| Man
loves the dog, but how
much more ought he to love it if he considered, in the inflexible
harmony
of the laws of nature, the sole exception, which is that love of a
being
that succeeds in piercing, in order to draw closer to us, the
partitions,
every elsewhere impermeable, that separate the species! We are alone,
absolutely
alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that
surround
us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us. A few
creatures
fear us, most are unaware of us, and not one loves us. In the world of
plants, we have dumb and motionless slaves; but they serve us in spite
of themselves. They simply endure our laws and our yoke. They are
impotent
prisoners, victims incapable of escaping, but silently rebellious; and,
so soon as we lose sight of them, they hasten to betray us and return
to
their former wild and mischievous liberty. The rose and the corn, had
they
wings, would fly at our approach like the birds.
Among
the animals, we number
a few servants who have submitted only through indifference, cowardice
or stupidity: the uncertain and craven horse, who responds only to pain
and is attached to nothing; the passive and dejected ass, who stays
with
us only because he knows not what to do nor where to go, but who
nevertheless,
under the cudgel and the pack-saddle, retains the idea that lurks
behind
his ears; the cow and the ox, happy so long as they are eating, and
docile
because, for centuries, they have not had a thought of their own; the
affrighted
sheep, who knows no other master than terror; the hen, who is faithful
to the poultry-yard because she finds more maize and wheat there than
in
the neighbouring forest. I do not speak of the cat, to whom we are
nothing
more than a too large and uneatable prey: the ferocious cat, whose
sidelong
contempt tolerates us only as encumbering parasites in our own homes.
She,
at least, curses us in her mysterious heart; but all the others live
beside
us as they might live beside a rock or a tree. They do not love us, do
not know us, scarcely notice us. They are unaware of our life, our
death,
our departure, our return, our sadness, our joy, our smile. They do not
even hear the sound of our voice, so soon as it no longer threatens
them;
and, when they look at us, it is with the distrustful bewilderment of
the
horse, in whose eye still hovers the infatuation of the elk or gazelle
that sees us for the first time, or with the dull stupor of the
ruminants,
who look upon us as a momentary and useless accident of the pasture.
For
thousands of years, they
have been living at our side, as foreign to our thoughts, our
affections,
our habits as though the least fraternal of the stars had dropped them
but yesterday on our globe. In the boundless interval that separates
man
from all the other creatures, we have succeeded only, by dint of
patience,
in making them take two or three illusory steps. And if, to-morrow,
leaving
their feelings toward us untouched, nature were to give them the
intelligence
and the weapons wherewith to conquer us, I confess that I should
distrust
the hasty vengeance of the horse, the obstinate reprisals of the ass
and
the maddened meekness of the sheep. I should shun the cat as I should
shun
the tiger; and even the good cow, solemn and somnolent, would inspire
me
with but a wary confidence. As for the hen, with her round, quick eye,
as when discovering a slug or a worm, I am sure that she would devour
me
without a thought.
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