Buffon's Natural History. Volume 05 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

Every thing has concurred to render man a social being; for though large and civilized societies depend on the use, and sometimes on the abuse of reason, yet they were doubtless preceded by smaller societies, whose sole dependence was on nature. A family is a natural society, which is more permanent, and better founded, because their wants and sources of attachment are more numerous. Far different is man from other animals: when he is born he hardly exists; naked, feeble, incapable of action, his life depends on the assistance he receives. This state of infantine weakness continues for a length of time; and the necessity of assistance becomes a habit, which alone is sufficient to produce an attachment between the child and parent. In proportion as the child advances, he is enabled to do without assistance; the affection of the parent continues, while that of the child daily decreases; and thus love ever descends in a much stronger degree than it ascends: the attachment of the parent becomes excessive, blind, idolatrous, while that of the child remains cold and indifferent, till, by the influence of reason, the seed of gratitude has begun to take root.

Thus society, considered even in the light of a single family, supposes in man the faculty of reason; among animals which seem to unite together freely, and by mutual agreement, society supposes experience and sentiment; and among insects which, like the bees, assemble together involuntarily, and without design, society implies nothing; and whatever may be the effects of such associations, it is evident, they were neither foreseen, nor conceived by those that execute them, and that they depend solely on the universal laws of mechanism, established by the Creator.

Let the panegyrists of insects say what they will in their favour, those animals which, in figure, and organization, bear the strongest resemblance to man, must still be acknowledged superior to all others, with respect to internal qualities; and, though they differ from those of man, though, as we have evinced, they are nothing but the effects, exercise, experience, and feeling, still are they, in a high degree, superior to insects. As in every thing that exists in nature there is a shade, a scale may be established for determining the degrees of the intrinsic qualities of each animal, by which, when opposed with the material part of man, we shall find the preference due to the ape, the dog, the elephant, and, in different degrees, to all the other quadrupeds. Next to them will rank the cetaceous animals, which, like the quadrupeds, have flesh and blood, and, like them, are viviparous. In the third class will be the birds, because they differ more from man than either the quadrupeds, or the cetaceous animals; and, were it not that there are beings which, like the oyster and the polypus, seem to differ from him as much as is possible; the insects would occupy the lowest class of animated beings.

But if animals are destitute of all understanding, all memory, and all intelligence; if all their faculties depend on their senses, and are confined to their experience; whence proceeds that foresight we remark in several of them? By sentiment alone can they be prompted to provide in the summer provisions sufficient for their subsistence during winter. Does not this suppose a comparison of seasons, a rational inquietude concerning their future support? Why should birds build nests if they did not know that they should have occasion for them to deposit their eggs, and to rear their young?

Admitting the truth of these, and many other circumstances which might be produced; admitting that they are so many proofs of presentiment, of foresight, and even a knowledge of futurity, in animals, must it follow, on that account that they are intelligent beings? Were this the case their intelligence would far surpass our own, for our foresight is always conjectural. Our notions, with respect to futurity, are, at best, doubtful; and all the light we have is founded on probabilities of future things. Brute animals, then, who see the future with certainty, since they determine beforehand and are never deceived, must have within them a principle of knowledge greatly superior to man, must have a soul far more penetrative and acute, a consequence, which, I presume, is equally repugnant to religion and to reason.

By an intelligence similar to that of man it is impossible that brutes can have any certain knowledge of futurity, since in that respect, his ideas are always imperfect, and full of doubt. Then why, on such slight grounds, invest them with a quality so sublime? Why, without necessity degrade the human species? Is it not unreasonable to attribute their source to mechanical laws, established, like all the other laws of Nature, by the will of the Creator? The certainty with which brutes are supposed to act, and be determined, might alone convince us, that every thing they do is merely mechanical. The essential characteristics of reason are, doubt, deliberation, and comparison; but motions and actions, which announce nothing but decision and certainty, exhibit at once a proof of mechanism and stupidity.

Previous, however, to the full admission of these asserted facts, which seem to lessen those ideas we ought to maintain of the power and will of our Divine Creator, ought we not to enquire whether they really exist, or have sufficient ground to support the supposition? The boasted foresight of ants in collecting sustenance for the winter is an evident error, since it has been found that during that season they remain in a torpid state; therefore, this pretended foresight, supposes them to provide that which it also must have informed them would be entirely necessary. Is not the sensation that they enjoy their food with more quiet and tranquillity in their fixed residence, alone sufficient to account for their conveying thither more than they can possibly make use of? The same applies to bees, in collecting more wax and honey than their necessities require. Does not this evince they are actuated by feeling, and not intelligence, especially if we reflect that if it proceeded from former experience, that would teach them to decline such unnecessary labour; which so far from being the case, they continue to extract wax and honey as long as there is a succession of fresh flowers, and were it possible to continue that their labours would never cease.

Field-mice have also been instanced, whose abodes are generally divided; in one hole they deposit their young, in the other their food, the latter of which they constantly fill; but here it should be observed that when they provide those apartments for themselves, the latter are always small, yet if they find a large hole under a tree which they chuse for their abode, they fill that also; a fact which renders it clear they have no intelligence of the nature of their wants, but are guided by the capacity of the place they select for depositing their food.

From the same cause may be traced the pretended foresight attributed to the feathered race; nor is it necessary to suppose the Almighty has conferred on them any particular law to account for the construction of their nest. Love is the grand sentiment that excites them to the laborious undertaking; the male and female feel a mutual attachment, they wish to be alone, and therefore seek retirement from the bustle and annoyances of the world; and having sought the most obscure part of a forest, to render that privacy the more comfortable they collect straws, leaves, &c. to form a common habitation, wherein they may enjoy themselves with perfect tranquillity. Some, however, content themselves with holes in trees, or nests they find which have been formed by others. But all this does not prove a presentiment of future wants, but are rather the effects of feeling and organization. A strong evidence of their ignorance with respect to futurity, nay, even of the past, or present, may be drawn from a hen’s not having the power to distinguish her own from the eggs of another bird, and not perceiving that the young ducks which she has hatched, belong not to her; nay, she will even sit with the same assiduous attention upon chalk eggs, as upon those from which a produce may be expected. Neither do domestic poultry make nests, although they are constructed by the wild duck and wood hen, and this most probably from feeling that security in being familiarized, which the latter seek for in a retreat and solitude. The nests of birds, therefore, in my opinion, any more than the cells of bees, or the food collected by the ant and field-mouse, cannot be attributed to any particular laws to each species, but depend upon those feelings arising from the general laws of nature, and with which every animated being is endowed.

It is not surprising that man, who knows so little of himself, who so frequently confounds his sensations with his ideas, who so imperfectly distinguishes the productions of the mind from the produce of his brain, should compare himself to the brute animals, and admit the only difference between them depended on the greater or less degree of perfection in the organs; it is not surprising that he should make them reason, determine, and understand, in the same manner with himself, and that he should attribute to them not only the qualities which he has, but even those he has not. When man, however, has once thoroughly examined and analyzed himself, he will discover the dignity of his being, he will feel the existence of his soul, he will cease to demean his nature, and, with a single glance, he will see the infinite distance which the Supreme Being has put between him and the brutes.