Not far from the northern regions there is a country where life goes on as in the early ages, the inhabitants being profoundly ignorant.  I speak now of the human creatures.  The animals are indeed surprisingly enlightened; for they can construct works which stop the ravages of swollen torrents and make communication possible from bank to bank.  The structures are safe and lasting, being founded upon wood over which is laid a bed of mortar.  The beavers are the engineers.  Each one works.  The task is common to all, and the old ones see that the young ones do not shirk their labour.  There are many taskmasters directing and urging.

To such a colony of cunning amphibians the republic of Plato itself would be but an apprentice affair.  The beavers erect their houses for the winter time, and make bridges of marvellous construction for passing over the ponds; whilst the human folk who live there, though this wonderful work is always before their eyes, can but cross the water by swimming.

That these beavers are nothing but bodies without minds nothing will make me believe.  But here is something better still.  Listen to this recital which I had from a king great in fame and glory.  This king, defender of the northern world, whom I now cite, is my guarantee:  a prince beloved of the goddess of Victory.  His name alone is a bulwark against the empire of the Turks.  I speak of the Polish king.[9] A king, it is understood, can never lie.

He says, then, that upon the frontiers of his kingdom there are animals that have always been at war among themselves, their passion for fighting having been handed down from father to son.  These animals, he explains, are allied to the fox.  Never has the science of war been more skilfully pursued among men than it is pursued by these beasts, not even in our present century.  They have their advanced out-posts, their sentinels and spies; their ambuscades, their expedients, and a thousand other inventions of the pernicious and accursed science Warfare, a hag born, herself, of Styx,[10] but giving birth to heroes.

Properly to sing of the battles of these four-footed warriors Homer should return from beyond the shores of Acheron.[11] Ah! could he but do so, and bring with him too the rival of old Epicurus,[12] what would the latter say as to the examples I have narrated?  He would say only what I have already said, namely, that in the lower animals natural instinct is sufficient to explain all the wonders I have told:  that memory leads the animal to repeat over and over again the actions it has made before and found successful.