Ignorant persons, and no less those naturalists who study natural history in books only, acknowledge the differences existing between species, but believe that the actions and labours of the individuals of a species invariably correspond. Such a view is possible when you have only seen things from above and afar, in a sublime generality. But when the naturalist takes in hand his pilgrim's staff—when, as a modest, resolute, indefatigable pilgrim of Nature, he assumes his shoes of iron—all things change their aspect: he sees, notes, compares numerous individual works in the labours of each species, seizes their points of difference, and soon arrives at the conclusion which logic had already suggested,—that, in truth, no one thing resembles another. In those works which appear identical to inexperienced eyes, a Wilson and an Audubon have detected the diversities of an art very variable—according to means and places, according to the characters and talents of the artists—in a spontaneous infinity. So extensive is the region of liberty, fancy, and ingegno.
Let us hope that our collections will bring together several specimens of each species, arranged and classified according to the talent and progress of the individual, recording as near as may be the age of the birds which constructed the nests.
If these boundless diversities do not result from unrestrained activity and personal spontaneity, if you wish to refer them all to an identical instinct, you must, to support so miraculous a theory, make us believe another miracle: that this instinct, although identical, possesses the singular elasticity of accommodating and proportioning itself to a variety of circumstances which are incessantly changing, to an infinity of hazardous chances.
What, then, will be the case if we find, in the history of animals, such an act of pretended instinct as supposes a resistance to that very course our instinctive nature would apparently desire? What will you say to the wounded elephant spoken of by Fouché d'Obsonville?
That judicious traveller, so utterly disinclined to romantic tendencies, saw an elephant in India, which, having been wounded in battle, went daily to the hospital that his wound might be dressed. Now, guess what this wound might be. A burn. In this dangerous Indian climate, where everything grows putrid, they are frequently constrained to cauterize the sores. He endured this treatment patiently, and went every day to undergo it. He felt no antipathy towards the surgeon who inflicted upon him so sharp an agony. He groaned; nothing more. He evidently understood that it was done for his benefit; that his torturer was his friend; that this necessary cruelty was designed for his cure.
Plainly this elephant acted upon reflection, and upon a blind instinct; he acted against nature in the strength and enlightenment of his will.
Page [270]. The master-nightingale.—I owe this anecdote to a lady well entitled to a judgment upon such questions—to Madame Garcia Viardot (the great singer). The Russian peasants, who possess a fine ear and a keen sensibility for Nature (compared with her harshness towards them), said, when they occasionally heard the Spanish cantatrice: "The nightingale does not sing so well."
