As the skin of the ass is extremely hard, and very elastic, it is used for different purposes, such as to make drums, shoes, and thick parchment for pocket-books, which is slightly varnished over: it is also with asses’ skin that the Orientals make their sagri, which we call shagreen. It is also probable that the bones of asses are harder than those of other animals, since the ancients made their best-sounding flutes of them.
The ass in proportion to his size, can carry the greatest weight of any animal; and as it costs but little to feed him, and he scarcely requires any care, he is of great use in country business; he also serves to ride on, as all his paces are gentle, and he stumbles less than the horse; he is frequently put to the plough in countries where the earth is light, and his dung is an excellent manure.
THE OX.
The surface of the earth, adorned with its verdure, is the inexhaustible and common food from which man and animals draw their subsistence. Every thing in nature that has life, is nourished by that which vegetates; and vegetables, in turn, exist on the spoil of every thing that has lived or vegetated. To live, it is necessary to destroy; and it is only by the destruction of beings, that animals can live themselves and multiply. God, in creating the first individuals of each species of animals and vegetables, has not only given form to the dust of the earth, but also gave it animation, by inclosing in each individual a greater or less quantity of active principles, organs, living molecules, incapable of being destroyed, and common to all organized beings. The molecules pass from body to body, and are equally the causes of life, and the continuation of it, to the nourishment and growth of each individual. After the dissolution of the body, after its reduction to ashes, these organic molecules, on which death has no power, survive, circulate in the universe, pass into other beings and produce life and nourishment. Every production, every renovation, or increase by generation, by nutrition, or by growth, implies a preceding destruction, a conversion of substance, a translation of these organic molecules which never multiply, but always subsisting in an equal number, render nature always equally alive, the earth equally peopled, and ever equally resplendent with the primitive glory of Him who created it.
To take beings in general, the total quantity of life is always then the same; and death, which seems to destroy all, destroys nothing of that primitive life which is common to all organized beings. Like all other subordinate powers, death attacks only individuals, strikes only the surface, and destroys the form; but can have no power over matter, and can do no harm to Nature, which only appears to more advantage. She does not permit him to destroy the species, but leaves individuals to his power, to shew herself independent both of Death and Time; to exercise every instant, her power, which is always active; to manifest her plenitude by her fertility, and to make the universe, in reproducing and renewing its beings, a theatre always filled, and a spectacle always new.
That there may be a constant succession of beings, it is necessary there should be a mutual destruction; that animals may subsist and be nourished, vegetables, or other animals must be destroyed; and as, before and after the destruction, the quantity of life remains always the same, it should, as if it was indifferent to nature which species were more or less consumed; like an economical mother, however, in the midst of abundance, she has fixed bounds to her expences, and prevents unnecessary waste, in giving but to a few animals the instinct of feeding on flesh, while she has abundantly multiplied both the species and individuals which feed on plants and vegetables. She seems to have been prodigal to the vegetable kingdom, and to have bestowed on each great profusion and fecundity; greatly perhaps to second her views, in maintaining and even establishing this order on the earth; for in the sea, we find almost all the species are voracious; they live on their own kind, or on others, and devour perpetually, without ever destroying any particular species, because the fecundity is as great as the depredation, and because all the consumption turns to the profit of reproduction.
Man knows how to exercise his power on animals; he has chosen those whose flesh pleases his taste, has made them his domestic slaves, and multiplied them more than nature would have done; and by the pains he takes for their increase, seems to have acquired a right to slaughter them; but he extends this right much farther than his wants require; for he also makes war with savage animals, birds, and fishes, and does not even confine himself to those of the climate which he inhabits, but seeks at a distance, and even in the midst of the ocean, for new food. All nature seems insufficient to satisfy the intemperance, and the inconstant variety of his appetites. Man alone consumes more flesh than all the other animals together devour; he is, then, the greatest destroyer; and this more from custom than necessity. Instead of using with moderation the blessings which are offered him, instead of disposing of them with equity, instead of increasing them in proportion as he destroys, the rich man places all his glory in consuming, in one day, at his table, as much as would be necessary to support many families; he equally abuses both animals and his fellow-creatures, some of whom remain starving and languishing in misery, and labour only to satisfy his immoderate appetite, and more insatiable vanity, and who, by destroying others through wantonness, destroys himself by excess.
Nevertheless, man, like some other animals, might live on vegetables; and flesh, which seems so analogous to flesh, is not a better nourishment than corn or bread; that which contributes to the nutrition, development, growth, and maintenance of the body, is not that visible matter which seems to be the texture of flesh or herbs, but of those organic particles which they both contain, since the ox, by eating grass, acquires as much flesh as either man or beast, that live on flesh and blood. The only real difference between these aliments is, that, in an equal quantity, flesh, corn and seeds, contain more organic particles than grass, leaves, roots, and other parts of plants; of which fact we may be certain by observing infusions of these different matters, insomuch that man, and other carnivorous animals, whose stomachs and intestines are not sufficiently capacious to admit a great quantity of aliment at once, cannot eat herbs enough to receive a quantify of organic particles sufficient for their nutrition; and it is for this reason that man, and those animals which have but one stomach, can only live on flesh and corn, which, in a small bulk, contains a great quantity of these organic and nutritive particles, while the ox[C], and other animals, that chew the cud, who have many stomachs, one of which is very capacious, and consequently can contain a large mass of herbage, can extract therefrom a sufficient quantity of these organic particles for their nourishment, growth, and multiplication; the quantity here compensates for the quality of the food, but the foundation is the same; it is the same matter, the same organic particles, which nourishes man, the ox, and all other animals.
[C] The term ox is generally applied to cattle in general, but when used in its confined sense, we shall mark it with Italics.
Some may observe that the horse has but one stomach, and even that very small; that the ass, the hare, and other animals, which live on herbage, have also but one stomach, and, consequently, this explanation, though it seems probable, is not well grounded. But these exceptions, so far from controverting, appear to confirm this opinion, for although the horse has one stomach he has pouches in the intestines, so very capacious that they may be compared to the paunch of ruminant animals; and hares have a blind gut of so great a length and diameter, that it is at least equal to a second stomach; thus it is not astonishing that these animals can live on herbage alone. We find in general it is wholly on the size of the stomach and intestines that their manner of feeding depends; for ruminating quadrupeds, as the ox, sheep, goats, camels, &c. have four stomachs, and the intestines of a prodigious length; these live on herbage, and that alone suffices them. Horses, asses, hares, rabbits, guinea pigs, &c. have but one stomach, but they have a gut equivalent to a second, and live on herbs and corn. Wild boars, hedgehogs, &c. whose stomachs and bowels are less capacious, eat but little grass, and live on corn, fruits, and roots. Those, such as the wolf, fox, tyger, &c. which have the stomach smaller than other animals, in proportion to the size of their bodies, are obliged to chuse the most succulent aliments; and those which abound most with organic particles, and to eat flesh and blood, corn, and fruits.