare is justly merited;  and how
well he  could have managed the story of the Maid of Orleans, had he taken
the incidents as St. Pierre has stated them, ant! written with the partiality of
a Frenchman, may be ascertained by the masterly touches which he actually
has bestowed on this distinguishcu character, in  his First Part of Henry VI. 
328             STUDIES OF NATURE.

ly he would not have failed to do had Joan of Arc been an Eng-
lish-woman, might be  wrought up into a patriotic  Drama; in
order that this illustrious shepherdess may become with us the
patroness of War, as Saint Genevieve is that of Peace ; I wo aid
have the representation of her tragedy reserved for the perilous
situations in which  the State might happen to be involved, and
then exhibited  to the people, as they display, in similar  cases,

It may afford some amusement to compare the above prose sketch by our
Author, with the poetical  painting of our immortal Bard, in the Drama now
mentioned.  I take the liberty to transcribe only the scene in which the au-
dience is prepared for  her entrance, and that in which  she actually makes
her appearance.  For the rest, the Reader is referred to the Play itself.—H. II

    Enter the Bastard of Orleans to the Dauphin, Alencon, and
                            Reignier.               ..

      Bast. Where's the Prince Dauphin ? I have news  for him.
      Dau. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.
      Bast. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd ;
    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence ?
    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand :
    A holy maid hither with me 1 bring,
    Which, by a vision  sent to her from Heaven,
    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege,
    And drive the English forth the bounds of P'rance
    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,
    Exceeding the nine Sybils  of old Rome ;
    What's past, and what's to  come, she can descry.
    Speak, shall I call her in ? Believe my words,
    For they are certain and infallible.
      Dau. Go,  call her in: But first, to try her skill,
    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place :
    Question her proudly, let thy looks be stern ;
    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.

                     Enter Joan la Pucelle

      Heig. Fair maid, is't thou will do these wond'rous feats :
      Pucd. Reignier, is't thou that thinkest to beguile me r
    Where is the Dauphin ?—Come, come from behind !
    I know thee well, though never seen before.
    Be not amazed, there's nothing hid from me :
    In private will I talk with thee apart j—
    >tand back, you Lords, and give us leave awhile.
      Hdg. She takes  upon her bravely at first dash.
      Puce!. Dauphin, I  am by birth a shepherd's daughter,
    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
    Heaven, and -jut Lad}- gracious, hath it pleas'd 
STUDY XIII.
329
 to the people of Constantinople, the standard of Mahomet;  and
I have no doubt that, at sight of her innocence, of her services,
of her misfortunes, of the cruelty of her enemies and of the hor-
rors of  her execution, our people, in a transport of fury would
exclaim:  " War, war with the English !" *
  Such  means as these, though more powerful than draughts for
the militia,  and  than either pressing  or tricking  men into the

    To shine on my contemptible estate :
    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs,
    And to Sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,
    God's mother deigned to appear to me ;
    And, in a vision full of majesty,
    Will'd me to leave my base vocation,
    And free  my country from calamity :
    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success :
    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;
    And,  whereas I was black and swart before,
    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me,
    That beauty am I blest with, which you see on mc.
    Ask me what question thou canst possible,
    And I will answer unpremeditated :
    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,
    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.
    Resolve on this :  Thou shalt be fortunate
    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.
—Assign'd I am to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly I'll raise :
Expect Saint Martin's Summer,  halcyon days,
Since 1 have enter'd thus into these wars.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceases to enlarge itself,
'Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought
With Henry's death the English circle ends ;
Dispersed are the glories it included.
Now am I like that proud insulting ship,
Which  Cesar and his fortune bare at once.
  * God forbid I should mean to rouse a spirit of animosity in our people a-
gainst the English,  now so worthy of all our esteem.  But as their Writers,
and even their Government, have in more instances than one, descended to
exhibit odious representations of  vis on their stage, I was willing to shew
them how easily we could make reprisals. Rather, may the genius of Fene-
lon which they  prize so highly, that one  of their most ami vble fine writers,
Lord Littleton, exalts it above that of Plato, one  day unite our hearts and
minds !
  Vol. II.                     T t 
330
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 service, are still insufficient to form real citizens.   We are ac-
 customed by  them to love virtue and our country, only when
 our heroes are applauded on the theatre.  Hence  it  comes to
 pass, that the greatest part even of persons  of the better sort
 are  incapable of appraising an action till they see  it detailed in
 some journal, or moulded into a drama.  They do not form a
 judgment of it  after their own heart, but after the opinion of
 another ; not  as it is in reality,  and in it's  own place, but as
 clothed with imagery, and fitted to a frame.   They delight in
 heroes when they are applauded, powdered and perfumed ; but
 were they to meet with one pouring out his blood in some ob-
 scure corner, and perishing in unmerited ignominy, they would
 not acknowledge him to be a hero.  Every one would wish to
 be the Alexander of the opera,  but no one the Alexander in the
 city of the Mallians.*
  Patriotism ought not to be made too frequently the subject of
 scenic representation.  A heroism ought to be supposed to ex-
 ist which braves death, but which is never talked of.  In order
 therefore to replace the people, in this respect, in the road of
 Nature and of Virtue, they should be made to serve as a spec-
 tacle to themselves.  They ought to be presented with realities
 and  not fictions ; with soldiers and not comedians;  and if it be
 impossible to exhibit to them the terrible spectacle of a real en-
 gagement, let  them see at least a representation  of the evolu-
 tions and the vicissitudes of one, in military festivals.
  The soldiery  ought to  be  united  more intimately  with the
 Nation, and their condition rendered more happy.  They are
but too  frequently the subjects of contention in the provinces
 through which they pass.  The  spirit of corps animates them to
such a degree, that when  two regiments happen to meet in the
same city, an  infinite number of duels  is generally the conse-
quence.  Such ferocious animosities are entirely unknown in
Prussian and Russian regiments,  which I consider  as in many
respects the best troops in Europe.   The King of Prussia has
contrived to inspire his soldiers, not with the spirit of corps
which divides  them, but with the spirit of country which unites
them.   This he  has been enabled to accomplish by conferring
on them most of the civil employments  in his kingdom, as the
* See Plutarch's Life of Alexander. 
STUDY XIII.
331
recompense of military services.  Sotb  arc the political  ties
by which he attaches them to their country. The Russians em-
ploy only one, but it is still more powerful, I mean Religion.
A Russian soldier believes that to serve his sovereign is to serve
God.  He marches into the field of battle like  a neophyte to
martyrdom, in the full persuasion that if he falls in it he goes
directly to paradise.
  I have heard M. de Villebois, Grand Master of the Russian
artillery, relate, that the soldiers of his corps, who served in a
battery in the  affair of ZornedorfF, having been mostly cut off,
the few who remained, seeing the Prussians advance with bayo-
nets fixed, unable to make any farther  resistance, but determin-
ed not to fly, embraced their guns, and suffered themselves to
be all massacred, in  order to preserve  inviolate  the oath which
they are called upon to  take when received into the artillery,
namely never  to abandon their cannon.  A  resistance so perti-
nacious stripped  the Prussians of the victory which they had
gained, and made the King of Prussia acknowledge that it was
easier to kill the Russians than to conquer them.   This  heroic
intrepidity is the fruit of Religion.
   It would be a very difficult matter to restore this power to its
proper elasticity among the French soldiery, who are formed in
part of the dissolute youth of our great towns.  The Russian
and Prussian  soldiers are draughted from the class of the pea-
santry, and value themselves upon their condition.  With us on
the contrary7 a peasant is terrified lest  his son should be obliged
to go for a soldier.  Administration on its part contributes to-
ward the increase  of this apprehension.  If there be a single
blackguard in a village, the deputy takes care that die black ball
shall fall upon him,  as if a regiment were a galley for criminals.
   I once composed  on this subject a memorial which suggested
proposals of a remedy for these disorders,  and for the preven-
tion of desertion among our soldiers; but like many other things
of the same sort  it  came to nothing.   The principal means of
reform which I  proposed, were a melioration of the condition
of the soldiery7, as  in Prussia,  by holding  up the prospect of
civil employments.  These with us are infinite in number;  and,
in order to prevent  the irregularities into which they are thrown
bv a life of celibacy7, I  proposed to grant  them permission to 
 332             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 marry, as most of the Russian and Prussian soldiers do.* This
 method, so much adapted to the reformation of manners, would
 farther contribute toward  conciliating  our provinces to each
 other, by the marriages which regiments would contract in their
 continual progress from place to place. They would strengthen
 the bands of national affection from  North to South ; and our
 peasantry would cease to  be afraid of them, if they saw them
 marching through the country as husbands and fathers.   If the
 soldiery are sometimes guilty of irregularities, to our military
 institutions the blame must be imputed.  I have seen others un-
 der better discipline, but I know of none more generous.
   I  was witness to a display of humanity on their part, of which
 I doubt whether any other soldiery in Europe would have been
 capable.   It was in the year 1760, in  a detachment of our army
 then in Germany, and an enemy's country, encamped hard by
 an inconsiderable city called Stadberg. I lodged in a miserable
 village occupied by the head-quarters.  There were in the poor
 cottage where  I and two of my comrades had our lodgings, five
 or six women, and  as many  children, who had taken refuge
 there, and who had  nothing to eat,  for our army had  foraged
 their corn, and cut down their fruit-trees.  We gave them some
 of our provisions ; but what we could spare was a small matter
 indeed, considering  both  their  numbers and  their necessities.
 One of them was a young woman big with child, who had three
 or four children  beside.   I observed her  go out every- morn-
 ing,  and  return some hours after, with her apron full of slices
 of brown  bread.   She strung them on packthreads, and dried

  * I could likewise wish that the wives of sailors might be permitted to go
 to sea with their husbands ; they would prevent on ship-board more than one
 species of irregularity.  Besides they might be usefully engaged in a variety
 of employments suitable to their sex, such as dressing the victuals, washing
 the linen, mending the sails, and the like...........They might, in many cases,
 co-operate in the labours of the ship's crew.  They are much less liable to be
 affected by the scurvy, and by various other disorders, than men are.
  The project of embarking women will no doubt appear extravagant to per-
 sons who do not know that there are, at least, ten thousand women who na-
 vigate the coasting vessels of Holland ; who assist on deck in working the
 ship, and manage the helm as dexterously as any man. A handsome woman
 would undoubtedly prove the occasion of much mischief on board a French
 ship ; but women, such as I have been describing, hardy and laborious, are
exceedingly proper on the contrary to prevent or remedy many kinds of mis-
chief, which are already but too prevalent in  a sea life. 
STUDY XIII.                   ^3
them in the chimney like mushrooms.  I had her questioned
one day by a servant of ours, who spoke German and French,
where she found that provision, and why she put it through that
process.  She replied, that she went into the camp to solicit alms
among the soldiers ;  that each of them gave her a piece of his
ammunition-bread, and that she dried the slices in order to pre-
serve them ; for she did not know where to look for a supply
after we were gone, the country being utterly desolated.
   A soldier'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 it's principal support.  The Russians
keep up the spirit of it in their national  troops, by admitting
among them not so much as one foreign soldier.   The King of
Prussia on the contrary has accomplished the same purpose by
receiving into his, soldiers, of every religion; but  he obliges
every one of them exactly to observe that which he has adopted.
I  have  seen, both at Berlin and  at Potsdam,  every Sunday
morning, the officers mustering their men on the parade about
eleven o'clock, and then filing off with them in separate detach-
ments,  Calvinists, Lutherans,  Catholics, every one to his  own
church, to worship God in his own way-.
   I could wish to have abolished among us the other causes of
division, which lay one citizen  under the temptation, that he
may live himself,  to wish the hurt or the death of another.  Our
politicians have multiplied without end these sources of hatred,
nav have rendered the State an accomplice in such ungracious
sentiments, by the establishment of lotteries, of tontines, and of
annuities.  "So many persons,"  say they, " have died this year;
" the State has gained so much." Should a pestilence come, and
sweep off one half of the people, the State would be wonderfully
 enriched! Man is  nothing in their eyes ; gold is all in all. Their
art  consists in reforming the vices of Society by violences offer-
 ed to Nature : and, what is  passing strange, they pretend tc
act after her example.   " It is her intention,"  they gravely tell
you, " that every species of being should subsist only by the
" ruin of other species.   Particular evil is  general good."  By
such barbarous  and  erroneous  maxims are  Princes misled.
These Laws have no existence  in Nature, except between spe-
cies which are opposite and inimical.  They exist not in the 
334
STUDIES OF NATURE.
same species of animals, which live together in a state of Society.
The death of a bee most assuredly never tended to promote the
prosperity of the hive.   Much less still can the  calamity  and
death of a man be of advantage to his Nation, and to Mankind,
the perfect happiness of which must consist in a complete har-
mony between its members.  We have demonstrated in another
place, that it is impossible the slightest evil should befal a sim-
ple individual,  without communicating the impression of it to
the whole body politic.
   Our rich people entertain no doubt that the good things of the
lower orders will reach them, as they enjoy the productions of
the arts which the poor cultivate ; but they  participate equally
in the ills which the poor suffer, let them take what precautions
they will to secure themselves.   Not only do they become the
victims of their epidemical maladies, and of their pillage, but of
their moral opinions, which are ever in a progress of deprava-
tion in the breasts  of the  wretched.   They start up like the
plagues which issued from the box of Pandora, and in defiance
of armed guards, force their way through fortresses and castle-
walls, and fix their residence in the  heart of tyrants.  In vain
do they dream of personal exemption from the ills  of the vulgar;
their neighbours catch  the infection,  their servants, their chil-
dren, their wives, and  impose the necessity of abstinence from
every thing, in the very midst of their enjoyments.
   But when, in a Society, particular bodies are constantly con-
verting to  their own profit the distresses  of others, they  per-
petuate these very distresses, and multiply them  to infinity. It
is a fact easily ascertained, that wherever advocates and phy-
sicians peculiarly abound, law-suits and diseases there likewise
are found in uncommon abundance.  Though there be among
them men of the best dispositions, and of the soundest intellect,
they do not set their faces against irregularities which are bene-
ficial to their corps.
   These inconveniences are by7 no means desperate ; I am able
to quote instances to this  effect, which no sophistry can invali-
date.   On my entering into the service of Russia, the  first
month's revenue of my  place w7as  stopped, as a complete in-
demnification for the expense attending the  treatment of every
kind of malady with which I might be attacked; and this  in-
cluded, together with myself, my servants, and my family, if I 
STUDY XIII.                  $35
should happen to marry ; and  extended  to  every possible ex-
pense  of Physician,  Surgeon  and  Apothecary.   There was
farther stopped for the same object, a small sum,  amounting to
one, or one and a half per cent, of my appointments: this was to
have been paid annually ; and every step higher  I might have
risen, I was to have  given an additional  month's pay of that
superior rank.  This is the complete amount  of  the tax  upon
officers, in consideration  of which they  and their families are
entided to every kind of medical advice  and  assistance  under
whatever indisposition.
  The  Physicians and Surgeons of every corps  have at the
same time a sufficiently ample revenue arising from  these pay-
ments.   I recollect  that the Physician of the corps  in which I
served  had an annual income  of a  thousand roubles, or five
thousand livres (about two  hundred guineas), and little or no-
thing to do for it; for as our  maladies  brought  him nothing
they were of  very  short duration.   As  to the soldiers,  if my
recollection is accurate, they are medically treated without any
defalcation of their pay.   The grand Dispensary belongs to the
Emperor.  It is in the city of Moscow, and consists of a  mag-
nificent pile of building.  The medicines  are deposited in vases
of porcelain, and are always of the very best quality.   They are
thence distributed over the rest of the Empire at a moderate
price, and the profit goes to the Crown.  There is  not the
slightest ground to apprehend imposition  in the conduct of this
business.  The  persons  employed in the preparation  and dis-
tribution are  men of ability, who have  no  kind of interest in
adulterating them, and who, as they rise in a regular  progres-
sion of rank and salary, are actuated with  no emulation but
that of discharging their duty with fidelity.*

  * The insatiable thirst of gold and luxury might be allayed in the greatest
part of our citizens, by presenting them with a great number of these poli-
tical perspectives. They constitute the charm of petty conditions, by dis-
playing to them the attractions of infinity, the sentiment of which, as we have
seen, is so natural to the  heart of Man.  It is by means of these, that mecha-
nics and small shop-keepers are much more powerfully attached, by mode-
rate profits, to their contracted spheres, enlivened by hope, than tlie rich
and great arc to lofty situations, the term of which is before them. The pro-
cess which passes in the head of tlie little, is something similar to the milk-
maid's train of thought in the fable.  With the price of this milk I will buy
rggs ; egg6 will  give me chicks ; those ebicks will grow up to hens ; I will 
 336             STUDIES OF NATURE.

   The example of Peter the Great challenges  imitation; and
 the order which he has established among his troops, with re-
 spect to  Physicians and Apothecaries, might  be extended all
 over the  kingdom, not only  in the line of the medical profes-
 sion, though even this would bring an immense increase of re-
 venue to the State, but might  also  be usefully  applied to the
 profession of the Law.  It is greatly to be wished that Attor-
 neys, Advocates, and Judges were paid by the State, and scat-
 tered over the whole kingdom, not for the  purpose  of arguing
 causes, but of settling them by reference.   These arrangements
 might be extended to all descriptions of profession which sub-
 sist on the distress of the  Public : then the whole body of the
 citizens, finding their repose  and their fortune in the happiness
 of the  State, would exert themselves to the uttermost to main-
 tain it.
  These  causes, and many others, divide among us  all the dif-
 ferent  classes of the  Nation.  There is not a single province,
 city, village,  but what distinguishes the province, city, village
next to it, by some  injurious and insulting epithet.  The  same
 remark applies to the various ranks and conditions  of Society.
Divide fc? impera, Divide  and govern, say our modern Politi-
cians.   This maxim has ruined Italy, the country from whence
it came. The opposite maxim contains much more truth.  The
more  united  citizens are the more powerful and happy is the
Nation which they compose.   At  Rome, at Sparta,  at Athens,
a citizen was at once advocate,  senator, pontiff, edile, husband-
man, warrior, and even seaman.  Observe to what a height of
power those republics advanced.   Their citizens were however
far inferior to us in respect of general knowledge, but they were
instructed in two  great Sciences  of which we  are ignorant,
namely the love of the Gods  and of their Country.  With these
sublime sentiments they were prepared for every thing. Where

sell my  poultry, and buy a lamb, and  so on.  The pleasure which they en-
joy, in pursuin ■ those endless progressions, is the sweet illusion that  carries
them thro, gli their labours ; and it is so real, that when they happen to ac-
cumulate a fortune, and are able to live m ease and affluence, their  health
gradually declines, and  most of them terminate  heir days in languor and
melancholy. Modern Politicians, re  erttiien to vat re!  'Ihe  sweetest mu-
sic is not « mitted from flutes made of boL.l and silver, but from those  which
■■o-<- constructed of simple reeds. 
STUDY XIII.                  337
they are wanting Man is good for nothing.   With all our en-
cyclopedic literature,  a  great man with us, even in point of ta-
lents, would be  but the  fourth part at most of a Greek  or  a
Roman. He would distinguish himself much more in supporting
the honour of his particular profession, but very little in main-
taining the honour of his country.
   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  Sove-
reigns do  we make of one single and lawful Monarch !   Every
corps  has its own,  who is not the Sovereign of  the Nation.
How many projects are formed, and defeated,  in the  King's
name ! The King of the waters, and of the forests, is at variance
with  the King of the bridges and highways.   The King of the
colonies sanctions  a  plan of improvement,  the King  of the fi-
nances refuses to advance the money. Amidst these various con-
flicts 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
it's own,  who must be worshipped according to a certain ritual.
To this God it  is  that each Nation in particular offers thanks-
giving, on occasion of every battle.  In his name it was that the
poor  Americans were exterminated.  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 fruit; of
those divisions, and of an education  dictated by ambition.   Hu-
man life so fleeting and so wretched, passes away in  this unre-
mitting strife; and while the Historians of every Nation, well
paid  for their .trouble, are extolling to Heaven the victories of
their  Kings and of their 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, in order to reach
his habitation at length, and to live a life of virtue and  happi-
ness upon the Earth.
   Vol. II.                  U  u 
338
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 The cause of the ills which we endure, I repeat it, is to be found
 in our vain-glorious Education; and in the wretchedness of the
 commonalty, which communicates a powerful influence to every
 new opinion, because they are ever expecting from novelty some
 mitigation of the pressure of inveterate woes.  But as soon as
 they perceive that their opinions become tyrannical, in their turn,
 they presently renounce them: and this is the  origin of their
 levity.  Whenever they can find the means of living in ease and
 abundance, they will be no longer subject to these vicissitudes,
 as we have seen in the  instance of the Dutch, who print and sell
 the theological, political, and literary controversies of all Europe,
 without being themselves in the  least affected, as to their civil
 and religious opinions; and when our public education shall be
 reformed, the people will  enjoy the  happy and uninterrupted
 tranquillity of the nations of Asia.
  Before  I proceed to  suggest my ideas on this subject, I  take
 the liberty to  propose  some  other means of general union.  I
 shall consider myself as amply recompensed for the labour which
 my researches have cost me, if so much  as a  single one of my
 hints pf reform shall be adopted.

                         OF PARIS.
  It has already been observed,  that few  Frenchmen  are at-
 tached to  the place of their birth.  The greatest part of those
 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 Nation.  Every country which has acquired celebrity
 by it's patriotism, has likewise fixed the centre of it in their Ca-
pital, and  frequently in some particular monument of that Capi-
tal ; the Jews had theirs at Jerusalem, and it's Temple; the  Ro-
mans, theirs at Rome, and  the  Capitol;  the Lacedemonians,
theirs  at Sparta, and in citizenship.
  I am fond of Paris.   Next to  a rural  situation, and  a rural
situation such as J like, I give Paris the preference to any thing
 I have ever seen in the World.   I love that city  not only on ac-
 count of it's happy situation, because all the accommodations of
human life are there collected,  from its being the centre of all
the powers of the  kingdom, and  for  the other  reasons which 
STUDY XIII.
SZ^i
made  Michael Montaigne delight  in it, but because it is the
asylum and the refuge of the miserable.   There it is that the
provincial ambitions, prejudices, aversions, and tyrannies, are
lost and 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 gaity;  and the feeble there feels himself strong in the
strength of the multitude.   Time was when, on the faith of our
political Writers,  I looked upon that city as too great.   But I
am now far from thinking that it is of sufficient extent, and suf-
ficiently majestic, to be the capital of a kingdom so flourishing*
   I could wish that, our sea-ports excepted, there were  no city
in France but Paris; that our provinces were covered only with
hamlets, and villages, and sub-divided  into small farms;  and
that, as there is but one centre in the kingdom, there might like-
wise 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, their passions, their  wants,  and
their  misfortunes, it should give them back, in fortune, or en-
joyment, in virtues, and in sublime consolations,  the reward of
that asylum which they resort thither to seek!
   Of a truth our mind, illuminated as it is at this day with such
various knowledge, wants the nobly comprehensive grasp which
distinguished our fore-fathers.  Amidst their simple and Gothic
manners, they entertained the idea, I believe,  of rendering it
the Capital of Europe.  The traces of this design are visible in
the names which most of their establishments bear, such as the
Scottish College, the Irish, that of the Four Nations; and in the
foreign names of the Royal household-troops.  Behold that no-
ble monument of antiquity, the church of Notre-Dame, built
more than six hundred years ago, at a time when Paris did not
contain one fourth part of the inhabitants with which it  is now-
peopled ;  it is more vast, and more majestic than any thing of
the kind which  has been since reared.  I could wish that this
spirit of Philip  the august, a Prince too little  known  in our
frivolous age, might still preside over its establishments, and
extend the use of them  to all  Nations.  Not that but men of
every Nation are welcome there, for their money; our enemies
themselves may live quietly in it, in the very midst of war, pro*
vided they are rich ; but above all, I could wish  to  render her 
340
STUDIES OF NATURE.
good and propitious to her own children. I do not know of any
advantage which 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 there  enjoyed  privileges and honours
more ample than were communicated even to Kings, in alliance
with the Republic,
  It is pleasure which attracts the greatest part of strangers to
Paris; and if we trace those vain pleasures up  to their source,
we shall find that they proceed from the misery of the People,
and from the  easy rate at which it  is there possible to procure
girls of the town, spectacles, modish finery, and the other pro-
ductions which minister to luxury7. These means have been
highly extolled by modern politicians.  I do not deny that they
occasion a considerable influx  of  money7 into a country; but at
the long run, neighbouring nations imitate them;  the money of
strangers disappears, but their debauched morals remain.  See
what Venice has come to,  with her mirrors, her pomatums, her
courtezans, her masquerades, and her carnival.   The frivolous
arts on which wre now value ourselves have been imported from
Italy, whose feebleness and misery they this day constitute.
  The noblest spectacle which any  Government can exhibit i3
that of a people laborious,  industrious and content.  We are
taught to be well-read in books, in pictures, in algebra, in he-
raldry, and not in men.  Connoisseurs  are rapt with admiration
at sight of a Savoyard's head painted by Greuze; but the Savoy-
ard himself is at the  corner of the street,  speaking,  walking,
almost frozen rto death, and no one  minds him.   That mother
with her children around her form a charming group; the pic-
ture  is invaluable: the originals are in a neighbouring  garret
without a farthing whereupon to subsist.  Philosophers! ye are
transported  writh delight, and well you may7, in contemplating
the numerous families of birds, of  fishes, and  of quadrupeds,
the instincts of which are so endlessly varied, and to which one
and the same Sun communicates life.   Examine the families of
men of which the inhabitants of the Capital consist,  and you
would  be disposed to say,  that each of them had borrowed it's
manners, and it's industry, from some species of animal; so
varied are their employments. 
                       STUDY XIII.                  341

  Walk out to yonder plain at the entrance of the city; behold
that general officer mounted on his prancing  courser: he is re-
viewing a body of troops:  see, the heads, the  shoulders,  and
the feet of his soldiers, arranged in the same straight line ; the
whole embodied corps has  but one look, one movement.  He
makes a sign, and in an instant a thousand bayonets gleam in
the air; he makes another, and a thousand fires start from that
rampart of iron.  You would think, from their precision, that a
single fire had issued from a single piece.  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 chim-
ney-sweeper, of the colour of soot, with his lantern, his cymbal,
and his leathern greaves:  he resembles a black-beetle.   Like
the one which in Surinam is called the lantern-bearer, he shines
in the night, and moves to the sound of a cymbal.  This child,
those soldiers, and  that general, are equally men;  and while
birth, pride, and the demands of social life establish infinite dif-
ferences among them,  Religion  places them on a level: she
humbles the head of the mighty, by shewing  them the vanity of
their power; and she raises up the head of the unfortunate, by
disclosing to them the prospects of immortality: she thus brings
back all men to the equality which Nature  had established at
their birth, and which the order of Society had disturbed.
   Our Sybarites  imagine they have exhausted  every possible
mode of enjoyment.  Our moping, melancholy old men consi-
der themselves as useless to the World; they no longer perceive
any other perspective before them but death.  Ah! paradise
and life are  still upon the earth for him who has the power of
doing good.
   Had I  been blessed with but a moderate degree of fortune,  I
would have procured for myself an endless succession  of new
enjoyments.   Paris should have become to me a second Mem.'
phis.  It's  immense population is far from being known to us.
I would have had one small apartment in one of it's suburbs,
adjoining to the great road ;  another at the opposite  extremity
on the banks of the Seine,  in a house shaded with willows and
popftrs ; another in one of it's most frequented streets ; a fourth
in the mansion  of a gardener, surrounded  with apricot-trees. 
342
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 figs, coleworts, and lettuces; a fifth in the avenues of the city,
 in the heart of a vineyard,  and so on.
   It is an easy matter undoubtedly to find every where lodgings
 of this description, and at an easy rate; but it may not be so
 easy to find persons of probity for hosts and  neighbours.  There
 is it must be admitted, much depravity among the lower orders ;
 but there are various methods which 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 step to
 partake of a first mass, into a church still but half illumined by
 die day-light: there I find poor mechanics 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 perceive, in raw and rainy
 weather, a whole family squat on the ground, and weeding  the
 plants  of a garden : * here again are  good people.  The night
 itself cannot conceal virtue.  Toward midnight the glimmering
 of a lamp announces  to me, through  the aperture of a garret,
 some poor widow prolonging her nocturnal  industry,  in order
 to bring up, by the fruits of it, her little ones who are  sleeping
 around her.   These shall be my neighbours and my hosts.  I
 announce myself to  them  as a wayfaring man, as a stranger,
 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 the  neighbourhood.  I
 offer a good price, and am domesticated presently.
  I am carefully on my guard, in the view  of securing the at-
 tachment of those  honest people, against giving them money
 for nothing, or by way of alms ; I know of means much more

  * Persons employed in the culture of vegetables are in general a better
sort of people.  Plants have their theology impressed upon them.  I one day
however fell in with a husbandman who was an atheist.  It is true he had
not picked up his opinions in the fields, but from books.  He seemed to be
exceedingly well satisfied with his attainments in knowledge.  I  could not
help saying to him at parting : " You have really gained a mighty point, in
" employing the researches of your understanding to render ) ourself mise-
's rable!"
  In the hypothetical examples hereafter adduced, there is scarcely any one
article of invention merely, except the good which I did not do 
STUDY XIII.                    J43
honourable to gain their friendship. I order a greater quantity
of provision than is necessary for my own use, and the overplus
turns to account in the family; I reward  die children for any
little services which they render me:  I carry the whole house-
hold, of a holiday, into the country, and sit down with them to
dinner upon the grass ; the father and  mother return to town
in the evening well refreshed, and loaded with a supply for the
rest of the  week.  On the  approach of  Winter, I clothe the
children with good woollen stuffs, and their little warmed limbs
bless their benefactor, because my haughty vain-glorious boun-
ty has not frozen their heart.   It is the god-father of their
little brother who has  made them a  present of the clothes.
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, and of doing it
in the  best manner, I have the farther pleasure 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 grati-
tude which we owe them.  They separate us from the People,
and they  impose upon us, by displaying the arts with excessive
parade, and in false lights, as subjects for the theatre, and for
the magic-lanthern.  Besides, there is more knowledge in the
head of an artisan than in his art, and  more intelligence in his
hands  than in the  language of the Writer who translates him.
Objects carry their own expression upon them:  Rem verba se-
quuntur  (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 as
high into the clouds  as he possibly can, the other  keeps  con^
tentediy  at the bottom of the valley, and beholds very different
perspectives in the World.   Calamity forms him at the length
as well as another man.  His  language purifies with y7ears ;  and
I have frequendy remarked that there is very little  differ-
ence, in  point of accuracy,  of perspicuity, and of simplicity,
between the expressions of an aged peasant and of an old cour-
tier.   Time effaces from their several  styles of language,  and
from their manners,  the rusticity and the refinement which So-
ciety had introduced.  Old-age, like infancy, reduces all  men
to a level, and gives them  back to Nature. 
 344            STUDIES OF NATURE.

   In one of my encampments, I have a landlord who has made
 the tour of the Globe. He has been seaman, soldier, buccanier.
 He is sagacious as Ulysses, but more sincere.  When I have
 placed him at table with me, and made him taste my wine, 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 Men-
 dez Pinto.  The upshot of all is, he has got a good wife and
 lives contented.
   My landlord, in another of my stations, has lived a very dif-
 ferent life; he scarcely ever was beyond the walls of Paris, and
 but seldom beyond the precincts of his shop.  But though he
 has not travelled over the World, he has not missed his share of
 calamity by staying at home.  He was very much at his ease ;
 he had laid up, by means of his honest savings, fifty good Louis
 d'or,  when  one night his wife and daughter thought proper to
 elope  carrying his treasure with them.  He had  almost died
 with vexation.   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 dissipate
 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 then I am transformed into the Lacede-
 monian Liches, at Tegeum, attending to the processes of forging
 and hammering iron.   The moment that the man perceives me
 attentive 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 the art of a smith, if not for myrself, for the
 benefit of some  one else.   I order this honest fellow to  manu-
 facture for me some solid articles of household furniture, which
 I intend to bestow as a monument  to preserve my memory in
 borne poor family7.  I wish besides to purchase the  friendship of
 an artificer; I  am perfectly sure  that the attention which 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
obligation on any one.
                    * See Herodotus, book i 
STUDY XIII.
345
  J. J. Rousseau told me a little anecdote of himself, relative
to the subject in hand.  « One day," said he, " I happened to
" be at a village festival, in a gentleman's  country seat not far
u from  Paris.  After dinner the company betook themselves to
" walking up and down the  fair, and amused themselves with
u 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 direction.   I observed a
" little girl selling apples, displayed on a flat basket, which she
" carried before her.   To no purpose did  she extol the excel-
" lence  of her goods; no customer appeared to cheapen them.
" How  much do you ask for all your apples, said I to her ?—
" All my apples ? replied she, and at the  same time  began  to
" reckon with herself.—Threepence, Sir, said she.—I take them
u at thatfprice, returned I, on condition you will go and distri-
" bute them  among those little Savoyards whom you  see there
"below:  this  was instantly executed.   The children were
" quite transported  with delight at this unexpected regale,  as
" was likewise the  little merchant at bringing 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 satis-
" fied and no one humbled."   The great art of doing good con-
sists in  doing it judiciously.  Religion instructs us in this im-
portant 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 may
happen to arrive.  I recollect the time  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 nobi-
lity of Poland and Germany complain of our grandees.  They
allege that French  travellers of distinction are treated in these
countries with  unbounded  hospitality and  attention;  but that
they, on visiting France in their turn,  are almost entirely ne-
glected.  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, incapable of ac-
quitting the obligations of this kind which I lie  under to the
Great of foreign countries, I repay  them to their commonaltv,
   Vol. II.                  X x 
546
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   I perceive a German travelling on foot; I accost him, 1 in-
 vite him to stop and take a little repose at my habitation,  A
 good supper and a glass of good wine dispose him to commu-
 nicate to  me the occasion of his journey.  He is an officer; he
 has served in Prussia and in Russia; he has been witness to the
 partition of Poland.   I interrupt him to make my enquiries af-
 ter Mareschal Count Munich, the Generals de Villebois and du
 Bosquet, the Count de Munchio,  my  friend  M. de Taubenheim,
 Prince Xatorinski, Field Mareschal of the Polish Confederation,
 whose prisoner I once was. Most of them are dead, he tells me;
 the rest are superannuated, and retired from all public employ-
 ment.   Oh! how  melancholy it is,  I  exclaim, to travel from
 one's country, and 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: to those  I pay the  closest  attention,
 from their resemblance  to my own.   His leading object was to
 deserve well of his fellow creatures,  and he has been rewarded
 by them with calumny and persecution.  He is under misfor-
 tunes ; he has come to France to put himself under the Queen's
 protection:  he hopes a  great deal from her goodness.  I  con-
 firm his hopes, by the idea which public opinion has  conveyed
 to me of the character of that Princess, and by that which Na-
 ture  has impressed on  her physiognomy.   I am  pouring the
 balm of consolation,  he tells me, into his heart.   Full of emo-
 tion, 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 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,  not far from the iron gate
 le Caillot, at the entrance into the Elysian Fields, a young wo-
 man sitting with a child in her lap, on the brink of a ditch.  She
 was handsome, if that epithet may be applied  to a female over-
 whelmed in melancholy.  I walked into the sequestered  alley
 where  she had taken her station ; the moment that she perceived
me she looked the other way: her timidity and modesty fixed
my eyes on her-   I remarked that she was very decently dres-
 sed, and wore very white linen;  but her gown and neck hand- 
STUDY XIII.
347
kerchief were so completely darned over,  that you would have
said the spiders had spun  the threads.   I  approached her with
the respect which is due to the miserable ; I bowed to her, 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 monosylla-
bles 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 circumspec-
tion, that she would disclose to me the cause of her distress. She
said to me : " 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  giving him a convoy 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
u given him my rings and all my other little trinkets, to defray
" the  expense of his journey ; and all that I have left in  the
" world, to support myself  and  my child, is a single shilling
" piece."—" What  parish do you belong to, Madam V* said I.
—" St. Eustache," replied  she.—"  The rector,"  I subjoined,
" passes for a very  charitable, good  man."—" Yes, Sir,"  said
she, " but you need not to be informed, that there is no charity
u in parishes for  us miserable  Jews."  At these words, her
tears began to flow more  copiously, and she arose to go on her
way.   I tendered her a small pittance toward her present relief
which I besought her to accept at least as a mark of my good-will.
She received it,  and returned me more reverences and thanks,
and loaded me with  more benedictions,  than if I had re-esta-
blished her husband's credit.  How many delicious banquets
might that  man enjoy, who would this way layout three or four
hundred pounds a year !
   My different establishments, scattered over the Capital and
the vicinity, variegate my life most innocently and most agree-
ably.  In Winter, I  take up my residence in that which is expo-
sed completely to the noon-day Sun ; in Summer,  I remove to
that which has a northern aspect,  and  hangs over the  cooling
stream. At another time,  I pitch my tent in the neighbourhood
of the Rue  d'Artois,  among piles of hewn stone,  where I see
palaces  rising around me, pediments decorated with sphynxes 
348
STUDIES OF NATURE.
domes, kiosques.   I  take  care never to enquire to whom they
belong. Ignorance is the mother of pleasure and of admiration.
I am in Egypt, at Babylon, in China.  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 lilach ; 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 tbe 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 parties of plea-
sure, while travelling by land and by water ;  but never in per-
forming acts of beneficence. Gold is a powerful commander of
respect with the commonalty.  I display wealth sufficient to se-
cure their attention, but not enough to tempt any one to plunder
me.  Besides the police of Paris is in excellent order.  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 en-
cumbrances of furniture and servants.  With what tender so-
licitude am I expected in each of my habitations !  What satis-
faction 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 in-
conveniences.  No one sits down at my  table to backbite his
neighbour,  and no one leaves it with a disposition to speak un-
kindly 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 accom-
plish the felicity of another. I assist in the formation of happy
marriages, or in promoting the happiness of those which are al-
ready 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.
  In this manner it is in y our power to live, O ye great one3 of
the earth !  and thus might y ou multiply your fleeting days in
the land through  which you are  merely travellers.  Thus it  is
that you may learn to know men ; and form no longer, with 
STUDY XIII.
349
your own Nation, a foreign race, a race of conquerors, living on
the spoils of the country which you have subdued.  Thus it is
that, issuing from your palaces, encircled with a crowd of hap-
py vassals, who are loading you with benedictions, 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 ;  there is no one which possesses so much  the
charm of novelty as the happiness of mankind.   You wish for
objects that are interesting :. there is no one more interesting
than the  sight of the families  of the poor peasantry, diffusing
fruitfulness over your vast and solitary domains, or superannu-
ated soldiers, who have  deserved wejl of their country, seeking
refuge under the shadow of your wirfgs.  Your compatriots are
surely much better  than  tragedy heroes,  and more interesting
than the  shepherds of the comic opera.
  The indigence of the commonalty is the first cause of the phy-
sical and moral maladies of the rich.  It is the business of ad-
ministration to provide  a remedy.   As to the maladies of the
soul resulting from  indigence,  I could wish some palliatives at
least might be found.  For this purpose, I would wish to have
formed, at Paris, some establishment similar to those which hu-
mane Physicians and sage Lawyers have there instituted for re-
medying the ills of body and of fortune  ; I mean dispensaries
of consolation, to which an unfortunate wretch, secure of secrecy,
nay of remaining unknown, might resort to disclose the cause of
his distress.  We have, I grant, confessors and preachers, for
whom the sublime function of comforting the miserable seems
to be reserved.  But confessors are not always of the same  dis-
position  with  their penitents, especially  when the penitent is
poor and not much  known to them.  Nay7 there are many con-
fessors who  have neither the talents nor  the  experience requi-
site to the comforter of the afflicted.  The point is not to pro-
nounce absolution to the  man who confesses his sins, but to as-
sist 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 injudiciously7 applied to the various necessities of their hear-
ers.  It would be of much more importance to the Public, if they
would announce the subject of their intended discourses, rather
tban display the  titles of their ecclesiastical  dignities.   The\ 
J.30
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 will declaim against avarice to a prodigal, or against profusion
 to a miser.  They will expatiate on the dangers of ambition to
 a voung 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.   There are some who preach  repentance to the
 unfortunate, who promise the joys of paradise to voluptuous
 courts,  and who denounce the  flames of hell against starving
 villages.  I have known, in the country, a poor female peasant
 driven to madness by a sermon of this cast.  She believed her-
 self to be in a state  of damnation, and lay along speechless and
 motionless.  We have no sermons calculated to cure languor,
 sorrow, scrupulousness of conscience, melancholy, chagrin, and
 so many other distempers which prey upon the soul.   Besides,
 how many circumstances change, to every particular auditor,
 the nature of the pain which he endures, and render totally use-
 less to him all the parade of a  trim harangue.   It is no easy
 matter to find out, in a soul wounded and oppressed with timi-
 dity, the precise point of it's 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 them-
 selves suffered severely, and which is not always the attainment
 of those who are virtuous only.
  The people feel the want of this  consolation ;  and finding no
 man to whom  they  can make application for it, they address
themselves to stones.   I have sometimes read  with an aching
 heart, in our churches, billets  affixed by the wretched to the
 corner of a pillar, in some obscure chapel.  They represented
 the cases of unhappy women abused by their husbands; of young
 people labouring  under embarrassment: they solicited not the
money- of the compassionate, but their prayers. They were upon
the point of sinking into despair.  Their miseries were incon-
ceivable.  Ah! if men who  have themselves been acquainted
with grief,  of  all conditions, would unite in presenting to the
sons and daughters of affliction their experience and their sensi-
bility, more than one illustrious sufferer would come and 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 soothe hi*
wo, is a person into whose ear he can pour out his complaint. 
STUDY XIII.
  A Society composed of men such as I have fondly imagined
to myself, would undertake the important task of eradicating the
vices and the prejudices of the populace.  They would endea-
vour, for example, to apply a remedy to the barbarity which im-
poses such oppressive loads on the miserable horses, and which
cruelly abuses them in other respects, while every street of the
city rings with the horrible oaths of their  drivers.  They would
likewise employ their influence with the rich, to take pity in their
turn upon the human race.  You see, in  the midst of excessive
heats, the hewers of stone exposed to the meridian  Sun, and to
the  burning reverberation  of the white substance on which they
labour.   Hence these  poor people  are frequently  seized with
ardent fevers, and with disorders in the eyes which issue in blind-
ness.  At  other times they have to encounter  the long rains
and pinching cold of Winter,  which bring on rheums and con-
sumptions.   Would it be  a very costly precaution for a master-
builder, possessed of humanity, to rear in his work-yard a move-
able shed of matting or straw, supported by poles, to serve as
a shelter to his labourers ? By means of a fabric so  simple they
might be spared various maladies of body and of mind;  for most
of them, as I have observed, are in this respect actuated by a
false point  of honour; and have not the courage to employ a
screen against the burning heat of the Sun, or against rainy wea-
ther, for fear of incurring the ridicule of their companions.
  The people might farther be inspired with a relish for moral-
ity, 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 reading some of
our good romances, or at the representation of a tragedv. 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; they were vexed  to think that they
had thrown away their tears.  The rich must  have  fiction in
order 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 rich however stand in no less need than the  populace of
moral affections.  These are, as we have seen, the moving springs
of all the human passions. To  no purpose do they pretend to 
352
STUDIES OF NATURE.
refer the plan of their felicity to physical objects; they soon lose
all taste for their castles, their pictures,  their parks, when in-
stead of sentiment they possess merely the sensations of them.
This is so indubitably true, that if, under the pressure of their
languor, a stranger happens to arrive to admire their luxury, all
their powers  of  enjoyment are renovated.  They seem to have
consecrated their life to an indefinite  voluptuousness;  but pre-
sent to them a single ray of glory, in the very bosom of death
itself, and they are immediately on the wing to overtake it.  Of-
fer them regiments, and they post away after immortality. It is
the moral principle therefore which must be purified and directed
in Man.  It is not in vain then that Religion prescribes to us the
practice of virtue, which is the moral sentiment by  way of ex-
cellence, seeing  it is the road  to  happiness both in this World
and that which is to come.
  The society7 of which I have been suggesting the idea, would
farther extend it's attentions into the retreats of virtue itself. I
have remarked that about the age of forty-five, a striking revo-
lution takes place in most men, and, to acknowledge the truth,
that  it is then they degenerate, and become destitute of prin-
ciple.  At this  period it is that women  transform  themselves
into  men, according to the expression of a celebrated Writer,
in other words, that  they  become completely depraved.  This
fatal revolution is a consequence of the vices of our education,
and of the manners of Society.  Both of these present the pros-
pect of human happiness only  toward the middle period of life,
in the possession of fortune and of honours.  When we have
painfully scrambled up  this steep mountain,  and reached it's
summit, about die  middle of our course, we re-descend with
our eyes turned  back toward youth, because we have no per-
spective before us but death.   Thus the career of life is divided
into  two parts, the one consisting  of hopes, the other of recol-
lections ; and we have laid hold of nothing by the way but il-
lusions.
  The first,  at  least, support us  by feeding  desire ; but the
others overwhelm us by7 inspiring regret only.   This is the rea-
son that old men are less susceptible of virtue  than young peo-
ple though they  talk much more  about  it, and that they  are
much more melancholy  among us  than among savage Nations.
Had they been  directed by  Religion and Nature, they must 
STUDY XIII.
OJyJ
have rejoiced in the  approaching of their latter end, as vessels
just ready  to enter the harbour.   How much more wretched
are those who, having devoted  their youth to virtue,  seduced
by that treacherous  commerce  with the w-orld, look backward,
and regret the pleasures of youth which they knew not how to
prize! The empty glare which encompasses the wicked dazzles
their eyes ; they feel their faith staggering, and they are ready
to exclaim with Brutus:—" O  Virtue ! thou art but an empty
" name."   Where shall we find books and preachers capable of
restoring confidence to them in tempests  which have shaken
even the Saints ? They transfix the  soul with secret  wounds,
and torment it with gnawing ulcers, which shrink from disco-
very.  They are beyond all possibility of relief, except from a
society of virtuous men who have been themselves tried through
all the combinations  of human wo, and who, in default of the
ineffectual arguments of reason, may bring them back to the
sentiment of virtue, at least by that of their friendship.
  There is in China, if I  am not  mistaken,  an  establishment
similar to that which I am proposing.  At least certain Travel-
lers, and -among others Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, make mention
of a house ofJVIercy, which takes  up and pleads  the cause of
the poor and the oppressed, and which, in  an infinite number of
instances, goes forth to meet the calls of the miserable, much
farther than our charitable  Ladies  do.  The  emperor has be-
stowed the most distinguished privileges on it's members ;  and
the Courts of  Justice pay  the  utmost deference to  their re-
quests.  Such a society employed  in acting well, would merit
among us at least prerogatives as high as those whose attention
is restricted to speaking well; and by drawing forward  into
view the virtues of our own obscure citizens,  would deserve at
the least as highly of their Country, as those who do nothing
but retail the sentences of the sages, or what is  not less com-
mon, the brilliant crimes of Antiquity-.
   Scrupulous care ought to be  taken not to give to such an as-
sociation the  form of an academy or Fraternity. Thanks to
our mode of education, and to our manners, every thing that is
reduced to form among us, corps,  congregation,  sect,  party, is
generally ambitious and intolerant.  If the  men which  compose
them draw nigh to a light which they themselves have not kind-
  Vol. II.                 Yv 
354
STUDIES OF NATURE.
' led, it is to extinguish it;  if they touch upon the virtue of ano-
 ther, it is to blight it.  Not that the greatest part of the mem-
 bers of those bodies are  destitute of excellent qualities indi-
 vidually ; but their incorporation is good for nothing, for  this
 reason simply, that it presents  to them centres different from
 the common centre of  Country.  What is it that has rendered
 a word  so dear to humanity, theatrical and vain ? What sense
 is now-a-days affixed to the term charity, the Greek name of
 which, signifies attraction, grace, loveliness ? Can any thing be
 more humiliating than our parochial charities, and than the hu-
 manity of our Philosophers ?
    I leave this project to be unfolded and matured by some good
 man, who loves God and his  fellow-creatures, and  who  per-
 forms good actions in the way that Religion prescribes, without
 letting his left hand know  what his right hand doth.   Is it then
 a matter of so much difficulty  to do good ? Let us pursue the
 opposite scent to that which is  followed by the ambitious and
 the malignant.  They employ spies to furnish them with all the
 scandalous anecdotes of the day; let us employ  ours in  disco-
 vering,  and bringing to light, good works  performed in secret.
 They advance  to meet  men  in elevated  situations, to range
 themselves under their standards, or  to level them with the
 ground; let us go forth in quest of virtuous men in obscurity,
 that wre may make them our models.  They are furnished with
 trumpets to proclaim their own actions, and to decry those of
 others;  let us  conceal our own, and  be the  heralds of other
 men's goodness.  There  is such a thing as refinement in vice;
 let us carry virtue to perfection.
    I am  sensible that I may be apt to ramble a little too far.  But
 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, some day in time to come, one poor  wretch  in de-
 spair from ^joing  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 over a piece of paper in
 vain.
    Paris presents many a retreat to the miserable, known by the
 name of hospitals.  May Heaven  reward  the charity of those 
STUDY XIII.
05.5
who have founded them, and the  still greater virtue of those
persons of both sexes who superintend them !  But first, without
adopting the exaggerated ideas of the populace, who are under
the persuasion that these houses possess immense revenues, it is
certain, that a person well known, and an adept in the science of
public finance, having undertaken to furnish the plan of a recep-
tacle for  the sick, found on calculation that the expense of each
of them  would not exceed  eight-pence half-penny 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 clear-
ly of opinion that these same pence, distributed day by day in
the house of a poor sick man, would produce a still farther sav-
ing, by contributing to the  support of his wife and children.  A
sick person of the  commonalty has hardly need of any thing
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.  Ma-
ladies of  a particular character are there generated,  frequently
more dangerous  than those which the sick carry in with them.
They are sufficiently known, such especially as are denominated
hospital-fevers.   Besides these, evils  of a much  more serious
nature, those which affect morals, are there communicated.   A
person of extensive knowledge and experience has  assured  me,
that most of the criminals who terminate their days on a gibbet,
or  in the galleys, are  the spawn of hospitals.   This amounts to
what has been already asserted,  that a corps  of whatever de-
scription  is always depraved, especially a corps of beggars.  I
could  wish therefore, that so far from collecting and crowding
together the miserable, they might be provided for, under the
inspection of their own relations, or entrusted to poor families
who would take care of them.
   Public prisons are  necessary ;  but it is surely desirable  that
the unhappy creatures there  immured should  be less miserable
while under confinement. Justice undoubtedly in depriving them
of liberty proposes not only to punish, bt  to reform their moral
character.   Excess of misery and evil  communications  can
change it only from bad to worse.  Experience farther demon-
strates, that there it is the  wicked acquire the  perfection of de-
pravity.   One who went in only feeble and culpable, comes out
an accomplished  villain.   As this subject  has been treated pro- 
356
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 foundly by a celebrated Writer, I shall pursue it no farther.   I
 shall only beg leave to observe, that there is no way but one to
 reform men, and that is to render  them happier.  How many
 who w-ere 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, because they
 have there found more liberty and more happiness than they en-
 joyed  in their native  country.
   There is another class of Mankind still more worthy of com-
 passion, because they are innocent: I mean persons deprived of
 the use of  reason.  They are shut up, and they seldom fail of
 consequence to become more insane than they were before.   I
 shall on this  occasion  remark,  that  I do not  believe there is
 through the whole extent of Asia, China  however excepted, a
 single  place of confinement for persons  of this description. The
 Turks  treat them with singular respect; whether it be  that Ma-
 homet himself was occasionally subject  to mental derangement,
 or whether from a religious opinion they entertain, 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 in-
 stance  kno\vn of their having injured any one.   Our madmen
 on the  contrary are mischievous, because  they7 are miserable.
 As soon as one appears in  the streets, the children, themselves
 already rendered miserable  by their education, and delighted to
 find  a human being on whom  they can vent their malignity with
safety,  pelt him with stones, and take  pleasure in working him
up into a rage.  I must farther observe that there are no mad-
men among savages ;  and  I  could not  wish for a better proof
that  their political constitution renders them more happy than
polished Nations are, as  mental derangement proceeds only
from excessive chagrin.
  The  number  of insane persons under confinement is with us
enormously7 great.   There is not a provincial town, of any con-
siderable magnitude,  but what contains an edifice  destined to
this use. Their treatment in these is surely an object of commi-
seration, and loudly calls for the attention of Government, con-
sidering that  if after  all they are  no longer citizens,  they are
still men, and innocent  men  too.   When  I  was pursuing my
studies at Caen,  I recollect having seen in the madmens' ward, 
STUDY XIII.
357
some shut up in dungeons, where  they had not seen the light
for fifteen years. I one evening accompanied into some of those
dismal caverns  the good Cure de St. Martin, whose boarder I
then was, and who had been called to perform the last duties of
his office to one of those poor wretches, on the point of breath-
ing his last.   He was obliged, as well as I, to stop his nose all
the time he was by the dying man ; but the vapour which exha-
led from his dunghill was so infectious, that my clothes retained
the smell for more than two months, nay my very  linen, after
having been repeatedly sent to the washing.   I could quote
traits of the mode of treatment of those miserable objects which
would excite horror.   I shall relate only one which is still fresh
in my memory.
   Some years ago, happening to pass through l'Aigle, a small
town in  Normandy,  I strolled out about sunset to enjoy a little
fresh air.  I perceived on a rising  ground a convent most de-
lightfully situated.   A  monk, who stood porter, invited me in
to see the house. He conducted me through  an immense court,
m which the first thing that struck my eye was a man of about
forty years old, with half a hat on his head, who advanced directly
upon me, saying, "  Be so good as stab me to the heart ;  be so
" good  as stab me to the heart." The monk who  was my guide,
said to me, " 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:"  " Yes," replied he, " I am Superior of it." He
walked me from court to court, and conducted me into a small
enclosure in  which were several little cells of mason work, and
where we heard persons talking with a good deal of earnestness.
There we found a canon in his shirt,  with his shoulders quite
exposed, conversing with a man of a fine figure who was 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 at
the  same time to turn out.  His comrade instantly took up the
monk,  and emphatically said to him: " Man of blood, you are
"  guilty of a very cruel action.  Do not you see this poor crea-
"  ture has lost  his  reason?"   The monk, struck dumb for tKo
 moment, bit his lips, and threatened him with  his  eyes.  But 
358
STUDIES OF NATURE.
the other without being  disconcerted,  said to him:  " I know t
" am your victim; you  may do with me whatever you please."
Then,  addressing himself to me, he shewed 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 treat-
" ed!" I turned to the monk with an expression of  indignation
at a conduct so barbarous.  He coolly replied:  "Oh! I can put
" an end to all  his fine  reasoning in a moment."  I addressed
however a few words of consolation to the unfortunate 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, " I ne-
" ver had the honour of being  at the  Mareschal de Broglio*s.*f
Upon that he instituted  a process of recollection respecting the
different places  where he thought he had seen me, with circum-
stances  so accurately detailed, and clothed with such appear-
ances 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 mo-
ment that 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  after  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.
  A great many physical remedies are employed for the cure of
madness ; and it frequently proceeds from a moral cause,  for it
is produced by  chagrin.  Might there not be a possibility to em-
ploy, 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, and many others of
a similar nature, what influence music  possesses for re-establish-
ing the harmony of the soul.   With this ought to  be united
treatment the most gende, and  care to place the unhappy pa-
tients,  when visited with paroxysms of rage, not under the re-
straint of fetters, but in an apartment matted round, where they
could do no mischief either to  themselves or others.  I am per-
suaded that  by employing such humane precautions, numbers 
STUDY XIII.
359
might be restored, especially if they were under the charge of
persons who had no interest in perpetuating their derangement;
as is but too frequently the case, with respect to families who
are enjoying their estates, and houses of restraint where a good
board is paid for their detention.  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.
   I would not wish that there should be in the kingdom any one
art, craft or profession, but  whose final retreat and  recompense
should be at Paris. Among the different classes  of citizens who
practise these, and of whom the greater part is little known in
the capital, there is one, and that very numerous, which is not
known at all there, though one of the most miserable, and that
to which of all others the rich  are under the strongest obliga-
tions, I mean the seamen.  These hardy and unpolished beings
are the men who go in quest of fuel to their voluptuousness to
the very extremities of Asia, and who are continually exposing
their lives upon our own coasts, in order to find a supply of deli-
cacies for their tables. Their conversation  is at least as sprightly
as that of our peasantry, and  incomparably more  interesting,
from their manner of viewing objects,  and from the singularity
of the countries which they have visited in the  course of their
voyages.  At the recital of  their many-formed disasters, and of
the tempests which threatened them, while employed in convey-
ing to you objects of enjoyment from every7 region of the Globe,
ye happy ones of  the earth! your own repose may be rendered
more precious to you.   By contrasts such as these your felicity-
will be heightened.
   I know not whether it was for the purpose of procuring for
himself a pleasure of this nature, or to give an enlivening sea
air to the park of  Versailles, that Louis XIV. planted a  colony
of Venetian gondoliers on the great canal which fronts the pa-
lace.  Their descendants subsist there to this day.  This estab-
lishment, under a  better direction, might have furnished a very
desirable  and useful retreat to our own seamen.   But that great
King, frequently misled by  evil counsellors, almost always car-
ried the sentiment of his own glory-  beyond his own people.
What a contrast would these hardy sons of the waves, bedaubed
with pitch, their wind and weather-beaten faces resembling sea- 
360
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 calves, arrived from Greenland, others from the coast of Guinea,
 have presented, with the marble statues, and verdant bowers of
 the park of Versailles! Louis XIV. would oftener than  once
 have derived from those blunt honest  fellows, more useful in-
 formation, and more important truth, than either books, or  even
 his marine officers of the highest rank could have  given him;
 and on the other hand, the novelty of their characteristic sin-
 gularity, and that of their reflections on his own greatness, would
 have provided for him spectacles much more highly amusing
 than those which the wits of his Court devised for him,  and at
 an enormous expense.  Besides, what emulation would not the
 prospect of  such preferments have kindled among our sailors ?
  I ascribe the perfection of the English Marine, in part at least,
 simply to the influence of their Capital, and from it's being in-
 cessantly under the eye of  the Court.   Were Paris a sea-port
 as London  is, how  many  ingenious inventions,  thrown away
 upon modes and operas, would be applied  to the improvement
 of navigation! Were sailors seen there even as currendy as sol-
 diers, a passion for the marine service would be more exten-
 sively diffused.  The condition of seamen, become  more  inte-
 resting to the Nation and to it's rulers, would be gradually me-
 liorated ;  and at the  same  time  this would have a happy ten-
 dency to mitigate the brutal despotism of those who frequently
 maintain their authority over them, merely by dint of swearing
 and blowrs.  It is a good, and  an easily practicable piece of po-
 licy7, to enfeeble vice by bringing men nearer to each other, and
 by rendering them more happy.   Our  country gentlemen did
 not give over beating their  hinds, till  they saw that this useful
part of Mankind had become  interesting objects  in books, and
 on the theatre.
  Not that I wish for our  seamen an establishment similar  to
 that of the Hotel des  Invalides.   I am charmed with the archi-
 tecture of that monument, but I pity the condition of  it's inhabi-
 tants.  Most of them are dissatisfied, and always murmering,
 as any one may7 be convinced who will take the trouble to  con-
 verse with them: I  do not believe there is any foundation for
this; but experience demonstrates that men formed into a corps
 sooner or later degenerate, and are always  unhappy.   It would
be wiser to follow the Laws of  Nature, and to associate them
by families.   I could wish that the practice of the English were 
STUDY XIII.                  361
observed and copied,by settlingour superannuated seamen on the
ferries of rivers, on board all those little barges which traverse
Paris, and by scattering them along the Seine, like tritons, to
adorn the plains:  we should see them stemming the tides of
our rivers  in wherries under smack-sails, luffing as they go;
and there they would  introduce  methods of Navigation  more
prompt, and more  commodious, than those hitherto known and
practised.
  As to those whom age or wounds may have totally- disabled
for service, they might be suitably accommodated and provided
for, in an edifice similar to  that which the English have reared
at Greenwich for the reception of their decayed seamen.  But
to acknowledge the,truth, the State, I am persuaded, would find
it a much more economical plan to allow them pensions, and
that these very seamen  would be much better disposed of  in
the bosom of their several  families.  This  however need not
prevent the  raising at Paris a majestic and commodious monu-
ment, to serve as a retreat for those brave veterans.  The capi-
tal sets little value  upon them because it knows them not; but
there are some  among them who, by going over to the enemy,
are capable  of conducting a descent on our Colonies, and even
upon our own coasts.  Desertion is as common among our ma-
riners as among our  soldiers, and their desertion is  a much
greater loss  to the State, because it requires more time to form
them, and because their local knowledge is of much higher im-
portance to an enemy  than that of our cavaliers, or of our foot-
soldiers.
  What I have now taken the liberty to suggest on the subject
of our seamen, might be extended to all the other estates of the
kingdom without exception.  I could wish that there were not
a single one but what  had it's centre at  Paris, and which might
not find there a place of refuge, a retreat, a little  chapel. All
these monuments of the different classes of citizens, which com-
municate life to the body politic, decorated with the attributes
peculiar to each particular craft and profession,  would  there
figure with perfect propriety, and w7ith most powerful effect.
  After having rendered the Capital a resort of happiness and
of improvement to our own Nation, I would allure to it the
men of foreign  nations from every  corner of  the Globe.  O !
ye Women, who regulate our destiny, how much  ought you to
  Vol. II.                  Z z 
362             STUDIES OF NATURE.

contribute towards uniting mankind, in a City where your em-
pire  is unbounded! In ministring to your pleasures do men em-
ploy 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 Moka 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 Rus-
sian, 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 y7ou.
  The glory of  a great Capital is to assemble within it's walls
the men of all  Nations who  contribute to it's pleasures.  I
should like to see at Paris, the Samoiedes with  their coats of
sea-calf-skin and their boots  of sturgeon's  hide ; and the black
Iolofs dressed in their waist-attire, streaked with red and blue*
I could wish to see there the beardless Indians of Peru dressed
in feathers from  head to foot, strolling about  undismayed in  our
public squares, around  the statues .of our Kings, mingled with
stately Spaniards in whiskers and short cloaks.   It  would give
me pleasure to see the Dutch making a settlement on the thirsty
ridges of Montmartre ; and following the bent of their hydrau-
lic inclination like the beavers, find the means of there construct-
ing canals filled  with water ; while the inhabitants  of the banks
of the Oroonoko should live comfortably  dry, suspended over
the lands inundated by the Seine, amidst the foliage of willows
and alder-trees,
  I could wish that Paris were as large, and of a population as
much diversified, as  those ancient cities of Asia, such as Nine-
veh 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 corres-
pondence with that city, as  the members with the  heart in the
human body.  What secret did the Asiatics  possess to raise ci-
ties so vast and so populous ? They are in all respects our elder
brothers.  They permitted all Nations  to settle among them. 
STUDY XIII.
363
Present men with liberty and happiness and you will attract
them from the ends of the Earth.
  It would be  much to  the honour of his humanity if some
great Prince would propose this question to the discussion of
Europe :  Whether the happiness of a people did not depend
upon that of it's neighbours ? The affirmative clearly demonstra-
ted,  would level with the dust the contrary maxim, that of Ma-
chiavel, which has too long governed our European politics. It
would  be very easy to prove, in the first place, that a good un-
derstanding with  her neighbours  would enable her confidently
to disband those land and naval forces which are so burdensome
to a  Nation.  It might be demonstrated, secondly, that every
people has been a partaker in the blessings and the calamities of
their neighbours, from the example of the Spaniards, who made
the  discovery of America, and have scattered the advantages
and the evils of it over all the rest of Europe.  This truth may
be farther confirmed from the prosperity and greatness attained
by those  Nations who were at pains to conciliate the  good-will
of their neighbours, as the Romans did, who extended farther
and farther the  privileges of citizenship, and thereby in process
of time consolidated all the Nations of Italy into one single State.
They would undoubtedly have formed but one single  People of
the whole Human Race, had not their barbarous custom of ex-
acting  the service of foreign slaves counteracted a policy so hu-
mane.  It might finally be made apparent, how miserable those
Governments were which, however well constituted internally,
lived in a state of perpetual anxiety, alway7s weak and divided,
because they did not extend humanity beyond the bounds of
their own territory. Such were the ancient Greeks: such is in mo-
dern times Persia, which has sunk into a state of extreme weak-
ness, and into which it fell immediately after the  brilliant reign
of Scha Abbas,  whose political maxim it was to surround him-
self  with deserts ; his own country  has  at length become  one
like  those of his neighbours. Other examples to the same pur-
pose might be found among the powers of Asia, who receive
the Law from handfuls of Europeans.
  Henry  IV. had formed the celestial project of engaging all
Europe to live in peace ; but his project wras not sufficiently ex-
tensive to support itself :  war must have fallen upon Europe
from the other quarters of the World. Our particular destinies 
364
STUDIES OF NATURE.
are connected with those of mankind.  This is an homage which
the Christian Religion justly challenges, and which it alone me-
rits.  Nature says to you, love thyself alone  ; domestic educa-
tion says, love your family ; the national, love your country ;
but Religion says, Love all Mankind without exception.  She
is better acquainted with our interests than our  natural instinct
is, or our parentage, or our politics.  Human societies are not
detached from  each other like those of animals.   The bees of
France  are not in the least affected 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  Conti-
nent ; and the war-whoop of a savage on the bank of a lake has
oftener than once re-echoed through Europe, and disturbed the
repose of her Potentates.   The Religion which condemns love
of ourselves,  and which 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 toward the ge-
neral felicity ;  and by inculcating upon us the obligation of lov-
ing 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 toward 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 com-
munications, we should be no great losers. The Nations of Asia
send no Consuls nor Ministers,  nor  Ambassadors,  out of the
Country,  unless  in very extraordinary  cases : and all the Na-
tions of the Earth seek to them.   It is not by sending Ambas-
sadors in great state, and at a vast expense, to neighbouring Na-
tions, that we conciliate or secure their friendship.  In  many
cases our ostentatious magnificence becomes  a  secret source of
hatred and jealousy among their grandees. The point is  to give
a kind reception to their subjects properly- so called, the weak,
the persecuted, the miserable.   Our French refugees were the
men who conveyred part of our skill, and of our power, to Prus-
sia, and to Holland. How many unseen relations of commerce,
and of  national benevolence, have been formed upon the  foun-
dation of such graciousness of reception ! An honest German
who retires into/Austria,  after having made a  little fortune in
France, is the means of sending to us a hundred of his compa- 
STUDY XIII.
365
triots, and disposes the whole canton in which he setdes to wish
us well.   By bonds like these national friendships are contract-
ed, much better than by diplomatic treaties ;  for the opinion of
a Nation always determines that of the Prince.
   After  having rendered the city of men wonderfully happy, I
would direct my attention  to the embellishment and commodi-
ousness of the city of stones.  I would rear in it a multitude of
useful monuments ;  I would extend along the houses, arcades
as in Turin, and a raised pavement as in London, for the accom-
modation of  foot-passengers ; in the streets where  it was prac-
ticable, trees and canals as in Holland, for the facility of carriage;
in the suburbs, caravanseries as in the cities of the East, for the
entertainment, at a moderate expense, of travellers from foreign
lands ; toward 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 sur-
rounding space I would dispose temples, halls of justice, public
fountains ; the principal streets should terminate in them.  These
markets, shaded with trees,  and divided into great  comparti-
ments, should display in the most beautiful order all the gifts of
Flora, of Ceres, and of Pomdna.   I would erect in the  centre
the statue of a good King ; for it  is impossible to place it in a
situation more honourable to his memory, than in the midst of
the abundance enjoyed by his  subjects.
   I know of no one thing which conveys to me an idea  more
precise of the police of a city, and of the felicity of it's inhabi-
tants,  than the sight of it's  markets.   At  Petersburg every
market is parcelled out into sub-divisions destined to the sale of
a single  species of merchandise.   This arrangement pleases at
first glance, but soon fatigues the eye by it's uniformity.   Peter
the First was fond of regular forms, because they are favour-
able to despotism.  For my own part, I should like to see the
most perfect harmony prevailing among our merchants, and the
most complete contrasts among their wares.  By7 removing the
rivalities which arise out of commerce in the same  sort of goods,
those jealousies which are productive of so many quarrels would
be prevented.  It would give me pleasure to behold Abundance 
366
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 there pouring out the treasure of all her horns pellmell;  phea-
 sants, fresh-cod, heath-cocks, turbots, pot-herbs, piles of oysters,
 oranges, wild-ducks, flowers, and so on.  Permission  should
 be granted to expose to sale there every species of goods what-
 ever ; and this privilege alone would be sufficient to destroy va-
 rious species of monopoly.
   I would erect in the city but few temples j these few 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  covered
 with church-towers,  while  Constantinople is crowded  with
 Greek and Italian renegadoes.  Independently of  the political,
 and even religious causes which produce these national deprava-
 tions, there is one  which is  founded  in  Nature, the  effects of
 which we have  already recognised in the weakness of the hu-
 man mind.   It  is this, That affection diminishes in proportion
 as it is  divided  among a variety of objects.  The Jews, so as-
 tonishingly 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 the purpose of assembling the People, and of treat-
 ing them from time to time with days of festivity.   What a su-
 perb site for such an edifice is presented in the rising ground
 at the entrance into the Ehysian 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 it's ridge crowned  with  great
 trees, exalted on an elevation of more than fourscore feet:  What
 a magnificent spectacle would it have been to behold an immense
 people ranged round and round,  like  one great family, eating,
 drinking, and rejoicing in the contemplation of their own felicity!
   All these edifices should be constructed of stone ; not in pet-
 ty-layers, according to  our  mode of building, but in huge blocks
 such as  the Ancients employed,* and as  becomes a city that is

  * And such as Savages employ.  Travellers are astonished when they sur-
vey in Peru the  monuments of  the ancient Incas, formed of vast irregular
stones perfectly fitted to each other/ 1 heir construction presents at first
sight two great difficulties : How could the Indians  have transported those 
STUDY XIII.
367
 to last for ever.  The streets and the 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 Nature.
 It is to the trees that our favourite walk  the  Boulevards is in-
 debted for it's principal charm.   They delight the eye by their
 verdure;  they elevate the  soul to Heaven  by the loftiness of
 their stems;  they communicate respect to the monuments which
 they shade by  the majesty of their forms.   They contribute,

 huge masses of stone ; and How did they contrive to  adapt them so exactly
 to each other, notwitlistanding their  irregularity ?  Our men of Science have
 first supposed a machinery proper for the transportation of them ; as if there
 could be any machine more powerful than the arms of a whole people exert-
 ing themselves in concert.  They next tell us, that the Indians gave them
 those irregular forms by dint of labour and industry.  This is  a downright
 insult to the common sense of Mankind. Was it not much easier to cut them
 into a regular than into an irregular shape ? I myself was embarrassed in at-
 tempting a  solution of this problem.   At length having read in the Memoirs
 of Don Ulloa, and  likewise in some other travellers, that there are  found in
 many places of Peru beds of stone along the surface of the ground, separated
 by clefts and crevices, I presently comprehended the  address of the ancient
 Peruvians.  All they had to do was to remove, piece  and piece, those hori-
 zontal layers of tlie quarries, and to place them in a perpendicular direc-
 tion, by moving the  detached pieces close to each other.  Thus they had
 a wall ready made which cost them nothing in the hewing.   The natural ge-
 nius is possessed of resources exceedingly simple, but far superior to those
 of our arts.   For example, the Savages of Canada had no cooking pots of
 metal previous to the arrival of the Europeans.   They had however found
 mcuns to supply this want,  by hollowing the trunk ofa tree with fire.  But
 how did they contrive to set it a boiling, so  as to dress a whole ox, which
 they frequendy did 1 1 have applied to more than one pretended man of ge-
 nius for a solution of this difficulty, but to no purpose.  As to myself, I was
 long puzzled, 1 acknowledge, in devising a method by which water might be
 made to  boil in kettles made of wood, which were frequendy large enough
 to contain several hundred gallons.   Nothing however could be easier to Sa-
 vages : they  heated pebbles and flints till they were red-hot, and cast them
 into the water in the pot, till it boiled.  Consult Chumplain*

   ' This may be true.  But the savages of Canada did not boil all their food
 " in kettles made of wood."  Long  before  the arrival of tlie Europeans
 among them, they  discovered much  ingenuity in forming kettles of earth
 winch they baked in the fire. In neatness, in durability, &c., they were not
mfi nor to the common earthern ware of the Europeans, and their descen-
dants m America.  I have seen many of these Indian ketdes.  Thoscof, the
Crc.-ks, and some other southern tribes, were much larger, and formed with
 n-Huv taste.—B. «. H 
368
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 more than we are aware of, to rivet our attachment to the places
 which 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 influence over the events of
 our life, like those which rise by the shore of the Sea, and which
 frequently serve as a direction to the pilot.
   I never see the linden tree but I feel myself transported into
 Holland ; nor the fir without representing  to  my  imagination
 the forests of Russia.   Trees  frequently attach us to Country
 when the other ties which united us to it are torn asunder.   I
 have known  more than  one exile who  in old-age was brought
 back to his native village,  by the recollection of the elm under
 the shade of which he had danced wrhen a boy.   I have heard
 more than one inhabitant of the Isle of France sighing after his
 Country under the  shade of the banana, and who said to me ;
 " I should be perfectly tranquil where  I am could I but see a
 " violet."  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 re-
 collection of some distinguished personage.   Whole Nations
 have  attached their patriotism to this object.  With what vene-
 ration did the Greeks contemplate at Athens the olive-tree which
 Minerva had there caused to spring up, and on Mount Olympus,
 the wild-olive with which Hercules had been crowned !  Plutarch
 relates, that,  when at Rome  the  fig-tree under which  Romulus
 and Remus had been suckled by a wolf, discovered signs of de-
 cay from a lack of moisture,  the first person  who perceived it
 exclaimed, Water!  Water ! and all the people in consternation
 flew with pots and pails full  of  water to refresh it.  For my
 part,  I am persuaded, that though we have  already far degene-
 rated from  Nature, we could not without  emotion behold the
 cherry tree of the forest, into which our good King Henry IV.
 clambered up, when he perceived the army of the Duke of May-
 enne filing off to the bottom of the adjoining valley.
  A  city, w-ere it built completely of marble, would have to me
 a melancholy appearance,  unless I saw in it trees and verdure :*

  *  Trees are from their duration the real monuments of Nations; and they
are farther tlieir calendar, from the different  seasons at which they send
forth their leaves, their flowers, and their fruits.  Savages have no other,
 ir.d our own peasantry make frequent use of it.  I met one day, toward the 
STUDY XIII.                    369
 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 those 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 there 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 country woman 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 to
 the good woman: " How beautiful are those apple trees in blos-
 " som !  How sweetly these nightingales sing in the woods!"—
 " Ah!" replied she,  " I  don't mind nosegays, nor these  little
 " squallers! It  is bread that  we want."   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 imi-
 tate natural objects; it  is from the price  to which  the hand of
 great masters raises their productions.   That man gives a thou-
 sand crowns for a picture of the  country painted  by Lorrain,

 end of Autumn, a country girl all in tears, looking about for a handkerchief
 which she had lost upon tlie great road.  " Was your handkerchief very
 "pretty ?" said 1 to her.  «  Sir," replied  she, « it was quite new ; I bought
 " it last bean-time." It has long been my opinion, that if our historical epochs,
 so loudly trumpeted, were dated by those of Nature, nothing more would
 be wanting to mark their injustice, and expose them to ridicule.  Were wc
 to read, for example, in our books of History, that a Prince Had caused part
 of his subjects to  be massacred, to render Heaven propitious to him, pre-
 cisely at the season when his kingdom was clothed with the plenty of har-
 dest ; or were we  to read the relations of bloody engagements,  and of the
 bombardment of cities,  dated with the  flowering of the viokt, the first
 cream-cheese making, the sheep-marking  season;  Would any  other contrast
 be necessary to render the perusal of such histories detestable > On the other
 hand, such dates would communicate immortal graces to the actions of good
 Princes, and would confound the blessings which they bestowed, with* those
of Heaven.*

  *  For a specimen of an Indian calendar, formed upon such  circumstances
as arc alluded to by our author, I hetr leave to refer the reader to my Element*
 ■>f Botany, Part i, page 297,  kc —B  SB
  Vol. II.                   3 A 
are
STUDIES OF NATURE.
who would not take the trouble to put his head out of the win-
dow to look at the real landscape: and there is another who os-
tentatiously exhibits the bust of Socrates in his study7, who would
not receive that Philosopher into his house were he  in life, and
who perhaps would not scruple to concur in adjudging him to
death, were  he under prosecution.
  The taste of our Artists has been corrupted  by that of our
trades-people. As they know that it  is not Nature but their own
skill which is prized, their great aim is to display themselves.
Hence it is that they introduce a profusion of rich  accessories
into most of our  monuments, while they frequently omit alto-
gether the principal object.  They produce, for instance, as  an
embellishment for gardens, vases of marble, into which it is im-
possible to put any vegetable; for apartments, urns and pitchers
into which you cannot pour any species of  fluid; for our cities,
colonades without palaces, gates in places where are no walls,
public squares fenced with barriers, to prevent the people from
assembiing in them.  It is  they tell us that the grass may be per-
mitted to shoot.   A fine  project truly! One of the heaviest
curses which the Ancients pronounced against their enemies
was, that they might see the grass grow in their public places.
If they wish to see verdure in ours, Why do they not plant trees
in them,  which would  give the people at once shade and shel-
ter? There are some who  introduce into the trophies which or-
nament the town  residences of our grandees, bows, arrows, ca-
tapults ; and who have carried the simplicity of the thing to such
a height  as to plant on them  Roman standards, inscribed with
these characters,  S. P. Q. R.  This may be seen in the Palais
de  Bourbon.  Posterity will be taught to believe  that the Ro-
mans were,  in the eighteenth century7,  masters of our country.
And in what estimation do we mean, vain as we are, that our
memory  should be held by7 them, if our monuments,  our medals,
our trophies, our dramas,  our inscriptions,  continually hold out
to them strangers and antiquity?
  The Greeks and Romans were much more consistent. Never
did they-  dream of constructing useless monuments. Their beau-
tiful vases of alabaster and calcedony were employed in festivals,
for holding wine or perfumes; their peristyles always announced
a palace; their public places were destined only to the purpose
of assembling the people.  There they reared the statues of their 
STUDY XIII.                  jn
yi'eat men, without enclosing them in rails of iron, in order that
their images might still be within reach of the miserable, and
be open to their invocation after death, as they themselves had
been while they were alive. Juvenal speaks of a statue of bronze
at Rome, the hands of which had been worn away by the kisses
of the People.  What glory to the memory of the person whom
it represented!  Did it still exist, that mutilation would render
it more precious than the Venus de Medicis, with its fine propor-
tions.
  Our populace we  are told is destitute of patriotism.   I can
easily believe it, for every thing is done that can be done to des-
troy this  principle in them.   For example, on the pediment of
the beautiful church which we are building in honour of Saint
Genevieve, but which is too small, as all our modern monuments
are, an adoration of the cross is represented.  You see indeed
the Patroness of Paris in bas-reliefs under the peristyle, in the
midst of  Cardinals ; but would it not have been more in charac-
ter to exhibit to the People their humble Patroness in her habit
of shepherdess, 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 of her condition, on the pe-
diment 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
comparison  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 sti-
mulated  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.
   Our Artists  in some cases deviate so completely  from the
principal object, that they leave  it out altogether.   There was
exhibited some  years  ago,  in one  of the  workshops  of the
Louvre, a monument in honour of the Dauphin and Dauphiness,
designed for the cathedral of the city of Sens. Every body flock-
ed to see it, and came away  in raptures of admiration. I went
with the rest; and the first thing I looked for was the resemblance
of the Dauphin and  Dauphiness, to whose memory the monu- 
C7"Z
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 ment had been erected.   There  was no such thing there, not
 even in medallions. You saw Time with his scythe, Hymen with
 urns, and all the thread bare ideas of allegory, which frequently
 is by the way the genius of those who  have none.   In order to
 complete the elucidation of the subject, there were on the pan-
 nels of  a  species of altar, placed  in the midst of this group of
 symbolical figures, long inscriptions in Latin, abundantly foreign
 to the memory of the great Prince who was the object of them.
 There, said  I to myself, there  is a fine national monument! La-
 tin inscriptions for French readers, and pagan symbols for  a
 cathedral! Had the Artist, whose chisel I in other respects ad-
mired, meant to  display his own talents, he ought to have re-
commended to his successor, to  leave imperfect a small  part of
the base of that monument, which death prevented himself from
 finishing, and to  engrave these words upon it: Coustou mori-
ensfaciebat.*  This consonance  of fortune would have united
him to the royal monument, and would have  given a deep im-
pression to the reflections on the vanity of human things, which
the sight of  a tomb inspires.
   Very few  Artists catch  the moral object;  they aim only at
the picturesque.   " Oh,  what  a  fine subject for a Belisarius /"
exclaim they-, when the conversation happens to turn on one of
our great men reduced to distress.  Nevertheless, the liberal arts
are destined only to revive the memory of Virtue, and not Vir-
 tue to  give employment  to the fine Arts.   I  acknowledge that
the celebrity which they procure is a powerful incentive to prompt
 men to great actions, though after all it is not the true one ; but
though  it may not inspire the  sentiment, it sometimes produces
the acts.  Now-a-days  we go nmJi farther.  It  is no longer
the glory of virtue which associations and individuals  endeavor
 to merit;  it is the honour  of distributing it to others at which
 they aim.  Heaven knows the strange  confusion which results
 from this? Women of very  suspicious virtue, and kept-mistress-
es, establish  Rose-feasts : they dispense premiums on virginity!
 Opera-girls  crown our victorious Generals ! The Mareschal de
 Saxe, our Historians tells us, was  crowned with laurels  on the
national theatre: as if the Nation had consisted of players, and as
 if it's Senate  were a theatre ! For my own part I look on  Virtue
* The work of Coustou left unfinished by death. 
STUDY XIII.                   iT3
as so respectable, that nothing more would be wanting, but a
single subject in which it was eminendy conspicuous, to over-
whelm with ridicule those who dared to dispense to it such  vain
and contemptible honours. What stage dancing girl, for example,
durst have had the impudence to crown the august forehead of
7 'urenne or that of Fenelon .'
  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 elogiums
which it pronounces to panegyrize  the dead, than to satyrize the
living.  Besides, posterity will rely as little on the language of
praise  as on that of censure.   For, first, the term elogium is
suspected of flattery ; and farther, this species of eloquence cha-
racterises nothing.   In order to plant  virtue, it is necessary 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. It is crowded with reflections, and paint-
ings, foreign  very frequently to the principal object. It resem-
bles a Spanish horse ; it prances about wonderfully,  but never
gets forward.   This kind of  eloquence, vague and  indecisive as
it is, suits no one great man in particular, because it may be ap-
plied in general to all those who have run the same career.  If
you only change a few proper names in the elogium of a Gene-
ral,  you may comprehend in  it all Generals past and future.
Besides it's bombast tone is so little adapted to the simple lan-
guage of truth and virtue, that when a Writer means to introduce
characteristical traits of his hero,  that  we may know at least of
whom  he is speaking,  he is under the necessity of throwing
them into notes, for fear of deranging his academical order.
   Assuredly had Plutarch written  the elogium only of illustrious
men, he would have had as few readers at this day7 as  the Pa-
negyric of Trajan has, which cost the younger Pliny so mam-
years labour.  You will never find  an academical elogium in the
hands of one of the common  People.   You might see them per-
haps turning over those of Fontenelle, and  a few  others, if the
persons celebrated in them  had  paid  attention to the people
while they live.  But the Nation takes  pleasuse  in  reading
History.
   As I was walking some time ago tow7ard Ju quarter of the
 Military School, I perceived at some distance, near a  sand-pit, 
374             STUDIES OF NATURE.
 a thick column of smoke.   I  bent my course that way to sec
 what produced it. I found in a very solitary place, a good deal
 resembling that which Shakespeare makes the scene where the
 three witches appear to Macbeth,  a poor and aged woman sit-
 ting upon a stone.   She was deeply engaged in reading in 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 what book it was with which 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 ?" said I. " / h!" 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 increa-
 sed 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 pow-
 erful stimulus to the practice of virtue was to ennoble the de-
 scendants of their virtuous citizens.   They involved themselves
 by7 this  in very great inconveniencies. 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 pos-
 session 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 produce a lethargy- fatal to arts  and
 handicrafts;  and this is actually the case in Spain, and  in part
 of Italy.
  Many other mischiefs necessarily result from hereditary no-
blesse, the principal of which is the formation, in a  State, of 
STUDY XIII.
375
two several  Nations which  come  at last to have  nothing in
common between them; patriotism is annihilated, and both the
one and the other  hastens  to a state of subjection.  Such has
been, within our recollection, the fate of Hungary, of Bohemia,
of Poland, and even of part  of the provinces of our own king-
dom, 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 remark-
ed, that these counties, 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 the
fate of their lordly oppressors.  The Romans softened the un-
just and  odious distinctions  which existed between Patricians
and Plebeians, by  granting to these last privileges and  employ-
ments of the highest respectability.
   Means in  my opinion  still  more effectual were employed by
that People  to  bring the two classes  of  citizens to a state of
closer approximation; 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
Country7 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.  Thus  it was that thi
Plebeian Agricola obtained in  marriage the daughter of Augustus.
I do not know, but perhaps I am only betraying my own igno
ranee, that adoption ever was in use among us, unless it were
between certain great Lords, who  from the failure of heirs of
blood were at a loss how to  dispose of their vast  possession;-
when  they died.  I consider  adoption as much preferable to
nobility conferred  by the State.  It might be the means of re-
viving illustrious families,  the descendants  of which are now
languishing in the most abject poverty-.   It would  endear the
Nobility to  the People, and  the People  to the  Nobility.  It
would be  proper that 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 fa-
mily, who had distinguished himself, might be empowered u 
376
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 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 appear to me more powerful, and more honoura-
 ble, than mercenary matrimonial alliances, which,  by  uniting
 two individual citizens  of different classes, frequently alienate
 their families.   Nobility thus acquired  would appear to me far
 preferable to that which public employments confer; for these,
 being < ntirely the purchase of so much money, from that very
 circumstance  loose their  respectability, and consequently de-
 grade the nobility attached to them.
   But in taking it at the best, one  disadvantage must ever ad-
 here to hereditary nobility, namely,  the eventual excessive mul-
 tiplication of persons of that description.  A remedy for this has
 been attempted among us, by adjudging nobility to various pro-
 fessions, such as maritime commerce.   First of all, it may be
 made a question, Whether the spirit of commerce can be per-
 fectly7  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 ?
 And where should so many7 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 descendants of the
 most ancient families of the province, so reduced as to earn a
 livelihood by mowing down the hay of the peasantry for so much
 a day7.
   Would to God that all conditions  were nobilitated, the profes-
 sion of agriculture in particular! for it is that, above all  others,
 of which every function is allied to virtue.   In order to be a
 husbandman there is no need to  deceive, to flatter, to degrade
 one's-self, to do violence to another. He is not indebted for the
profits of his labour to the vices or the 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 condition of
the husbandman were ennobled,  a mtiltitude of benefits to the
inhabitants of the kingdom would result from it. Nay, it would
be sufficient if it were not  considered as  ignoble.  But here is a
 resource  which the State might employ for the  relief of the de- 
STUDY XIII.
377
cayed nobility.  Most of the ancient seignories  are purchased
now a-days  by persons who possess  no other merit but that of
having money ;  so that the honour of those illustrious houses
have fallen to  the share of  men who, to confess the truth,  are
hardly worthy of them. The King ought to purchase those lord-
ships as often  as they come to market ; reserve  to himself  the
seignorial rights, with part of the lands, and form of those small
domains civil and military benefices, to be bestowed as rewards
on  good officers, useful citizens, and noble and poor families,
nearly as the Timariots are in Turkey.

                      OF AN KLYSIUM.
  The hereditary transmission of Nobility is subject to a farther
inconveniency ; namely this, Here is a man, who sets out with
the virtues of a Marius, and finishes  the career, loaded with all
his vices.  I am going to propose a mode of distinguishing su-
perior worth which shall not be liable to the dangers of inherit-
ance, and of human inconstancy : it is to withhold the rewards
of virtue 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 terminated.  Then
too it was that the Romans sometimes exalted theirs to the rank
of demi-gods, and sometimes threw them into the Tiber.  The
People, in default of priests and magistrates, still exercise a-
mong us a  part of this priesthood.   I have  oftener than once
stood still of an evening, at sight of a magnificent funeral pro-
cession, not so much to admire the pomp of it, as to listen to the
judgment pronounced by the populace on the  high and puissant
Prince*'whose obsequies  were celebrating.  I have frequently
heard the question asked, Was he a good master ? Was he fond
of  his  wife and children ?  Was  he a friend to the Poor ? The
People  insist particularly on this last question ;  because, being
continually influenced by7 the principal call of Nature, they  dis-
tinguish in the rich hardlv  any other virtue than beneficence.  I
have often heard this reply given :  "  Oh ! he never did good
" to any one : he was an unkind relation, and a harsh master."
I have  heard them say-,  at the interment of a Farmer-General
who left behind him more than twelve millions of livres, (half a
million  sterling) : "  He drove awav the countrv poor from the
   Vol. II.                  3B* 
 378            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 " gate of his castle with fork and  flail."   On such occasions,
 you hear the spectators fall a swearing and cursing the memory
 of the deceased.  Such are usually  the  funeral orations of the
 rich, in the mouth of the populace.  There is little doubt that
 their decisions would produce consequences of a certain kind,
 were the police of Paris less strict than it is.
   Death alone can ensure reputation, and nothing short of re-
 ligion can  consecrate it.   Our grandees are abundantly aware
 of this.  Hence the sumptuousness of their monuments in our
 churches.   It is not that  the clergy  make a point of their being
 interred there, as many imagine.   The  clergy would  equally
 receive their perquisites   were the interment  in the country:
 they would take care, and very justly, to be well paid for  such
journeys ;  and they would be  relieved  from breathing all the
 year round in their stalls, the  putrid exhalations  of rotting car-
 cases.   The principal  obstacle to  this necessary reform in our
 police proceeds from the  great and the rich, who,  seldom dis-
 posed  to crowd the  church in their life time, are eager for ad-
 mission after their death,  that the  people may admire their su-
 perb mausolea, and their virtues portrayed in brass and  marble.
 But thanks to the allegorical representations of our Artists, and
to the Latin inscriptions of our Literati, the People know no-
thing about the matter;  and  the only  reflection  which  they
make at sight of them is,  that all  this must have cost  an enor-
mous sum  of  money ; and that such a vast quantity of copper
might be converted to  advantage into porridge-pots.
   Religion  alone  has  the power of consecrating, in a manner
that shall last, the  memory of Virtue. The King  of  Prussia,
who was so well acquainted  with the great moving spring of
politics, did not overlook this.  As the Protestant  RHigion,
which is the general profession of his kingdom,  excludes from
the churches the images of the Saints, he supplied their place
with the portraits of the  most 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 likew ise  subjoined,  if my7 recollection is accurate, a 
STUDY XIII.                    379
line or two of  elogium.  The military enthusiasm kindled by
this sight is inconceivable.*
  Among us, there is not a monkish  order so mean  as not  to
exhibit  in their cloisters, and  in their  churches, the pictures  of
their great men, beyond all contradiction more respected, and
better known, than those of the State.  These subjects, always
accompanied with  picturesque and interesting circumstances,
are the most powerful means which they employ for  attracting
novices.   The  Carthusians already perceive, that the  number
of their novices is diminished, now that they have no longer in
their cloisters the  melancholy history  of S. Bruno painted in a
style so masterly, by Le Sueur.  No one order of citizens prizes
the portraits of men who have been useful only to the Nation,
and to Mankind;  print-sellers alone sometimes display the im-
ages of them filed on a string, and illuminated with blue and
red.  Thither  the People  resort to look for them among those
of players and  opera-girls.  We shall  soon have  it is  said the
exhibition of a museum at the Tuilleries ;  but that royal monu-
ment is consecrated rather to talents than to patriotism, and
like so many others it will undoubtedly be locked up from the
People.
  First of all, I would have it made a rule  that no citizen what-
ever should be  interred in the church.  Xenophon relates that
Cyrus, the sovereign Lord of the greatest part of Asia, gavu
orders at his death, that his body should be buried in tbe open
country, under the trees, to the end that, said this  great Prince,
the elements of it might be quickly united to those of  Nature,
and contribute a-new to the formation of her beautiful Works.
This sentiment was worthy of the sublime soul of Cyrus.  But
tombs jlh every country,  especially the tombs of great Kings,
are the most endeared of all monuments to the Nations.  The
Savages consider those of their ancestors as titles to the posses-
sion of the lands which they inhabit.  " This country- is ours,"
say they, " the bones of our fathers are here laid to rest." When

  • But what, at length, has all this enthusiasm availed ? If it served, for a
time, to uphold the glory of the second Frederick,it has not been sufficient to
r»r< viuit tlie almost entire declension of the honours of the Prussian crown
                                                     B.S. B. 
j 80
STUDIES OF  NATURE.
 they are  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 high-ways, as
 the Romans did.   The Chinese make  theirs enchanted spots.
 They place them  in the vicinity of their cities,  in grottos dug
 out of the side of hills; they decorate the entrance into them
 with pieces of architecture, and plant before them, and all around,
 groves of cypress, and of firs, intermingled with trees which bear
 flowers and fruits.  These spots inspire a profound and a deli-
 cious melancholy-; not only from the natural effect of their deco-
 ration, but from  the  moral  sentiment excited in us by tombs,
 which are, as we have said in another place, monuments erected
 on the confines of two Worlds.


  * Nothing can exceed the enthusiastic attachment of the greater number
 of the known savage nations of North-America to the  simple tombs of their
 fathers, or ancestors.  They visit them, when this  can be done, at stated pe-
 riods ; or if transiently passing in the neighbourhood of them, they stop to
 honour the tumulus with a stone.   Sometimes,  when a tribe, or family, is at
 a great distance from  the burial-place  of the nation, it is not uncommon to
 see individuals, even the old and infirm, carrying about with them, the bones
 of their relatives, until they shall have an  opportunity of depositing them in
the sacred ground of the nation.   Nay, they are at the labour of  frequently
 anointing the bones thus carried, with the view, as they imagine, of prevent-
 ing their too early decay.—When  the  Indians visit the sepulchral tumuli,
 and add, according to the custom of their tribe, a stone, they often utter these
words, " Grandfather, I cover you!"—I have been the more induced to men-
lion these circumstances, by reason of an assertion of the late very respec-
table Dr. James Beattie, in his Remarks on some Passages of the sixth Book
 of the Eneid.   The assertion to which  I allude, occurs in the following pas-
 sage : " To inculcate  this doctrine, that the soul would suffer for some time
 in another world, if the body were not decently buried in this,  and that the
 neglect of the funeral ceremonies is offensive to superior beings, was a very
 warrantable fraud in  the lawgivers of Greece and Egypt; as it would no
 doubt make the people attentive to a duty, -whereof tvefind that savage nations
 are too apt to be forgetful."f
  Now nothing can be more unfounded than this assertion. So far is it from the
 truth, that our accounts of savage nations (those of the Americans, perhaps,
 more especially) are full of instances of the veneration of the people for the
remains of their dead.  On this subject, a very interesting volume might be
 written : and, indeed^ I am not sure, that already something of the kind has
 not proceeded from the pen ofa German writer.—B. S. B.
\ Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  Vol. >'. 
                       STUDY XIII.                  381

  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 die  Capital.   A
magnificent sepulchral  chapel might be constructed in the midst
of the burying-ground, devoted solely to funeral obsequies, the
celebration of which frequently disturbs the worship of God in
parish-churches.   Artists might give full scope to their imagi-
nation 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 monumental epitaphs.
  While each citizen should be left at liberty to  lodge himself,
agreeably to his own fancy, in this last and lasting abode, I w7ould
have a large space selected, not far from Paris,  to be 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 infi-
nite in number, and very various in their Nature.  We hardly
acknowledge any but what are of one and the same kind, 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 sense of
fear only, and not of gratitude.  There is no modern Nation so
insignificant as not to have  it's Alexander and it's Cesar to com-
memorate, but no one it's Bacchus and it's Ceres.  The Ancients,
as valiant at least as we are, thought incomparably better.  Plu-
tarch observes  somewhere, that Ceres and Bacchus,  who were
mortals, attained the supreme rank of Gods, on  account of the
pure, universal, and lasting blessings which they had procured
for  Mankind;  but that Hercules, Theseus, and  other Heroes,
were raised only to the subordinate rank of demi-gods, because
the services which they rendered to men were transient, circum-
scribed, and contained  a greater mixture of evil.
  I have  often  felt astonishment at our indifference about the
memory of  those of our  Ancestors who introduced useful trees
into the country, the fruits and shade of which are to this day
so delicious.  The names of those benefactors  are most of them
entirely unknown ;  their  benefits are however perpetuated to us
from age to age. The Romans did not act in this manner. Pliny
tells us, with no small  degree of self-complacency, that of the
fight  species of cherry known at Rome  in his time, one was 
382
STUDIES OF NATURE.
called the Plinian, after the name of one of his  relations, to
whom Italy was indebted for it.  The other species of this very
fruit bore, at Rome, the names of the most illustrious families,
being denominated the Apronian, the Actian, the Caecilian, the
Julian.  He informs us that it was Lucullus who, after the defeat
of Mithridates, transplanted from the kingdom of Pontus the first
cherry-trees into Italy, from whence they were propagated in
less than a hundred and twenty 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.
  Pliny, in another  place,  congratulates Pompeij and  Vespasian
on having displayed at Rome the ebony-tree, and that of the
balm of Judea,  in the midst of their triumphal processions, as
if they had then triumphed not only over the Nations, but over
the very Nature of their countries.  Assuredly, if I entertained
a wish to have my name perpetuated, I would much rather have
it affixed to a fruit in France than to an island in America. The
People in the season of that fruit would recal my memory with
tokens of respect.   My name, preserved in  the baskets of the
peasantry, would endure longer than if it were  engraved on co-
lumns of marble.  I know of no monument in the noble family
of Montmorenci more durable, and more endeared to the People,
than the cherry which bears it's name. The Good-Henry, other-
wise lapathum, which grows without culture in the midst of our
plains, will confer a more lasting duration on the memory of
Henry IV. than the statue of bronze placed on the Pont-Neuf,
though protected by an iron rail and  a guard of soldiers.  If the
seeds and the heifers which Louis XV. by a  natural movement
of humanity-, sent to the Island of Otaheite, should happen to
multiply there, they7  will preserve his memory much longer, and
render it much dearer among the Nations of the South-Sea, than
the pitiful pyramid  of bricks which  the fawning Academicians
attempted to rear  in honour of him  at Quito, and perhaps than
the statues erected to him in the heart of his own kingdom.
  The  benefit of a useful plant is,  in  my opinion, one of the
most important services which a citizen can render to his Coun-
try.   Foreign plants unite us to the Nations from whence thev 
STUDY XIII.
383
come ; they convey to us a portion of their happiness ; and of
their genial Suns.  The olive-tree represents to me the happy
climate of Greece much better than the book of Pausanias; and
I find the gifts of Minerva more powerfully7 expressed in it than
upon medallions. Under a great-chesnut in blossom I feel my-
self laid to rest  amidst the rich umbrage of America; the per-
fume of  a citron transports me to Arabia; and I am an inhabi-
tant of voluptuous Peru whenever  I inhale the emanations of the
heliotrope.
  I would begin then with erecting the first monuments of  the
public gratitude to those who have  introduced  among us  the
useful plants ; for this purpose I would select one of the islands
of the Seine, in  the vicinity of Paris, to be converted into an
Elysium.  I would take for example that one which  is below
the  majestic bridge of Neuilly, and which in a few years more
will actually be joined to the suburbs of Paris.   I would extend
my field of operation, by- taking in that branch of the Seine
which is not adapted to the purposes of navigation, and a large
portion of the adjoining Continent.   I would plant this exten-
sive district with the trees, the  shrubbery,  and the herbage,
with which France  has been enriched for several ages past.
There should be assembled the great Indian-chesnut, the tulip-
tree, the mulberry, the acacia of America and of  Asia;  the
pines of Virginia and Siberia ; the bear's-ear of the Alps ;  the
tulips of Calcedonia, and so on.  The service-tree of Canada,
with' it's scarlet clusters, should have  a  place; the  magnolia
grandifora  of America, which produces the largest and most
odoriferous of flowers: the evergreen thuia  of China,  which
puts forth no apparent flower, should  interlace their boughs,  and
form here  and there enchanted  groves.
   Under their shade, and amidst carpets of variegated verdure,
should be reared the monuments of those  who  transplanted
them into France.  We should behold, around the magnificent
tomb of Nicot, Ambassador from France to the Court of Por-
tugal, which is  at present in the church of St. Paul, the famous
Tobacco plant springing up, called at first after his  name Nicoti-
ana, because he was the man  who first diffused  the knowledge
of it over Europe.   There is not a  European Prince but what
owes him a statue for that service,  for there is  not a vegetable
in the  World which has poured such sums into their treasuries. 
 384             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 and so many agreeable illusions into the minds of their subjects.
 The  ^nepenthes of Homer  is not once to be  compared to it.
 There might be engraved on a tablet of marble adjoining to it,
 the name  of the  Flemish  Auger de Busbequius,  Ambassador
 from Ferdinand the First King of the Romans to the Porte, in
 other respects so estimable from the  charms of his epistolary
 correspondence; and this small monument might be placed un-
 der the shade of the lilach, which he transported from Constan-
 tinople,  and  of which he made  a present to Europef in 1562.
 The lucern of Media should there surround with it's shoots the
 monument dedicated to the memory of the unknown husband-
 man, who first sowed it on our flinty hillocks, and who present-
 ed us with  an article  of pasture, in  parched situations, which
 renovates itself  at least four times a year.  At sight of the so-
 lanam of America  which  produces at it's root the  potatoe,  the
 poorer part  of the community would bless the name of the  man
 who secured  to them a species of  aliment which is not liable,
 like corn, to suffer  by the inconstancy7  of the elements, and by
 the granaries of monopolizers.-): There too  should be displayed,
 not without a lively interest, the  urn of the unknown Traveller

  * I am somewhat surprized, I confess, to  find our  good author speaking
 with so  much enthusiasm, of the  tobacco.  Is he  fond of snuff;  does he
 smoke.'  As they regard a man of great genius and of still greater worth,  I
 may be  excused for asking these seemingly unimportant, questions—I will
 not pretend to say, whether, upon the whole, the use of tobacco has done
 more harm than good,  among mankind.  It does not appear to be unfriendly
 to old age. It is, unquestionably, in some cases, a medicine of much efficacy.
 But tobacco, as an article of usefulness, ought not to be compared to the
 nepenthes of Homer: if, indeed, this last be what we call opium, or at least
 some other anodyne preparation of the poppy.—B. S. B.

                   f See JIatthiola on Dioscondes.

  ,- The potatoe (solatium tuberosum) is a native  of Peru  and Chili,  and
 doubtless of other parts of South America.  It is not, as has  been supposed,
 by Sir Joseph Banks and other  learned and ingenious men, a native of Vir-
ginia. I have fully satisfied myself, that it was not even known, in a  culti-
vated state, to  any of the Americans north of Mexico, when the Europeans
first took possession of these countries.  And we learn from Clavigero and
other writers, that this  invaluable vegetable was unknown in Mexico, until it
was introduced into that country, from the more southern regions of Ame-
rica. We know not, with  absolute certainty, who first introduced the po.
tatoe into Europe : nor  is the precise period of it's introduction satisfactorily
 ascertained.—B. S. B. 
STUDY XIII.
385
who adorned to endless generations the humble window of his
obscure habitation with the brilliant colours of Aurora, by trans-
planting thither the nun of Peru.*
   On advancing into this delicious spot, we should behold un-
der domes and porticos the ashes and the busts of those who,
by the invention of useful arts, have taught us to avail ourselves
of the productions of Nature, and who by their genius have spa-
red us the necessity of long and painful labours.  There would be
no occasion for epitaphs.   The  figures  of the  implements em-
ployed in weaving of stockings -,  of those used in twisting of
silk, and in the construction of the windmill, would be monu-
mental inscriptions as august, and as expressive, on the tombs
of their inventors, as the sphere  inscribed in the cylinder on
that of Archimedes.  There might one day be traced the aeros-
tatic globe, on the tomb of Mongolfier ;  but it would be proper
to know beforehand, whether that strange machine, which ele-
vates men into the air by means of fire, or gas, shall contribute
to the happiness of Mankind ;  for the name of the inventor of
gun-powder himself, were we capable of tracing it, could not be
admitted  into the  retreats of the benefactors of Humanity.
   On approaching toward 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 called
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 expense, in the
defence of his Country7: of the sage Catinat, equally tranquil in
die mountains of Savoy,  and in the humble  retreat of St.  Gra-
tian; and of the heroic  Chevalier d*Assets,  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 ardor of performing great actions.  There

  * For my own part, I would contemplate tlie monument of that man, were
it but a simple tile, with more  respect than tlie superb mausolca wh.ch have
b< c reared in many places of Europe, and of Vmerica, in honour oft!.!, in-
human conquerors of Mexico and I'eru.  Mon- Historians than  one  h.v»c
given their elogium ;  but divine Providence has done them justice. They all
died a violent death, and most  of the  by the hand of tlie executioner.
   Vol. II.                  3 C 
 386             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 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 w7ho 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 die memory of a husband  frequently
 chargeable with infidelity, preserved inviolate the conjugal vow,
 even after death had cancelled the obligation,  and devoted youth
 to the education of the dear pledges of an union now no more:
 and finally, the venerable effigies of those who attained the high-
 est pinnacle of distinction by the very obscurity of their virtues.
 Thither should be transported the tomb of a Lady of Lamoignon,
 from the poor church of Saint Giles where it remains unnoticed:
 it's affecting epitaph would render it still more worthy of occu-
 pying this  honourable station than the chisel of Girardon, whose
 master-piece it is: in  it we  read that a design had been enter-
 tained to bury her body 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 undoubtedly transport the remains of  their benefactress,
 and resort to this hallowed spot to display them to the  public
 veneration.

     Hie manus ob Patriam pugnando vulnera passi;
     Q-iique Sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat;
     Q.aque pii Vatcs, et Phoebo digna locuti;
     Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes ;
     Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.*—AZtieid, Book vi

                    *  Thus imitated:
     Here Patriot-bands who for tlieir country bled :
     Priests, who a life of purest virtue  led :
     Here Bards sublime, fraught with ethereal fir. ,
     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 
STUDY XIII.
387
   " Here inhabit the heroic bands who bled in fighting the bat-
hes of their Country;  the sacred ministers of religion, whose
" life exhibited unsullied purity ;  venerable bards, who uttered
u strains not unworthy of Apollo himself; and those who, by the
" invention of useful arts,  contributed to the comfort of human
" life ;  all those, in a word, who by deserving well of Mankind
" have purchased for themselves a deathless name."

  Had St. Pierre, in the course  of his travels, come over to this Island, and
visited Starwe, 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 ac-
cess to it; the monuments are for the most part patriotic, without regard to
the distinctions of rank and fortune, '■ xcept as allied to virtue ; and the best
inscriptions are in plain English, and humble prose.  In a beautifully solemn
valley, watered by a silent stream, and shaded by the trees of the Country,
stands the Temple of the British Worthies. The decorations and the arrange-
ments arc simple ; only that there is a mythological Mercury peeping over in
the centre, to contemplate the immortal shades whom he has conducted to the
Elysian Fields.  Were I Marquis of Buckingham, the wing-heeled God,
with his caduceus and Latin motto, should no longer disfigure the uniformity
and simplicity of that enchanting scene; and if Charon's old crazy barge
too were sunk to the bottom, the place  and the idea would be  greatly im-
proved.
  To  those who have never been at Sto-we, it may not be unacceptable to
read the Names,  and the characteristic Inscriptions of this  lovely retreat,
consecrated to Patriot worth, exalted genius, and the love of the Human
Race.
                      SIR  THOMAS  GRESHAM,
Who, by the honourable profession of a Merchant,  having enriched himself,
and his Country, for carrying on the Commerce of tlie World, built the Royal
Exchange.
                         IGNATIUS JONES,
Who, to adorn his Country, introduced  and rivalled the Greek and Roman
Architecture.
                          JOHN MILTON,
Whose sublime and unbounded  genius  equalled a subject that carried him
beyond the limits of the World.
                     WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR,
Whose excellent genius opened to him the whole hexirtof Man, all the mines
of fancy, all  the stores of Nature; and gave him power, beyond all other
Writers, to move, astonish, and delight Mankind.
                           JOHN LOCKE,
Who, best of all Philosophers, understood the powers of the Human Mind,
tlie nature, en'), and bounds of f'ivil Government;  and.  with equal rmn*a£e 
388
STUDIES OF NATURE.
  There I would have, scattered about, monuments of every
kind, and apportioned to the various degrees of merit: obelisks,
columns, pyramids, urns, bas-reliefs, medallions, statues, tablets,
peristyles, domes;  I would not have them crouded 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 quar-

and sagacity, refuted the slavish systems of usurped authority over the rights,
the  consciences, or the reason of Mankind.
                      SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
Whom the GOD of Nature made to comprehend his Works ; and, from sim-
ple  principles, to discover the Laws never known before, and to explain the
appearances never understood, of this stupendous Universe.
             SIR FRANCIS  BACON, (Lord Verulam)
Who, by the strength and light ofa superior genius, rejecting vain speculation,
and fallacious theory, taught to pursue truth, and improve Philosophy by the
certain method of experiment.
                          KING ALFRED,
The mildest, justest, most beneficent of Kings ; who drove out the Danes,
secured  the Seas, protected Learning,  established Juries, crushed Corpo-
ration, guarded Liberty,  and was the Founder of the English Constitution.
                  EDWARD, PRINCE  OF WALES,
The terror of Europe, the delight of  England; who preserved unaltered, in
the height of Glory and Fortune, his natural Gentleness and Modesty.
                       QUEEN ELIZABETH,
Who confounded the projects and destroyed the Power that threatened to
oppose the liberties of Europe ; shook oft' the  yoke of Ecclesiastical Tyran-
ny ; restored Religion  from the Corruptions of Popery;  and, by a wise, a
moderate, and a popular Government, gave Wealth, Security,  and Respect
to England.
                        KING WILLIAM HI.
Who by his Virtue and Constancy, having saved his country from a foreign
Mas-.cr,  by a bold and generous enterprize, preserved the Liberty and Reli-
gion of Great Britain.
                     SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
A valiant Soldier, and an able Statesman; who, endeavouring to  rouze the
spirit of his Master, for the honour of his Country, against the ambition of
Spain, fell a sacrifice to the influence of that Court, whose arms he had van-
quished,  and whose designs he opposed.
                       SIR FRANCIS DRAKE,
Who, through many perils, was the first of Britons that adventured to sail
round the Globe ; and carried into unknown Seas and Nations, the knowledge
and glory of the English name.
                         JOHN HAMPDEN,
Who with great spirit, and consummate abilities, begun a noble  opposition
to an arbitrary Court, in defence of the Liberties of his Country ;  supported
them in Parliament, and died for them in the Field. 
STUDY XIII.
389
ry;  but of marbles and stones of every colour.   There would
be no occasion, through the whole extent of this vast enclosure,
which I suppose to be at least a mile and a half in diameter, for
the application of the line, nor for digging up the ground, nor
for grass plots, nor for trees  cut into  shape and fantastically
trimmed, nor of any thing resembling what is to be seen in our
gardens.  For a similar reason I would have no Latin inscrip-
tions, nor mythological expressions, nor any thing that favoured
of the Academy.   Still less would I admit  of dignities,  or of
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 which are
the only titles that posterity cares for,  and that GOD recom-
penses.   The inscriptions upon them should be simple and na-
turally  suggested by  each particular subject.   I would not set
the living a-talking uselessly to the dead, and to inanimate ob-
jects, as is the case in our epitaphs ; but the dead, and inanimate
objects, should  speak to the living for their instruction, as among
the Ancients. These correspondencies 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 de-
light which ancient inscriptions inspire.
  Thus, for example, on a  rock  placed amidst a tuft of straw-
berry-plants of Chili, these words might be inscribed :
  I was unknown to P^urope ; but, in such a year, such  a  Person, born in
    such a Place, transplanted me from the lofty Mountains of Chili, and
    now I bear Flowers and Fruit in the happy climate of France.

  Underneath a bas-relief  of coloured marble, which should
represent little children eating, drinking, and playing, the fol-
lowing  inscription might appear.
  We were exposed in the Streets to the Dors, to Famine and Cold ;  such a
    compassionate Female, of such a place, lodged us, clothed us, and  fed us
    vv ith the milk which our own  Mothers had uenied.

  At the foot of a statue of white marble, ofa young and beau-
tiful woman, sitting and wiping  her eyes, with symptoms  of
grief and joy:
  [ was odious in the sight of GOD and  Man ; but, melted into Penitence, J
    ha\e made my Peace with  Heaven by Contrition, and have repaired the
    Mischief which I had done to Men, by befriending the Miserable. 
390
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   Near  this might be inscribed, under that of a young girl in
mean attire, employed with her distaff and spindle, and looking
up to Heaven with rapture :
  I have learned to despise the vain Delights of the World, and now I enjoy
                          Happiness.
   Of those monuments, some should exhibit  no other elogium
but  the  name simply : such should be, for example, the  tomb
which contained the ashes of the Author of  Telemachus;  or at
most I would  engrave on it the following words, so  expressive
of his affectionate and sublime character:
  He fulfilled the two Great Precepts of the Law: He loved GOD and Man.

   I have no need to suggest, that these inscriptions might be
conceived in a much happier style than mine  ; but I would in-
sist upon this, 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,
like the  Magdalene of the Carmelites; no mythological  attri-
butes, which convey nothing instructive to  the People.  Every
personage  should there appear with his appropriate badge of
distinction : there should be exhibited the sea-cap of the sailor,
the cornet  of the nun, the  stool of the Savoyard, pots for  milk,
and pots for soup.
   These statues of virtuous citizens ought to be fully as respec-
table as  those of the Gods of Paganism, and  unquestionably
more interesting than that of the antique grinder  or gladiator.
But it would be necessary that our Artists should study to con-
vey, as the Ancients did, the characters of the soul in the attitude
of the body, and in the traits of the  countenance, such as  peni-
tence, hope, joy, sensibility, innocence.  These are the peculia-
rities of Nature, which never  vary,  and which  always please,
whatever be the drapery.   Nay the more  contemptible that the
occupations" and the garb of such personages are, the more sub-
lime will appear the expression of charity, of humanity, of inno-
cence, and of all their  virtues.  A young and beautiful female,
labouring like Penelope at her web,  and modestly dressed in  a
Grecian robe, with long plaits, would there no doubt present an
object pleasing to every one : but I should think her  a thousand
times more interesting than the figure of Penelope herself, em- 
^TUDY XIII.                  391
plbyetl in the same labour, under the tatters of misfortune and
misery.
  There should be on those tombs no skeletons, no bat's wings,
no Time with his scythe, no one of those terrifying  attributes
whereby our slavish education endeavours to inspire us with hor-
ror at the thought of death, that last benefit of Nature : but we
should contemplate  on them symbols which announce a happy
and immortal life; vessels, shattered by the tempest, arriving safe
in port ;  doves taking their flight toward Heaven, and the like.
  The sacred effigies of virtuous citizens, crowned with flowers,
with the  characters  of felicity,  of peace, and of consolation  in
their faces,  should be arranged toward the centre of the island,
around a vast mossy down, under the trees of the Country, such
as stately beech-trees, majestic  pines, chesnut-trees loaded witk
fruit.  There, likewise, should  be seen the vine wedded to the
elm, and the apple-tree of Normandy clothed  with fruit  of all
the variety of colours which flowers display7.  From the middle
of that down should ascend a  magnificent temple in  form of a
rotundo.  It should be surrounded with  a  peristyle of majestic
columns, as was formerly at Rome the Moles Adriani.   B ut I
could wish  it to be much more spacious.  On the frige these
words might appear:
                 To the love of the human race.

  In the centre I would have an altar simple and unornamented,
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,  in a tablet  of  white
marble, these divine words might meet the eye :
     IIer Sins, which were many, are forgiven ;  for she loved much.

  On another part of the frize,  the  following inscription, which
unfolds the nature of our duties, might be displayed:
Virtue is an Effort made upon Ourselves, for the Gond >t Men, in the View
                     of pleasing GOD orl» 
392              STUDIES OF NATURE.

   To this might be subjoined the following, very much calcu-
lated 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 :
  Whoever has cordially  devoted his Soul to GOD, has effectually secured
    himself against all the Ills which  can behalf Him, both in this World,
    and in the next.

   There might be inserted  some of a philosophic cast,  on the
vanity7 of human things, such as the following :
Estimate each of your Days, by Pleasures,  by Loves,  by Treasures, 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,  Per-
    fumes 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 toward men from
the motives of self-interest:
  When a Man studies the World, he prizes those only who possess Saga-
    city ; but, when he studies Himself, he esteems only those who exer-
    cise Indulgence.

   I would have  the  following  inscribed round the cupola, in
letters of antique  bronze :
.\fnndatum novum do vobis, ut diligatis invicem ;  sicut dilexi vos, ut et vos dili-
                           gutis invicem.
                                          Jonx,  cap. xiii. v. 34.

A new Commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have
               loved you, that ye also love one another.
* Chardin's Palace of Ispahan. 
STUDY XIII.
39o
   In order to decorate this temple externally with a becoming
dignity, no ornaments  would be necessary except those of Na-
ture. The first rays of the rising, and the last of the setting Sun,
would gild it's cupola, towering above the forests: in the day-
time the fires of the South, and by night the lustre of the Moon,
would trace it's majestic shadow on the spreading down :  the
Seine would repeat the reflexes of it in  it's flowing stream.   In
vain would  the tempest rage around it's enormous vault;  and
when the hand of Time should have bronzed it with moss, the
oaks of the Country should issue from it's antique cornices,  and
the eagles of Heaven, hovering round and round, would  resort
thither to build their nests.
   Neither talents, nor birth, nor gold,  should constitute  a  title
for claiming the honour of a monument in this patriotic  and
holy ground.   But it will be asked, who is to judge, and  to de-
cide, the merits of the persons whose ashes  are to be there de-
posited ?  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, in order to his obtaining this  sort
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 na-
turalized in the open field,  and the fruit of it carried for  sale to
the public market.  It ought not to be deemed  sufficient  that
the model of an ingenious machine was preserved in  the  collec-
tion of an Artist, and  approved by the Academy of Sciences ;
it should be required to have the machine itself in the hands of
the People and converted to their use.   It ought by no  means
to suffice, in order to establish the claim of a literary7 Work,  that
the prize had been adjudged to it by die French Academy; but
that it should be read by that class of men for whose use  it was
designed.  Thus, for example,  a  patriotic Ode should  be ac-
counted good for nothing,  unless it were sung about the  streets
by the common people.  The merit of a naval or  military Com-
mander  should be ascertained, not  by7 the report of  Gazettes,
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
   Vol  II.                   3D 
o'M-
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 were rich men who meant to captivate their affections by doing
 them good, that is precisely the feeling with which we propose
 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-establish-
 ment of one of the Laws of Nature, of all others the most im-
 portant to a Nation;  I mean an inexhaustible perspective of in-
 finity, as necessary to the happiness of a whole Nation as to that
 of an individual.  Such  is, as we have caught a glimpse  in an-
 other place, the nature of the human mind ; if it perceives not
 infinity in it's prospects, it falls back upon itself, and destroys
 itself by the exertion  of it's own powers.  Rome presented to
 the patriotism of her citizens the conquest of the World : but
 that object was too limited. Her last victory would have proved
 the commencement of her ruin. The establishment which I am
 now proposing is not subjected to this inconveniency. Xo  object
 can possibly be proposed to Man more  unbounded, and more
 profound, than that of his own  latter end. There are no monu-
 ments  more varied and  more  agreeable than those of virtue.
 Were there  to be reared annually in this Elysium, but a  single
 tablet of the marble of Britanny, or of the granite of Auvergne,
 there would always be the means of keeping the  People awake,
 by the  spectacle  of novelty.   The provinces  of the  kingdom
 would dispute with the Capital the privilege of introducing the
 monuments  of their virtuous inhabitants.
  What an  august Tribunal might be formed of Bishops emi-
 nent for their piety, of upright Magistrates, of celebrated  Com-
 manders of Armies,  to examine their several  pretensions!
 What memoirs might one day appear, proper  to create an in-
 terest in the minds of the People, who see nothing in their li-
 brary but  the sentences of death pronounced on illustrious cri-
 minals, or the lives of Saints, which are far above their sphere.
 How many new subjects for our men of letters, who have no-
thing for  it but to trudge eternally over the beaten ground of
the  age of  Louis  XIV.  or to  prop  up  the reputation of the
Greeks and  Romans!  What curious anecdotes for our wealthy
voluptuaries! They pay a very high price for the history of an
 American insect,  engraved in  every possible manner, and stu-
died through the microscope minv.te bv minu: ■, "n all the phase- 
STUDY XIII.
395
of it's existence.   They would not have less pleasure in study-
ing the manners of a poor collier, bringing up  his family- virtu-
ously in the forest, in the midst of smugglers and banditti; or
those of a wretched fisherman, who, in finding delicacies for
their  tables, is obliged  to live like a heron in the midst of tem-
pests.
  I have  no doubt that these  monuments,  executed with the
taste which we are capable of displaying,  would attract crowds
of rich strangers to Paris.   They resort hither already to live
in it, they would then flock hither to  die  among  us.   They
would endeavour to deserve  well of a Nation  become the  arbi-
ter of the virtues of Europe, and to acquire a last asylum in the
holy land of this Elysium j where all virtuous and beneficent men
would be reputed citizens.   This  establishment, which might be
formed undoubtedly in a manner very superior to  the feeble
sketch which I have presented  of it, would serve to bring the
higher conditions of life into contact with the  lower, much bet-
ter than our churches themselves, into which avarice and ambi-
tion frequently7 introduce among  the citizens distinctions more
humiliating than are to be met  with even in  Society.  It would
allure foreigners to the Capital, by holding  out to  them the
rights 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 is not necessary for me to subjoin, that this establishment
would be  attended with no  expense  to  the State.  It might be
reared and kept up, by  the revenue of  some  rich abbey7,  as it
would be  consecrated to Religion and to the rewards of virtue.
There is no reason why it should become, like the monuments of
modern Rome, and even like  many of our own royal monu-
ments, 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 they are meanly habited ;  nor to
hunt  out of it, as we do from  our public gardens, poor and ho-
nest artisans in jackets, while well-dressed  courtezans flaunt
about with effrontery in their great alleys.  The lowest of the
commonalty should have  it  in their power to enter at  all sea-
sons.   It  is to yrou, O ye miserable of all conditions, that the
sight of the friends of Humanity  should of right appertain  : aud 
 396             STUDIES OF NATURE.

 y7our patrons are henceforth no where 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 in-
 famous profession, would with a sigh  cast her eyes down to the
 ground, on beholding the  statue of  modesty approached with
 honour and respect: but at a sight of that of  a female of her
 own condition, reclaimed to the paths  of virtue,  she should raise
 them toward Him who preferred repentance to innocence.
   It  may be objected to me, That our poorer  sort would very
 soon  spread destruction over all those monuments; and it must
 indeed be admitted, that they seldom  fail to treat in this manner
 those which do not interest them.   There should undoubtedly
 be a  police in this place; but the people respect monuments
 which are  destined to their use.  They commit ravages in  a
 park, but do not wantonly destroy any  thing in the open country.
 They would soon take the Elysium of their Country under their
 own protection, and watch  over it with zeal much more ardent
 than that of Swiss and military guards.
   Besides more than one method might be devised to render
 that spot respectable and dear to them.  It ought to be rendered
 an inviolable asylum to  the unfortunate  of every description;
 for example, to fathers who have incurred the debt of a month's
 nursing of a child; and to those  who have committed venial
 and inconsiderate  faults; it would  be proper to prohibit  any
 arrest taking place there upon any one's person, except  by an
 express warrant from the King under  his own signature.  This
 likewise should be the place to which laborious families out of
 employment might 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, who understand how to distinguish, and  to employ men,
 would resort thither in quest of proper objects in whose behalf
 they might employ their credit; others, in the view of  putting
 respect on  the  memory of some  illustrious personage,  would
 give a repast at the foot  of his statue to a family-of poor people.
 The State  would set the example of this at certain favourite
 epochs, such as a festival in  honour of the  King's  birth-day.
 Provisions  might then be distributed among the populace, not
Ly tossing  loaves  at  their heads,  as in our public rejoicings  ;
!.»ut they might be classed, and made to sit down on the  grass 
STUDY XIII.
397
in professional assemblies, round the statues of those .who in-
vented, improved, or perfected  the several  arts.   Such repasts
would have no resemblance  to  those which the rich sometimes
give to the wretched, out of ceremony, and in which they re-
spectfully- wait upon their humble guests with napkins under
their arm.   The persons who gave the entertainment should be
obliged to sit down at table with their company, and to eat and
drink with them. 0 It would be  needless to impose on them the
task of washing the feet of the poor; but they might be ad-
monished of rendering  to them a service of much more real
importance, that of supplying them with shoes and stockings.
  There the man of wealth  would be instructed really to prac-
tise  virtue, and the People to know it.   The  Nation would
there learn their great duties, and be assisted in forming a just
idea of true  greatness.  They  would behold the  homage pre-
sented to the memory of virtuous men, and the  offerings ten-
dered to the Deity, ultimately applied to the relief  of  the mi-
serable.
  Such repasts would recal to our remembrance the love-feasts
of the primitive Christians, and  the Saturnalia of death, toward
which every day is carrying us  forward, and which, by speedily
reducing us all to an estate of equality, will efface every other
difference among us except that  of the good which we shall have
done in life.
   In the days of other times, in order to do honour  to the me-
mory of virtuous men,  the  faithful assembled in places conse-
crated by their actions, or by their sepulchres, on the brink ofa
fountain, or  under  the  shade  of a  forest.   Thither they had
provisions carried, and invited those who had none to come and
partake with them.   The  same customs have been common to
all religions.  They still subsist  in  those of Asia.  You find
them prevailing among the ancient Greeks.  When Xenophon
had accomplished that famous  retreat by which he  saved ten
thousand of his compatriots, ravaging, as he went, the territory
of Persia, he destined part  of  the booty thus  obtained, to the
founding of a chapel in Greece to the honour of Diana.  He  at-
tached to it a certain  revenue,  which should  annually supply
with the amusement of the chace, and with a plentiful repast, all
persons who should repair to it on a particular day-. 
 398             STUDIES OF NATURE.

                       OF THE CLERGY.
   If our poor are sometimes partakers of some wretched eccle-
 siastical distribution, the relief which they thence derive, so far
 from delivering them out of their  misery, only serves to conti-
 nue them in it.  What landed property however has been be-
 queathed 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 fa-
 milies ? The Clergy allege that they  are the administrators of
 the goods of the poor: but the poor are neither ideots nor mad-
 men  to stand in need of administrators : besides, it is impossi-
 ble to prove by  any one passage of either the Old or New Tes-
 tament, that this  charge pertained to the priesthood:  if they
 really are the administrators of the  poor, they have then  no less
 than seven millions of persons in the kingdom under their tem-
 poral administration.  I  shall push  this reflection no farther.  It
 is a matter of unchangeable obligation to render to every one his
 due : the priests are by divine right the agents of the poor, but
 the King alone is the natural administrator.
   As indigence  is the principal cause of the vices of the People,
 opulence may, like it, produce in  it's  turn irregularities in the
 Clergy7.   I shall not avail myself here of the reprehensions  of
 St. Jerome,  of  St. Bernard, of St. Augustin, and of the other
 Fathers of the Church, to the Clergy of their times, and of the
 Countries in which they lived; wherein they predicted to them
 the total destruction of Religion, as a necessary consequence  of
 their  manners and of their riches.   The prediction of several of
 them was speedily verified in  Africa, in  Asia, in Judea,  and  in
 the Grecian  Empire, in which not only the religion, but the ve-
 ry7 civil government of those Nations, totally disappeared.  The
 avidity of most ecclesiastics soon renders the functions  of the
 Church suspicious : this  is an  argument  which strikes all men.
 I believe witnesses, said  Pascal, who brave death.  This reason-
ing however must be admitted with many grains of allowance ;
but no objection can he offered to this : I distrust witnesses who
are enriching themselves by their testimony.   Religion in truth
has proofs natural and  supernatural, far superior to those  which
men arc-  capable of furnishing it  with.  She is independent  of 
STUDY XIII.
399
our regularity and of our irregularity; but our Country depends
on these.
  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 State, and to their
education.  Ours are Frenchmen like ourselves ; they are our
kinsmen, frequently sacrificed to our own fortune, through the
ambition of our fathers.   Were we charged with the perform-
ance of their duties,  we  should frequently acquit ourselves
worse than they do. I  know of none so painful, none so worthy
of respect, as those  of a good ecclesiastic.
  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 communities,
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.   It is possi-
ble  to purchase by painful labours the glory of  being a Fenelon,
or a Juigne. 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  mar-
tyrdom.   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 any
manner of attention.   He  is under  the  necessity,  in  the first
place, of sacrificing the pleasures and the liberty of his juvenile
days, to irksome and painful studies.   He is obliged to support
all the days of his life the exercise of his continency, like a  cum-
bersome cuirass, on a thousand  occasions which endanger the
loss of it.   The world honours theatrical virtues only7, and the
victories of a single moment.   But to combat day after day an
enemy lodged within the fortress, and who makes his approach-
es under the disguise ofa friend; to repel incessantly, without
a witness, without glory, without applause, the  most impetuous
of passions and the  gentlest of propensities—this is not easy.
  Conflicts of another kind  await him from without.  He it
every day called upon to expose his  life to the attack of epide- 
400
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 mical distempers.  He is obliged  to confess, with his head on
 the same pillow, persons attacked with the small-pox, with the
 putrid and the purple fever.  This obscure fortitude appears to
 me very 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
 fortune can this last promise himself from his labours?  In many
 cases, a precarious subsistence at most! Besides, supposing him
 to have acquired wealth, he cannot transmit it to his descend-
 ants.   He beholds  all his temporal hopes ready to expire with
 him.  What indemnification does he receive from men ? To be
 called upon many a time to administer  the consolations of Reli-
 gion 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 mis-interpreted 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.  Many Philosophers and  Politicians  have de-
 claimed against the disorders of Society without troubling them-
 selves to enquire into  their causes, and still less into the reme-
 dies which might be applied.  Those of the greatest ability have
 viewed our evils only in detail, and  have recommended palia-
 tives  merely.   Some  have proscribed  luxury; others give no
 quarter to celibacy, and would load with the charge of a family
 persons who have not the means of supplying their personal ne-
 cessities.   Some are for incarcerating  all the beggars; others
 would prohibit the wretched women of  pleasure to appear in the
 streets.   They would act in the  manner which that physician
 does,  who in order to  cure the pimples  on the body of a person
 out of order, uses all his skill to force back the humours.  Poli-
ticians, y7ou apply the remedy to the head, because the pain is
 in the forehead; but the mischief is in  the nerves : it is for the
heart  you must provide a cure; it is the People whose health you
must  endeavour to rescue. 
STUDY XIII.
401
   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 Na-
ture. She acts in every case slowly-, and by means of re-actions.
I repeat it, the cause of the prodigious power of gold, which
has robbed the People at once of their morality and of their sub-
sistence, is in the venality of public employments.  That of the
beggary, which at this day extends to seven millions of subjects,
consists in  the enormous accumulation of landed and official pro-
perty.  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 unprofitable superabundance of
the idle and censorious burghers  in  our second and third-rate
cities, arises  from the imposts which degrade the inhabitants of
the country.   The  prejudices of the nobility are kept alive by
the resentments of  those who want the  advantage of birth; and
all these evils, and others innumerable, physical and intellectual,
spring up out of the misery of the People.  It is the indigence
of the People which produces such swarms of playrers, courte-
zans, highwaymen,  incendiaries,  licentious scholars, calumnia-
tors, flatterers, hypocrites, mendicants,  kept-mistresses, quacks
of all conditions, and that infinite multitude of corrupted wretch-
es, who,  incapable of coming to any thing by their virtues, en-
deavour  to procure  bread and consideration by their vices.   In
vain will you oppose to these plans of finance, projects of equali-
zation of taxes and tythes,  of ordonnances of  Police, of arrets
of Parliament; all your efforts will be fruitless.  The indigence
of the  People is a mighty- river, which is every year collecting
an increase of strength,  which is sweeping away before it every
opposing mound, and which will issue  in a total subversion of
order and government.
   To this physical cause of our distresses must be added ano-
ther purely moral!  I mean  our education.   I  shall venture to
suggest a few reflections on  this subject, though it  far exceeds
my highest powers:  but if it be the most important of our abuses,
it appears to  me, on the other hand, the most easily susceptible
of reformation; and this reform appears to me so absolutely ne-
cessary, that without it all the rest goes for nothing.
  Vol..  II.                  3 E 
STUDY XIV.
                      OF EDUCATION

     u TO what higher object," says Plutarch,* u could Numa
 " have directed his attention, than to the culture of early infan-
 " cy, and to uniformity in the treatment of young persons ; in
 " the view of preventing the collision of different manners, and
 " turbulency of spirit arising from diversity of nature ? Thus he
 " proposed to  harmonize the minds of men, in a state of maturi-
 " ty, from their having been, in  childhood, trained in the same
 " habits of order, and cast into the same mould of virtue.  This,
 " independent 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  pronoun cing the elogium of that of Sparta.   I do
 not hesitate  a single moment to ascribe to  our modern educa-
 tion the restless, ambitious,  spiteful,  pragmatical, and intolerant
 spirit of most Europeans.  The effects of it are visible in the
 miseries of the Nations.   It is  remarkable,  that those which
 have been most agitated internally and externally, are precisely
 the  Nations among which our  boasted style of education  has
 flourished the  most.   The truth of this may be ascertained, by
 stepping from  country to country, from age to age.   Politicians
 have imagined, that they could discern the cause of  public mis-
 fortunes in the different forms of Government.   But Turkey is
 quiet, and England is frequently- in a  state of agitation.  All  po-
litical forms are indifferent to the happiness of a State, as  has
* Comparison of Numa and Lycinr;v.; 
STUDY XIV.
403
 been said,  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 which he gives of his mission, that the
 Asiatics laugh us to scorn, when  we boast to them of the excel-
 lence of the Christian Religion, as contributing to the happiness
 of States.  They ask, on reading our Histories, How it is pos-
 sible 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 among us our perpetual law-suits, the ma*
 Iicious 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 among Sa-
 vages, on  the testimony of  missionaries themselves ?  For my
 own part, I 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 all his life long, and it degenerates into a burning
 fever at the very feet of the altars.
   It  is not Religion  assuredly which occasions this.   I cannot
 explain how it comes to  pass that kingdoms calling themselves
 Christian should have adopted ambition as the basis  of public
 education.   Independently of their political  constitution, which
 forbids it to all those of their subjects who have not money, that
 is to the greatest part of them, there is no passion so uniformly
 condemned by Religion.   We have observed, that 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: they repress, as far as their power  extends, the more vio-
 lent emotions of it.   Prostitution is branded with infamous pe-
 nalties ; and in  some countries adultery is punished even with
 death.  But these  same  Laws  meet the second more than half
 way ; they every where  propose to it prizes, rewards and ho-
 nours.  These opinions force their way,  and exercise dominion,
 in cloisters themselves.  It is a  grievous  scandal to a ccnvent if
the amorous intrigues of  a monk happen to take air ; but what
elogiums are bestowed on those which procure for him a cardi-
nal's hat!  What  raillery,  imprecation, and malediction, are the
portion of imprudent weakness ! What  gentle and honourable 
404             STUDIES OF NATURE.

epithets arc applied to audacious craft! Noble emulation, love
of glory7, spirit,  intelligence, merit rewarded. With how many
glorious appellations do we palliate intrigue, flattery, simony,
perfidy7, and all the vices which walk, in all States, in the train of
the ambitious!
  This is the way in  which the world  forms it's judgments;
but Religion, ever conformable to Nature, pronounces  a very
different decision on the characters of these two passions.   Je-
sus 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 hear how he inveighs against
the ambitious:—" Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, for ye
" love the uppermost seats in the synagogues,  and the chief
" places at feasts, and greetings in the markets, and to be called
" of men, Rabbi!  Wo unto you, also, ye Lawyers ;  for ye lade
" men with burdens grevious to be borne, and  ye yourselves
" touch not the burdens with one of your fingers! Wo unto you,
" Lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye
u entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye
1,4 hindered ;" and so on.*  He declares to them, that notwith-
standing 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 fruit.--.  In pronouncing decisions so
different from ours, He judges our passions according to their
natural adaptations.  He pardons prostitution, which is in itself
a' vice, but  which after all  is a  frailty only, relative  to  the
order of Society-; and He condemns, without mercy, the sin of
ambition,  as a crime which is contrary at once to the order of
Society, and  to that of Nature.  The first involves the distress
of only two guilty persons, but the second affects the happiness
of Mankind.
  To this our Doctors reply, that the only object pursued in the
education of children, is the inspiring them with a virtuous emu-
lation.  I do not believe there is such a thing in our Colleges as
exercises of virtue, unless  it be to prescribe to the students, on
this subject, certain themes or amplifications.  But a real am-
bition is taught,  by engaging  them to dispute the first place in
* Luke xi. 4.1, ix.e 
STUDY XIV.                   405
their several classes, and to adopt a thousand intolerant systems.
Accordingly, when they have once got the key of knowledge in
their  pocket, they resolutely determine, like their masters, to
let no one enter but by their door.
  Virtue and ambition are absolutely incompatible.  The glory
of ambition is to mount, and that of virtue is to descend.  Ob-
serve how Jesus Christ reprimands his  Disciples when they
asked him who should be the first among them.   He takes a
little child, and places him in the midst: not, surely, a child from
our schools.  Ah! when he recommends  to us the humility so
suitable to our frail and miserable  condition, it is because he
did not consider that power, even supreme, was capable of con-
stituting our happiness in this World; and it is worthy of being
remarked, that 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.
   This pretended emulation, instilled into children,  renders
them for  life intolerant, vain-glorious,  tremblingly alive to the
slightest censure, or to the meanest token  of applause from an
unknown person.  They are trained to ambition, we  are told,
for their good, in order to their  prospering  in the World ;  but
the cupidity natural to the human mind is more than sufficient
for the attainment of that object.   Have merchants, mechanics,
and all the lucrative professions, in other words, all the condi-
tions of Society7;  have they need of any other stimulus ? Were
ambition to be instilled into the mind of only one child, destined
at length  to  fill a station of  high importance, this education,
which is by no means exempted from inconveniences, would be
adapted at least to the career which the y oung man had in pros-
pect.   But by infusing it into all, you give  each individual as
many opponants as he  has got  companions; you render the
whole unhappy, by means of each other.   Those who are inca-
pable of rising by their talents, endeavour  to insinuate them-
selves 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 be-
comes to themselves a perpetual source of depression, of chas-
tisement, and of tears. 
 406            STUDIES OF NATURE.

   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 recol-
 lect with delight the epochs of infancy.   How  many behold, in
 the maturity of life, the bowers of osiers and the rustic canopies
 which served for their infant  sleeping and dining apartments,
 who could not look without abhorrence  upon  a Turseiin, or a
 Despauter .' I have no doubt that those disgusts of early edu-
 cation extend a most baneful influence to that  love with which
 we ought to be animated toward Religion, because it's 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 puplis. They form on the same model a
 multitude of characters which Nature had rendered essentially
 different.   One will have his disciples to be grave and 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 sim-
 ply 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 ? Is not reflection the
 basis  of prudence, of temperance, of 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.
  There is in this respect a very perceptible difference between
 two children, the one of whom has been educated in his Father's
house, and the other at a public  school.   The first is beyond all
 contradiction more polite, more ingenuous, less jealously dispo-
 sed ; and from this single circumstance, that he  has been brought
 up without the desire of excelling any one, and still less of sur-
passing himself, according to our great fashionable phraseology,
but which is  as destitute of common sense as many others of
 the kind.  Is  not a child, influenced by the emulation of the 
STUDY XIV.                  407
schools, under the necessity of renouncing it, from the very
first step he makes in the World, if he means to be supportable
to his equals,  and to himself? If he proposes to himself no
other object but his own advancement, Will he not be afflicted
at the prosperity of another ? Will he not, in the course of his
progress, be liable to have his mind torn with the aversions, the
jealousies and the  desires,  which must deprave it, both physi-
cally and morally ?  Do not Philosophy and Religion impose on
him the necessity of exerting himself every day of his life, to
eradicate 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
the half of our days in destroying, with a thousand painful ef-
forts, what had been raising up in the other with so many tears
and so much parade.
   We have borrowed those vices from the Greeks, w ithout be-
ing aware that they had contributed to their perpetual divisions,
and to their final ruin.  The greatest part at least of their exer-
cises, had the good of their Country as the leading object.  If
there were proposed among the Greeks prizes for  superiority in
wresding, in boxing, in throwing the quoit, in foot and chariot
races, it was because such exercises had a reference to the art
of war.  If they had others established for the reward of supe-
rior eloquence, it  was because that art  served to maintain the
interests of Country, from city to city, or in the general Assem-
blies of Greece.  But to what purpose do we employ the tedious
and painful study of dead languages, and of customs foreign to
our Country? Most of our institutions, with relation to the  An-
cients, have a striking  resemblance  to the paradise of the Sa-
vages of America. Those good people imagine that after death
the souls  of  their compatriots migrate to a certain  country.
where they hunt  down the  souls of beavers with the souls of
arrows, walking over the soul of snow with the soul of rackets.
and diat they dress the soul of their game in the soul of pots=
We have in like manner  the images of a Coliseum,  where no
spectacles are exhibited; images of peristyles and public squares.
in which we are not permitted to walk ; images of antique vases
in which it is impossible to put any liquor,  but  which contri
bute  largely  to our images of grandeur and  patriotism.   The
real Greeks,  and  the real  Romans,  would believe them-elvc 
408
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 among us to be in the land of their shades.   Happy would it
 have been for us had we borrowed from them vain images only,
 and not  naturalized in our Country their real evils, by trans-
 planting  thither the jealousies, the hatreds, and the vain emula-
 tions which rendered them miserable.
   It was Charlemagne, we are told, who instituted our course of
 studies ;  and some say it was in the view of  dividing his sub-
jects, and of giving them employment.   He  has succeeded in
this to a  miracle.   Seven years devoted to humanity or classical
learning, two to Philosophy, three to Theology: twelve  years
of languor, of ambition, and of self-conceit;  without taking in-
to 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 hu-
mane, more  of a philosopher, and believes  more 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 Man-
kind ?  What benefit do the majority derive from this irksome
course,, on mixing  with the World, toward perfecting their own
intelligence, and even toward purity of diction.   We have seen,
that the classical Authors themselves have borrowed their illu-
mination only from Nature, and that those of our own Nation
who have distinguished themselves the most in literature and
in the  sciences, such as Descartes, Michael Montaigne,  J. J.
 Rousseau, and others, have  succeeded only- by deviating from
the track which their models pursued, and frequently by  pur-
suing the directly  opposite path.  Thus  it was  that Descartes
attacked  and subverted the philosophy of Aristotle:  you would
be tempted  to say7, that Eloquence  and the Sciences are  com-
pletely out of the province of our Gothic  Institutions.
   I acknowledge at the same time that it  is a  fortunate circum-
stance  for many  children, those who have wicked parents, that
there are colleges ;  they are less miserable  there  than  in the
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.   For example, the  pride of
a man  of letters is  loquacious, and sometimes instructive;  that
of an ecclesiastic is clothed with dissimulation, but flattering ;
diat of a  man of family  is lofty, but frank ; that of  a  clown is 
STUDY XIV.
409
 insolent, but natural:  but the  pride of a warm tradesman is
 sullen and stupid ;  it is pride at it's ease, pride in a night-gown.
 As the cit is never contradicted, except it be by his wife, they
 unite their efforts to render their children unhappy, without so
 much as suspecting that they do so.   Is it credible that in a so-
 ciety, the men of which, all moralists allow to be corrupted, in
 which the citizens maintain 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 dis-
 cretion of tyranny ?  Nothing can be  conceived so ignorant, and
 so 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 swallowing strong broths, when they are out of order,
 without suspecting for  a moment that such a regimen was per-
 nicious.   Nothing can be  more wholesome say they ; they have
 always seen their Aunts do so.  Hence it is that a  multitude
 of false  remedies and of ridiculous superstitions,  maintain a
 reputation among them, long after they have been exploded in
 the World.   In their cup-boards is still carefully treasured up
the cassis, a species of poison, as if it were an universal  pana-
cea.   The regimen 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 shop-keeper in St. Denis-street, of a little
 boy7 and girl who had a very serious air.   " Your children  are
 " very grave," said  she to  the mother....." Ah  ! Madam," re-
 plied  the sagacious shop-dame, " it is not for want of whipping
" if they are not so."
   Children rendered miserable in their sports, and in their stu-
dies, become hypocritical and reserved before their fathers and
mothers.  At length however they- acquire stature.  One night
the daughter puts on her cloke, under pretence of going to cven-
  Vol. II.                  3 F 
41(5
STUDIES OF NATURE.
ing prayers, but it is to give  her lover the meeting:  by and by
her shapes divulge the secret ; she is driven from her father's
house, and comes upon the town.  Some fine morning the son
enlists for a soldier.  The father and mother are ready to go dis-
tracted.  We spared nothing, say they, to procure them the best
of education: they had masters of every kind: Fools ! you for-
got the essential point;  you  forgot to teach  them to love you.
   They justify their tyranny by7 that cruel adage : Children must
be corrected;  human nature is corrupted. They do not perceive
that they themselves, by their excessive severity, stand charge-
able with the corruption,*  and that in every  country where fa-
thers are good, the children resemble them.

  * To certain species of chastisement I ascribe the physical and moral corrup-
tion not only of children, and of several orders of monks, but of the Nation
itself. You cannot move a step through the streets without hearing nurses and
mothers menacing their little charge with, I shall give you a fogging.  I have
never been in England, but i am persuaded, that the ferocity imputed to the
English must proceed from some such cause.  I have indeed heard k affirmed,
that punishment by the rod was more cruel, and more frequent, among them,
than with us.  See what is said on this subject by the illustrious Authors of
tlie Spectator, a Work which has beyond contradiction greatly contributed to
soften both tlieir manners and ours. They reproach the English Nobility for
permitting this character of infamy to be impressed on their children. Con-
sult, particularly,  No. CLVII. of that Collection, which concludes thus : " I
" would not here be supposed to  have said, that our learned men of either
" robe, who have  been whipped at school, are not still men of noble and li-
" beral minds ;  but I am sure they had been much more so than they are,
""' had they never suffered that infamy."
   Government ought to prdscribe  this kind of chastisement, not only in the
public schools, as  Russia has done, but in convents,  on ship-board, in private
families,  in boarding-houses : it corrupts at  once fathers, mothers, precep-
tors, and children. I could quote terrible re-actions of it, did modesty per.
mit.  Is it not very astonishing, that men in other respects ofa staid and se-
rious exterior, should lay down as the basis ofa Christian education, the ob-
servance of gentleness, humanity, chastity;  and punish timid  and innocent
children with the most barbarous,  and the most obscure of all chastisements '
Our men of letters who have been employed in reforming abuses for more
than a century past, have not attacked  this  with the severity  which it de-
serves.  They do not pay sufficient attention to the miseries of the rising ge-
neration. It would be a question of right, the discussion of which were high-
ly interesting and important, namely, Whether the State could  permit the
right of inflicting  infamous  punishment, to persons who have not the power
of life and death ? It is certain that the  infamy  of a citizen produces re-ac-
 dons more dangerous to Society, than his own death merely. It is nothing at
 ;dl, we are told, they are but chUdxen; but for this very reason, because they 
STUDY XIV.                     411
   I could demonstrate by a multitude of examples, that the de-
pravation of our most notorious criminals began with the cruelty
of  their education,  from  Guillery down  to Desrues.   But, to
take leave once for all of this horrid perspective, I conclude with
a single reflection: namely, 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 corruption to
that which they find already introduced into the  World,  upon
their arrival in it.  Human Society  would accordingly speedily
reach the term of it's dissolution.   But children, on the contra-
ry, 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 extravagancies.
New generations resemble  the dews and the rains of Heaven,
which refresh the waters of rivers slackened in their course, and
tending to corruption:  change the  sources of a river, and you
will change it in the stream; change the education of a People,
and you will change their character and their manners.
   We shall  hazard a few ideas on a subject of so much import-
ance, and  shall look for the indications of them in Nature.  On
examining the nest  of a bird, we find  in  it not only the nutri-
ments which  are most agreeable to the  young,  but from the
softness of the downs with which it is lined; from it's situation,
whereby it is sheltered from the cold, from the rain, and from

are children, every generous spirit  is bound to protect them, and because
every miserable child becomes a bad man.
  At the same time, it is far from being my intention, in what I have said
respecting masters in general, to render the profession odious. I only mean
to suggest to  them, that  those chastisements, the practice of which they
have borrowed from the corrupted Greeks of tlie Lower Empire, exercise an
influence much more powerful than they are aware of, on the hatred which is
borne to them, as well as to tlie other ministers of Religion, monks as well
as the regular clergy, by a people more enlightened than in former times
After all, it must be granted, that masters treat their pupils as diey them-
selves were  treated.  One set of miserable beings are employed in forming a
new set, frequently without suspecting what they are doing. All I aim at
present to establish is, That man has been committed to his own foresight;
that all the ill  which he does to his fellow-creatures recoils sooner or later
upon himself. This re-action is the only counterpoise capable of bringing him
back to humanity.  All the Sciences are still in a state of infancy ; but that
of rendering men happy has not as yet so much as seen the light, not even in
China, whose politics are so far superior to ours 
412
STUDIES OF NATURE.
the wind; and from a multitude of other precautions, it is easy
to discern that those who constructed it, collected around their
brood, all the intelligence, and all the 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 by those of conjugal love ;  for this last
sentiment expires  in  most, as soon  as the process of hatching
begins.   If  we were to examine, under the same  aspect, the
schools of the young of the human  species, we should have a
very indifferent idea of  the  affection of their parents.   Rods,
whips, stripes, cries, tears, are the first lessons given to human
life: we have  here and  there, it  is true, a glimpse of reward,
amidst so many  chastisements ;  but, symbol of what awaits
them in Society, the pain is  real and the pleasure only imagi-
nary.
   It is worthy of being remarked, that of all the species of sen-
sible 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 depravation of Mankind. The
European brood,  in this respect, surpasses all the  Nations of
the Globe; as they likewise do in wickedness. We have already
observed, on the testimony of missionaries themselves, with what
gentleness Savages rear  their  children,  and what affection the
children 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 habi-
tation, to which they come running the moment that they hear
the sound of their master's voice.   Those tractable animals re-
sort  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 a-coursing, his horse stands still
instantly7, and never stirs till he has mounted again.   These peo-
ple,  by means of  the irresistible influence ofa mild education,
have acquired the art of rendering tlieir horses the fii v, coursers
of the universe. 
STUDY XIV.                  413
  It is impossible to read without being melted into tears, what
is related on this subject by the virtuous Consul d*Hervieux, 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 inten-
tion to send her to his master Louis XIV.  The Arab pressed
by want, hesitated a long time ; but at length consented, on con-
dition of receiving a very  considerable sum which  he named.
The Consul, not daring, without instructions, 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 demanded 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  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 pronounced these words, he sprung upon her back, and
scampered off toward 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 they7 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  un-
doubtedly be, because they look upon them  as their heirs.
  I have  been long enquiring into the cause of this unnatural
sentiment, but  not in  our  books ; for the  Authors of these, in
the view of paying court to fathers who buy their Works, insist
only7 on the duties of children ; and if sometimes  they bring
forward those of fathers, the discipline which they recommend
to them, respecting their children, is so gloomy and severe, that
it looks as if  they were furnishing parents with new  means of
rendering themselves hateful to their off-nring. 
414
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   This parental apathy is to be imputed to the disorderly state
 of our manners,  which has  stifled among us all the sentiments
 of Nature.   Among  the Ancients, and even among Savages,
 the perspective of social life presented to them a series of em-
 ployments, from  infancy up to old age, which among them was
 the era of the higher magistracies, and of the 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 it was that they
 always kept  up in the soul of their citizens that perspective of
 infinity which is 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
 it's rights is that of youth and love.   This is the epoch to which
 all the citizens direct their thoughts.  Among the  Ancients the
 aged bear  rule ; but with us  the young people assume  the go-
 vernment.   The  old are constrained to retire from all public
 employment.   Their dear children then  pay  them back the
 fruits of the education which they had received from them.
   Hence therefore it  comes to pass, that a father and mother
 restricting  with us, the epoch  of their felicity to the  middle pe-
 riod of life, cannot without uneasiness behold their children ap-
 proaching  toward 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 nothing but death closing their perspective.  This
 point of view renders  them sullen, harsh, and  frequently cruel.
 This is the reason that, with us, parents do not love their chil-
 dren, and that our old people affect so many frivolous tastes, to
 bring themselves  nearer to a generation which is repelling them.
   Another consequence of the same state of  manners  is, that
 we have nothing  of the spirit  of patriotism  among us.  The
 Ancients, on the contrary7, had a great deal of it.   They pro-
 posed to themselves a noble recompense in the present, but one
 still much more noble in the future.   The Romans,  for exam-
ple, had oracles which promised to their City that she  should
become the Capital of  the  World, and she actually became so.
Each citizen in particular flattered himself with the hope of ex-
ercising an influence over her destiny, and of presiding one  day
as a tutelar de'tv over thnt of his own posterity.  Their highest 
STUDY XIV.
41S
ambition 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 their being
themselves  distinguished by the age in  which they live, for
their knowledge or their philosophy.  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  looked
backward.   We  are  in the State, like  passengers  embarked
against their will on board a vessel;  we look toward the poop
and not to the prow ; to the land from which we are taking our
departure,  and not to that on which we hope to arrive.  We
collect with avidity Gothic manuscripts, monuments of chivalry,
the medallions of Childeric;  we pick up  with ardour all the
worn  out fragments  of the ancient fabric of our State  vessel.
We pursue them in a backward direction as far as  the eye  can
carry  us.   Nay we extend  this solicitude about Antiquity on
monuments which are foreign to us ; to those of the Greeks and
R^ mans.  They are  like  our  own  the wrecks of their vessels,
which have perished on the vast Ocean of Time, without being
able to get forward to us.  They would have been accompany-
ing us, nay they would have  been out-sailing us,  had skilful
pilots always stood at the helm. It is still possible to distinguish
them  from their shattered fragments. From the simplicity of
her construction, and the lightness of her frame, that must have
been the Spartan frigate. She was made to swim eternally; but
she had no bottom ; she was overtaken by a  dreadful tempest;
and the  Helots were incapable  of  restoring the equilibrium.
From the loftiness of her quarter galleries,  you there  distin-
guish the remains of the mighty first-rate of proud Rome.  She
was unable to support the weight of her  unwieldy turrets; her
cumbersome and  ponderous upper-works  overset  her.  The
following inscriptions might  be engraved on the different rocks
against which they7 have made shipwreck :

liOve of Conquest.  Accumulation of Property. Venality of Employments.
              And, above All:  Contempt of the People.

  The billows of Time  still roar over their enormous wrecks,
and separate them from detached planks, which  they scatter 
416
STUDIES OF NATURE.
among modern Nations for their instruction. Those ruins seem
to address  them thus: " We are the remains of the ancient go-
u vernment of the Tuscans, of Dardanus, and  of the grand-
" children of Numitor.  The States which they  have transmit-
" ted to  their descendants still support Nations of Mankind;
" but they  no longer have the same languages, nor the same re-
" ligions, nor the  same civil dynasties.  Divine Providence in
" in order to save  men from shipwreck, has drowned the pilots,
" and dashed the ship to pieces."
   We admire, on  the contrary, in our  frivolous  Sciences, their
conquests,  their vast and useless, buildings, and all the monu-
ments of their luxury, which are  the very rocks  on which they
perished.  See, to what our studies, and  our patriotism, are
leading us.   If posterity is taken  up with the Ancients, it is be-
cause the Ancients laboured for posterity: but if wre do nothing
for ours, assuredly  they will pay no  attention to us.   They  will
talk incessantly as  we do about the  Greeks and  Romans, with-
out wasting a single thought upon their fathers.
  Instead of falling  into raptures over Greek and Roman me-
dallions, half devoured by the  teeth  of Time, would it not be
fully as agreeable,  and much more useful, to direct our views
and employ7 our conjectures, on the subject of our fresh, lively,
plump children, and to try to discover  in their several inclina-
tions, who  are to be the future co-operators in  the service of
their Country ? 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 with-
draw from  the rest, will be noted travellers and founders of co-
lonies, who shall carry the manners, and the language of France,
to the savages of America, or \g$o the interior of Africa itself.
   If we are kind to  our children they  will bless our memory ;
they will transmit, unaltered, our customs, our fashions, our edu-
cation, our  government, and every thing that awakens the recol-
lection of us, to the very latest posterity. We  shall be  to them
beneficent deities, who have -wrought their deliverance from Go- 
STUDY XIV.
4ir
thic barbarism.   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 retrospect of the same distance.  This
manner  of viewing, more conformable to our  divine nature,
would fix our benevolence on sensible objects which do exist,
and which still are to exist.* We should secure to ourselves, as
a support to an old age of sadness and neglect, the  gratitude of
the generation which is advancing to replace us ? and, by pro-
viding for their happiness and our own, we should combine all
the means in our power toward promoting the  good of our
Country.
   In order to contribute  my little mite  toward so blessed a re-
volution, I shall hazard a few more hasty ideas.   I proceed on
the supposition then, that I am empowered to employ usefully
a  part  of the  twelve years  which  our  young people  waste at
schools and colleges.   I  reduce the whole time of their educa-
tion to three epochs, consisting of three years each.   The first
should commence at the  age of seven years,  as among the La-
cedemonians,  and even earlier: a child is susceptible of a patri-
otic education as soon  as he is able to speak and to walk.  The
second shall begin with  the  period of adolescence ; and the
third end with it, toward the age of sixteen, an age when a
young man may begin to be useful to his  Country, and to assume
a profession.
   * There is a sublime character in the Works of the Divixrry. They are not
only perfect in themselves,  but they are always in a progressive state toward
perfection. We have suggested some thoughts respecting this Law, in speak-
ing of the  harmonies of plants. A young plant is of more value than the seed
which produced it;  a tree  bearing flowers and  fruits is more valuable than
the young plant; finally, a tree is never more beautiful than when, declined
into years, it is surrounded with a forest of young trees, sprouted up out of it's
seeds.  The same thing holds good as to Man.  The state of an embryon is
superior to that of a non-entity; that of infancy to the embryon ; adolescence
is preferable to infancy ; and youth, the season of loves, more important than
adolescence. Man in a state of maturity, the  head ofa family, is preferable
to a young man.  The old age which encircles him with a numerous posterity;
which, from it's experience, introduces him  into the councils of Nations ;
which suspends in him the dominion of the passions, only to give  more ener-
gy to that  of reason :  the old age which seems to rank him among superior
beings, from the multiplied hopes which the practice of virtue and the Laws
of Providence have bestowed upon him, is of more value than all the other
ages of life put together. I could wish it were  so with the maturity of France,
and (hat the age of Louis- XVI. might surpass all that have preceded it
   Vol.  II.                    3 G 
418
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   I would begin with disposing, in a central situation m Paru.,
 a magnificent edifice, constructed internally in form of a circu-
 lar amphitheatre, divided into ascending rows.  The masters, to
 be entrusted 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  porticos, story- above story,  for the reception and accom-
 modation  of the People.   On  a  pediment over the  grand en-
 trance these words might be inscribed :

                NATIONAL SCHOOLS.
  I have no need to  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  without artificial arrangement, as in the fields and  the
woods.  We should there behold the primrose and  the violet
shining around the root of the oak ;  the apple and pear-tree
blended with the elm and the  beech.  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 it is in the  view of rendering to  the memory
 of those citizens, a part of the gratitude which we owe to Na-
 ture.   Besides, the most  common  plants in our  plains, inde-
 pendent of  their utility, are  those  which recal to  us the most
 agreeable sensations: they do not transport us  beyond seas as
 foreign plants do;  but  recal us  home, and restore us to  our-
 selves.  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 it's 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 remembrance, on  seeing certain gramineous 
STUDY xiv.                   m
plants in the  ear, the happy age when we conjugated on their
alternate ramifications, 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 senti-
ment determines at  the long run all our physical tastes.  The
plants which seem to me the most unfortunate, are at  this day
those which awaken in me the most lively interest. I frequent-
ly fix my attention on a blade of grass, at the top of an old wall,
or in a scabious  tossed about by the winds in the middle of a
plain.   Oftener than once, at sight, in a foreign land, of an ap-
ple-tree without flowers, and without fruit, have I exclaimed:
" Ah! why has Fortune denied to thee, as she has  done to me,
" a little earth in thy native land ?"
  The plants  of our country recal the idea of it to us, wherever
we may be, in a manner still more affecting than it's monuments.
I would spare no cost therefore to collect them around the chil-
dren of the Nation.  I would make their school a spot charming
as their tender age, that when  the injustice of their patrons, of
their friends, of their relations, of fortune, may have crushed to
pieces in their hearts all the ties of Country, the place in which
their childhood had enjoyed felicity might be still their Capitol.
  I would decorate  it with pictures.   Children as well as the
vulgar prefer painting to sculpture, because this last presents to
them too many  beauties of convention.  They do not love  fi-
gures completely white, but with ruddy cheeks  and  blue eyes,
like their images in plaster. They are more struck  with colours
than with forms.   I  could wish to exhibit to them the portraits
of our infant Kings.  Cyrus, brought up with the children of his
own age, formed them into heroes ; ours should be educated at
least with the images of our Sovereigns.  They would assume,
at sight  of them, the first sentiments of the attachment which
they owe to the Fathers of their Country.
  I would present them with pictures  after  religious subjects;
not such as are terrifying, and which are calculated to excite
Man to repentance ;  but those which have a tendency to encou-
rage innocence.   Such would be that of the Virgin holding the
infant Jesus in her arms.  Such would be that of Jesus himself
iti the  midst  of children, displaying in their attitudes, and in 
420              STUDIES OF NATURE.

their features, the simplicity and the confidence of their age, and
such as Le  Sueur would have painted them.  Beneath, there
might be inscribed these words of Jesus Christ himself:
                    Sinite parvufos ad me venire.
                Suffer little Children to come to Me.

  Were it  necessary to represent in this school any act of  jus-
tice, 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, it's  branches twisting,  it's  back  cracking, and the
whole plant struck with terror, perishing under the malediction
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 Mj, 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.
  But there are inscriptions  to which hardly any attention is
paid, and the meaning of which is of much higher importance
to children; these are their own names.   Their names are in-
scriptions which they carry  with them wherever they go.   It is
impossible to conceive the influence which they have upon their
natural character.  Our name is the first and the last possession
which is at our disposal;  it determines, from the days of infancy,
our inclinations; it eniplo\ s  our attention through life, nay trans-
ports us beyond the  grave.   I have still a name left,  is the re-
flection.  It is a name that ennobles, or dishonours the earth.
The rocks of Greece and of Italy,  are neither  more ancient, nor
more beautiful than  those of the other  parts of the World; but
we esteem them more, because they are dignified by more beau-
tiful names.  A medal  is nothing but a bit of  copper, frequently
eaten with rust, but it acquires value from being decorated by
an illustrious name. 
STUDY XIV.                  421
  I could wish therefore to have children distinguished by in-
teresting names.  A lad fathers himself upon his name.   If it
inclines toward any vice, or if it furnishes matter for ridicule,
as many of ours do, his mind takes a bias from it.  Bayle re-
marks,  that a certain  Inquisitor, named Torre-Cremada, or
the  Burnt-Tower, had  in his life-time condemned I know not
how many heretics to the flames.  A Cordelier of the name of
Feu-Ardent  (Ardent-Flame)  is  said to have dpne as much.
There is a farther absurdity in giving to children, destined to
peaceful occupations, turbulent and  ambitious names, such as
those of Alexander and Cesar. It is  still more dangerous to give
them ridiculous names.  I have  seen poor boys so tormented on
this  account by their companions, and even by their own parents,
from the silly circumstance of a baptismal name, which implied
some idea of simplicity and  good-nature, that they insensibly
acquired from it an opposite character of malignity and feroci-
ousness.  Instances of this  are numerous.  Two of our most
satyrical Writers, in Theology and Poesy, were named, the one
Blaise Pascal,  and the other  Colin Boileau.  Colin  implies
nothing sarcastic, said his father.  That one word infused the
spirit of sarcasm into  him.   The  audacious villainy of James
Clement, took it's birth perhaps from some jest passed upon
his name.
  Government therefore ought to interpose in the business of
giving names to children, as they have an influence so  tremen-
dous on the characters of the citizens.  I could wish likewise that
to their baptismal name might be added a surname of some  fami
ly rendered illustrious by virtue, as the Romans did; this species
of adoption would attach the little to the great, and the great tc
the little. There were  at Rome Scipios without number in Ple-
beian families.  We might revive in like manner, among our
commonalty, the names of our illustrious families, such as the
Fcnelons, the Catinats, the Montausiers, and the like.
   I would not make use in this school of noisy bells, to announce
the  different exercises, but of the sound of flutes, of hautboys,
and of bag-pipes.   Every thing they  learned should be versified
and set to music.  The influence of these two arts united  is be-
yond all conception. I shall produce  some examples of it,  taken
from the  Legislation of a People whose police was the best per-
haps in the World ; I mean that of  Sparta. Hear what Plutarch 
422
STUDIES OF NATURE.
says on this subject, in his life of Lycurgus. " Lycurgus, then,
" having taken leave of his Country," (to escape the calumnies
which were the reward of his virtues) " directed his course first
" towards Candia, where he studied the Cretan laws and govern-
" ment, and made an acquaintance with the principal men of the
" Country. Some of their laws he much approved, and resolved
" to make use of them in his own Country: others he rejected.
" Amongst the persons there, the most renowned for ability and
" wisdom in political affairs, was  Thales, whom Lycurgus by re-
" peated importunities and assurances of friendship, at last per-
" suaded to go over to Lacedemon.  When  he came  thither,
" though he professed only to be a lyric poet, in reality, he per-
" formed the part of the ablest legislator.  The very songs which
" he composed were pathetic exhortations to obedience and con-
" cord; and the sweetness of the music, and the cadence of the
" verse, had so powerful and so pleasing an effect upon the hear-
" ers, that  they were insensibly softened  and civilized;  and, at
" last, renouncing their mutual feuds and animosities, united in
" the love of humanity and good  order. So that it may truly be
" said, that Thales prepared the way for Lycurgus, by disposing
ft the People to receive his institutions."
  Lycurgus farther introduced among them the use of music, in
various  species of exercise,  and  among others into  the art of
war.*   " When their army was drawn up, and the enemy near,
" the King sacrificed a goat, commanded the soldiers to set their
" garlands upon their heads, and the musicians to play the tune
" of the Hymn to Castor, and he  himself advancing forward be-
" gan the Paean, which served for a signal to fall on. It was at
" once a solemn and a terrible sight, to see them  march on to
" the combat cheerfully and sedately, without  any disorder in
"their ranks, or discomposure in their minds,  measuring their
" steps by the  music of their flutes.   Men in this temper were
" not likely to  be possessed with  fear, or transported with fury;
" but they proceeded with a deliberate valour and confidence of
" success, as if some divinity had sensibly- assisted them."
  Thus, considering the  difference of modern  Nations, music
would serve to repress their courage, rather  than to excite it;
and they had no occasion, for that purpose, of bears-skin caps,
nor of brandy, nor of drums.
                  * Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus. 
STUDY XIV.
42J
  If music and poetry had so much power at Sparta,  to recal
corrupted men to the practice of virtue, and afterwards to govern
them;  What influence would they not have over our children in
the age of innocence ? Who could ever forget the sacred Laws
of Morality, were they set to  music, and in verses as enchant-
ing as those of the Devin du Village ? From similar institutions
there might be produced among us Poets as sublime as the sage
Thales, or as Tyrtxus who composed the Hymn  of Castor.
  These arrangements  being  made for our children, the  first
branch of their  education should be Religion.  I would begin
with talking to them about God, in the view of engaging them
to fear and love Him, but to fear Him, without making Him an
object  of terror to them.  Terrifying views of God  generate
superstition, and inspire horrible apprehensions of priests and
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 en-
joined by Religion to love Him above  all  things.  We are en-
couraged to address ourselves to Him  as  to a Father.  If we
are commanded  to fear Him, it is only with a  relation to the
love which we owe him ; because we ought to be afraid of of-
fending the person whom we are  bound  to love.   Besides, I
am very far from thinking that a child i3  incapable of having
any idea of God before fourteen years of age, as has been ad-
vanced by a Writer whom in other respects I love.   Do we not
convey to the  youngest children sentiments of fear and of aver-
sion, for metaphysical objects which have no existence ?  Where-
fore should they not be inspired with  confidence and love fot
the Being  who  fills  universal Nature with his  beneficence ?
Children have not the ideas of God such as are taught by sys-
tems of Theology and Philosophy; but they  are perfectly ca-
pable of  having the sentiment of him which, as we  have seen,
is the reason of Nature.  This very sentiment has been exalted
among them,  during the time of the Crusades, to such a height
of fervor, as to induce multitudes of them to assume the Cross
for the conquest of the Holy Land.   Would to God I had pre-
served the sentiment  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; 
424
STUDIES OF NATURE.
that of the child who, elevated with the sentiment of Him, rai-
ses his innocent hands to Heaven as he stammers out his prayer,
or of the schoolman who pretends to explain His  Nature ?
  It is very easy7 to communicate to children ideas of God and
of virtue.  The daisies springing up among the grass, the fruits
suspended on the trees of their enclosure, should be their first
lessons in  Theology7, and their first exercises of abstinence and
of 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 nature of God, and
in the Patcr-noster every thing that they can ask of Him.
  It is worthy of remark, that of all the Sacred Books  there is
no one which children take in with so much facility as the Gos-
pel.  It would be proper to habituate them betimes, in a parti-
cular manner, to perform the  actions which are there enjoined,
without vain-glory, and without any respect to human observa-
tion or applause.   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 Na-
tional School, without making a single  exception.   I would in-
sist only on the most perfect cleanliness, were they in other re-
spects dressed but in patches sewed together. There you  might
see the child of  a man of quality attended by his  governor, ar-
rive 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 fre-
quently destined to support the affluent out of his own necessary
pittance.  These children of all ranks, crowned  with  flowers,
and distributed  into choirs, would assist in our public proces-
sions.  Their age, their order, their songs, and their innocence,
would present in these, a spectacle more august than the lackeys
cf the Great  bearing the coats of arms of their masters pasted
to wax-tapers, and beyond all contradiction much more affectr 
STUDY XIV.
425
iog 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 to cy-
pher.  Ingenious men have for this effect contrived boards, and
methods simple, prompt and agreeable ; but schoolmasters have
been at great pains to render them useless, because they destroy7-
ed their empire, and made education proceed faster than was
consistent with their emolument.  If you wish children to learn
quickly  to read, put  a  sugar-plumb over  each of their let-
ters ; they will soon have their  alphabet by heart; and if you
multiply or diminish the number of them, they will soon be-
come arithmeticians.   However that may be,  they shall have
profited wonderfully in this school of their country, should they
leave it without having learned to read, write and cypher; but
deeply  penetrated  with this  one truth, that to read, write and
cyqiher, and all the Sciences in the World, are mere nothings;
but that to be sincere, good, obliging; to love God  and Man,
is the only7 Science worthy of the human heart.
   At the second era of education, which I suppose to be about
the age of from ten to twelve, when their intellectual powers rest-
lessly stir and press forward to the imitation of  every thing
that they see done  by others, I  would have them instructed  in
the means which men employ in making provision for the wants
of Society7. I would not pretend to teach them  the five hundred
and thirty arts and handicrafts which arc carried on at Paris,
but those only which are subservient to the first necessities  of
human life, such as agriculture, the different processes employed
in making bread, the arts which, in the pride of  our hearts, we
denominate mechanical, such as those of spinning flax and hemp,
of weaving these into cloth, and that of building houses.  To
these I would join the elements of the natural Sciences, in which
those various handicrafts originated, the elements of Geometry,
and the experiments  of  Natural Philosophy,  which have in-
\ented nothing in this respect, but  which explain their proces-
ses with much pomp and parade.
   I  would likewise have them  made acquainted with the libe-
ral arts, such as those of drawing, of architecture, of fortifica-
tion, not in the view of making painters of them, or architects,
or engineers, but to shew them in what manner their habitation
 is constructed, and how their Country is defended.  I would
   Vol.. II.                  3 H 
426            STUDIES OF NATURE.

make them observe, as an antidote to the vanity which the Sci
ences inspire, that Man, amidst such a variety of arts and ope
rations, has imagined  no one thing; that he  has imitated in
all his productions, either the  skill of the  animal creation,  or
the operations of Nature; that his  industry is  a testimony of
the misery to which he is condemned, whereby  he is laid under
the necessity of maintaining  an incessant conflict against  the
elements, against hunger and thirst, against his  fellow-men, and
what  is most  difficult  of all, against himself.   I would make
them  sensible  of these relations  of the  truths  of Religion, to
those  of Nature ;  and I would thus dispose them to love the
class of useful men who are continually providing for their wants.
  I would always endeavour, in the course of this education, tft
make the exercises of the body go hand in hand with those oi
the mind.  Accordingly, while they were  acquiring the know-
ledge of the  useful arts I  would have  them taught Latin.  I
would not teach it  them metaphysically and grammatically, as in
Our college s, and which is forgotten much  faster than it was at-
tained, but they should learn it practically.  Thus it is that the
Polish peasantry acquire it, who  speak  it  fluently all their life-
time, though they  have never been at college.   They speak it
in a very intelligible manner, as  I know by experience, having
travelled through their Country7.   The use of that language has
been, I imagine, propagated among them by certain exiles from
ancient Rome, perhaps Ovid, who was sent into banishment among
the Samatians, their Ancestors,  and for the memorv of which
Poet  they still preserve the highest veneration.   It  is not, say
our Literati, the Latin of Cicero.  But what is that to the pur
pose ?  It  is  not because those peasants have  not a competent
knowledge of the Latin tongue, that they are incapable of speak-
ing the language of Cicero ; but because,  being slaves, they do
not understand the language  of liberty.  Our French peasants
would not comprehend the best translations which could be made
of that Author, were they the production  even of the University.
But a Savage of Canada would take them  in perfectly, and bet-
ter than many Professors of eloquence.   It is the tone of  soul
of the person who  listens which gives the comprehension of the
language of him who speaks.  A project was once formed, I
think under Louis XIV. of building a city in which  no language
butLatin was to have beenspoken. This must have inconceivable 
                        STUDY XIV.                   427

facilitated the study of that tongue ; but the University undoubt-
edly would not have found it's account in it.   Whatever may be
in this, I am well assured that two years at  most are sufficient
for the children of the National School to learn the Latin by
practise, especially if in the lectures which they attended, extracts
were given  from the lives of great men, French and Roman,
written in good Latin, and afterwards explained.
   In the third period of education, nearly about the age when
the passions  begin to take flight, I would shew to ingenious
youth, the pure and gentle language of them,  in the Eclogues
and Georgics of Virgil; the philosophy of them, in some of the
Odes of Horace;  and pictures of their corruption taken from
Tacitus and Suetonius.*  I would finish the painting of the hide-
ous excesses into which they plunge Mankind, by exhibiting pas-
sages from some Historian of the Lower Empire. I would make
them remark 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 excite  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 learn-
ing, by uniting in their studies whatever men of  genius have
considered as best adapted to the perfecting of  human nature.
   I would likewise have them practically instructed in the know-
ledge  of the Greek tongue, which is on the  point of going into
total disuse  among us.   I would make them acquainted with
Homer, principium sapientia ci? fons, (the  original source of
Wisdom) as Horace with perfect propriety calls him; with Hero-
dotus, the father of History; with some  maxims  from the su-
blime  book of Marcus Aurelius.]   I would endeavour to make

   * I wish not to see the work of Suetonius read in our schools : without
being a masterly performance, it exhibits the most shocking picture of the
most hideous vices of the Romans, and especially of  their Emperors. I can
 never forget the observation of the late learned Dr. Nisbitt, president of the
.College of Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, when I expressed my surprize, that
 Suetonius should be permitted to be read in  the American schools. " It is
" true," said the Principal,  "the work does paint the gigantic" vices of the
Romans.—B. S. B.
   f Why only some of the maxims of this great and good man ? Neither the
 Oreeksnor the !>' mans havt transmitted to us any other work so pregnant 
428
STUDIES OF NATURE.
them sensible how at all times talents, virtues, great men, and
States, flourished together with confidence in the Divine Provi-
dence.  But, in order  to communicate greater weight to  these
eternal truths,  I would intermingle with them the  enchanting
studies of Nature, of which they had hitherto seen only some
faint sketches in the greatest Writers.
  I would make them remark the disposition of this Globe, sus-
pended in a most incomprehensible manner upon nothing, with
an infinite number of different Nations in motion over it's solid
and over it's liquid surface.  I would point out to them, in each
climate, the principal plants which are useful to human life; the
animals which  stand related to those plants, and to their soil,
without extending farther.  I would then shew 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 pro-
ductions of  Nature.  I would let them see that the interests  of
Princes are  not different from those of other men;  and that
those of every  Nation  are the same  with the interests of their
Princes.  I would speak of the different Laws by which the Na-
tions are governed; I would lead them to an acquaintance with
those of their own Country, of which most of our citizens are
entirely ignorant.  I would give them an idea  of the principal
religions which divide  the Earth;  and I would demonstrate  to
them,  how  highly preferable  Christianity is to all the political
Laws, and  to  all the religions of the World,  because  it alone
aims at the felicity of the whole human race.  I would make
them sensible,  that it is the Christian Religion which  prevents
the different ranks of Society from dashing themselves to pieces
by mutual collision, and which gives them equal powers of bear-
ing up under the pressure of unequal weights.  From these su-
blime considerations, the love of their Country would be kindled
in those youthful hearts, and would acquire increasing ardour
from the spectacle of her very 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

with sublime lessons, so eminently calculated to reconcile us to the seeming
evils of this life, as the Meditations of Aurelius.  Why has not this work
been reprinted in the United States ? Though frequently u*anslated into Eng
lish, it is too little known amQng us.—B S. F. 
STUDY XIV.                   429
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 particular advantage they might
derive from their studies, I would never propose to them any
other end but the good of their fellow-creatures.   They would
make a most wonderful progress in these, did they reap no other
fruit except that of concord, and the love of Country.
   In the beautiful season of the year, when the corn is reaped,
about the beginning of September,  I would lead them out into
the country, embodied under various standards.  I would present
them  with the image  of war.   I would make them lie on the
grass under the shade of forests : there they should themselves
prepare their own victuals ; they should learn to attack and to
defend a post, to cross a river by swimming; they should learn
the use of fire-arms, and at the  same time to practise the evolu-
tions  borrowed from the tactics of the Greeks, who are our mas-
ters in every branch of knowledge.   I would bring into disre-
pute, by7 means of these military exercises, the taste for fencing,
which renders the soldiery formidable only to citizens, an art
useless and even hurtful in war, reprobated by all great Com-
manders, and derogatory  to courage,  as Philopamen alleged.
" In my younger days," says Michael Montaigne, " the nobility
" disclaimed the praise of being skilful fencers as  injurious to
" their character, and learned that art by stealth, as a matter of
*' trick, inconsistent with real native valour."*  This art gene-
rated in the same society of the hatred of the lower classes to
the higher,  who  oppress them, is  an importation  from Italy,
where the military  art exists no longer.  It is this which keeps
up the spirit of duelling among us.   We nave not derived that
spirit from the Nations of the North, as so many Writers have
taken  upon them to assert.  Duels are hardly known in Russia
and in Prussia;  and  altogether unknown to the Savages of the
North.   Italy is their native soil,  as may be gathered from the
most celebrated treatises on fencing, and from the terms of that
art, which are Italian, as tierce, quartc. It has been naturalized
among us through the weakness and corruption of many women,
who are far  from being displeased with having  a bully for a
lover.  To those moral causes no doubt we must  ascribe that
strange contradiction  in our government, which prohibits duel
          * F^ays of Michael .Mmi'aitrni'.  Rook ii. chap. 27 
430
STUDIES OF NATURE.
ling, and at the same time permits the public exercise of an art,
which pretends to teach nothing else but how to fight  duels.*
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, they should perform a course of human  life, in
which they should be instructed in what manner they ought one
day to demean themselves toward a fellow-citizen, and  toward
an enemy.
  The  season  of youth would glide away agreeably and use-
fully amidst  such a number of employments.   The  mind and
the body would expand  at one and the same time.  The natural
talents, frequently unknown in most men, would manifest them-
selves at sight of the different objects which  might be presented
to them.  More than one  Achilles would feel his blood all on
fire on beholding  a sword :  more than one Vaucanson, at the as-
pect of a piece  of machinery, would begin to  meditate on  the
means of organizing wood or brass.
  The attainment of all this  various knowledge, I shall  be told,
will  require a very7 considerable quantity of  time:  but  if we
take into consideration  that  which  is squandered away in our
colleges, in the tiresome repetitions of lessons,  in the  grammati
cal decompositions and  explications of the Latin tongue, which
do not communicate to the scholar so much as  facility in speak-
ing it, and in the  dangerous competitions of a  vain ambition, it
is impossible not to admit that we have been proposing to make
a much better use of it.  The scholars every day scribble over
in them as  much paper as  so many attorneys,! so  much the

  * Fencing-masters tell us  that their art expands the body, and teaches to
walk gracefully. Dancing-masters  say the same thing of theirs. As a proof
that they are mistaken, both these classes of gentlemen are readily distin-
guished by their affected manner  of walking.  A citizen ought neither to
have the attitude nor the movements of a gladiator. But if the art of fencing
be necessary,  duelling ought to be  permitted by public authority, in order to
relieve persons of character  from the cruel alternative of equally dishonour-
ing themselves, by violating the Laws of the State,  and of Religion, or by
observing them.  In truth, worthless people are among us very much at their
ease.
  f I am persuaded that if this plan of education, indigested as it is, were to
be adopted, one of the greatest obstacles to the universal renovation of ou-
know ledge and morals would be, not Regents, not academical Institutions, not
 Cmversity Privileges, not the square caps of Doctors.  It would come frm--. 
STUDY XIV.
431
more unprofitable that, thanks" to the printing of the books,  the
versions, or themes, of which they copy, they have no occasion
for all this irksome labour.   But on what should the Regents
themselves employ their own time if the  pupils did not waste
theirs ?
   In the National Schools every thing would go on after the aca-
demic manner of the Greek Philosophers.  The pupils should
there pursue their studies, sometimes seated, sometimes stand-
ing; sometimes in the fields, at other times in the amphitheatre,
or in the park which surrounded it.  There would be no occa-
sion for either pen, or paper, or ink; every one would bring with
him only the classical book which might contain the subject of
the  lesson.   I have had frequent  experience  that  we  forget
what we commit to writing.  That which I have conveyed to
paper  I  discharge from my memory, and very soon  from my
recollective faculty.   I  have become  sensible of this with re-
spect to complete Works which I had fairly  transcribed, and
which appeared to me afterward as strange as if they had been
the production of a different hand from  my own.  This docs
not take place with regard to the impressions which the  con-
versation of another leaves  upon our mind, especially if it  be
accompanied with striking circumstances.  The tone  of voice.
the  gesture, the respect  due  to the orator, the reflections of the
company, concur in engraving on the memory the  words of a
discourse much better than writing does.  I shall again quote
to  this purpose  the authority  of Plutarch, or rather that of
Lycurgus.
   " But  it is carefully to be remarked,  that Lycurgus would
" never permit any one  of his  Laws to be committed to writ-
" ing; it is accordingly expressly enjoined by7 one of the spc-
" cial statutes, that none of his institutes shall be  copied;  be-
a cause whatever is of peculiar force  and efficacy toward rcn
" dering a city happy and virtuous, it  was his opinion, ought to
" be impressed by habitual culture on  the hearts  and nninneir
" of men, in order to make the characters indelible.  Good-
" will is more powerful  than any other mode  of constraint  to

the Paper merchants, one of whose principal branches of commerce would
thereby be reduced to almost nothing.  There might be devised happy and
glorious compensations for the privileges of the Masters ; but a money ob
jection, in this venal age, seem-* *o me abs^httely unanswerable. 
432
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 u which men can be subjected, for by means of it every one be-
 ;' comes a Law unto himself."*
   The heads of our young people should not then be oppressed,
 in the National Schools,  with un unprofitable and prattling Sci-
 ence.  Sometimes  they should  defend  among themselves the
 cause of a citizen; sometimes they should deliver their opinion
 respecting a public  event.  They should pursue the process of
 an art through it's whole course.  Their eloquence  would be a
 real eloquence, and their  knowledge real knowledge.   They
 should employ their minds on no abstruse Science, in no use-
 less  research, which are  usually the fruit of pride.   In the
 studies which  I propose, every thing should bring us back to
 Society, to  Concord, to Religion, and to Nature.
   I have no need to suggest, that these  several Schools should
 be decorated correspondently to their use, and that the exterior
 of them all should serve  as walking places and asylums  to the
 People,  especially7 during the tedious and gloomy days of Win-
ter.   There they should every day behold spectacles more pro-
per to inspire them  with virtuous sentiments, and with the love
of their country, I do not say than those of the Boulevards, or
than the dances of  Vauxhall, but even than  the  tragedies  of
 Corneille.
  There should be among those young people no such thing as
reward, nor punishment,  nor emulation, and consequently no
envy. The only punishment there inflicted should be, to  banish
from the assembly the person  who should  disturb it, and even
that only for a time proportioned to  the fault of the offender:
and withal this should rather be an act of justice than a punish-
ment ; for I would  have  no manner of shame to attach to that
exile.  But if you  wish to form an idea of such an assembly-,
conceive, instead  of our  young collegians, pale, pensive, jea-
lous, trembling about the fate of their unfortunate compositions,
a multitude of young persons gay,  content, attracted by plea-
sure 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 them, in retaining them,
and in replying to his unexpected questions.  One tacitly sug-
' Plutarch's Yik of Lycurgus, 
STUDY XIV.                  43o
gests an answer to his neighbour :  another makes an excuse for
the negligence of his absent comrade.
   Represent to yourself the rapid progress of studies elucidat-
ed by intelligent masters, and drunk in by pupils who are mu-
tually  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 adjusted, communi-
cates from one to  another, till the whole becomes one blaze.
Observe among them,  instead  of a vain emulation, union, be-
nevolence, friendship,  for an answer  seasonably suggested, for
an apology made in behalf of one absent by his comrades, and
other little services rendered and repaid.  The  recollection of
those early intimacies will farther  unite them in the World, not-
withstanding the  prejudices of  their various conditions.
   At this tender age it is that gratitude and resentment become
engraved, for  the rest of life,  as indelibly7 as the elements  of
Science and of Religion.  It is not so in our colleges, where
every scholar attempts to  supplant his neighbour.  I recollect
that one exercise day I found myself very much embarrassed,
from having forgotten a Latin Author out of which I had a page
to translate.  One of my  neighbours  obligingly offered to dic-
tate to me the version which he had made from it.  I accepted
his services with many expressions of acknowledgment.  I ac-
cordingly copied his version, only changing a few words, that
the Regent might not perceive  it  to be the same with my com-
panion's ; but that which he had given me was only a false copy
of his  own,  and was filled with blunders so extravagant that
the Regent was astonished at it, and could not believe it at first
to be my production, for I was  a tolerably good scholar. I have
not lost the recollection of that  act of perfidy, though in truth I
have forgotten others much  more cruel  which I have encoun-
tered since that period; but the first  age of human life is  the
season of resentments, and of grateful feelings, which are never
to be effaced.
   I recollect periods of time still  more remote.   When I went
to school in frocks, I sometimes  lost  my books through heed-
lessness.  I had a nurse named Mary Talbot, who bought me
others  with her  own money, for fear of my being whipped
at school.  And of a truth the recollection of those petty ser-
vices has remained  so  long, and  so deeply imprinted on my
   Vol. II.                    3 1 
434
STUDIES OF NATURK.
 heart, that I can truly affirm no person in the World, my mother
 excepted, possessed my affection so uniformly, and so constant-
 ly.  That good and poor creature frequently took a cordial in-
 terest in my useless projects for acquiring a fortune.  I reckon-
 ed on repaying her with usury in her old age, when she was
 in  a manner destitute,  the  tender care which she took of  my
 infancy ;  but scarcely  has it been  in  my power to give her
 some trifling and  inadequate tokens  of my good-will.  I relate
 these  recollections, traces of which  every one  of my Readers
 probably possesses somewhat similar, and still more interesting,
 relating to himself and to his own childhood, to prove to what
 a degree the early season of life  would be naturally the  era of
 virtue and of gratitude, were it not frequently depraved among
 us, through the faultiness of our institutions.
   but 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 power-
 fully  recommended.  The more recommendations diey might
 have the more would they be given to intrigue, and consequent-
 ly the  less  would be their virtue.  The enquiry made concern-
 ing them ought not to be, Is he a wit, a bright man, a Philoso-
 pher?  But, is he fond of children?  Does he frequent the un-
 fortunate  rather than the  great ? Is he a man of sensibility ?
 Does he possess virtue ?  With persons of such a character,  we
 should be  furnished with masters proper for  conducting the
 public education.  Besides, I could  wis'h to change the appel-
 lation of Master and Doctor, as harsh and lofty.  I would have
 their titles  to import the friends of childhood, the fathers of the
 Country ; and these I would have expressed by beautiful Greek
 names, in order to unite to the respect due to their functions the
 mysteriousness of  their titles.  Their condition, as being des-
 tined to form citizens for the  Nation, should be at least as no-
 ble, and  as distinguished, as that of the Squires who manage
 horses in the Courts of Princes.  A titled magistrate should
 preside every  day  in each  school.  It would be very becom-
 ing, that the magistrates should cause to  be trained  tip, under
 their own eyes, to justice, and to the  Laws, the  children whom
 they are one day to judge and  to govern as men.   Children
likewise are citizens in miniature.  A nobleman of the highest
rank, and of the most  eminent acjompi-hments, should  have 
STUDY XIV.                   435
the general superintendance of these  National  Schools, more
important beyond all contradiction than that of the studs of the
kingdom ; and to the end that men of letters, given to low flat-
tery, might not be tempted  to  insert in the  public papers the
days on  which he was to vouchsafe to make his visits to them,
this sublime duty should have  no revenue annexed to it, 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 educa-
tion of women to that of men,  as at Sparta !  But our manners
forbid  it.   I  do not believe however that there could be any
great inconveniency in associating, in early life, the children of
both sexes. Their society communicates mutual grace; besides,
the first elements of civil life, of religion, and of virtue, are the
same for the one and for the other. 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 y7oung woman will  never attain this end but by  ac-
quiring a relish for the employments suitable to her sex.   To
no purpose would you give her a complete course of the Scien-
ces,  and make her a Theologian or a  Philosopher :  a husband
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 of the most  de-
licious 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 established between the two sexes,
in order to produce the most lovely7 of harmonies.
   These natural contrasts are so necessary to love, that there is
not a single female celebrated for the attachment with which  she
inspired her lovers, or her husband, who has been indebted for
her empire to any other attractions than the amusements or  the
occupations peculiar to her sex, from the age of Penelope  down
to the present.  We have them of all ranks, and of all characters. 
 436            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 but not one of them learned. Such of them as have merited this
 description, have  likewise been almost all of them unfortunate
 in love, from Sappho down to Christina Queen of Sweden,* and
 even still nearer to us.  It should be then by the side of her mo?
 ther, of her father, of her brothers and sisters, that a young wo-
 man ought to derive instruction respecting her future duties of
 mother and wife.   In her father's house it is that she  ought to
 leam a multitude  of domestic arts, at this day unknown to our
 highly bred dames.
   I have oftener than once, in the course of this Work, spoken
 in high terms of the felicity enjoyed in Holland ; however, as I
 only passed through that country, I have but a slight acquaint-
 ance with  their  domestic manners.  This  much nevertheless I
 know, that the  women there are constantly employed in house-
 hold affairs, and  that the most undisturbed concord reign in fami-
 lies. But I enjoyred at Berlin an image of the charms which those
 manners held in such contempt among us, are capable  of diffu-
 sing over domestic life.  A friend whom Providence raised up
 for me in that city, where I was an entire stranger, introduced
 me to a society  of young ladies ; for in Prussia these assemblies
 are  held not  in  the  apartments of the married women,  but of
 their daughters.  This custom is kept up in all the families which
 have not been corrupted  by the manners  of our French officers,
 who were prisoners there in the last war. It is customary then
 for the young ladies of the same society  to invite each other by
 turns, to  assemblies which they call coffee parties.  They are
 generally kept on Thursdays.  They go, accompanied  by their
 mothers, to the apartments of her who has given the invitation.
 She  treats them  with creamed coffee, and every kind of pastry
 and comfits prepared by her own hand. She presents them, in the
very depth of Winter, with fruits of all sorts preserved in sugar,
 in colours, in verdure, and in perfume, apparently as fresh as if
they were hanging on the tree.  She receives from her compa-
nions thousands  of compliments, which she repays with interest.

  * I am surprized  that our virtuous author could mention the name of this
woman, without attaching to  it some epithet that might serve to show his
abhorrence of her character. The murder of the poor Marquis of Monaldes-
 ; Li, by her orders,  and even in her presence, to  say nothing of her amours,
places Christina, in my opinion, in the catalogue of the most infamous wo-
men of the seventeenth century —B. *♦ B 
STUDY XIV.                   437
   But by and by she displays other talents. Sometimes she un-
rols a large piece of tapestry, on which she had been labouring
night and day, and exhibits forests of willows always green which
she herself has planted, and rivulets of mohair which she has set
a-flowing with her needle. At other times, she weds her voice
to the sounds of a harpsichord, and seems to have collected into
her chamber all the songsters of the grove.  She requests her
companions to sing in  their turn.  Then it is you hear elogium
upon elogium.  The mothers enraptured with delight applaud
themselves in secret,  like Niobe on the praises given to their
daughters : JPertentant guadia pectus:  (the bosom glows with
joy.) Some officers booted, and in their uniform, having slipped
away by stealth from the exercises of the parade, step in to enjoy
amidst this lovely circle some moments of delightful tranquillity;
and  while each of the young females hopes to  find in one  of
them her protector and her friend, each of the men sighs after
the partner who is one day to soothe, by the charm of domestic
talents, the rigour of military labours.   I  never saw any coun-
try in which the youth of both sexes discovered greater purity
of manners, and in which marriages were more happy7.
   There is no occasion however to have recourse to strangers,
for proofs of the power of love  over sanctity of manners.   I
ascribe  the innocence of those of our own  peasantry,  and their
fidelity in wedlock, to their being able  very early in life to give
themselves up to this honourable sentiment.   It is love which
renders them content with their painful lot: it even suspends the
miseries of slavery7.  I  have frequently seen in the Isle of France
black people, after being exhausted by the fatigues of the day-,
set off as the night approached to visit their mistresses,  at the
distance of three  or four  leagues.*   They keep their assigna-
tions in the midst of  the woods,  at the foot of a rock, where
they kindle a fire : they dance  together a great part of the night
to the sound of their tamtam, and return to their labour before
day-break contented, full of vigour, and as fresh as those who
have slept soundly all  night long: such is  the  power possessed
by the moral affections which combine with diis sentiment, over

  * Not  unlike this, is the  ardent zeal of the Negro slaves, in tlie southern
states, of America.—But some of our philosophers would wish us to believe,
that the  breast of the Negro is a stranger to the sentiment of delicate love
                                                      B. S t 
438
STUDIES OF NATURE.
the physical organization.  The night of the  lover diffuses a
charm over the day of the slave.
  We have in Scripture a very remarkable instance to this ef-
fect ;  it is in the book of Genesis ; " Jacob,** it is there written,
" served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but
a a few day7s, for the love he had to her."* I am perfectly aware
that our politicians, who set no value on any thing but gold and
titles, have no conception of all this ;  but I am happy  in being
able to  inform them, that  no one ever better  understood the
Laws of Nature than the Authors of the Sacred Books,  and
that on the Laws of Nature only7, can those of  happily ordered
Societies be established.
  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; as soon
as we are capable of feeling, we are capable of loving.  Honour-
able love suspends pain, banishes languor, saves from prostitu-
tion, from  the errors and the restlessness of celibacy: it fills life
with a thousand delicious perspectives, by displaying in futurity
the most desirable of unions:  it augments, in the hearts of  two
youthful lovers, a relish for study, and a taste for domestic  em-
ployments.  What pleasure must it afford a young man,  trans-
ported 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 tongue of her
lover!
  A young man, destined one day to repress on the tribunal the
injustice of men, is enchanted, amidst the labyrinths of Law,
to behold his mistress embroidering for him  the  flowers  which
are to decorate the asylum of their union,  and to present  him
w-ith 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 to the ends of the Earth,
attaches himself to the  gentle spirit of his female friend,  and
flatters himself with the thought that the mischief which he  may-
do to mankind, shall be repaired by the blessings which she be-
* Genesis, chap, xxix ver 20 
STUDY XIV.                  439
stows 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.  Who knows but those unconstrained
choices, those pure and tender ties, may fix that roving spirit
which some have supposed natural to women ? They would re-
spect the bands which they themselves had formed.  If, having
become wives, they aim at pleasing every body, it is perhaps be-
cause when  they were single, they were not permitted to be in
love with one.
   If there is room to hope for a happy revolution in our Country,
it is to  be effected only by calling back the women to domestic
manners. Whatever satire may have been levelled against them,
they are less culpable than the men.  They are chargeable with
hardly any  vices except those which they receive from us: and
we have a great  many from which  they  are free.   As to those
which are peculiar to themselves it may be affirmed, that they
have  retarded our ruin, by balancing the vices of our political
constitution. It is impossible to imagine 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 contending party7, had not the women
crossed us upon the road.  Our History7 presents  only the dis-
putes of monks with monks, of doctors  with doctors, of gran-
dees with grandees, of nobles with  the base-born; while crafty
politicians gradually lay hold of all our professions.  But for the
women all these  parties would have made a desert of the State,
and have led the commonalty7 to the very  last man to the slaugh-
ter, or  to market, a piece of  advice which was actually given
not many yrears ago.  Ages have elapsed in which we should all
have been Cordeliers, born and dying encircled with the chord
of St. Francis;  in others, all would have taken to the road in
the character of knights-errant, rambling over hill and dale with
lance in hand; in others, all  penitents, parading  through the
streets  of our cities in solemn processions, and whipping our-
selves to some purpose ; in others, quisquis or quamquam of the
University. 
440
STUDIES OF NATURE.
   The women, thrown out of their natural state by our unjust
 manners, turn every7 thing upside down, laugh at  every thing,
 destroy every thing, the great fortunes, the pretensions of pride,
 and the prejudices of opinion.  Women have only one passion,
 which is love, and this passion has only one object; whereas men
 refer every thing to  ambition, which has thousands. Whatever
 be the irregularities  of women, they are always nearer to nature
 than we are, because their ruling passion is incessantly impelling
 them in that direction,  whereas ours on the contrary is betray-
 ing us into endless deviations.   A Provincial, and even a Pari-
 sian tradesman, hardly behaves with kindness to his children
 when they are somewhat grown up; but he bends with profound
 reverence before those  of strangers,  provided they are rich or
 of high quality: his wife on the contrary is regulated in her be-
 haviour to them by their figure.  If they are homely she neglects
 them; but she will caress a peasant's child if it is beautiful; she
 will pay more respect to a low-born man with grey-hairs and a
 venerable head, than to a counsellor without a beard.  Women
 attend only  to the  advantages which are the gift of Nature, and
 men only 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 de-
 viation  from her.
  I admit at the same time that they have prevented the general
 calamity only by7 introducing among  us an  infinite number  of
 particular evils. Alas!  as well as ourselves they never will find
 happiness except  in the practice of virtue.  In all countries
 where the empire  of virtue  is at an end, they  are most misera-
ble.   They-  were  formerly  exceedingly happy in the  virtuous
 Republics of Greece  and of Italy; there  they decided the fate of
States:  at this day,  reduced to  the condition of slaves in those
 very countries, the greatest part of them are under the necessity
of submitting 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  appella-

  *  It deserves to be  remarked, that most of the names of the objects of
 Nature, of morals, and of metaphysics, are feminine, especially in the French
language. It would afford matter of curious research, to encpuire, whether
n.asculine names have been given by tlie women, and feminine names by the 
STUDY XIV.                    441
tion of the sex, to which we have given the epithet  of fair by-
way of excellence.   But how many other 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.  It is not  to beauty,
but to Religion, that our women are indebted  for the greatest
part of their influence ; the same Frenchman who in Paris sighs
at the feet of his mistress, holds her in fetters, and  under the
discipline of the whip, in St. Domingo.   Our religion alone of
all contemplates the conjugal union in the order  of Nature : it is1
the only Religion on the face of the  Earth which presents wo-
men to man as a companion;  every other  abandons her to him
as a slave.   To  Religion  alone  do  our women  owe the liberty
which they  enjoy in Europe; and  from the liberty of the wo-
men it is that the  liberty of Nations has  flowed, accompanied
with the proscription of a multitude of inhuman usages, which
have been diffused over all the other parts of the World, such as
slavery, seraglios, and  eunuchs.   O charming sex! it is in your
virtue that your power consists.—Save your Country, by recal-
ling to the love of domestic manners  your lovers and your hus-
bands, from a display  of your gentle  occupations : You would
restore Society at large to a sense of duty, if each of  you brings
back one  single man to the order of Nature.  Envy  not the
other sex their authority, their magistracies, their talents, their
vain-glory ;  but in the midst of yrour weakness, surrounded with
your wools and y-our silks, give  thanks to  the Author of Na-
ture for having conferred on you alone the power of being al-
ways good and beneficent.

men, to objects which are most particularly subservient to the uses of each
sex ; or whether the first have been made of the masculine gender, because
they presented characters  of energy and force, and U>e second of the femi-
nine gender, because they display characters of grace and loveliness.  I am
persuaded, that the men having given  names to the objects of nature, in ge-
neral, have lavished feminine designations upon them, from that secret pro-
pensity which attracts them toward the sex : this observation is supported
by the names assigned to the Heavenly Constellations, to the four quarters of
tlie Globe, to by far the greatest part of rivers, kingdoms, fruits, trees, vir-
tues, and so on.
Vol. II.
3 K 
442
STUDIES OF NATURE.
                  RECAPITULATION.

  I HAVE presented, from the beginning of this  Work, the
different paths of Nature which I  proposed to pursue, on pur-
pose to form to myself an idea of the order which governs the
World.   I brought forward, in  the  first place, the objections
which have in all ages been raised against a Providence; I have
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
disposition, and the use,  of the different parts of this Globe:  I
have accordingly referred the direction of the chains of Moun-
tains on the Continents, to the regular winds which blow over
the Ocean; the position of Islands, to the confluence of it's Cur-
rents, or those of Rivers; the constant supply of fuel to Volca-
nos, to the bituminous deposits on it's shores; the Currents of
the Sea, and the movements of the Tides, to the alternate effu-
sions of the Polar Ices.
  In the next place, I have  refuted, in  order, the other objec-
tions raised on the subject of the vegetable and animal kingdoms,
by demonstrating, 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 political
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 same Deity
who had given him up to the direction of his own 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 principles
of our Sciences, by evincing that they mislead us, either  by the
boldness of those same principles, from Avhence they wouid soar 
RECAPITULATION,
445
up to the nature of the elements which elude their grasp, or by
the insufficiency of their methods, which is capable 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. Thus
it is  that the natural Sciences, and even the political which are
results from them,  having been with us separated from each
other, each one in particular has formed, if I may use the ex-
pression, a lane without a thorough fare, of the road by which
it entered.  Thus it is that the physical causes have, at the long
run, made us lose sight of intellectual ends in the order of Na-
ture, as financial causes have stripped us of the hopes of Reli-
gion and of Virtue, in the social order.
   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 myself I have found
it in that sublime instinct called sentiment, which  is in  us the
expression of Natural  Laws, and which is invariable among all
Nations.  By means of it I have observed the Laws of Nature,
not by tracing them up to their principles, which are known to
GOD only, but by descending into their results, which are des-
tined to the use of Man.   I have had the felicity, in pursuance
of this track, to perceive certain principles of the corresponden-
cies  and of the harmonies which govern the World.
   I  cannot  entertain  a shadow of  doubt, that  it  was by pro-
ceeding in this same track, the ancient Egyptians distinguished
themselves so highly  for their attainments  in  natural  know-
ledge, which they carried incomparably farther than we have
done.  They  studied  Nature in  Nature  herself,  and not by
peacemeal, and with  machines.   Hence  they formed a most
wonderful Science, of just  celebrity all over the Globe, under
the name of Magic. The elements of this Science are now un-
known : the name of  it alone is all  that 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  Egyptians, so much
celebrated by the most respectable Authors of Antiquity, a id
bv the Sacred Books themselves.  These were the principles of
correspondence and of harmony which  Pythagoras derived 
444
STUDIES OF NATURE.
 from their stores, which he imported into Europe, and which
 there became the sources of the various branches of Philosophy
 that appeared after his time, nay the sonrce of the Arts likewise,
 which did not begin to flourish there till that period; for the
 Arts are only imitations of the processes of Nature.
   Though my incapacity is very great, these harmonic princi-
 ples are so luminous that they have  presented to me not only
 depositions of the Globe entirely new; but they have besides
 furnished  me with  the means  of distinguishing the charac-
 ters of  plants on the first inspection, so as to be  able to say at
 once This is a native of  the mountains, That is an inhabitant of
 the shores.  By them I have demonstrated the use of the leaves
 of plants, and have determined by the nautical or volatile forms
 of their grains, the relations which they have to the places where
 they are destined to grow.   I have observed that the corolla of
 their flowers had relations, positive or negative,  to the rays of
 the Sun, according to the difference  of  Latitude, and  to  the
 points of elevation at which they are to  blow.  I have after-
 wards remarked the charming contrasts of their leaves, of their
 flowers, of their fruits,  and of their stems, with the soil and the
 sky in which they grow, and those which they form from genus
to genus, being,  if I may say so, grouped by pairs.  Finally, I
 have indicated the relations in which they stand 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
 by7  chance, through the whole extent of Nature.
  By prosecuting these  views, I have supplied the means of
 forming complete chapters  of  Natural History7, from having
 evinced that each plant was the centre of the existence of an in-
 finite number of animals, which possess correspondencies with
 it to us still unknown.   Their harmonies might undoubtedly be
 extended much farther ; for many plants seem to have relations
 not only to the Sun,  but to different  constellations.   It is not
 alway7s 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 Au-
 tumn, 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 season, and not at another, though
 die temperature may be the same. 
RECAPITULATION.
445
   These celestial relations were known to the ancient Philoso-
phy of the Egyptians, and of Pythagoras. We find many obser-
vations  on this subject in Pliny ; when he says for example that
toward the rising of the Pleiades, the olive-trees and vines con-
ceive their fruit; and after  Virgil, that wheat ought to be sown
immediately on the retiring of this constellation ; and lentils on
that  of Bootes ; that reeds and willows should be planted when
the constellation of the Lyre is setting.  It was after these rela-
tions, the causes of  which are unknown to us, that Linnccus
formed  with the flowers of plants a botanical almanac, of which
Pliny suggested the first idea to the husbandmen of his time**
But  we have indicated vegetable harmonies still more interest-
ing,  by demonstrating that the time of the  expansion of every
plant, of it's flowering, and of the maturity of it's fruit, was con-
nected w-ith the expansions and the necessities of the animal cre-
ation, and especially with those of Man.  There is not a single
one  but what possesses relations of utility to us, direct or indi-
rect  : but this immense and mysterious part of the History of
Man will perhaps never be known,  except to the Angels.
   My third Part presents  the application  of these  harmonic
principles to the Nature of  Man himself.   In it I have shewn,
That he is formed of  two powers, the one physical and the other
intellectual, which affect him perpetually with two contrary- sen-
timents, the one of which is that of his misery, and the other
that  of his excellence.   I have demonstrated,  that these  two
powers  were most  happily gratified in the  different periods of
the passions, of the ages and of the occupations to which Na-
ture has destined Man, such as agriculture,  marriage, the set-
tlement of posterity, Religion.
   I  have dwelt principally  on  the affections of the intellectual
power,  by rendering  it apparent that every thing which has the
semblance of delicious and transporting in our pleasures, arose
from the sentiment of infinity, or of some other attribute of De-
ity, which discovered itself to us as  the  termination of  our
perspective.  I  have demonstrated,  on the  contrary, that  the
source of our miseries and of our errors, might be traced up to
this, That in  the social state we frequently cross those natural
sentiments by the prejudices of education and of society :  so

            ' Consult his Natural History, Book xviii. chap. 28 
STUDIES OF NATURE.
that, in many cases, we make the sentiment of infinity7 to bear
upon the trasient 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 con-
fidence, that by pursuing this track  simply, I  have sufficiendy
proved the necessity of virtue, and that I have indicated  it's
real source, not w-here our  modern Philosophers  seek  for  it,
namely  in our political institutions, which are often diametri-
cally opposite to it,  but in the  natural  state of  Man, and in  his
own heart.
  I have afterwards applied,  with  what ability I possess,  the
action of these two powers to the happiness of  Society,  by
shewing, first, that most of the  ills we endure are only social re-
actions, all of which have their grand  origin in overgrown pro-
perty, in employments, in honours, in money, and in land.  I
have proved that those enormous  properties produce the physi-
cal and moral indigence of a Nation ;  that this indigence gene-
rated, in it's 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 produ-
ced,  by repercussion, the  prostitution of women of the town ;
because every man who abstains from  marriage, whether volun-
tarily7 or from necessity, devotes a young woman to a single life,
or to prostitution. This effect necessarily results from one of the
harmonic laws of Nature, as every man comes into the World,
and goes out of it, with his female, or what amounts to the same
thing, the males and females of the human species are born and
die in equal numbers. From these principles I have deduced a
variety of important consequences.
   I have finally demonstrated, that no inconsiderable part of our
physical and moral maladies proceeded from the chastisements,
the rewards, and the vanity of our education.
   I have hazarded sundry conjectures, in the view of furnishing
to the people abundant means  of subsistence and of population,
and of re-animating in them the spirit of Religion and of Patri-
otism, by presenting them with certain perspectives of infinity,
without which the felicity of a Nation, like that of an individual, 
RECAPITULATION.             447
is negative,  and quickly exhausted, were we to form plans in
oth< r respects the most advantageous,  of  finance, of commerce,
and of agriculture.  Provision must be made, at once, for Man,
as an animal,  and  as  an intelligent being.   I have terminated
those different projects,  by presenting 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, physi-
cal and intellectual, of Man, and to direct them toward 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 superior conceptions
to others, I am well satisfied.  At the same time, if calamity be
the road to Truth,  I have not been destitute of means to direct
me toward her.  The disorders of which I have frequently been
the witness, and sometimes  the victim,  have suggested to me
ideas of order.   I have sometimes found upon my road great
personages of high repute,  and men belonging to respectable bo-
dies, who had the words Country  and Humanity continually in
their mouth.  I associated with them, in the view of deriving
illumination from their intelligence, and of putting myself under
the protection of their virtues; but I  discovered them to be in-
triguers merely, who had no other object in view but their per-
sonal fortune, and who began to persecute me the  moment that
they perceived I was not a proper person to be either the agent
of their pleasures,  or the trumpeter of  their ambition.  I then
went over to the side of their enemies, promising myself to find
among them the love of truth, and of the public good; but how-
ever diversified our sects,  our parties, and our corps may be, I
every where meet the same men, only clothed in different garbs.
 As  soon as the one or the other  found that I refused to enlist as
 a partizan, he calumniated me, after the perfidious manner of
 the  age, that is by pronouncing my. panegyric.  The times we
 live in  are highly extolled; but  if  we have on  the  throne a
 Prince who emulates J la reus Aurelius, the age rivals that of Ti-
 berius, 
448
STUDIES OF NATURE.
    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 persons who are the
  objects of it.   At the time when,  unconscious of having com-


   * It would be I acknowledge after all a matter of very small importance ;
  but however retired at this day my condition of life may be, it has been in-
  terwoven with revolutions of high moment.   I presented, on the subject of
  Poland, a very circumstantial memoir to the Office for  Foreign  Affairs, in
  which I predicted it's partition by the neighbouring Powers several years be-
  fore it was actually accomplished.  The only mistake I committed was in go»
 ingon the supposition that  the partitioning Powers would lav hold of it en-
 tirely ;  and I am  astonished to this  hour  that they did not.  This memoir
 however has been of no utility  either to that country or to myself, though I
 had exposed myself to very great risks in it, by throwing myself, when I quit-
 ted the Russian service, into the party of the Polish Republicans,  then under
 the protection of France and of Austria. I was there taken prisoner in 1765,
 as I was going, with the approbation of the Ambassador of the Empire, and
 of the French  Minister at Warsaw,  to join the army commanded by Prince
 Radjlvil. This misfortune befel me about three miles from Warsaw, through
 the indiscretion of my guide. I was carried back to that city, put in prison,
 and threatened with being delivered up to the Russians, whose service I had
 just quitted, unless I acknowledged  that the Ambassador of the Court of
 Vienna, and the  Minister of France,  had  concurred in recommending this
 step to me.  Though I had  every thing to fear on the part of Russia, and had
 it in my power to involve in my  disgrace two personages in illustrious situa-
 tions, and consequently to render it more conspicuous, I persisted in taking
 the whole upon myself.  I likewise did my utmost to exculpate the guide, ;a
 whom I had given time to burn the dispatches with which he was  entrusted,
 by keeping back,  with my pistol in my hand, tlie Houlands who had just sur-
 prized us by night, in the post-house, where we made our first encampment
 in the midst of  the woods.
   I never had the least shadow of recompense for either of these  two pieces
 of service,  which cost me a great deal of both time and money.  Nay it is
 not very long since 1  was actually in debt for part of the expense of my jour-
 ney,  to my Friend M. Hennin, then Minister of France at Warsaw, now First
 Commissary for Foreign Affairs at Versailles, and who has given himself
 much fruitless trouble on the subject.  Undoubtedly, had M. the Count de
 Vergennes been at that time Minister for Foreign Affairs,  I should have been
 suitably rewarded, as he has procured for me  some slight gratuities. I stand
 however to this hour indebted  to the amount of more than four thousand
 livres (166?. 13*. 4J.) on that account, to different friends in Russia, Poland
 and Germany.
  I have not been  more fortunate in the Isle of France, to which  I was sent
 Captain-Engineer of the Colony ; for, in the first place, I was persecuted by
the ordinary Engineers who  were stationed  there, because I did not belong
to their corps.   I  had been  dispatched to that Country, as to a situation fa-
vourable to making a fortune, and I must have run considerably in debt had 
                  RECAPITULATION.                 449

mitted the slightest injury to any one, after an infinity of fruit-
less voyages, services and labours,  I was preparing in solitude
these  last fruits of my experience  and application, my secret
enemies, that is the men under whom I scorned to enlist as a
partizan, found means to intercept a gratuity which I annually
received from the beneficence of my Sovereign.  It was the only
source of subsistence  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 description.   I have hastened  therefore to gather  the fruit,
though still  immature, of the tree which I had cultivated with
such unwearied perseverance, before it  was torn up by the tem-
pest.
   But I bear no malice to any one of my persecutors.   If I am
one day laid under the necessity of  exposing to the light their
secret practises against me, it shall only be in the view of justi-
fying my own conduct.  In other respects  I am under obligation
to them. Their persecution has proved  the cause of my  repose.
To their disdainful ambition I am indebted for a liberty which I
prize far above their  greatness.  To them I owe the  delicious
studies to which I have devoted my attention.  Providence has

I not submitted to live on herbs.  I pass over in  silence all the particular dis-
tresses I had there to undergo.  I shall only say, that I endeavoured to dissi-
pate the mortification which they cost me, by employing my mind on the sub-
ject of the ills which oppressed the island in general.  It was entirely in the
view of remedying these, that I published, on my return from thence, in
1773, my Voyage to the Isle of France.  1  considered myself, first, as ren-
dering an essential service to my Country, by making it apparent that this
island, which is kept filled with troops, was in no respect proper for being
the staple, or the citadel of our commerce with India,  from which it is more
than fifteen hundred leagues distant.  This I have even proved by the events
of preceding wars,  in  which Pondicherry has  .lways been taken  from us,
though the Isle of France was crowded with .soldiers.  The late war has con-
firmed anew the truth of my observations.  For these services, as well as for
many others, I have received no other i\ compense save indirect persecutions
and calumnies, on tlie part of the inhabitants of that island,  whom I repre-
hended for their barbarity to their slaves.   I have not even received an ade-
quate indemnification for a species of shipwreck which I underwent on my
return, at the Island of Bourbon, nor for the snialhtes-. of my appointments,
which were not up to the half of those of the ordinary F.iU; meers of my rank.
I am well assured that, under a Marine Minister as intelligent and as equit-
able as M. the >I:».vsch;d de Castries, I should have reaped some part of the
fruit of my literary and military services.
   Vol. II.                     3 L 
450            STUDIES OF NATURE.

not abandoned me, though they have.  It has raised up friends,
who have  served me as opportunity-  offered with my Prince ;
and  others will arise to recommend me to his favour, when it
may be necessary7. Had I reposed in GOD that confidence which
I put in men,  I  should have always enjoyed undisturbed tran-
quillity :  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.  By their fears and not my own  is my mind
disturbed.  Nevertheless I sometimes say to myself, Wherefore
be embarrassed about what is to come ? Before you came into
the World  were yrou disquieted with anxious thoughts about the
manner in v hich your members were to be combined, and your
nerves and your bones to expandi When in process  of time you
emerged  into light, did you study optics in order to know how
you were to perceive objects ;  and anatomy, in order to learn
how to move about y-our body, and how to promote it's growth ?
These operations of Nature, far superior to those of men, have
taken place in you without your knowledge, and without any in-
terference of your own.   If you disquieted not y7ourself about
being born, Wherefore should you about living, and Wherefore
about dying ?  Are you not always in the same  hand ?
  Otner  sentiments however, natural to the mind of Man, have
filled me  with dejection.   For example, Not to have acquired
after so many7  peregrinations and exertions, one little rural spot,
in which  I  could in the bosom of repose have arranged my ob-
servations on Nature, to me of all others the most amiable and
interesting under the Sun. I have another source of regret still
more depressing, namely the misfortune of not  having attached
to my lot a female mate, simple, gentle, sensible and pious, who
much better than Philosophy would  have soothed my  solici-
tudes, and  who, by bringing me children  like herself,  would
have provided me with a posterity incomparably more dear than
a vain reputation.  I had found this retreat and this rare felici-
ty,  in Russia,  in the midst of honourable employment ; but I
renounced  all  these advantages, to go in quest, at the instiga-.
tion of Ministers, of employment in my native  Country, where
I had nothing similar after which to aspire. Nevertheless I am.
enabled to say, that my particular studies have repaired the first
privation, in procuring for me the enjoyment not only of a small 
RECAPITULATION.
451
 Spot of ground, but of all the harmonies diffused over the vast
 garden of Nature.  An estimable partner for life cannot be so ea-
 sily replaced; but if I have reason to flatter myself that this Work
 is contributing to multiply marriages, to render them more hap-
 py, 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 inclinations ;
 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, because it is re-
 signed to all events, to privations as to enjoyments, to death as
 to life.
   Happy then, happy beyond conception^ if I have been enabled
 to contribute  one  feeble effort toward 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 recal, on the other, men misled by the intoxication of
 pleasure, to the Divinity,  toward whom Nature, the times, our
 personal miseries,  and our secret affections, are attracting us
 with so much impetuosity !
   I have  a presentiment of some favourable approaching revo-
 lution.  If it does take place, to the influence of literature, we
 shall be indebted for it. In modern-times learning produces lit-
tle solid benefit to the persons who cultivate it;  nevertheless it
directs every7 thing.  I do not speak  of the influence which let-
ters possess all the  Globe over, under the government of books.
 Asia is governed by the maxims of Confucius, the Korans, the
 Beths, the Vidams, and the  rest; but  in  Europe, Orpheus was
the first who associated it's inhabitants, and allured them out of
barbarism by his divine poesy7.  The  genius of Homer  after-
wards produced the legislations and the religions  of Greece. He
animated Alexander, and sent him forth on the conquest of Asia.
He extended his influence to the Romans, who traced upward,
in his sublime poetical  effusions, the genealogy7 of the founder,
and of the sovereigns of their Empire,  as the Greeks had lound
m him the rudiments of their Republics  and of the r Laws.
 His august shade still presides'over the poetry, the liberal Arts, 
 452             STUDIES OF NATURE,

 the Academies, and the Monuments  of  Europe:  such is the
 power over the human  mind, exercised by the perspectives of
 Deity which he has presented to it! Thus the Word which
 created the World  still governs it; but when it had descended
 itself from Heaven, and had shewn to Man the road to happi-
 ness in Virtue alone, a light more pure than that which had shed
 a lustre over the islands of Greece, illuminated the forests of
 Gaul.   The Savages who inhabited them would have been the
 happiest of Mankind, had they enjoyed liberty; but they were
 subjected  to tyrants, and those tyrants plunged them  back into a
 sacred barbarism, by presenting to  them phantoms so much the
 more tremendous,  that  the  objects of their confidence were
 transformed into those of their terror.
   The cause of human felicity, and of Religion herself, was on
 the brink of desperation, when two men of letters, Rabelais and
 Michael Cervantes,  arose, the one  in France and the  other in
 Spain, and shook at once the foundations of  monastic  power*
 and that of chivalry7.   In levelling these two  Colossuses to the
 ground, they employed no other weapons but  ridicule,  that na-
 tural contrast of human terror.  Like to children, the  Nations
 of Europe laughed and resumed their courage : they no longer
 felt any other impulsions toward happiness but those which their
 Princes chose to give them, if their  Princes had then been ca-
 pable of communicating such impulsion. The  Telemachus made
 it's appearance, and that Book brought Europe back to  the har-
 monies of Nature.    It produced a wonderful  revolution in Po-
 litics.  It  recalled Nations and their Sovereigns to the useful
 arts, to commerce,  to agriculture,  and above all, to the senti-
 ment of Deity. That Work united to the imagination of Homer
 the wisdom of Confucius.  It was translated  into all the lan-

  * God forbid  that I should be thought to insinuate an invective against
 jiersons, or orders, truly religious.  Supposing  them to  possess  no higher
merit in this life, than that of passing it without doing mischief, they would
 be respectable in the eyes of infidelity itself.  The persons here exposed are
not men really pious, who have renounced the World, in order to cherish
without interruption the spirit of Religion; but those who have assumed a
habit consecrated by Religion, to procure for themselves  the riches and the
honours of this World;  those against whom S'.  Jerome thundered so vehe-
mently to no purpose, and who have verified his  prediction in Palestine and
in Egypt, in bringing Religion into discredit by the  nrofligacy of their man-
ners, bv tlu-iv avarice and their ambiion
J 
RECAPITULATION.
45 a
guages of Europe.   It was not  in France that it excited the
highest admiration:  there  are  whole  Provinces  in  England
where  it is still one of the books in which children are taught to
read.  When the English entered the Cambraisis with the allied
army, they wished to carry the Author, who was living there in
a state of retirement from the Court, into their  camp, to do
him the honours of a military festival; but his modesty7 declined
that triumph :  he concealed  himself.   I shall add but one  trait
to his elogium: he was the  only  man living of  whom Louis
XIV. was jealous : and  he  had reason to be so ;  for while  he
was exerting himself to excite the terror, and purchase the ad-
miration of Europe, by his armies, his conquests, his banquets,
his buildings, and his magnificence,  Fenelon was commanding
the adoration of the whole World  by a Book.*
   Many learned men, inspired by his genius, have  changed
among us the  spirit of the  Government, and the  public  man-
ners.   To their Writings we are endebted for  the abolition of

  * It is absurd to institute a comparison between Bossuet and Fenelon: I am
not capable of appraising their several merits, but I cannot help considering
the second as highly preferable to his rival. He fulfilled, in my apprehension,
the two great precepts of the Law : He loved God and .Mes,
  The Reader will perhaps not be displeased at being told what J. J.  Rous-
seau thought of this great man. Having one day set out with him on a walk-
ing excursion to Mount Valerien,  when we had reached tlie summit of  tlie
mountain, it was resolved to ask a dinner of it's hermits, for  payment.  We
arrived at their  habitation a little before they sat down to table, and while
they were still at Church.   J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to step in and offer
up our devotions.   The hermits were  at that time reciting  the Litanies of
Providence, which are remarkably beautiful.  After we had addressed our
prayer to God, in a little chapel, and as the hermits were proceeding toward
their refectory, Rousseau said to me,  with his heart overflowing :  " At this
" moment I  experience  what is said in  the Gospel:  Where tico or three  art
" gathered together in my name, there am I in the midit of them. There is here
" a sentiment of peace and of felicity which penetrates the soul." I replied :
" If Fenelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic."  He exclaimed in
an extasy, and with tears in  his eyes : " O ! if Fenelon were  in  life, I would
" straggle to get into his service as lackey, in hope of meriting the place o ~
" his valet de chambre."
  Having picked  up some time ago on the Pont-Neuf, one of those little urns
which the Italians sell about tlie streets for a few halfpence a-piece, the idej
struck me of converting  it, as a decoration of my solitude, into a monument
sacred to tlie memory of John James and of Fenelon, after the manner of those
which the Chinese set up to the memory of Confucius.  As there are two
littU- scutcheons on this urn, I wrote on the oi^o these words, J. J. Rovssr.A.u 
 454              STUDIES OF NATURE.

 many7 barbarous customs, such as that of punishing capitally the
 pretended crime  of witchcraft; the application of the rack to all
 criminals without distinction ; the remains of fudal slavery ; the
practice of wearing swords in the bosom of cities, in times of
profound peace, and many others.  To them we owe the return
of the tastes, and of the duties of Nature, or at least their images.
They have restored to many infants the breasts of their mothers,
and to the rich a relish for the country, which induces them now-
a-days to quit the  centre of cities, and to take up their habita-
tion in the suburbs. They have  inspired the whole Nation with

and on the other F. Fenelon.   I then placed it in  an angle  of my  cabinet,.
about six feet from the floor, and close by it the following inscription :
                             D. M.
                      A la gloire durable & pure.
             De ceux dont le genie eclaira les vertus,
             Combattit a la fois 1' erreur & les abus,
             Et tenta d'amener le fiecle a la Nature.
      Aux Jean-Jacques Rousseaux, aux Francois Fenelo ns,
               J'ai dedie ce monument d'argile,
               Que j'ai consacre" par leur noms,
             Plus augustcs que ceux de Cesar &. d'AcHiLLE.
             Us ne sont point fameux par nos malhcurs :
               Usn'ont point, pauvres laboureurs,
               Ravi  vos bccufs, ni vos javelles;
             Bergeres, vos amans; nourissons, vos mamelles ;
               Rois,les etats ou vous regnez.:
               Mais  vous les comblerez de gloire,
               Si vous donnez a leur memoire
               Les pleurs qu'ils vous ont epargnes

                  To the pure and unfading glory
         Of the men  whose virtues were illumined by genius ;
         Who set tlieir faces against error and depravity,
         And laboured to bring Mankind back to N.iture :
       To the Rousseaus and the Fexeloxs of the Human Ract,
              I dedicate this humble monument of clay,
              And inscribe it with their names,
        Far more august than those of Cesar and Achilles
        They purchased not fame by spreading devastation ;
           They did  not, O ye poor husbandmen,
           Seize your oxen, and plunder your barns ;
   ^or, shepherdesses, carry off your lovers ; nor, sucklings, your tea's ;
           Nor, Kings, did they ravage your domains :
           But their glory will be complete,
           If on their memory you bestow
           The tears  which they have spared you 
                  RECAPITULATION.              455

 a taste for agriculture, which is degenerated, as usual, into fana-
 ticism, since it became a spirit of corps. They have the honour
 of bringing back the noblesse to the commonalty, toward whom
 it must be confessed they had already made some steps  of ap-
 proximation, by their alliances with finance; they have recalled
 that order to their peculiar duties by those of humanity.  They
 have directed all the powers of the  State, the women themselves
 not excepted, toward patriotic objects,  by arraying them in at-
 tractive ornaments and flowers.
   O ye men of  letters!  without  you the rich man would have
 no manner of intellectual enjoyment; his opulence and his dig-
 nities would be a burthen to him.   You alone restore to us the
 rights of our nature, and of Deity.  Wherever you appear, in
 the military,  in the clergy7, in the laws, and in the arts, the divine
 Intelligence unveils  itself, and the human heart breathes a sigh.
 You are at once the eyes and the  light of  the Nations.  We
 should be perhaps at this hour much nearer to happiness, if seve-
 ral of your number, intent on pleasing  the  multitude, had not
 misled them  by flattering their passions, and by mistaking their
 deceitful voices  for those of human nature.
   See how these passions have misled yourselves, from y7our hav-
 ing come too closely into contact with men!  It is  in solit de,
 and living together in unity, that y our talents communicate  mu-
 tual intellectual light.  Call to remembrance  the times when the
 La Fontaines, the Boileaus, the Racines,  the Molieres, lived with
 one another.   What is  at this  day your destinyi  That World
 whose passions you are flattering arms  you  against each other.
 It turns you out to a strife of glory, as the Romans exposed the
 wretched to wild beasts.  Your  holy lists are become the  am-
 phitheatres of gladiators.  You are, without being conscious of
 it, the mere instruments of the ambition of corps. It is by means
 of your talents that their leaders  procure for themselves digni-
 ties and riches, while you are suffered to  remain in obscurity and
 indigence. Think of the glory of men of letters among the Na-
 tions who were emerging out of barbarism;  they presented vir-
 tue to Mankind,  and w> re exalted into the rank of their Gods.
 Think of their degradation among Nations sunk into corruption:
 they flattered their passions, and  became the victims of  them.
 In the decline of the Roman Empire, letters were  no longer
cultivated, except by a few enfranchised  Greeks.  Suffer  the 
 456            STUDIES OF NATURE.

 herd to run at the heels of the rich and the voluptuous.  What
 do you propose to yourselves in the sacred career of letters, ex-
 cept to march on under the protection of Minerva? What respect
 would the World shew  you were you not covered by her im-
 mortal Egis i It would trample you under foot.  Suffer it to be
 deceived by those who are mean enough  to be it's worshippers;
 repose your confidence in Heaven, whose support will search and
 find you out wherever you may be.
   The vine one day complained to Heaven, with tears, of the
 severity of her destiny.   She envied-the condition of the reed.
 'I am planted,"  said she,  " amidst  parched  rocks, and am
 ' obliged to produce fruits replenished with juice; whereas in
 u the  bottom  of that valley the reed,  which  bears nothing but
 " a dry shag, grows at  her  ease by the brink of  the waters."
 A voice from Heaven replied: " Complain not, O vine! at thy
 " lot.   Autumn is coming on,  when the  reed will  perish with-
 " out honour on the border of the marshes; but the rain of the
 " skies will go in quest of thee  in the mountains, and thy juices,
 " matured on the rock, shall one day serve to cheer the heart of
 " God and Man."
   We have, farther, a considerable ground of hope of reforma-
tion in the affection which we bear to our Kings.   With us the
 love of Country is one and the same thing with the love of our
 Prince. This is the only bond which unites us, and which often-
 er than once has prevented our falling to  pieces.   On  the other
hand, Nations are the  real  monuments of Kings.   All those
monuments of stone, by  which so many Princes have dreamt of
 immortalizing their names, frequently served  only to  render
 them  detestable.  Pliny tells us that the  Egyptians of his time
 cursed the memory7 of the Kings of Egy7pt who had  built the
pyramids; and besides their names had sunk into oblivion.  The
modern Egyptians  allege that  they were raised by the Devil,
undoubtedly from the sentiment of the  distress which rearing
those  edifices must have cost Mankind.   Our own People fre-
quently- ascribe the same origin to our ancient bridges, and to
 the great roads cut through rocks whose summits are lost in the
 clouds.  To no purpose are medals struck for  their use;  they
 understand nothing about emblems and inscriptions.  But it is
the heart of Man on  which  the impression ought to  be made,
 ',••-.- mcan-i of Ik n.: fits conferred; the stamp  there imprinted is 
                   RECAPITULATION.              4j?

 never to be effaced. The People have lost the momery of their
 Monarchs  who presided in councils, but they cherish to this
 day, the remembrance of those of them who supped with mil-
 lers.
   The affection of the People fixes on one single quality in their
 Prince ; it  is his popularity; for it is from this that all the vir-
 tues flow of which they stand in need.  A single act of justice
 dispensed unexpectedly, and without ostentation, to a poor wi-
 dow, to a collier, fills them with admiration and delight. They
 look upon  their Prince as  a God, whose  Providence  is  at all
 times and in every place upon the watch:  and they are in the
 right;  for a single interposition of this nature, well-timed, has
 a tendency to keep every oppressor in awe, and enlivens all the
 oppressed with hope.  In our days venality and pride have rear-
 ed,  between the People and their Sovereign,  a thousand impe-
 netrable walls of gold, of iron, and of lead.   The People can
 no longer advance toward their Prince, but the Prince has it still
 in his power to  descend toward the  People.  Our Kings have
 been prepossessed on this subject with groundless fears and pre-
 judices.  It is  singularly remarkable nevertheless,  that among
 the great number of Princes of all Nations who have fallen the
 victims of different factions, not a single one ever perished when
 employed in acts of goodness, walking about on foot, and incog-
 nito  ; but all of them,  either riding in their coaches, or at table
 in the bosom of pleasure, or in their court surrounded by their
 guards, and in the very centre of their power.
  We see at this hour the Emperor and the King of Prussia, in
 a carriage simply, with one or two domestics and no  guards, tra-
 versing their scattered dominions, though peopled in part widi
 strangers and conquered Nations.  The great men and the most
 illustrious Princes of Antiquity, such as Scipio, Germanicus, Mar-
 cus Aurelius, travelled without retinue, on horseback,  and fre-
 quently on foot.  How many provinces of his kingdom, in an age
 of trouble  and faction, were thus travelled over by our Great
 Henry IV?
  A King  in his States ought to be like the Sun over the Earth,
 on which there is  not one single little plant, but what receives,
in it's turn,  the influence of his  rays.  Of the knowledge of how
many important truths  are our Kings deprived by the prejudices
of courtiers? What pleasures do they lose from their sedentary
  Vol. II.                     3 M 
45&            STUDIES OF NATURE.
 mode of life! I do not speak of those of grandeur, when they
 see on their approach, Nations flocking  together in millions,
 along the highways; the ramparts of cities set on fire with the
 thunder  of artillery,  and squadrons  issuing out of their sea-
 ports, and covering the face of the Ocean with flags and flame.
 I believe they are weary of the pleasures of glory.  But I can
 believe them sensible to those of humanity, of which they are
 perpetually deprived.  They are  for ever constrained to be Kings,
 and never permitted to be Men. What delight might it not pro-
 cure them to spread a veil over their  greatness, like the Gods,
 and to make their appearance in the midst of a virtuous  family,
 like Jupiter at the fire-side of Philemon and Baucis.' How little
 would it cost  them to make happy people every day of their
 lives! In  many cases,  what they lavish on a  single family of
 courtiers would supply the means of happiness to a whole Pro-
 vince. On many occasions their appearance merely would over-
 awe all the tyrants of the district, and console all the miserable.
 They would be considered as omnipresent, when they were not
 known as confined to a particular spot.  One confidential friend,
 a few hardy- servants, would be sufficient to bring within their
 reach all the pleasures of travelling from place to place,  and to
 screen them from  all the inconveniencies of it.
  They have it in their power to vary the seasons  as they will,
 without stirring out of the kingdom, and to extend their plea-
 sures to the utmost  extent of their authority.   Instead of in-
 habiting country residences on the banks of the Seine, or amidst
 the rocks of Fontainbleau, they might have them on the shores
 of the Ocean, and at the bottom of the Pyrenees.   It depends
 altogether on themselves, to pass the burning heats of summer
 embosomed in the mountains of Dauphine, and encompassed
with a horizon of snow; the  Winter in Provence, under olive-
trees and verdant oaks; the  Autumn,  in  the ever-green mea-
dows, and amidst the apple orchards of fertile Normandy.  They
would every day behold arriving on the shores of  France, the
seafaring  men of all Nations, British, Spanish, Dutch, Italian,
all exhibiting the peculiarities and the  manners of their several
 countries.  Our Kings have in their palaces comedies, libraries,
hot-houses, cabinets of Natural History; but all these collections
 are only vain images of Men and of Nature,   They possess no 
RECAPITULATION.
459
gardens more worthy of them than their kingdoms, and no libra-
ries so fraught with instruction as their own subjects.*
   Ah!  if it be possible for one single man to constitute on this
earth the hope of  the Human Race, that  Man is a King of
France.   He reigns over his People by  love, his  People over
the rest of Europe by manners,  Europe  over the rest  of  the

  * Here undoubtedly the volume ought to have closed.  It is no inconside-
rable mortification to me, that my duty as a Translator, permitted me not to
retrench the piece of extravagance which follows.  In justice to myself how-
ever I transmit it to the British Public, with an explicit disavowal of it's spi-
rit, of it'3 style, of it's  sentiments, and of it's object   I can excuse the rap-
turous vanity of a Frenchman, when his Prince, or when his Republic is tlie
theme ; I can not only excuse, but likewise commend, the effusions of a grate-
ful heart, filled with the idea of a kingly benefactor;  I can excuse  the self-
complacency of an Author contemplating the  probable success and influence
of a good Book, his own production; nay I can make allowance for a good
Catholic, exalting a Saint upon Earth into  an intercessor in Heaven: But
who can forbear smiling,  or rather weeping,  at the airy visions  of a return-
ing golden age, on the very eve of an explosion of the age  of iron, clothed in
every circumstance of horror! Who but must be kindled into indignation,  at
seeing genius degraded into a servile minister of fulsome adulation, to the
vilest of women ? Who but must deride the  pretensions so frequently ad-
vanced, by the wise and by the unwise, and as  frequently exposed, to the
gift of predicting future events ?
  In Latin, the same word, Vates, denotes both Poet and  Prophet;  and the
two characters are by no means incompatible.  Our Author is no mean Poet^
be is a first-rate Naturalist, he is an eloquent Writer, and what is above all,
he is a good and estimable Man ; but events  have  demonstrated that he is
but a  wretched Prophet. A few short years have  scattered his fond prognos-
tics " into air, thin air." He makes it one of the glories of the reign of Ljttis
XVI.  that he  " supported the oppressed Americans."  Whatever political
sagacity might have dictated, or predicted, at the time, respecting his inter-
ference in the dispute between Great-Britain and her American Colonics, the
issue  has demonstrated that this interference was injudicious and impolitic,
as far as he was personally concerned.  The  support which he  gave to op-
pressed America, laid an accumulated weight  on  oppressed France,  and pre-
cipitated that Revolution, which by progressive steps  abridged  his power,
annihilated his splendour, hurled him from his throne, subjected his neck to
the axe, and blasted the prospects of his Family.   Here was one of tlie fear-
ful re-actions ofa righteous Providence.
  The nauseous elogium pronounced on the charms and sensibility of his august
Consort is still more intolerable. It is notorious to all Europe, that the lewd-
ness, the pride, the prodigality, the ambition, the resentments, of that  bad
woman, filled up the measure of moral depravity among the higher orders in
France, embroiled the  two Hemispheres of the Globe in tlie horrors of war;
and ruined  her Country, ruined her  Husband, ruined Herself,  ruined her
Posterity.   Another of the re-actions of a righteous Providence— H. H 
460            STUDIES OF NATURE.

Globe by power.   Nothing  prevents  his doing good when he
pleases.  It is in his power, notwithstanding the venality of em-
ployments, to humble haughty vice, and to exalt  lowly virtue.
It is farther in his power, to descend toward h.s subjects, or to
bid them rise toward him.  Many Kings have repented that
they had placed their confidence in treasures, in allies, in corps,
and in grandees ; but no one that he had trusted in his  People,
and in God.   Thus reigned the popular Charles V. and the St.
Louises.  Thus you shall one day have reigned, O Louis XVI!
You have from your very first advances to the throne, given
laws for  the  re-establishment of manners ;  and what was still
more difficult, you have exhibited the example in the midst of
a French Court.   You have destroyed the remains  of feudal
slavery,  mitigated the hardships endured by  unfortunate pri-
soners, as well as the severity- of civil and military punishments;
you have given to the  inhabitants of certain provinces the liberty
of assessing  themselves  to the public imposts, remitted to the
Nation the  dues of your accession to the Crown, secured to the
poor seamen a part of the fruits of war, and restored to men of
letters the natural privilege of reaping those of their labours.
  While with one  hand  you were assisting and  relieving the
wretched part of the Nation, Avith the other you raised statues
to it's illustrious men  of  ages past, and you supported the op-
pressed Americans.  Certain wise men who  are about your
person, and what  is still  more potent than  their wisdom, the
charms and the sensibility of your august Consort have rendered
the  path  of v rtue  easy to you.   O great King! if you  proceed
with constancy in the rough paths of virtue, your name will one
day be invoked by the miserable of all Nations. It will preside
over their destinies even during the life of their own Sovereigns.
They will present it as a  barrier to oppose their tyrants, and as
a model to their good Kings. It will be revered from the rising
to the setting of the Sun, like that of the Tituses and of  the An-
toninuses.  When the Nations which now cover the Earth shall
be no more, your name shall still live, and shall flourish with a
glory ever new.  The Majesty of ages shall increase it's vene-
rability, and posterity  the most remote shall envy us the felicity
'->f having lived under your government.
  I, Sire, am nothing.  I may have been the  victim of public
calamities,  and remain ignorant  of  the causes.   I  may have 
                 RECAPITULATION.             461

spoken of the means of remedying them, without knowing the
power and the resources of mighty Kings.   But it you render
us better and more  happy, the Tacituses of future times will
study, from you, the art of reforming and governing men in a
difficult age. Other  Fenelons will one day speak of France, un-
der your reign, as of happy Egypt under that of Sesostris.
Whilst you are then receiving upon Earth the invariable homage
of men, you will be their mediator with Deity, of whom you
shall have been among us the most lively image.  Ah! if it
were possible that we should lose the sentiment of his existence
from the corruption of those who ought to be our patterns, from
the disorder of our passions, from the wanderings of our own
understanding, from the multiplied ills of humanity :  O King!
it would be still glorious for you to preserve the love of order
in the midst of the general disorder.  Nations, abandoned  to the
will of lawless tyrants, would flock together for  refuge to the
foot of your throne, and would  come to seek in you, the God
whom they n« longer perceived in Nature. 
SEQUEL
                TO THE

STUDIES OF NATURE.
                   ADVERTISEMENT.

    WHILE I was preparing for a re-publication of this Work,
 I received, on  the subject of it, advices, criticisms and compli-
 ments.
   The advices related to it's form.  I have constantly adhered
 to that of  12mo. in these three successive Editions, because it
 is more  commodious, an easier purchase to the Reader, and
 more beneficial to the Author, because Pirates find less profit
 in counterfeiting it. The fashionable world however signified a
 preference in favour of an 8vo. as being more genteel, and be-
 cause the page having a broader margin, and admitting of a
 larger space between  the lines, the impression would be more
 beautiful.  Men of letters expressed a wish to have an Edition
 of the Book in  4to. because, being in a larger type, it would be
 more pleasant to read, and the plates might then be engraved
 on a larger scale.  In a  word,  I was expecting a solicitation
 from some of the Literati, to aspire after the honours of a Fo-
 lio, when an amiable Lady proposed to  me very seriously to
 give an Edition in 18mo. " on purpose," said she, with inimit-
 able grace, " that I may- never go without it in my pocket."
   I feel myself so highly honoured by the good opinion of the
 Ladies, that I know not whether my vanity would not be more
 agreeably flattered with being in their pockets in the size of an
 18mo. than in that of a huge atlas in the library of the Louvre.
 This species of going about incognito has, besides, an inexpres-
 sible somewhat  in it which is singularly grateful to me.   In the
 agreeable perplexity to which I am reduced, and under an im-
possibility of giving four new Editions at once, to gratify the
taste pf all my Readers, a thought struck me, of inviting those of
them who dislike the 12mo. size, to send their instructions, fr^e 
                    ADVERTISEMENT.               463

 of postage, to my Booksellers, containing simply their address,
 and the form  which they  prefer.  I shall then  be  determined
 by the  plurality of suffrages ;  and as soon as I  shall  have five
 hundred of them in favour of an Octavo or a Quarto, I shall
 publish it by subscription on a fine paper, with new plates drawn
 and engraved by Artists of the first ability. But if there be only
 two hundred and fifty voices in favour of the Decimo-octavo, I
 will give the preference to this size, for I have always  estimated
 the suffrage of one Lady as equal at least to those of  two Gen-
 tlemen.
   Some men of the world have enquired, whether I intended to
 make any additions to this Impression; and in this case desired
 me to give a detached supplement, for the accommodation of
 those who have purchased any of the preceding Editions, alleg-
 ing that Authors who acted otherwise  defrauded the  Public.
   An Author who  is  difficult to please with his own perfor-
 mance, which I  acknowledge to be the  case with myself, and
 who is  frequently called upon to review it, is  sometimes re-
 duced to the necessity of making a few slight additions, in or-
 der to elucidate passages which may seem to labour under some
 obscurity.   He is obliged at least to change some things in the
 notices, which   must needs  vary in every different  Edition,
 without admitting the possibility of giving these variations in a
 detached supplement, so as to excite any interest.   But on the
 supposition of his thereby defrauding a part of  the Public of
 some part of his performance, I  ask, whether the Public as a
 body does  not  defraud* him more  completely,  by  purchasing
 without any scruple the spurious Editions of his Work ? The
 only method which  an Author can  employ to bring these into
 discredit, is to  add  something new to every genuine Edition
 which he publishes.
   These piracies have done, and are still doing me inconceivable
 mischief.   I do  not speak of those of my first Edition, with
 which the southern provinces of France have been filled; * but

  * M. Marin, superintendant of the press at Marseilles, seized a whole bale
of those counterfeits, about a year and a  half ago, which, in defiance of all his
remonstrances, was confiscated to the benefit  of tlie Syndical Chamber of
that city, and not, as justice required, to mine. M. de Chassel superinten-
dant of the press at Nancy, stopped there, about six months ago, some spu-
rious copies of my second Edition, which M. Vidaud-de-la-Tour took care tc 
464         SEOJJEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
 scarcely had the second appeared  when  it was counterfeited,
 with it's additions, approbations, privilege ;  nay with the very-
 title-pages containing the  address of my booksellers.   Other
 plunderers have had the audacity to  announce, in the catalogue
 of books of Leipsic-fair for the month of October 1787, an Edi-
 tion of my Studies of Nature published at Lyons, by Piestre and
 de la Moliere, though  I never had any thing printed except at
 Paris.   A new Edition of the Work has just been published at
 Brussels in four volumes.   A Gentleman, with whom my Prin-
 ter is acquainted, saw at London in the month of  September
 last, four different Editions of it, without being  able to procure
 the genuine one.   It may however be very easily distinguished
 by the  beauty of it's characters, from all the  spurious Editions,
 which besides can never  be any thing more than bad copies of
 an original Edition, revised  and corrected by  my  own hand,
 with all the attention of  which I am capable.   All this has not
 prt vented the Public from welcoming them with avidity.  After
 all, the point to be aimed at, is not to have no ground of com-
 plaint against Mankind, but to take  care that the World may
 have no just ground of complaint againt us.
   Supposing it were not a matter of conscience with me to prac-
 tise justice toward every individual,  I am under too many obli-
 gations to the Public not to study their gratification, to the  ut-
 most of my ability.  I have  never enjoyed  any other  steady
 declaration in my favour, but that of the public voice.   On the
 other hand, if the importance of the errors which I have ven-
 tured to attack, and my personal  circumstances, are taken into
 consideration, I have the presumption to  hope that the genero-
 sity of the Public will one day rank  me  with the few in num-
 ber, who have devoted themselves to  the  interests of humanity,
 at the expense of their own fortune.
 remit to me, conformably to the decision of M. de Lamoignon, keeper of the
 seals. The Pirate had only retrenched, in the advertisement, what I there
 said of the beauty of the characters of my second Edition, similar ^o those of
the present, because the pitifulness of his own would presently have detected
 the fraud.  I have now reason to expect, from the vigilance of M. Viduud-de-
 la-Tour, whose zeal for the interests of literary property so well supports the
justice of M. de Lamoignon, a name so dear  to the republic of letters, that
 we shall see at length repressed, in the kingdom, the plundering committed
 by literary pirates, in defiance of Royal authority, and so injurious to the in-
 terest of Authors, especially of such as have  no other property except their
 Works. 
                  ADVERTISEMENT.              465

  I shall not begin, at these years, to deviate from the principles
which have  governed my life. I am going to insert here there-
fore some reflections, which would  perhaps have come in more
properly- in the advertisement prefixed to this third Edition;
but I transfer them to this place, that those who are disposed
to purchase the continuation separately, may7 be  informed of
every thing which I have thought  it necessary7 to add, without
being obliged to purchase the whole. I would have in like man-
ner annexed the additions which I made  to my first Edition,
on the subject of  the elongation of the Poles, and of the Cur-
rents of the Adantic Ocean, had not these additions been too
considerable in bulk.  But  if I do not introduce  them here
word for word I repeat at least the  sense of them ; and to these
I subjoin new proofs, which  demonstrate the certainty- of those
important truths.
   I  have first corrected, in  the title-pages of this third Edi-
tion, an  error which had slipt into those of the other two.  It is
indeed a matter of the last indifference to my7 Readers, being no
more than a transposition of my baptismal names ; but it has
given occasion to some mistakes.
   I do not  recollect my having added any thing to the text, ex-
cept a single observation respecting the counter-currents of the
Ohio, which I have inserted in the  first volume of this Edition.
But it is of considerable importance, for it constitutes one proof
more in favour of the explanation which  I  have given of the
tides.
   The Reader will please to remember, that I  explain the di-
rection of our tides in Summer toward the North, from the
 counter-currents, of the general Current of the Atlantic Ocean,
 which  at that season descends from our  Pole, whose ices  are
 partly- melted by the action  of the Sun which warms it during
six months.  I supposed that this  general  Current, which then
 runs toward the South, being confined by the projection of Cape-
 Saint-Augustin in America, and by the entrance of the Gulf of
 Guinea in Africa, produced on each side counter-currents whkh
 give us  our tides, re-ascending to the North  along our  coasts.
These counter-currents actually exist in those same places, and
 are alwavs produced on the  two sides of a strait through which
a current forces itself. But I had no need to suppose the re-ac-
tions of Cape  Saint-Augustin and  of the entrance of the Gulf
   Vol. II.                  3 N 
466
SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
of Guinea, in order to make our  tides re-ascend a very great
way7 toward the North.  The simple action of the general Cur-
rent of the Atlantic, which descends from the North  Pole and
rushes tow-ard the South, displacing by it's impetuosity a  vast
mass of water,  which it repels to the right and to the left,  is
sufficient to  produce, through the whole length of it's course,
those lateral re-actions which occasion our tides, and make them
flow to the North.
  I  had quoted on this  subject two observations,  the  first of
which is level to every capacity.   It is  that of  a source which,
on discharging itself into a bason, produces at the sides of  that
bason  a  backward  motion  or  counter-current, which carries
straws and other floating substances up toward  the source.
  The second  observation  is extracted from  the  History- of
New-France by Father Charlevoix. He tells us that though the
wind was contrary, he sailed at the rate of eight good leagues
a day up lake Michigan, against the general Current, with the
assistance of it's lateral counter-currents.
  But M. de Crevecaur,  Author of the Letters  of an American
Farmer, goes still further; for he assures us, (Vol. III. p. 433)
that  in sailing up the Ohio, along it's banks, he  made 422 miles
in fourteen days, which amounts to more than six leagues a day-,
" with the assistance," says he, " of the counter-currents, which
" have always a velocity equal to  the principal Current." This
is the only observation which I have added,  on account of it's
importance, and out of the respect which I bear to it's Author.
  Thus the general effect of the  tides is placed in  the clearest
light, by the instance of the lateral counter-currents of our ba-
sons, into which sources discharge themselves, by those of the
lakes which receive  rivers,  and by those of rivers  themselves,
notwithstanding their considerable declivities,  without any ne-
cessity for a particular strait, to produce those  re-actions along
the whole extent of their shores, though  straits  considerably
increase these same counter-currents or eddies.
  The course of our tides toward the North in winter,  it must
be admitted, cannot be explained as an effect of  the lateral coun-
ter-currents of the  Atlantic Ocean,  which descends from the
North, for at that season it's general Current  comes from the
South-Pole, the ices of which are then in fusion by the heat of
the Sun.  But the course of those tides toward the North may 
                   ADVERTISEMENT.              467
 be conceived still more easily, from the direct effect of the ge-
 neral Current of the South-Pole, which runs stra  ht North. In
 this direction that southern Current passes almost throughout,
 from a wider space into a narrower, being, con fined, first of all,
 between Cape Horn and the  Cape of Good-Hope, and forcing
 it's way upward into the very bays and mediterraneans of the
 North,  it carries before  it, at once, the whole mass of the wa-
 ters of the Atlantic Ocean, without permitting a single column
 of them to escape to the right or to the left. At the same time,
 should it meet on it's road a Cape or Strait opposing it's course,
 there can be no doubt that it  would there form a lateral coun-
 ter-current, or tides, which would run  in the opposite direction.
 This accordingly is the actual effect which it produces at Cape
 Saint-Augustin in America, and above the Gulf of Guinea, to-
 ward the tenth degree of northern Latitude, in Africa ; that is,
 at the two places where these two parts of the Globe approach
 the nearest:  for in the summer of the  South-Pole, the Currents
 and the  tides, so far from bearing northward below these two
 points, return to the South on the American side, and run east-
 ward on the  African side, the whole length of the Gulf of Gui-
 nea, in contradiction to all the Laws of the Lunar System.
   I could fill a volume with new proofs in support of  the alter-
 nate fusion of the polar ices, and of the elongation of the Earth
 at the Poles, which are consequences of each other ; but I have
 produced in  the preceding part of this Work, more than  were
 necessary to  establish the  certainty of  these truths.  The very
 silence of Academies, respecting objects of such high  impor-
 tance, is a demonstration that they have no objection to start
 against my hypothesis.   Had I been in the wrong, in refuting the
 unaccountable error which led them to  conclude that this Earth
was flattened at the Poles, from geometrical operations which
 evidently demonstrate  it  to be  lengthened, Journals most of
 which are at  their disposal, would not have been wanting to re-
 press  the voice of a solitary individual.  I have met with but a
 single one who has had the hardiness to support me with a suf-
 frage.   Among  so many literary Potentates, who dispute with
each other the empire of opinion, and who traverse that stormy
ocean, determined to sink  to the  bottom all  who refuse to serve
under their banner, a foreign  Journalist has hoisted in my fa-
vour the flag  of insurrection.   It is that of Deux-Ponts which I 
468         SEOJJEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.

mention, conformably to my usual custom of acknowledging pub-
licly the particular services done me ; though the one in question
was rather a tribute presented to truth, than a compliment paid
to me, who am personally unknown to that Writer, but whom I
highly honour for his impartiality.
  On the other hand, if Academies have not come forward to
explain themselves, we  must take  into  consideration  the em-
barrassment to  which they felt themselves reduced, that of re-
tracting publicly a conclusion geometrically false, but rendered
venerable by age and universally propagated.  They could  not
adopt my results without condemning their own; and it was im-
possible for them to condemn mine, because they were support-
ed by actual operations performed by themselves.  I myself
have been no less embarrassed when,  on publishing my obser-
vations, I found myself reduced to the  alternative of  chusing
between their esteem and their  friendship ; but I followed the
impulse, of the sentiment of truth,  which ought  to absorb every
political consideration.   The  interest of my reputation  I con-
fess claimed some small share  in deciding the point, but it was
very- small indeed.  Public  utility has been my leading object.
I have employed neither ridicule nor enthusiasm, against men
of celebrity detected in  an error.  I am not elevated into a state
of intoxication on the score of my Reason.  I approached them
as I would have done to Plato laid asleep on the brink of a pre-
cipice ; fearing the moment of their awaking, and still more the
prolongation of their slumbers.  I have not imputed their blind-
ness to any- want of light, an insinuation to which the learned
are so sensibly  alive; but to the glare of systems, and especially
to the influence of  education, and  the power of moral habits,
which cloud our reason with so many prejudices. I have given,
in the advertisement to my first Volume, the origin of this er-
ror, which was first broached by Nexvton, and  the geometrical
refutation of it in the explanation of  the plates at the head of
that Volume.
   I have reasou to apprehend  that my7 moderation and candor
have not been imitated. There appeared on the  21st of last No-
vember,  in the Paris-Journal, a very severe anonymous criti-
cism of the Studies of Nature.   It sets out indeed with a
general commendation  of that Work;  but it attempts to destroy,
in detail, all the good which the public voice seems to have ex- 
ADVERTISEMENT
4Gy
lorted from it.  These  strictures had been preceded,  a little
while before, by certain other anonymous letters, in which my
Book was not mentioned by name, but a cold and subde poison
was  sprinkled over it,  without  any seeming design, but very
much calculated to produce it's  effect at  the long-run.   I was
not a little surprized to  find this masked  battery opened by- an
unknown adversary upon me ; for I was conscious of having en-
deavoured to deserve well of all mankind, and  could not ima-
gine that I stood  in  any one's way.   But  on  being informed
that several of  my- friends had, to no  purpose, presented to the
Journal of Paris copies of  verses,  and prose strictures, in my
vindication;  that long before this they had rejected some small
literary pieces in which I was mentioned to advantage,  I  be-
came convinced that a party had been  there formed against me.
Upon this I  had recourse to the General  Journal of France, the
impartial Compiler of which had the goodness to insert my de-
fence and remonstrance, in  his  paper of the 29th November,
No. 143.
   Here then is a  copy of my reply to the  critic who  thought
proper to  employ concealment  and sarcasm  against  physical
truths, and who assumed, in making his attack upon  me, the
post of the coward, and the  arms of the ruffian.

      To  the Compiler of the Journal-General of France.
     " SIR,
   " A Writer who conceals himself under the description of
" a Solitary of the Pyrenees, jealous,  I suppose, of the  gracious
" reception bestowed by the Public on my Studies of Nature,
" has  got inserted into the Journal of Paris, of yesterday the
" 21st, a very ill-natured criticism of  that Work.
   " He  seems  to have taken  particular offence at my having
" presumed to accuse the Academicians of an error,  in conclu-
" ding from the increase of quantity in the degrees of Lati-
" tude, toward the Poles, that the Earth was flattened there ; at
" my attributing the cause of  the tides to the  melting of the
" polar ices, &c........In order to weaken the force of my results,
" he exhibits them without the proofs.  He carefully- keeps out
" of sight my demonstration of  the fact,  so simple and so evi-
" dent, by which  I have made it to appear, that when the de-
" grees of an arch of a circle lengthen,  the arch of the circle 
470         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
" itself likewise lengthens, and does not become flat.   This is
" demonstrable from the poles  of an egg, as well as from those
" of the Globe.  He has not told, that the ices of each pole,
" having a circumference of from five to six thousand leagues,
" in their winter, and only from two to three thousand in their
" summer, I had  good ground  for concluding, from their alter-
" nate fusions, all the movements of the Seas.  He has not said
" a single word of the multitude of proofs geometrical,  nautical,
" geographical, botanical, and even academical, by which I have
" supported these new  and important truths.  I leave  it to my
" Readers to judge how far they- are solid.
  " As it is evident that this anonymous Writer has observed
" Nature only in Systematic books; that he opposes names mere-
" ly to facts; and authorities to reasons; that he there considers
" as decidedly certain what I have completely refuted; that he
" makes me to say in  his critique what I never did say; that
" such criticism is within the reach of every superficial, idle and
"dishonest man,  who  can hold a pen:  that neither my health,
" my time, nor my taste permit me  to confute such species of
lk dissertation,  even had the author the manliness to shew him-
" self:  I declare,  therefore, that in future, I will not  deign to
a repel such attacks, especially on the field of the public papers.
  " At the same time,  if there  be any friend  of truth who shall
" discover errors in my Book, which undoubtedly may easily be
u done, and who shall have so much friendship for me as to ad-
" dress himself directly to me, I will take care to have them cor-
" rected, and will openly- acknowledge the obligation in terms of
" the highest respect; because,  like that man, I  aim at nothing
" but truth, and honour those only who love  it.
  " I stand, Sir,  quite alone.   As I belong to no party I have
tc no one literary Journal at my disposal. It  is long since I knew
" by experience, that I had not the credit to get any thing insert-
" ed in that of Paris, even in the service of the miserable. Per-
u mit me to intreat you then to find a place in your impartial pa-
" per for this my present reply,  accompanied with my solemn
" protestation of silence for the future.
  " One word more; while I complain of the anonymous critic
" who has attacked my Work with so much acrimony7, I  feel my-
" self obliged to acknowledge that he has pronounced an exces-
u sivelv fulsome elogium on my style.   I know  not, however. 
ADVERTISEMENT.
471
" which way to account for it; but I feel myself still more hum-
" bled by his praise than irritated by his satire.
                       " I have the honour to be, ike.
                               " DE SAINT-PIERRE."
    Paris, Nov. 22, 1787.

   The anonymous Reviewer promised to enter more minutelv
into an examination of my Book in some following sheets of the
Paris-Journal;  but the Public having expressed some displea-
sure at seeing me attacked rather indecently, on a field to which
my friends had no access, the Editor of that Journal, willing to
make a show of impartiality,  soon after published a fragment
of an  epistle in verse, intended to do me honour.   This elogi-
um is likewise  the  production of an anonymous Author; for
the virtuous conceal themselves to do good, as the malignant to
do mischief.   The verses detached from the piece, and which
contain my panegyric, are exceedingly beautiful; but there are
some  others in the rest of the epistle, in my opinion, still more
beautiful.  I would have  expatiated  much  more cordially in
praise of them, had they not gone much too far in praise of me.
Nevertheless gratitude  constrains me to say,  that they are the
production of  Mr. Theresse, Counsellor at Law, who favoured
me a year ago, in the month of January, with this particular tes-
timony7 of his friendship, and of his superior talents.
   Let us return to the point  in which the Academicians are
principally interested.   In order to acquire  conviction that the
Poles of the Earth are drawn out lengthwise, there is not the
least occasion for solving some transcendant  geometrical prob-
lem, hedged round and round with equations, such as the quad-
rature of the circle; it  is sufficient  to possess the most trivial
notions of geometry and of physics. Before I proceed to collect
the proofs which have already been produced, and to confirm
these  by  the production of others altogether new, I beg leave to
say a  word or two on the means which may be employed for
ascertaining the truth, as much for the  sake of my own instruc-
tion, as for that of my critics.
   We are in the bosom  of ignorance  like mariners in the midst
of a sea without shores.  We perceive in  it, here and there,
some  truths scattered  about like islands.  In  order to hit and to
distinguish islands in the open Sea, it is not sufficient to know 
472
SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
their distance from the North, or to the East.   Their Latitude-
gives one complete circle, and their Longitude another; but the
intersection of these two measurements determines precisely the
place where they are.  We are capable of ascertaining truth, in
like manner,  only by considering it under a variety of relations.
For this reason it is, that an object which it is in our power to
subject to the examination of all our senses, is much better known
to us than  an object to which we can apply the test of but one.
Thus,  we have a much more exact knowledge of a tree  than of
a star, because we both see and touch the tree: the flower of the
tree affords us still more knowledge of it than the trunk, because
we can farther apply to it the test of smelling;  and finally, our
observations multiply, when we examine it by the fruit, because
we can now call in the evidence of the taste, and have the com-
bined information of four senses  at once.  As to objects toward
which  we are able to direct but one of our organs, say that of
vision, we can acquire the knowledge of these only- by consi-
dering them under different aspects. That tower in the horizon,
you say, is blue,  small and  round.  You approach it, and find
it to be white, lofty and angular.   Upon  this y7ou conclude it to
be square : but on walking round it you see that  it is pentagonal.
You judge it to be impossible to ascertain it's height without
the help  of an instrument,  for it is of a prodigious elevation.
Take an accessible object  of comparison,  that  of  your  own
height, and the length of your shadow,  and you will find the
self-same relation between these, as between the shadow of the
tower and it's elevation, which y7ou deemed to be inaccessible.
   Thus the knowledge of  any one truth is to be acquired only
by considering it  under different relations.   This is the reason
why GOD alone  is really intelligent,  because He alone knows
all the relations which exist among all beings ; and farther, why
GOD alone is the most universally known of all beings, because
the relations  which he has established among things manifest
Him in all his Works.
   All truths run into one another like the links of a chain. We
acquire the knowledge of them only by comparing them to each
other.  Had our Academicians made the proper use of this prin-
ciple, they must have discovered that the flattening of the Poles
was an error.  They had only to apply the consequences of this
doctrine to the distribution of the Seas.  If the Poles are flat- 
ADVERTISEMENT.
473
lened, their radii being the shortest of  the Globe, all the Seas
must press thitherward, as being the most depressed place of the
Earth: on the other hand, if the Equator were the most elevated,
all the Seas must retire from it, and the Torrid Zone would pre-
sent,  through it's whole circumference, a Zone of dry land of
six leagues and a half of elevation at it's centre; as the radius of
the Globe, at the Equator, exceeds by that quantity the radius
at the Poles, according to the  Academicians.
   Now the configuration of the Globe presents us with precisely
the contrary of all this:  for  the most extensive and the most
profound Seas are directly over the Equator : and, on the side
of our  Pole,  the  land stretches prodigiously forward  to the
North,  and the Seas which it contains are only mediterraneans
filled with high lands.
   The South Pole is indeed surrounded by a vast Ocean; but as
Captain Cook could get no nearer to it than  a  distance of 475
leagues, we are entirely ignorant whether there be any land in
it's vicinity-.  Besides, it  is probable, as I have said  elsewhere,
that Nature, which contrasts and balances all things, has com-
pensated the elevation in territory- of the North Pole, by an equi-
valent elevation in ice on the South  Pole.  Cook found in fact the
icy cupola of the South Pole  much more extensive, and more
elevated, than  that which covers the North  Pole, and he is a-
gainst instituting any manner of comparison  on the subject.
Hear what he  says in describing one of it's solid extremities,
which prevented his penetrating beyond the  71st  degree of
South Latitude, and resembled a chain of mountains rising one
above another, and losing themselves in the clouds.   u There
:i  never were seen,  in  my opinion, mountains of ice such as
u  these in the seas of Greenland ;  at least I have never rend or
"  heard of the like : no comparison therefore can be stated be-
"  tween the ices of the North, and those of the  Latitudes which
u  I am mentioning." (Cock's  Voyages, January, 1774.)
   This prodigious elevation of ices, of  which Cook saw but one
extremity, may therefore  be  a counterpoise  to the elevation of
territory on the North  Pole, establislied by the learned labours
of the Academicians themselves.   But though the frozen Seas
of the South Pole may repel the operations of  Geometry, v.c
shall see presentlv. by two authentic observations, that the fluid
   Vol. II.                  3 O 
474         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
 Seas which surround it, are more elevated than those at the E-
 quator, and are at the same level with those of the North Pole.
   Let us now proceed to verify the elongation of the Poles, by
 the very method which has been made  to  serve  for a demon-
 stration of their being flattened.   This last hypothesis has ac-
 quired a new degree of error, from it's application to the distri-
 bution of land and water upon the Globe; that of the elongation
 of the Poles is going to acquire new degrees of evidence, by it's
 extension to the different harmonies of Nature.
   Let us collect, for this purpose, the proofs which lie scattered
 about in the preceding Volumes.  Some of them  are geometri-
 cal, some geographical, some atmospherical, some nautical, and
 some astronomical.
   I.  The first proof of the elongation  of the Earth  at the
 Poles, is geometrical.   I have inserted it in the Explanation of
 the Plates, at the beginning of Volume First; it alone is suf-
 ficient to set the truth in question in  the clearest light of evi-
 dence.  There  was  no occasion even for  a figure in order to
 this.  It is very easy to conceive that if, in a circle, the degrees
 of a portion of this  circle lengthen the  whole portion contain-
 ing these degrees must likewise lengthen.   Now the degrees of
 the Meridian actually do lengthen under the polar Circle, as they
 are greater there than under the Equator, according to the Aca-
 demicians ; therefore the polar arch of the Meridian,  or which
 is the same thing, the polar curve lengthens  also.   I have al-
 ready employed this argument, to which no reply can be given^
 to prove that the polar curve was not flattened ; I can easily em-
 ploy it likewise to prove that it is lengthened out.
   II.  The second proof of the elongation of  the Earth at the
 Poles is atmospheric.   It is well known that the  height of the
 Atmosphere  diminishes in proportion as we ascend upon  a
 mountain.  Now this height diminishes likewise  in proportion
 as we advance toward the Pole.   I am furnished, on this sub-
ject,  with two barometrical experiments.  The first for the
 Northern Hemisphere; and the second for the Southern He-
 misphere.  The mercury7 in the  Barometer, at Paris, sinks one
 line  at the  height of eleven  fathom;  and it sinks likewise
 one line  in  Sweden,  on an elevation of only ten fathom, one
 foot, six inches and  four lines.   The Atmosphere of Sweden
 therefore is lower, or what amounts to the  very same thing,
it's Continent  is more elevated  than  the Land at Paris.   The 
ADVERTISEMENT.              475
Earth therefore lengthens out as you proceed northward. This
experiment, and it's consequences, cannot be rejected by the
Academicians;  for they are extracted from the History of the
Academy of Sciences,  year 1712, page 4.  Consult  the  Ex-
planation of  the Plates, Atlantic  Hemisphere,  beginning  of
Volume I.
  III. The second experiment, to prove the lowering of the
Atmosphere at the Poles, was made toward the South Pole.  It
consists of a series of barometrical observations taken from day
to day, in the Southern Hemisphere, by Captain Cook, during
the  years 1773, 1774, and 1775, from which we see, that the
mercury scarcely ever rose higher than 29 inches English, be-
yond the 60th degree of South Latitude, and mounted almost
always to 30 inches, and even higher, in the vicinity of the
Torrid  Zone, which is  a proof that the barometer falls as you
advance toward  the South Pole, as wrell  as toward the North
Pole, and that consequently both are elongated.
  The Table of these  barometrical observations may be con-
sulted ;  it is given at the end of Captain Cook*s second Voyage.
Those of the same kind, which have been collected in the fol-
lowing Voyage, exhibit  no regular difference from each other.
whatever be the Latitude of the vessel;  which is a proof of their
inaccuracy, occasioned most probably by the irregularity which
must have arisen  from  the successive  death  of the observers •
namely of the  intelligent Anderson, surgeon of  the  ship, and
Cook's particular friend; of that great man himself; and of Cap-
tain Clerke his successor; and perhaps likewise from a zealous
partizan of Newton, who might have been disposed to throw a
cloud over facts so contrary to his system of the  flattening of
the Poles.
   IV.   The fourth proof of the elongation of the Poles is nau-
tical.  It consists  of six experiments of three  different species.
The two first experiments are taken from the annual descent of
the ices of each Pole toward the Line ; the two second, from
the Currents which descend from the  Poles during their sum-
mer ; and the  two last, from the  rapidity  and  the extent of
these same Currents, which perform the tour of the Globe al-
ternately during six months: three are for the North Pole, and
three for the South Pole.
   The  first experiment, namely that deduced  from the descent
 of the ices of the North Pole, is detailed in the First Volume e*. 
 .I7b         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.

 this Work, Study Fourth.  I have there quoted the testimonies
 of the most celebrated Navigators of the North ; particularly of
 Ellis of England, of Lfnschoten and Barents of Holland, of Mar-
 fens of Hamburg, and of Denis the French Governor of Canada,
 who  attest, that these ices are of a prodigious height, and that
 they  are  frequendy met with  in  the spring in temperate Lati-
 tudes.  Denis assures us that they7 are loftier than the turrets of
 Notre-Dame, that they sometimes form floating chains of more
 than a day's sailing, and that they run aground as far south as
 the great bank of Newfoundland.  The most northerly part of
 this bank hardly extends beyond the fiftieth degree; and mari-
 ners engaged in the whale-fishery do not fall in with the solid
 ices, in summer, till they approach the 75th degree.  But on the
 supposition that those solid ices extend in winter from the Pole
 to the 65th degree, the floating ices detached from the icy Con-
 tinent, perform  a course of 375 leagues in the two first months
 of spring.  It is not the wind which drives them southward, for
 the fishing vessels which meet them have frequently fair  winds ;
 variable winds would  carry them indifferently to  the North,  to
 the East, or to the West:  but it is the Current from the  North,
 which carries them constantly every y-ear toward the Line, be-
 cause the Pole from which they take their departure is more
 elevated.
  V.  The second experiment of  the same  kind, for the South
 Pole,  is extracted from Captain Cook's  Voyage, the 10th De-
 cember,  17"2.   "The  10th  December, eight o'clock  in the
 " morning, we discover, ci .cs to our North-West;"  to which
 Mr. Forster adds :  ' .aid about two leagues to windward, ano-
 " ther mass which resembled a point of white land.   In  the af-
 " ternoon, we passed close  by a  third which was cubical, and
 " was two thousand feet long, two hundred feet  broad, and  at
 " least two hundred leet in height."  Cook was then  in the 51st
 degree of South  Latitude, and two degrees West  Longitude
 from the Cape of Good-Hope,  lit: saw a great many more up
 to the 17i.h January, 1773 ; but being at that epocha in the La-
titude of 65 degrees, 15 minutes, South, he was stopped by a
bank of broken  ice which  prevented his going  farther  south-
ward.  Thus, on the supposition  that the  first ice with which
he found himself entangled on the  10th of December, had taken
 it's departure from that point on the 10th of October, the  season 
ADVERTISEMENT.
.177
 at which it is supposed that the action of the Sun has begun to
 dissolve the ices of the South Pole, it  must have advanced at
 least 14 degrees, that  is  350 leagues, toward the Line, in two
 months: that is, it must  have  travelled nearly the  same dis-
 tance, in the same space of time,  with the ices which descend
 from the  North Pole.  The South Pole, therefore, as well as
 the North Pole, is more elevated than the  Equator,  seeing it's
 ices descend toward the Torrid Zone.
   VI. The third  nautical experiment demonstrative of the
 elongation of the  North Pole, is deduced from it's Currents
 themselves, which issue directly from the bays and the straits
 of the North, with the rapidity of sluices.   I have  quoted, to
 this purpose, the same Navigators of the North; Linschoten
 and Barents, employed by the  States of Holland to discover a
 North-west passage to China ;  and Ellis, entrusted with a com-
 mission  from  England  to attempt a North-east passage to the
 South Sea, through the bottom of Hudson's Bay7.   They  have
 discovered, at the extremity  of those Northern Seas, Currents
 which issued from bays and straits, running at the rate of  from
 eight to ten leagues an hour,  hurrying along with them an infi-
 nite multitude of floating icy promontories, and of tumultuous
 tides, which as well as the Currents, precipitated  themselves
 directly  from the  North, from the  North-east, or from the
 North-west, according as the land lay.  In conformity to those
 invariable and multiplied facts,  I myself have derived complete-
 conviction, that  the fusion of the polar ices was the second cause
 of the movements of the Seas; that the Sun was the  primary
 cause ; and on this  I founded my theory of the tides.  See  Vol.
 I. Explanation of the Plates, Atlantic Hemisphere.
  VII. The Currents  of the South-Sea in like manner have
 their source  in  the  ices of the South Pole.  Hear what  ('.\ok
 says on the subject, in his Journal, January 1774.  " Indeed
 " the majority of us were of opinion, that this ice extended to
 14 the pole ; or that it might possibly join some land, to which
 " it has adhered  from the earliest times : that to the South of
" this parallel  are formed all the ices which we found here and
" there to the North ; that they are  afterwards detached by
" violent gusts of wind, or by other causes, and thrown to the
 " North  by the  Currents, which, in high Latitudes, we always
,l observed to hear in that direction." 
478         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.

  This  fourth  nautical experiment, accordingly, proves that
the South Pole is elongated, as well as  the North Pole; for if
both were flattened, the Currents would  set in towards them,
instead of flowing toward the Line.
  Those Southern Currents are not so violent at their source as
the Northern, because they are not like them collected in bays,
and afterwards disgorged by straits; but we shall see presently
that they extend  quite as far.
  VIII.  The fifth nautical proof of the elevation of the Poles
above the Horizon of all Seas, is founded on the rapidity and
the length of their Currents,  which perform the tour of the
Globe.  The Reader may consult on this subject, the extent of
my researches, and of my proofs, at the beginning of my First
Vrolume, in the Explanation of the Plate, Atlantic Hemisphere.
I quoted, first, the Current of the  Indian Ocean, which flows
six months toward the  East, and six months toward the West,
according to the testimony of all  the Navigators of India.  I
have demonstrated that this alternate and half-yearly Current
cannot possibly be ascribed, in any one respect, to the course of
the Moon and of the Sun, which uniformly move from  East to
West, but to the combined heat of those luminaries, which melt,
for six months alternately, the ices of each Pole.
   I have afterwards adduced two very curious observations, in
proof of the existence of a similar alternate and half yrearly Cur-
rent in the Atlantic Ocean, in which till now no such thing had
been suspected.   The  first is that of Rennefort, who found, in
the month of July 1666, on leaving the Azores, the Sea covered
with the wrecks  of a naval engagement which had taken place
nine days before, between  the  English and Dutch, off Ostend.
These wrecks had been carried along, in nine  days, more  than
275  leagues to the South, which is  considerably  above 30
leagues a day:  and this is a fifth nautical experiment which
proves, from the rapidity of the Currents of the  North, the con-
siderable elevation of that Pole above the Horizon of the Seas.
   IX. My sixth nautical experiment demonstrates particularly
the elevation of the South Pole, from the extent  of it's Current*,
which in winter force  their way up to the  extremities of the
Atlantic.  It is the observation of Mr. Pennant, the celebrated
English  Naturalist, who relates,  that the  Sea threw on  the
coasts of Scotland the  mast ©f the Tilbury man of war, which 
                  ADVERTISEMENT.              479

was  burnt in the road of Jamaica ; and that they every year
pick up on the shores of the northern isles, the seeds of plants
which grow no where but in Jamaica.  Cook likewise assures
us, in the Journal of his Voyages, as an undoubted fact, that
there are found every year on the coast of Iceland, in great
quantities, large flat and round seeds called the ox-eye, which
grow only in America.
   X. and XL The astronomical proofs of the elongation of the
Poles are three in number.  The two first are Lunar.  I mean
the twofold observation of  Tycho-Brhae and of  Kepler, who
saw, in  central eclipses of the Moon, the shadow of the Earth
lengthened at the Poles. I have qouted it Vol. I. Study IV. It
is impossible to oppose any thing to the ocular testimony of two
Astronomers of such high reputation, whose calculations, so far
from being favoured, were deranged by their observations.
   XII.  The third astronomical proof of the elongation of the
Poles is Solar, and respects the North Pole.  It is the observa-
tion  of Barents, who perceived, in Nova Zembla, in the 76th
degree of North Latitude, the Sun in the Horizon, fifteen days
sooner than he expected. The Sun in this case was two degrees
and  a half more elevated than he ought to have been. Allowing
one degree* for the refraction of the Atmosphere in winter, at
the 76th degree of North Latitude, or even a degree and a half,
which is a very considerable concession,  there would remain
one degree at least,  for the  extraordinary elevation of the Ob-
server, above the Horizon of Nova Zembla.  I have on this oc-
casion detected another mistake of the  Academician Bouguer.
who fixes the greatest refraction of the Sun at no more than 34
minutes, for all climates.  It is easy to see that I  do not avail
myself of all the advantages  given me by the Gentlemen whose
opinions I  am combating.   See Vol.  I. Explanation of the
Plate, Atlantic Hemisphere.
   All these twelve proofs, deduced from the different harmo-
nies of Nature, mutually concur in demonstrating that the Poles
are elongated.  They are supported by a multitude of facts the
number of which it were easy for me to iucre.ise;  whereas the
Academicians are unable to apply to any one phenomenon of the
Earth, of the Sea, or of the Atmosphere, their result of the flat
tening of the Poles, without instantly discovering it to be a mis. 
480        SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
 take.  Besides,  Geometry alone is sufficient to  convince them
 of it.
   They have I admit made the vibrations of the pendulum to
 quadrate  with it; but that experiment is liable to a thousand
 errors.   It  is at least as much to be suspected as that of the
 burning mirror, which has served them as a foundation to con-
 clude that the rays of the Moon had no heat;  whereas the con-
 trary has been proved both at Rome and at Paris, by Professors
 of Physics.  The pendulum lengthens by heat and contracts by
 cold.  It is very7 difficult to counterbalance it's variations by an
 assemblage of rods of different metals.   On the other hand, it
 is very  easy for men, prejudiced from infancy by the  doctrine
 of attraction, to make a mistake of some lines in favour of it.
 Bcsao« 3, all these petty methods of Physics, subject to so many
 jVi!■■..< ^onings, can in no respect whatever contradict the elon-
 gation of  the Poles of the  Earth, of which Nature exhibits the
 same results o.< the Sea, in the Air, and in the Heavens.
  The elongation -4" the Poles being demonstrated, the Current
 xi the Seas and of  th  tides follows as a natural consequence.
 Many persons observing a coincidence between our tides  and
 ihe phases of the  Moon, of the same increas- s and diminutions,
 have concluded as certain  that this Ijminary,  by means of her
attraction, is trie first moving principle of those phenomena: but
these coincidences exist only in one part of the Adantic Ocean.
 They proceed, not from the attraction of the Moon acting upon
the Seas, but from her heat, reflected from the Sun on the polar
ices, the effusions of which she increases, conformably to certain
 Laws peculiar to our Continents.  Every where else the num-
ber, the variety, the duration, the regularity and irregularity of
ihe tides, have no relation whatever to the phases of the Moon,
and coincide, on the contrary, with the effects  of the  Sun on the
polar ices, and the configuration of the Poles of the Earth. This
we are now going to demonstrate, by employing the same prin-
ciple of comparison which has enabled us to refute the error of
the Academicians respecting the flattening of the Poles, and to
 >rove the truth of my theory respecting their elongation.
  If the ?vioon acted by her attraction on the tides of the Ocean,
she would extend the influence of it to mediterranean seas  and
[■'.]: >s. But this is not the case, as mediterranean seas and lakes 
ADVERTISEMENT.
481
have no tides, at least no lunar tides ; for we have observed that
the lakes situated at the foot of icy mountains, have, in Summer,
solar tides, or a flux like the Ocean. Such is the lake of Gene-
va, which has a regular afternoon's flux.  The coincidence, of
the flux of lakes in the vicinity of icy mountains, with the heat
of the Sun, gives at once a high degree of probability to my the-
ory of the tides; and, on the contrary, the disagreement of those
same fluxes with the phases of the Moon, as well as the tran-
quillity of mediterraneans when that star passes over their meri-
dian, render at first sight her attraction more liable to suspicion.
But we shall see presently, that in the vast Ocean itself, the
greatest part of  the tides have no manner of relation either to
her attraction or to her course.
   I have already quoted, in the Explanation of the Plates, the
Navigator Dampicr, who informs  us that the highest tide which
he observed,  on the coasts of New Holland, did not take place
till three days after the full Moon.  He affirms, as well as all
the Navigators  of the South, that the  tides rise very little be-
tween the  Tropics, and that they are at most from four to five
feet high in the East  Indies,  and a foot and a half only on the
coasts of the South Sea.
   Let me  now be permitted to ask, Why those tides between
the Tropics are so feeble, and so much retarded, under the  di-
rect influence of the Moon ? Wherefore  the Moon, by her attrac-
tion, gives us two tides every twenty-four hours in our Atlantic
Ocean, while she produces but one in many places of the South
Sea,  which is incomparably broader?  Wherefore there are,  in
that same South Sea, diurnal antl  semi-diurnal tides, that is of
twelve hours  and  of six hours ?  Wherefore the greatest part of
the tides take place there constantly at  the same hours, and rise
to a regular height almost all the year round, whatever may be
the irregularities of the phases  of the  Moon?  Why there are
some which rise at the quadratures, just as at the full and new
Moons? Wherefore are they  always stronger in proportion as
you approach the  Poles, and frequently set in towards the Line,
contrary to the pretended principle of their impulsion?
   These problems, which it is impossible to solve by the theory
of the Moon's attraction at the Equator,  are of easy solution,
on the hypothesis of the alternate action of the Sun's heat on the
ices of the two Poles.
   Vol.  II.                    3 P 
-tS'2
SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
   I am going, first, to prove this diversity of the tides, even
 from the testimony of Newton's compatriots, and the zealous
 partizans of his system.   My witnesses are no obscure men;
 they are persons of science, naval officers of the King of Great
 Britain, selected, one after another, by the voice of their Nation
 and the appointment of their Prince, to perform the tour of the
 Globe, and to derive from their observations, information of im-
 portance to the study of Nature.  They are men of no less note
 than Captains Byron, Carteret, Cook, Clerke, and the Astrono-
 mer Mr. Wales. To these I shall subjoin the testimony of New-
 ton himself. Let us first of all examine what they relate respect-
 ing the tides of the southern part of the South Sea.
   In the road of the island of Maffafuero, in 33 degrees, 46 mi-
 nutes of South Latitude, and 80 degrees,  22 minutes, West
 Longitude,  from the  Meridian  of London....." The  sea runs
 " twelve hours to the North, and then flows back twelve  hours
 " to the South."  (Captain Byron, April, 1765.)
   As the island of Maffafuero is in the southern part of the South
 Sea, it's tides,  which set in to the North  in April, run therefore
 toward the Line, in contradiction to the lunar system : besides,
 it's tides are of twelve hours duration; another difficulty.
   At English Creek, on the coast of New Britain, about the 5th
 degree of South Latitude, and 152 degrees of Longitude, " The
" tide has a flux and reflux once in twenty-four hours."  (Captain
 Carteret, August, 1767.)
   At the Bay of the Isles, in  New Zealand, toward 34 degrees,
 59 minutes of South Latitude, and  185 degrees, 36  minutes,
 West Longitude: " From the observations  which I have been
 " able to make on the coast, relatively to the tides, it appears,
 " that the flood sets in from the South."  (Captain Cook, De-
 cember,  1769.)
  Here are still tides in the open Seas which run toward the Line,
 against the impulsion of  the  Moon.   They descended at that
 season to New Zealand, from the South Pole, the Currents of
 which were in a state of activity-, for it was the summer of that
 Pole, being the month of December.  Those of Maffafuero,
 though observed in the month of April, by7  Captain Byron, had
 likewise  the same  origin, because the Currents of the North
 Pole, which do not commence till toward the end of March, at 
ADVERTISEMENT.
483
the time of our vernal Equinox, had not as yet begun to check
the influence of the South Pole in the Southern Hemisphere.
   At the mouth of River Endeavour, in New Holland, 15 de-
grees, 26 minutes of South Latitude, and 214 degrees, 42 mi-
nutes West Longitude,  where Captain Cook refitted his vessel,
after having run aground; " Neither the flood tide, nor the ebb,
" were considerable, except once in  twenty-four hours, just as
" we found it while we were fast upon the rock."   (Captain
Cook, June, 1770.)
   At the entrance of Christmas-harbour, in Kerguelen's Land,
about 48 degrees, 29 minutes South Latitude,  and 68 degrees,
42 minutes East  Longitude; " While we were lying at anchor
" we observed that the  flood-tide  came  from  the South-East,
" running two knots at least in an  hour."  (Captain Cook, De-
cember, 1776.)
   Here, accordingly, is another tide which descended directly
from the South Pole.   It appears that this tide was regular and
diurnal, that is, a tide of twelve hours; for Cook adds, a few pages
afterwards  : " It is high water here at the full and change days,
" about ten o'clock; and the tide rises and falls about four feet."
   In the Islands  of Otaheite,  in 17 degrees 29 minutes, South
Latitude, and 149 degrees, 35 minutes Longitude; and of  Ulie-
tea, in 16 degrees, 45 minutes, South Latitude: " Some obser-
" vations were also made on the tide; particularly at  Otaheite
" and Ulietea ; with a  view of ascertaining it's greatest rise at
" the first place.  When we were there,  in my second voyage,
" Mr. Wales thought he had discovered that it rose higher than
" I had observed it to do,  when I first visited Otaheite in 1769.
" But the observations we now made proved  diat it did  not; that
" is, that it never rose higher than twelve or fourteen  inches at
u most.  And it was observed to be high-water nearly at noon,
" as well at the  quadratures as at the full and change of the
" Moon."  (Captain Cook, December, 1777.)
   Cook gives, in this place of his Journal, a table of the tides in
those islands, from the first up to the twenty-sixth of  Novem-
ber; from  which it is evident that  they had but one tide a day,
r.nd this, during the whole course of the month, was at  it's mean
height between eleven and one o'clock.   It is  accordingly evi-
dent, that  tides so regular, at epochs of the  Moon -.o differ- 
484         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.

ent, could have no relation whatever to the phases of that lumi-
nary.
   Cook was at Otaheite, in 1769, in the month of July, that is,
in the  Winter of the South  Pole:  He was there a second time,
in 1777,  in the month of December, that is, in it's Summer: it
is accordingly possible that the effusions of this Pole, being then
more copious, and nearer to Otaheite, than those of the North-
Pole, the tides might be stronger in that island, in the month of
December,  than  in July,  and that  Mr. Wales the Astronomer
was in the right.
   Let  us now observe the effects of the tides in the northern
part of the South Sea.
   At the entrance of Nootka, on the  coast of America, in 49
degrees,  3Q minutes, of North Latitude,  and 233 degrees, 17
minutes, East Longitude: " It is high-water on the  days of the
" new  and full Moon, at 20 minutes past 12. The perpendicular
" rise and fall, eight feet nine inches; which is to be  understood
" of  the day--tides, and those which happen two or three days
" after the full and new Moon.  The night-tides, at this time,
" rise near two feet higher.  This was very conspicuous during
" the spring-tide of the full  Moon,  which happened soon after
" our arrival; and it it was obvious, that it would be the same
" in those of the  new Moon, though we did  not remain here
u long  enough to  see the whole of it's  effect."  (Captain Cook,
April,  1778.)
   Here then are two tides a day, or semi-diurnal, on the other
side of our Hemisphere, as on our own;  whereas  it appears that
there is only one  in the southern Hemisphere, that is, on the
South Sea only-.   Farther, those semi-diurnal  tides  differ from
ours in this, that they take place at the same hour, and that they
exhibit no sensible rise till the second or third day after the full
Moon.  We shall presently  unfold  the reason of these pheno-
mena,  which are totally inexplicable on the hypothesis of the Lu-
nar System.
   We  shall  see, in the two following observations, those north-
ern tides of the  South Sea,  remarked  in April, becoming, in
higher Latitudes  on the same coast, stronger in  May, and still
stronger in June,  which cannot in any respect be referred to the
rourse  ci the Moon, which  passes  then into the southern He 
ADVERTISEMENT.
485
misphere, but to the course of the Sun, which passes into the
northern Hemisphere, and proceeds to warm, more and more,
the ices of the North Pole, the fusion of which increases in pro-
portion as the heat of the star of day increases. Besides, the di-
rection of those tides of the North toward the Line, and other
circumstances, will constitute a complete confirmation that they
derive their origin  from the Pole.
   At the entrance of Cook's River, on the coast of America, to-
ward 57 degrees, and 51 minutes, North Latitude: "Here was
44 a strong tide setting to the Southward out of the inlet.  It was
44 the ebb, and ran between three and four knots in an hour; and
44 it was low  water  at ten o'clock.  A good deal of  sea-weed,
" and  some  drift-wood, were  carried out with the tide.  The
44 water too had become thick like that in  rivers ; but we were
" encouraged to proceed by  finding it as salt at low water  as the
il ocean.  The strength of the flood-tide was three knots; and
" the stream  ran  up till four in the afternoon."   (Captain Cook,
May,  1778.)
   By knots the sailors mean the divisions of the log-rope ; and
by l°g-> a small piece of wood which they throw into the Sea
tied to a rope, for  measuring the course of a vessel.  When in
one minute,  three divisions, or knots of the rope run out from
the ship, they conclude that the vessel, or the current, is making-
three miles an hour, or one league.
   On sailing up the same inlet, at a place where it was only four
leagues  broad ; " Through  this  channel ran  a prodigious tide.
44 It looked frightful to us,  who could not tell whether the agi-
44 tation of the water was occasioned by the  stream, or by the
44 breaking of the waves against rocks or sanks.....Here we lay
44 during the  ebb,  which ran near five knots in the hour (one
44 league two thirds).  Until we got thus far, the water had re-
44 tained the same degree of saltness at low as at high water; and
*' at both periods was as salt as that in the  Ocean.  But now the
44 marks of a river  displayed themselves.  The  water taken up
44 this ebb, when  at the  lowest, was found  to be very considera-
44 bly fresher than any we had hitherto tasted; insomuch that I
44 was convinced we were in a large river, anel not  in a strait corn-
"■ municating with the Northern Seas."  (Captain Cook, 30th
 May, 1778.) 
486         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
   What Cook calls the inlet, to which the name of Cook's great
 River has since been given, is, from it's course, and it's brack-
 ish waters, neither a strait nor a river, but a real northern sluice,
 through which the effusions of the polar ices are discharged into
 the Ocean.   We find others of the same kind at the bottom of
 Hudson's Bay.  Ellis  was mistaken in these, in taking them for
 straits which had a communication from the Northern Ocean to
 the South Sea.   It was in the view of dissipating the  doubts
 which had.  remained on this subject, that Cook attempted  the
 same investigation to the north of the coasts of California.
   Continuation of the discovery of the interior of the Inlet, or
 Cook*s great River : " After we had entered the Bay, the flood
 44 set strong into the river Turnagain; and the ebb came out
 " with still  greater force;  the water falling while we lay at an-
 44 chor, twenty feet upon a perpendicular." (Captain Cook, June,
 1778.)
  That which Cook calls the ebb, or the reflux, appears to me to
 be the flood, or the flux itself, for it was more tumultuous and
 more rapid  than what he calls the  flux; for the re-action never
 can be more powerful than the action.  The falling tide, even in
 our rivers, is never so strong  as the  rising tide.  This last ge-
 nerally produces a bar at the mouth of the stream, which the
 other does not.
  Cook, prepossessed  in  favour of the prevailing opinion, that
 the cause of the tides  is between the Tropics, could not assume
 the resolution  to consider this flood, which came from the inte-
 rior of the land, as a real tide.  Nevertheless, in the opposite
part of that  same Continent, I mean at the bottom of Hudson's
 Bay, the flood, or the tide, comes  from the West, that is from
 the interior  of the country.
  The following is what we find related  on  the subject,  in the
 Introduction to Cook's third Voyage.   44  Middleton, who com-
 44 manded the  expedition in 1741 and 1742, into Hudson's Bay,
44 had proceeded farther  north than any of his predecessors in
44 that navigation.   He had, between the latitude of 65  and 66
44 degrees, found a very considerable inlet running Westward,
44 into which he entered with his ships ; and after repeated tri-
44 als of the  tides, and endeavours to  discover the nature and
 44 course of the opening, for three weeks successively, he found 
                  ADVERTISEMENT.               487

44 the flood constantly to come from the Eastward, and that it
44 was a large river he had got into, to which he gave the name
44 of Wager River.
  44 The accuracy,  or rather the fidelity of this report was de-
44 nied by  Mr. Dobbs, who contended that this opening is a
44 Strait, and not afresh water river, and that Middleton, if he
" had examined it properly, would have found a passage through
44 it to the  Western American Ocean. The failure of this Voy-
44 age therefore only served to furnish our zealous advocate for
44 the discovery, with new arguments  for attempting it once
44 more ; and he had the good fortune, after getting the reward of
44 twenty thousand pounds established by act of  parliament, to
44 prevail upon a society of Gendemen and Merchants to fit out
44 the Dobbs and California; which ships it  was hoped would be
44 able to find their way into the Pacific Ocean, by the very open-
44 ing which  Middleton's voyage had pointed out,  and  which
44 he was believed to have misrepresented.
  44 This renovation of  hope only produced fresh  disappoint-
14 ment.  For it  is well  known, that the Voyage of the Dobbs
44 and California,* instead of confuting, strongly confirmed, all
44 that Middleton had asserted.  The supposed strait was found
44 to be nothing  more than a fresh water river, and  it's utmost
44 Western navigable  boundaries were  now ascertained by ac-
44 curate examination."
  Wager's river accordingly produces a  real tide from  the
West, because it is one of the sluices which  open  from the
North into the  Adantic Ocean:  it is evident  therefore thai
Cooks great River  produces, on it's side,  a real  tide from the
East, because it is likewise one of the sluices of the North into
the South Sea.
  Besides, the height and the tumult of those tides of  Cooks
great River, similar to those of the bottom of Hudson's Bay, oi
Waigat's Strait, &c. the  diminution of their saltness, and theii
general direction toward the Line, prove that they are formed
in summer, in the north of the South Sea, as well as in the north
of the Adantic Ocean, from the fusion of the ices of the North
Pole.

  * Mr. Ellis embarked in the Voyage, antl he it is who wrote the relation e'
it, which 1 have repeatedlv quoted. 
 488         SEQUEL TO THE STI7DTF.fi OF MATURE.

   In the sequel of Cooks Voyage, finished by Captain Clerke, wc
 shall find two other observations respecting the tides, which the
 lunar system is equally incapable of accounting for.
   At the English observatory, Sandwich-Islands, in the bay of
 Karakakoo,in 19 degrees, 28 minutes, North Latitude, and 204
 degrees East Longitude,  44 the tides  are  very regular, flowing
 44 and ebbing six hours each.  The flood comes from the East-
 44 ward; and it is high water at the full and change of the moon
 44 forty-five minutes past three, apparent time." (Captain Clerke*
 March, 1779.)
   At St. Peter and St.  Paul's town, in Kamtschatka, in 53 de-
 grees, 38 minutes North Latitude, and 158 degrees, 43 minutes,
 East Longitude, 44 it was high water on the full and change of
 ,4 the Moon, at thirty-six minutes past four, and the greatest
 44 rise was five feet eight inches.   The tides were very regular
 4 every twelve hours."  (Captain Clerke, October, 1779.)
  Captain Clerke, prejudiced as well as Cook in favour  of the
system of the Moon's attraction in the Torrid  Zone, strains, to
 no purpose, to refer to the irregular phases of that star, the tides
which take place  at regular  hours  in the South Sea, as well as
their other phenomena.   Mr.  Wales the Astronomer, who ac-
companied Cook on his second Voyage, is obliged to  acknow-
ledge, on  this  subject, the defectiveness of Newton*s theory.
Hear what he says of it, in an extract inserted  in the general
introduction to Cooks last Voyage: 44  The number of places, at
1,4 which' the rise and times of flowing of tides have  been ob-
44 served, in these voyages, is very  great;  and  hence an impor-
44 tant article  of useful knowledge is afforded.   In these obser-
44 vations, some very curious, and even unexpected circumstan-
-' ces have offered themselves to our consideration.  It will be
" sufficient to instance the exceedingly small  height to which
:t the tide rises in the middle of the great Pacific Ocean; where
44 it  falls short two-thirds at  least of what might have  been ex-
44 pected from theory and calculation."
  The Partizans of the  Newtonian  system would  find them-
selves reduced  to very great embarrassment, were they called
upon to explain, in a satisfying manner, first, Why there are,
daily, two tides of six hours  in the  Atlantic Ocean ?  then, Why
there is but one of twelve  hours  in  the  southern part of the
South  Sea, as at the island of Otaheite, on the  coast  of New 
ADVERTISEMENT.
489
 Holland, on that of New Britain, at the island of Maffafuero,
 &c. ? Why, on the other hand, in the northern part of that very
 same South Sea, the two tides of six hours re-appear every day-
 equal at the Sandwich islands; unequal on the coast of America,
 at the entrance of Nootka; and toward the same Latitude, re-
 duced to a single tide of twelve hours, on the  coast of Asia, at
 Kamtschatka?
   I could quote others still more extraordinary.  On account
 of those strongly marked and very7 numerous dissonances of the
 course of the tides, with that of the Moon, with a small num-
 ber of which only however Nexvton was acquainted, he himself
 was constrained to admit, as I have mentioned  in another place,
 " that there must be, in the periodical return of the tides, some
 44 other mixed  cause, hitherto unknown. (Nexvton's Philosophy,
 Chap. 18.)
   This  other cause hitherto unknown, is the fusion of the polar
 ices, which consist of a circumference of from five to  six thou-
 sand leagues, in their winter,  and from two to three  thousand
 at most in their summer.  Those ices, by  flowing alternately
 into the bosom  of the Seas, produce all their various phenome-
 na.  If, in our  Summer, there be two tides a day in the At-
 lantic Ocean, it is  because of the alternate  divergent effusions
 of the two Continents, the old and the new, which approach to-
 ward the North, whereof the one pours out by7 day, and  the
 other by night, the waters from the ice, which the Sun melts on
 the East and on  the  West side  of the Pole  he encompasses
 every day with his  fires, and  thaws for six months together.  If
 there be a retardation of 22  minutes  on one tide, from  that
 which succeeds it, it is because  the cupola of the polar ices in
 fusion,  daily diminishes, and because it's effluxes  are  retarded
 by the sinuosities of the Atlantic  channel.  If, in our winter,
 there are likewise two tides, undergoing a daily7 retardation on
 our coasts, it is  because the effluxes of the South Pole, entering
 into the channel of the Atlantic, likewise undergo two divergent
 impulsions at it's mouth; the  one in America, at Cape Horn,
and the  other in Africa, at the  Cape of Good-Hope.   These
two alternate divergent effusions of the Currents of the South
 Pole,  if I am not mistaken, is the very circumstance that ren-
ders these two  Capes, which receive their first impulsion,  so
tempestuous, and the doubling of them so difficult during the
  Vol.  II.                   3  Q 
490         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
summer of that Pole to vessels going out of the Atlantic Ocean ;
for then they meet in the teeth the Currents which are descend-
ing from the South Pole.   From  this reason  it is, that they
find it extremely  difficult to double the Cape  of Good-Hope,
during the months of November, December, January, February,
and March, on  Voyages  to India, and  that,  on the contrary,
they pass it with ease in our summer months, because they are
then assisted by the currents of the  North Pole  which waft
them out of the  Atlantic.   They  experience  the  contrary  of
this on their return from India during our winter months.
   I am induced, from these considerations, to believe that ves-
sels on their way to the South Sea, would encounter fewer ob-
stacles in  doubling  Cape Horn, during it's winter than during
it's summer; for they would not then be driven back into the
Atlantic by the Currents of the  South Pole, and they would be
assisted, on the contrary, in getting out of it, by those of the
North Pole.  I could support this conjecture by the experience
of many7 Navigators.   That of  Admiral Anson will perhaps be
adduced as an  objection ; but he doubled this Cape only in the
months of March and April, which are besides two of the most
tempestuous months in the  y7ear, because of the general  revolu-
tion of the Atmosphere and of the  Ocean, which takes place  at
the Equinox, when  the Sun passes from the one Hemisphere
to the other.
   Let  us now explain, upon the same principles, why the tides
of the South Sea do not resemble those of the  Atlantic Ocean.
The South  Pole has not, as  the North Pole has, a double Conti-
nent, which separates into two the divergent effusions which the
Sun daily sets  a-flowing from it's ices.   Nay it  has no Conti-
nent whatever:  it  has  consequently  no  channel, in passing
through which it's effluxes  should  be  retarded.  It's effusions
accordingly7 flow directly into the vast Southern  Ocean, forming,
on the  half of that Pole, a series of divergent emanations which
perform the tour of it in twenty-four hours, like the rays of the
Sun.   When a bundle of these  effusions falls upon  an island, it
produces there a tide of twelve hours, that is, of the same du-
ration with that which the Sun employs in heating the icy cupo-
la, through which the Meridian of that island passes.  Such are
the tides of the Islands of Otaheite, of Maffafuero,  of New-
Holland, of New-Britain, &c.  Each of these tides lasts as long 
ADVERTISEMENT.
491
as the course of the Sun above the Horizon, and is regular like
his course.  Thus, while  the Sun is  heating for twelve hours
together, with his vertical fires, the southern islands of the South
Sea, he cools them by a tide of twelve  hours, which he ex-
tracts out of the ices of the South Pole, by his horizontal fires.
Contrary effects frequently proceed from the same cause.
   This order of tides is by no means  the same in the northern
part of the  South Sea.  In  that opposite  part of our Hemis-
phere, the two Continents still approach  toward the  North.
They pour  therefore  by turns,  in summer, into the channel
which separates them, the  two semi-diurnal effusions of their
Pole, and there they collect by turns, in  Winter, those of the
South Pole, which produces two tides a day, as in the Atlantic
Ocean.   But as this channel,  formed to the north of the South
Sea, by the  two Continents, is extremely widened to below the
55th degree of North Latitude, or rather, as it ceases to exist
by the almost sudden retreating of the American and the Asi-
atic Continents, which go off  divergently to the  East and to the
West, it comes to pass, that  those places only, which are situ-
ated in the point of divergence of the northern part of these two
Continents,  experience two tides a day.   Such are the Sand-
wich  Islands, situated precisely in the confluence  of these two
Currents,  at proportional  distances from  America and from
Asia, toward the  21st degree of North Latitude.   When this
place is more exposed to the Current of the one Continent than
to that of the other, it's two semi-diurnal tides are unequal, as at
the entrance of Nootka, on the coast of America  ; but when it
is completely out  of the influence of the  one, and entirely un-
der that of  the other, it receives only one  tide  a  day,  as at
Kamtschatka, on the coast of Asia, and this tide is then of twelve
hours, as the action of the Sun on the half of the Pole, the ef-
fusions of which in this case undergo  no division.
   Hence it is evident, that  two harbours may be situated in the
same sea, and under the same parallel, and have, the one two
tides  a day, and  the  other only one, and that  the duration of
those tides,  whether double or single, whether double equal or
double unequal, whether regular or retarded, is always of twelve
hours, every twenty-four  hours; that is, precisely the time
which the Sun  employs in heating that half of the polar cupola
from  which thev  flow: which cannot possibly  be referred tu 
492         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.

the unequal course of  the  Sun  between  the  Tropics, and still
much less to that of  the Moon, which is frequently but a few
hours above the  Horizon of such harbour.
   I have established, then, by  facts simple, clear  and nume-
rous, the disagreement of the tides in most Seas with the pre-
tended action of the  Moon on the Equator, and, on the  contra-
rv, their perfect  coincidence with the  action of the  Sun on the
ices of the Poles.
   I beg the Reader's pardon, but the importance of those truths
obliges  me to recapitulate them.
   1st. The attraction of the Moon, as acting on the waters of
the Ocean,  is  contradicted by the insensibility- to her influence
of mediterraneans and lakes,  which never undergo any motion
when that luminary passes over their Meridian, and even over
their Zenith.  On the contrary, the action of the heat of thejSun,
which extracts from the ices of  the  Poles the Currents  and the
Tides of the  Ocean, is ascertained by his influence on the icy
mountains out of which issue, in summer, currents and fluxes
which produce real tides in the lakes which are at their  feet,  as
is visible in the  lake of Geneva, situated  at  the bottom of the
Rhetian Alps.  The Seas  are the lakes of the Globe,  and the
Poles are the  Alps of it.
   2dlyv.  The pretended attraction of the Moon on the Ocean is
totally inapplicable either to the two tides of six hours, or semi-
diurnal, of the Atlantic Ocean, because that star passes daily only
over it's Zenith;  and equally so to the tide of twelve hours,  or
diurnal, of the southern part of the South Sea, because it passes,
every day7,  over both the Zenith and Nadir of that  vast Ocean;
and to the tides whether semi-diurnal or diurnal of the northern
part of the same Ocean, and  to the variety of  it's tides, which
here increase at  the  full* and new  Moons, and there, several

  * I am of opinion with Pliny,  that the Moon by her heat dissolves ice and
snow.  Accordingly, when she is at the full,  she must contribute  to the fu-
sion of the polar ices, and  consequently to the rising1 of the tides.  But, if
these increase upon our coasts at the new-moon likewise, I think that those
superabundant melting's have also been occasioned by the full moon, and art-
retarded in their course by some particular configuration of one of the two
Continents.  At any rate, this difficulty is not of harder solution, on my
theory, that on  that of attraction, which, in other respects,  is incapable of
explaining- the greatest part of the nautical phenomena that  I have just re-
lated. 
ADVERTISEMENT.
49J
days after, which here increase at the quadratures, and there di-
minish; and to their uniform equality at other places ; and to
the direction of those which go toward the Line, and to their
elevation, which increases toward the Poles, and diminishes un-
der the very Zone of lunar attraction, that is under the Equator.
On the contrary, the action of the heat of the Sun on the Poles
of the World, perfectly7 explains the superior height of the tides
near the  Poles, and their depression near the Equator: their di-
vergence from the  Pole whence they flow, and their perfect con-
cordance with the  Continents from which they descend ; being
double in twenty-four hours, when the Hemisphere which emits
them, or which receives them, is separated into two Continents;
double and unequal, when the divergency of the two Continents
is unequal;  simple and singular, when there is only one Conti-
nent which emits them,  or where there is no  Continent at all.
   3dly. The attraction  of the Moon, which goes always from
East to West,  cannot in any respect be applied to the course of
the Indian Ocean, which flows for six months toward the East,
and six  months toward the West; nor to the course of the
Atlantic Ocean, which  flows six months to the North, and six
months to the South.  On the contrary, the action of the half-
yearly- and alternate heat of the Sun,  around  each Pole,  covered
with a Sea of ice of five or six thousand leagues  circumference,
in winter, and of two or three thousand in summer, is in perfect
accord with the half-yearly and alternate Current which descends
from this Pole,  in it's flux toward the opposite Pole, conform-
ably to the direction of the Continents, and of the Archipelagoes
which serve as shores to it.
   On this subject I beg leave to observe, that though the South
Sea does not appear to present any channel to the course of the
polar effluxes,  from the vast divergence of America and Asia,
we may however catch  a glance of one, sensibly formed by the
projection of it's Archipelagoes, which  are  in correspondence
with the two Continents.  By means of this channel it is, that
the Sandwich islands, which are situated in the northern part of
the South Sea,  toward  the 21st degree of Latitude, have two
tides a day, from the divergent position of America and of Asia,
though the  strait  which separates these two Continents be in
the 65th degree of North Latitude.  Not that those islands and
this strait of the North are exactly  under the same  Meridian ; 
494         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
but the Sandwich  islands are placed on a curve, corresponding
to the sinuous curve of America, and whose origin would be at
the strait of the North.   That curve might be prolonged to the
most remote Archipelagoes of the South Sea, which are visited
with two tides a day; and it would there  express the Current
formed by the divergent separation of America and Asia, as has
been said in another place.  All islands are in tlie midst of cur-
rents.   On looking therefore at the South Pole of the Globe,
with a bird's-eye view, we should see a succession of Archipela-
goes, dispersed in a spiral line all the way to the Northern He-
misphere, which indicates the Current of the South Sea, just as
the projection of the two Continents, on the side of the  North
Pole, indicates the Current of the Atlantic.   Thus the course
of the Seas, from the one Pole to the other,  is in a spiral line
round the Globe, like the course of the Sun from the one Tropic
to the other.
  This perception adds a new degree of probability to the cor-
respondence of the movements of the Sea with those of the Sun.
I do not mean to assert that the chain of Archipelagoes, which
project in a spiral direction in the South Sea, is not interrupted
in some places; but those interruptions, in my apprehension,
proceed  only from the  imperfection of our discoveries.  We
might, if I  am  not mistaken, extend them much farther,  by-
guiding ourselves  in the discovery of  the  unknown islands of
that Sea, upon the projection  of the islands which are already-
known.  Such voyages  ought not to be made in a direct pro-
gress from the Line toward the Pole, or by describing the same
parallel round the Globe, as the  practice has been; but by pur-
suing the spiral direction of which I have been speaking,  and
which is sufficiently indicated by the  general current itself of the
Ocean.   Particular care ought to be taken to observe the nau-
tical fruits which the alternate Current of  the  Seas never fails
to waft from one Island to another, frequently at prodigious dis-
tances.   It was by those simple  and  natural means, that the an-
cient Nations of the South of Asia discovered so  many islands
in the South Sea, where their manners  and their language are
distinguishable to this day7.  Thus,  by abandoning themselves
to Nature, who frequently seconds  us much  better than  our
 vn  skill, they landed without the help of chart or instrument 
ADVERTISEMENT.
495
on a multitude of islands, of which they had never  so much as
heard the names.
  I have indicated  in the  beginning of the  first Volume, those
simple methods  of discovery and of communication between
maritime Nations.  It is in the Explanation of the  Plates, where
I am speaking of the  Atlantic Hemisphere, and on the subject
of Christopher Columbus, who on the point of perishing at sea on
his first return from America, put the relation of his  discovery
in a cask, which  he committed to the waves in the hope that it
might be cast on some shore.  There I observed, that 44 a sim-
44 pie glass bottle might preserve such a deposit for ages, on the
44 surface of the Ocean, and convey it oftener than once from the
44 one Pole to the other."  This experiment has just been realized
in part on the coasts of Europe.*   The account of it is given in

  * I would recommend it to Navigators, who take  an interest in the pro-
gress of natural knowledge, frequently to repeat this experiment, which is so
easy, and attended with so litde expense.  There is no place where empty
bottles are more common,  and of less use, than on board a ship.   On leaving
port, there are a great number  of bottles filled with wine, beer, cyder  and
Bpirits, the greatest part of which are emptied in the course of a few weeks,
without the  means  of filling them again during the whole  voyage.  In  the
view of committing some of them to the sea, there might be fitted to them,
perpendicularly, a little mast with a bit of cloth or tuft of white feathers at
the top. this signal would detach it from the azury ground of the Sea,  and
render it perceptible a great way off.  It would be proper to  case it round
with cordage, to prevent it's btin^ broken, on reaching a shore, to which the
Currents and tlie Tides would infalhbly carry it sooner  or later.  Essays of
this  sort will appear mere children's  play to our men of science, but they
may be matters of the last importance to seafaring people.  They may serve
to indicate to them  the direction and the velocity of the Currents, in a man-
ner much more infallible,  and of far greater extent,  than the. log which is
thrown, on board of ships, or than the little boats which are set a-floating
This last method, though frequently employed by the illustrious  Cook, nevei
could give any tiling more than tlie relative velocity of  the boat and of the
ship, and not the intrinsic velocity of the current.  Finally, such essays ex-
posed to hazard as they are, may be employed by mariners at Sea, to convey
intelligence of themselves to their friends, at immense distances from land, as
is evident in the experiment of the  Bay of Biscay, and to obtain assistance
from them, should they have the misfortune to he shipwrecked on some  de-
se.-t island.
  We do not repose sufficient confidence in  Nature.   We might  employ pre-
ferably to bottles, some of the trajectiles which she uses in different climates,
to keep up the chain of her correspondences all over the Globe.   One of the
most widely diffused over tlie tropical Seas is the cocoa.  This fruit frequent-
ly sails to shores five or  six hundred leagues distant from that on which. 
496          SEQUEL TO  THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
 the Mercury of France, of  Saturday 12th January, 1788, No.
 2, pages  84 and 85, political part.
    44 In the  month of May of this year, some fishermen of Ar-
 " romanches, near  Bayeux,  found at  Sea  a small bottle  well


 Nature formed it for crossing the Ocean.  It is of an oblong, triangular, keel-
 shaped form so that it floats away on one of it's angles, as on  a keel, and
 passing through the straits of rocks, it runs ashore  at length on the strand,
 where it quickly  germinates.  It is fortified against the shock of  driving
 aground by a  case called  caire, which is an inch or two thick over  the cir-
 cumference of the fruit, and three or four at its pointed extremity, which
 may be considered as it's prow, with so much the more reason that the other
 extremity is flattened like a poop.  This caire, or husk, is covered externally,
 with a smooth and coriaceous  membrane,  on which characters might be
 traced; and it is formed internally of filaments interlaced, and mixed with a
 powder resembling saw-dust.  By means of this elastic cover, the cocoa may
 be  darted by the violence of the billows upon rocks, without receiving any
 injury.  Farther, it's interior shell  consists  of  a matter more flexible than
 stone, and  harder than  wood, impenetrable to water, where it may remain a
 long time  without rotting: this is the case with it's  husk likewise, of which
 the Indians, for this very reason, make excellent cordage for shipping.  The
 shell of the cocoa-nut is so very hard, that the germ never could force it's
 way out, had not Nature contrived in it's pointed extremity, where the caire
 is strongest, three small holes covered with a simple pellicle.
  There are besides a great many other bulky vegetables, which the Cur-
 rents of the Ocean convey to prodigious  distances,  such as the firs and the
 birches of the  North, tlie double cocoas of the  Sechclles islands, the bam-
 boos of the Ganges, the great bulrushes of the Cape of Good-Hope,  &c.  It
 would be very  easy to write on their stems with  a sharp-pointed shell, and to
 render them distinguishable at Sea by some apparent signal.
  Similar resources might be found among amphibious animals, such as tor-
 toises, which transport themselves to  inconceivable distances by means of
 the Currents.  I have read somewhere in the History of China, that one of
 it's ancient Kings, accompanied by a crowd of people, one day beheld a tor-
 toise emerge from the  Sea, on tlie back of which were inscribed the Laws
 which, at this  day, constitute the  basis of the Chinese government  It is
 probable that  this Legislator had availed  himself of the moment when this
 tortoise came on shore,  according to custom, to look out for a place  where
 to lay her  eggs, to  write upon her back the Laws which he wished to esta-
 blish ; and  that he in like manner  took advantage of the day following this
 arrangement, when that animal never fails to return to the same place to de-
 posit her eggs, to impress on a simple People a respect for  Laws which is-
 sued out of the bosom of the Ocean, and at sight of the wonderful tablets on
 which they were inscribed.
  Se.i-birds might, farther, furnish more expeditious methods of communi-
cation, in as much as their flight is very rapid, and that they are so familiar
on the  desert shores, that you may take them by the hand, as I know from
my own experience on the island of Ascension.  There might be affixed to 
ADVERTISEMENT.
49 7
•' corked up.   Impatient to know what it might contain, they
44 broke it; it was a letter, the address of which they could not
" read, conceived in the English Language.   They carried it
" to the  Judge of the Admiralty, who had it deposited in his
44 registry.   As the inscription announced  that it belonged to
" an English Lady, he  took pains to inform himself whether
" such a person existed, and employed the methods which pru-
44 dence dictated,  to have  the letter  safely conveyed to her.
44 The  husband of that Lady, a man of letters well known in
44 his own country by several valuable literary productions, has
" just written in return ; and  after expressing his gratitude to
44 the Judge  in very strong terms,  informs him that the lettei
44 in question  was from  a brother of his wife's on his way to
44 India.   He wished to communicate to  his sister some intel-
" ligence  respecting himself.   A vessel  which he had seen in
44 the  Bay of Biscay, and which seemed to be proceeding  for
44 England, had suggested  the idea of it.  He  was in hopes
44 that it might be in his power to get his letter put on board of
44 her, but she  having altered her  course,  the thought struck
44 him of putting it into a bottle, and of throwing it into the Sea."
   At length, the journals,* by good fortune, step  in to support
my theory.
   In the view of procuring  for a fact of so much  importance,
all the  authenticity of which it is susceptible, I wrote to a Lady
of my  friends, in Normandy, who cultivates the study of Na-

them, together with  a letter of information, some remarkable  signal;  and
choice might be made, in preference, of such birds as  arrive  rc^ularl. at
different seasons, and which frequent particular shores, nay of the land birds
of passage, such as the wood-pigeon.

  * While this advertisement was printing, the Journal of Paris published,
without my knowledge, an extract of my letter to the Editor of the General
Journal of France, in answer to my anonymous Critic. This instance of can-
dour discovers, on the part of the Compilers, a much higher degree of im-
partiality with respect to me, than I supposed. It is worthy of men of letters
who possess an influence over the public opinion, and who do not wish to in-
cur the reproach which they themselves sometimes impute,  with such good
reason,  to the  corps who formerly opposed the dis overies th.it militated
against their systems.   I take this opportunity of doing justice to the impar-
tiality of the Gentlemen Compilers of the Journal of Paris, as I always did to
their talents.
Vol. II.
:3 R 
498        SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
 ture with  singular taste, in the bosom of her own family, en-
 treating her to apply to the Judge of the Admiralty-,  for cer-
 tain articles of information  from England, for which I had oc-
 casion.  I even delayed,  in  expectation of her  answer, the
 printing off this sheet for almost six weeks.  The following are
 the particulars which  the  Judge of the  Admiralty of Arro-
 manches had the politeness to communicate to her, and which
 she was so good as to convey to me, this 24th of February 1788.
   44 The bottle was found two leagues off at sea, to the  right  of
 44 the parish of Arromanches, whh.h is itself two leagues dis-
 44 tant, to the North-east, from the city of Bayeux, on  the 9th
 44 of May 1787, and deposited in  the Registry of the Admiral-
 44 ty, the 10th of the same month.
   44 Mr. Elphinston, the husband  of the Lady to whom the let-
 44 ter was addressed, intimates, that he cannot pretend to affirm
 44 whether it  was the author of the letter who bottled it up,  in
 44 the Bay of Biscay-, the lith  of August 1766, Latitude 45 de-
 44 grees, 10 minutes  North, Longitude 10 degrees, 56 minutes
 44 West, as it  is dated ; or whether some person on board the
 44 vessel which pissed them, committed  it to the waves,
   44 The vessel's name was Nacket, and the one on her voy7age
 44 to Bengal was called the Intelligence, commanded by Cap-
 44 tain  Liston."
   44 The names of the  fishermen are Charles le Romain, master
 44 of the boat ; Nicholas Fresnel, Jean-Baptiste  le Bas, and
 44 Charles I' Ami, mariners, all of the parish of Arromanches.
              44 Signed,
                   44 PHILIPPE-DE-DELEVILLE."

   The parish of Arromanches  is about one degree West Longi-
 tude from the Meridian of Greenwich,  and in 49 deg. 5 min.
 North  Latitude. Accordingly the bottle thrown  into the Sea in
 10 deg. 56 min. West  Longitude, and 45 deg.  10  min. North
 Latitude, floated nearly 10 degrees of Longitude, which, in that
 parallel, at the rate of about 1/ leagues  to a degree, make 170
 degrees toward the East. Again,  it advanced 4 degrees north-
 ward, having been picked up two leagues to the North of Arro-
manches, that is, in 49 degrees,  10  minutes Latitude, which
makes  100 leagues toward  the North, and in the whole, 270
leagues.  It employed 266 days in performing this  route,  from
the 17th August 1786 to the 9th of May 1787, which is less than 
                   ADVERTISEMENT.              4.99

 a league a day. This velocity undoubtedly is not to be compared
 to that with which the wrecks of the battle of Ostend descended
 to the Azores, at the rate of more than 35 leagues a day, as has
 been related in the beginning of Vol. I.  The Reader might be
 disposed to call in question the accuracy of Rennefort's observa-
 tion, and at the same time the consequence which I have dedu-
 ced from it, to demonstrate the  velocity of the general Current
 of the Ocean, had I not elsewhere proved it by many other nau-
 tical facts, and were not the Journals of Navigators filled with
 similar experiences, which attest, that the Currents and Tides
 frequently carry vessels along, at the rate of three and four miles
 an  hour, nay run with the rapidity of sluices, making from eight
 to ten leagues an hour, in straits contiguous to the polar ices in
 fusion, conformably to the testimony- of Ellis, of Linschoten and
 of Barents.   But I venture to  affirm, that the  slowness with
 which the letter thrown overboard in the entrance of the Bay of
 Biscay, arrived on the  coasts of Normandy, is a new proof of
 the existence and of the velocity of the alternate and half-yearly
 Current of the Atlantic Ocean, hitherto unknown, which I have
 assimilated  to that of the Indian Ocean, and ascribed it to the
 same cause.
  It may be ascertained, by pricking the chart, that  the place
 where the Englishman's bottle was tossed into the Sea, is more
 than 80 leagues from the Continent, and precisely in the direc-
 tion of the middle of the opening of the British Channel, through
 which passes one arm of the  general  Current of the Atlantic,
 which carried, in summer, the wrecks of the battle of Ostend as
 far as the Azores. Now this Current was likewise bearing south-
 ward,  when the English traveller committed to it a letter for his
 friends in the  North,  for it was  the 17th of August, that is in
 the  Summer of our Pole, when the fusion of it's  ices is flowing
 southward.  This bottle therefore sailed toward the Azores, and
 undoubtedly far  beyond them,  during the remainder of the
month of August,  and  the whole month of September,  till the
equinoctial revolution, which sends backward  the course of the
 Atlantic by the  effusions of the South  Pole, began to waft it
. 1 gain to the North.
  It's  return,  therefore, is  to be calculated only from the month
ef October, when I suppose it to be in the vicinity-of the Line,
the calms of which  may have stopped  it, till it felt the influence 
 500         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURL.  ...

 of the South Pole, which does not acquire activity in our He-
 misphere till toward the month of December. At that epoch, the
 course of the Atlantic, which goes to the North, being the same
 with that of our tides, it might have been brought near our shores,
 and there exposed to many retardations, by the disgorging of the
 rivers which crossed it's  course, as they threw themselves into
 the Sea,  but chiefly by the re-action of the tides : for if their
 flux sets  in toward the North, their reflux carries back to the
 South.
   It is of essential importance therefore to make experiments of
 this kind in the open Sea, and especially7 to pay attention to the
 direction of the Currents of  the Ocean, for fear of conveying
 southward intelligence designed for the North.  At the season
 when that Current is not  favourable, advantage might be taken
 r,i the tides, which frequently run in the contrary direction; but
 as I have just observed,  there is this great inconveniency, that
 if their flux sets in northward, their reflux carries back again to-
 ward  the South.
   The tides have, in their very flux  and reflux, a perfect conso-
 nance with the general Currents of the  Ocean, and with the
 course of the Sun.  They flow during twelve hours in one  day,
 whether they be divided into two tides of six hours, by the  pro-
jection of the two Continents, as in the northern Hemisphere;
 or whether they flow for  twelve hours uninterruptedly, as in the
 southern  Hemisphere: just as the general Current of one  Pole
 flows  six  months of the year.  Accordingly the tides, which  con-
 • ist of twelve hours, in all cases are of a duration precisely equal
 to that which the Sun  employs in warming the  half of the polar
 Hemisphere from which  they flow, that is one  half-day; as the
 general Current which issues from that Pole flows precisely  dur-
 ing the same time that the Sun warms that whole  Hemisphere,
 namely during half the year.   But as the tides, which are  only
 the polar  effusions of half a day, have refluxes equal to their flux,
 that is of twelve hours,  in like manner, the general Currents,
 which are the half-yearly effusions of a whole Pole, have refluxes
 equal  to their flux, that is of six months, when the Sun puts those
 4 the opposite Pole in a state of activity.
   Did time and room permit I could shew how those same ge-
 neral  Currents, which are the secondary moving principles of
 fhe tides, carry our Navigator? sometimes faster, and sometimes 
ADVERTISEMENT.              501
slower than their calculation, according to the season of each
Pole. I could find a multitude of proofs of this in Voyages round
the World,  among others,  in Captain Cooks second and third
Voyages.  These Currents frequently interpose obstacles almost
insurmountable to vessels making the land.  For example, when
Cook left the island of Otaheite in December, 1777, on his way
to make discoveries toward the North, he discovered the Sand-
wich islands in pursuing that course,  where he landed without
any difficulty, because the Current of the South Pole was in his
favour; but when he returned from the  North, and wished to
take in necessary refreshments at those very islands,  he found
the Current from the South so adverse, at the same season, that
though he came within sight of them on the 26th of November
1778, it took him more than six weeks tacking about, before he
could  find proper anchoring ground, and  could not get to his
moorings till the 17th January 1779. Accordingly", the right sea-
son for landing on islands which are of  a higher Latitude than
that from whence the departure is taken,  is the winter of it's He-
misphere, as is evident from the  example  of his return to the
same islands.   I could multiply facts in support of a theory7 so
important to Navigation, were I not apprehensive of encroach-
ing on the patience of the Reader.  I  have the confidence, then,
to flatter myself with having placed in the clearest light, the coin-
cidence of the movements  of the Ocean with those of the Sun,
and their disagreement with the phases of the Moon.
   I could produce more than one objection against the system of
attraction  itself, on which Newton accounts for the motion of the
planets in the Heavens.  Not that I den}-,  in general, the Law
of attraction, of which we see the effects on the Earth, in the
gravity of bodies, and in magnetism ;  but I do not find that the
application which has been made of it, by- Newton and his par-
tizans, to the course of the planets,  is accurate.  According to
Newton, the Sun and the Planets reciprocally attract each other
with a force which is in the direct proportion  of their masses,
and the inverse proportion  of the square of their distance.   A
second force blends itself with attraction, to preserve the planets
in their orbits.  From  these combined forces there results an
ellipse, the curve described by each planet.   This curve is con-
tinually undergoing alteration, from the  action exercised by the
Planets over each other.  By means of  this theory, the cour*' 
502         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
of those stars is traced in the Heavens with the  utmost preci-
sion, according to the  Newtonians.   The course of the Moon
alone had appeared refractory to it; but, to employ the terms
used in an Introduction to the Study of Astronomy, an extract
of which was given in  the Mercury of the 1st December, 1784,
No. 48 : 44 This satellite, which the celebrated Halley called an
44 obstinate star, Sidus pertinax, on account of the great difficulty
44 of calculating the irregularities of her course, has been at last
44 reduced to subjection, by the  ingenious  method of Messrs.
44 Clair ault, Euler, D* Alembert, de la Grange, and de la Place''
  Here then are the most refractory- stars subjected to the Law*
of attraction.   I  have  but one little objection to  make against
this domination, and the learned methods, which  have subdued
the Moon's course.  How comes it, that the reciprocal attractions
of the planets should have been calculated with so much preci-
sion, by our Astronomers, and that they should have so exactly
weighed the masses of them, when the Planet discovered a few
years  ago, by Herschel, had not as yet been put into their  scales ?
Does  this Planet then  attract  nothing, and does it feel itself no
attraction.
   God forbid that I should mean to injure the reputation of New-
ton, and of the ingenious Enquirers who have followed his steps.
If, on the one hand, they have betrayed us into some errors,  they
have contributed,  on the other,  to enlarge  the field of  human
knowledge.   Had Nexvton never  invented any thing except his
telescope, we should have been under inexpressible  obligations
to him.  He had extended to Man the sphere of the universe,
and the sentiment of the infinity of GOD. Others have diffused
through all ranks of Society, a taste for the study7  of Nature, by
the superb pictures which they have exhibited of her.  While I
was detecting their mistakes, I respected their virtue, their ta-
lents,  their discoveries, and their  painful labours.   Men equally-
celebrated, such as Plato, Aristotle, Pliny, Descartes, and many
others, had like them given currency to great errors.  The phi-
losophy of Aristotle alone had been, for ages, the insurmountable
obstacle to the investigation of truth.   Let us never forget that
the Republic of Letters ought to be in reality a Republic, which
acknowledges no other authority  but that of Reason.  Besides,
Nature has placed each of us in  the World, to keep up an im-
mediate correspondence with herself. Her intelligence irradiates 
ADVERTISEMENT.
503
 all minds, as her Sun illuminates all eyes.  To study her Works
 only in systems is to observe them merely with the eye of another
 person.
   It was not my intention, then, to exalt myself on the ruins of
 any one.  I do not wish to rear my own pedestal.   A grassy
 turf is elevation sufficient to him who aspires no longer after any-
 thing but repose. Did I possess the courage to present, myself,
 the History  of the weakness  of my own mind, it would awa-
 ken the passion of  those whose envy I may have perhaps pro-
 voked. Of how many errors, from infancy upward, have I been
 the  dupe! By how many false perceptions, ill-founded contempts,
 mistaken estimations, treacherous friendships, have  I practised
 illusion upon myself! Those prejudices were not adopted by me
 on the faith of another only, but on my own.   It is not my am-
 bition  to  attract admirers, but to secure indulgent friends.  I
 prize much more highly the man who bears with my  infirmities,
 than I do him who exaggerates my puny virtues. The one sup-
 ports me  in my weakness, and the other supports himself on my
 strength ; the one loves me in my poverty, and the other ad-
 heres to me in my pretended affluence. Time was when I sought
 for friends among the men of the world ;  but of these I hardly-
 found any except persons who expected from you unbounded
 complaisance ;  protectors who lie  heavy upon you instead  of
 sustaining your  weight, and who attempt to crush you, if you
 presume to assert your own liberty7,  xrt present, I wish for no
 friends but among those whose souls are simple, candid, gentle,
 innocent, and endowed with sensibility-. They interest me much
 more if ignorant rather than learned, suffering rather than pros-
 perous, in cottages rather than in palaces. They are the  persons
 for whom I composed my book, and they are  the persons who
 have made it's fortune. They  have done me more good than 1
 wished  to them, for their repose. I have administered to  them
 some consolations ;  and in return, they have conferred on me a
 tribute of glory.   I have presented to them only the Perspec-
tives of hope  ; and they, with emulous zeal, have strained to ac-
cumulate upon me a thousand  real benefits.  Tvly mind was en-
grossed only  with the  ills which they endure : and  they  have
restlessly promoted my happiness.  It is in the view of acquit-
ting some part of the  obligations under which  I lie to them, in
my turn, that I have composed this additional  Volume.   May 
504         SEQUEL TO THE STUDIES OF NATURE.
it merit for me anew, suffrages so pure, so unbiassed, and so
affecting ! They are the alone object of my wishes.  Ambition
disdains them, because they  are not possessed of power; but
time will one  day respect them, because intrigue can neither
give nor destroy them.
  This Volume contains among other matter two Histories, of
which  I give  some  account  in the particular advertisements
which precede them.   They are accompanied by numerous and
long Notes, which sometimes deviate from their Text.   But
every thing is in union with every thing in Nature, and Studies
admit of universal collection.  I  am  accordingly indebted to
the Title of my Book for the advantage, which is far from be-
ing inconsiderable to talents feeble and variable like  mine, of
going which  way  I  please, of attaining where I can, and of
stopping short when I feel my strength fail.
  Some persons to whom I read the Piece entitled the Gauls,
expressed a wish that  I would not publish it, till the Work of
which  it is a part  should  be  completed: but  I  am  uncertain
whether I ever shall  enjoy leisure to  execute  it, and whether
this species of antique  composition is likely to please the taste
of the present age.   It is, I admit, only a  fragment; but such
as it is, it constitutes a complete Work, for it presents an entire
picture of the manners of our  Ancestors, during the  domina-
tion of  the Druids.  Besides, in the  most finished  labours of
Man, What is to  be found but fragments ? The  History of a
King is only a fragment of the History of his  Dynasty ; that of
his Dynasty-, a fragment of the History of his Kingdom; that of
his Kingdom, a fragment of the History of the Human Race ;
which is itself merely a fragment  of the History jf  the beings
which inhabit the Globe ; the universal History of which would
be nothing after all, but a very short Chapter of the History of
the innumerable Stars which revolve over our heads, at distances
which bid defiance to all the powers of Calculation.
END OF VOLUME II 
0 
 
frelU'sr-
 Z70

  \J. 2- c-)