My mind has been greatly enlarged by reflection. By a sure method, sound conjectures and sustained attention, I have penetrated some of the secrets of nature.
The dog is an animal so deformed, of such an unruly character, that from the earliest times it has been considered to be a monster, born and moulded in despite of all laws. Indeed, when rest is the natural state, how explain an animal that is forever in motion and busy, and that without aim nor need, even when he is gorged and not afraid? When beauty universally consists in suppleness, grace and prudence, how allow an animal to be forever brutal, howling, mad, jumping at the nose of people, running after kicks and rebuffs? When the favorite and masterpiece of creation is the cat, how understand an animal that hates it, runs at it, without having received a single scratch from it, and breaks its ribs without any desire to eat its flesh?
These contradictions prove that dogs are condemned beings; without a doubt the souls of the guilty and punished pass into their bodies. They suffer there; that is why they worry one another, and fret unceasingly. They have lost their reason, so they spoil everything, incite to battle, and are chained three-quarters of the day. They hate the beautiful and the good, consequently they try to throttle us.
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
VIII.
Little by little the mind frees itself from the prejudices in which it was reared; light dawns; it thinks for itself; thus it is that I have attained to the true explanation of things.
Our first ancestors (and the gutter cats have retained this belief) said that heaven is a very lofty granary, well covered, where the sun never hurts the eyes.