You speak of your soul.  But do you know what your soul is?  Do you not see that this soul is but the assemblage of your organs, from which life results?  Would you refuse a soul to other animals who live, who think, who judge, who compare, who seek pleasure, and avoid pain even as you do, and who often possess organs which are better than your own?  You boast of your intellectual faculties, but these faculties which render you so proud, do they make you any happier than other creatures?  Do you often make use of this reason which you glory in, and which religion commands you not to listen to?  Those animals which you disdain because they are weaker or less cunning than yourself, are they subject to troubles, to mental anxieties, to a thousand frivolous passions, to a thousand imaginary needs, of which your heart is continually the prey?  Are they, like you, tormented by the past, alarmed for the future?

Limited solely to the present, what you call their instinct, and what I call their intelligence, is it not sufficient to preserve and to defend them and to provide for their needs?  This instinct, of which you speak with disdain, does it not often serve them much better than your wonderful faculties?  Their peaceable ignorance, is it not more advantageous than these extravagant meditations and these futile investigations which render you miserable, and for which you are driven to murdering beings of your own noble kind?  Finally, these animals, have they, like mortals, a troubled imagination which makes them fear not only death, but even eternal torments?  Augustus, having heard that Herod, king of Judea, had murdered his sons, cried out:  “It would be better to be Herod’s pig than his son!” We can say as much of men; this beloved child of Providence runs much greater risks than all other animals.  After having suffered a great deal in this world, do we not believe ourselves in danger of suffering for eternity in another?

XCV.—­COMPARISON BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS.

What is the exact line of demarcation between man and the other animals which he calls brutes?  In what way does he essentially differ from the beasts?  It is, we are told, by his intelligence, by the faculties of his mind, by his reason, that man is superior to all the other animals, which in all they do, act but by physical impulsions, reason taking no part.  But the beasts, having more limited needs than men, do very well without these intellectual faculties, which would be perfectly useless in their way of living.  Their instinct is sufficient for them, while all the faculties of man are hardly sufficient to render his existence endurable, and to satisfy the needs which his imagination, his prejudices, and his institutions multiply to his torment.

The brute is not affected by the same objects as man; it has neither the same needs, nor the same desires, nor the same whims; it early reaches maturity, while nothing is more rare than to see the human being enjoying all of his faculties, exercising them freely, and making a proper use of them for his own happiness.