Cleo. That is true; but how conspicuous is that end, without mystery or uncertainty! that grapes were made for wine, and man for society, are truths not accomplished in every individual: but there is a real majesty stamped on every single lion, at the sight of which the stoutest animals submit and tremble. When we look upon and examine his massy talons, the size of them, and the laboured firmness with which they are fixed in, and fastened to that prodigious paw; his dreadful teeth, the strength of his jaws, and the width of his mouth equally terrible, the use of them is obvious; but when we consider, moreover, the make of his limbs, the toughness of his flesh and tendons, the solidity of his bones, beyond that of other animals, and the whole frame of him, together with his never-ceasing anger, speed, and agility; whilst in the desart he ranges king of beasts! When, I say, we consider all these things, it is stupidity not to see the design of nature, and with what amazing skill the beautiful creature is contrived for offensive war and conquest.
Hor. You are a good painter. But after all, why would you judge of a creature’s nature from what it was perverted to, rather than from its original, the state it was first produced in? The lion in Paradise was a gentle, loving creature. Hear what Milton says of his behaviour before Adam and Eve, “as they sate recline on the soft downy bank, damask’d with flowers:”
————About them frisking play’d
All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
In wood or wilderness, forest or den;
Sporting the lion ramp’d, and in his paw
Dandel’d the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
Gambol’d before them.————
What was it the lion fed upon; what sustenance had all these beasts of prey in Paradise?
Cleo. I do not know. Nobody who believes the Bible, doubts, but that the whole state of Paradise, and the intercourse between God and the first man, were as much preternatural, as the creation out of nothing; and, therefore, it cannot be supposed, that they should be accounted for by human reason; and if they were, Moses would not be answerable for more than he advanced himself. The history which he has given us of those times is extremely succinct, and ought not to be charged with any thing contained in the glosses and paraphrases that have been made upon it by others.