The first writers who recorded the conquests of the Spaniards, to heighten the glory of their arms exaggerated the number of their enemies; but is it possible for any reasonable man to credit that there were millions of inhabitants at Cuba and St. Domingo, when those writers admit there was neither a monarchy, a republic, nor scarcely any society among them; and that in these two neighbouring islands, situated at but a little distance from the continent, there were only five species of animals, the largest of which was not bigger than a rabbit? Than this fact, as affirmed by Laet, Acosta, and Father du Tertre, in their different histories, no stronger proof can be adduced of the empty and desart state of this new-discovered world.
M. Fabry, who travelled for fifteen months over the western parts of America, beyond the Mississippi, assured me that he sometimes did not meet a single man for the space of 300 or 400 leagues; and all our officers who went from Quebec to the Ohio, and from that river to Louisiana, agree that it is not uncommon to travel upwards of 100 leagues without seeing a single family of savages. From these testimonies it is plain, that the most agreeable countries of this new continent were little better than desarts; but what is more immediately necessary to our purpose, they prove that we should distrust the evidence of our nomenclators, who set down in their catalogues animals as belonging to the new world which solely belong to the old, and others as native of particular districts where in fact they never existed; and in the same manner they have classed some animals as natives of the old world, which belong exclusively to America.
I do not pretend to affirm positively that none of the animals which inhabit the warm climates are not common to both. To be physically certain of this it is necessary they should have been seen; but it is evident, with respect to the large animals of America, that none of them are to be found in the old continent, and very few of the small ones. Besides, allowing there to be some exceptions, they must relate to a trifling number of species, and in no degree affect the general rule which I intend to establish, and which seems to me to be our only certain guide to the knowledge of animals. This rule, which leads us to judge of them as much by climate and disposition as from figure and conformation, will seldom be found wrong, and it will enable us to avoid and discover a multitude of errors. If, for example, we mean to describe the hyæna of Arabia, we may safely affirm that it does not exist in Lapland; but we will not say with Brisson, and some others, that the hyæna and the glutton are the same animal; nor with Kolbe, that the crossed-fox, which inhabits the northern parts of the new continent, is found at the Cape of Good Hope, as the animal he mentions is not a fox, but a jackall. But it is not my object at present to point out all the errors of nomenclators; my intention is solely to prove that their blunders would have been less had they paid some attention to the differences of climates; if the history of animals had been so far studied as to discover, which I have done, that those of the southern parts of each continent are never found in both; and lastly, if they had abstained from generic names, which have confounded together a number of species, not only different, but even remote from each other.
The true business of a nomenclator is not to enlarge his list, but to form rational comparisons in order to contract it. Nothing can be more easy than, by perusing all the authors on animals, and by selecting their names and phrases, to form a table which however will always be long, in proportion as the enquiry is superficial; while nothing can be more difficult than to compare them with that judgment and discernment which is necessary to reduce that table to its proper dimensions. I said before, and now repeat, that in the whole known part of the globe there are not above 200 species of quadrupeds, including among them 40 species of apes. To each of these, therefore, we had only to appropriate a name; and to retain 200 names, only a very moderate exertion of memory is required; for what purpose then are quadrupeds formed into classes and genera, which are nothing more than props to serve the memory in the recollection of plants, which are so very numerous, and often so very similar. But instead of a list of 200 quadrupeds we have volumes heaped upon volumes full of intricate names and phrases. Why introduce an unintelligible jargon, when we may be understood by pronouncing a simple name? Why change terms merely to form classes? When a dozen animals are included under the name, for example, of the Rabbit, why is the Rabbit itself omitted, and must be sought for under the genus of the Hare? Is it not absurd and ridiculous to form classes in which the most remote genera are assembled together; to put in the first, for example, man and the bat; the elephant and scaly lizard in the second; the lion and ferret in the third; the hog and the mole in the fourth; and the rhinoceros and the rat in the fifth? Ideas so vague and ill-conceived can never maintain their ground. These works are destroyed by their own authors, one edition contradicting another, and neither of them approved but by children, or by such as are always the dupes of mystery, mistaking the appearance of method for the reality of science. By comparing the fourth edition of Linnæus’s Systema Naturæ with the tenth, we find man is no longer classed with the bat, but with the scaly lizard; that the elephant, hog, and rhinoceros, instead of being classed as before with the scaly lizard, mole, and rat, are all three huddled together with the shrew-mouse. In the former he had reduced all quadrupeds to five classes, but in the latter he divides them into seven. From these alterations we may form some idea of those introduced among the genera, and how the species have been jumbled and confounded. According to the same author there are two species[D] of men, the man of day and the man of night, and that these are so very distinct that they ought not to be regarded as varieties of the same species. Is not this adding fable to absurdity? and were it not better to remain silent with respect to matters of which we are ignorant, than to found essential characters, and general distinctions upon the grossest error? But to whatever length criticisms of this kind might be extended, I shall proceed no farther, especially as it does not form my principal object, having already said enough to put every reader on his guard, against the general as well as particular errors which abound so much in the works of nomenclators.
[D] Homo diurnus sapiens; homo nocturnus trogloditus.
In drawing general conclusions, from what has been advanced, we shall find that man is the only animated being in whose nature there is sufficient strength, genius, and flexibility, to subsist and multiply in all the different climates of the earth. It is evident that no other animal possesses this grand privilege, for, far from being able to multiply in every part of the globe, most of them are confined to certain climates, and even particular districts. In every respect man is the work of heaven, while many animals are the mere creatures of the earth. These of one continent exist not on another, and if there are a few exceptions, they are so changed and diminished as hardly to be known. Can a stronger proof be given that the impression of their form is not unalterable? that their nature, less permanent than that of man, may in time be varied, and even absolutely changed? that from the same cause those species which are least perfect, least active, and furnished with the fewest engines of defence, as well as the most delicate and the most cumbrous, have already, or will disappear, for their very existence depends on the form which man gives to the surface of the earth, or permits it to retain.
The prodigious Mammoth, whose enormous bones I have often viewed with astonishment, and which were at least six times bigger than those of the largest elephant, exists no longer; although its remains have been found in Ireland, Siberia, Louisiana, and other places remote from each other. Of all species of quadrupeds this was certainly the largest and strongest, and since it has disappeared, how many smaller, weaker, and less remarkable, must have perished, without having left any evidence of their past existence? How many others have been improved or degraded by the great vicissitude of the earth and waters, by the culture or neglect of nature, by their long continuance in favourable or repugnant climates, that they are no longer the same! and yet, next to man, quadrupeds are beings whose nature is most fixed, and whose form most permanent. Birds and fishes vary more: those of insects are subject to greater variations still; and if we descend to plants, which ought not to be excluded from animated nature, we shall be astonished at the celerity and facility with which they vary and assume new forms.