It appears, therefore, that it is only by the help and care of man sheep have been preserved and that they could not have continued to subsist for themselves. The female is absolutely without resource, and without defence. The ram has but feeble arms; his courage is nothing but a petulance useless to himself, inconvenient to others, and which is destroyed by castration. The wedder is still more fearful than ewes. It is through fear that sheep gather so often in troops; the smallest noise to which they are unaccustomed, makes them get close together; and this fear is attended with the greatest stupidity, for they know not how to fly the danger, nor do they even seem to feel the hazard and inconvenience of their situation. They continue obstinately fixed wherever they are, and for neither rain nor snow will they stir. To oblige them to change their route, or situation, they must have a chief who is instructed to walk first, and whom they will follow step by step. This chief, however, would remain without motion if he were not driven off by the shepherd, or the dog which guards them, who, in fact, watches over their safety, defends, directs, separates, assembles, and in short, communicates to them every motion that is necessary for their safety. Of all quadrupeds then sheep are the most insensible, and have the least resources from instinct. Goats, which in many things resemble them, have much more sagacity. They know how to conduct themselves, and to avoid danger, and are easily familiarized to new objects; the sheep neither knows how to fly from danger, nor to face it: let their wants be ever so great, they never come to man for assistance so willingly as the goat, and which in animals appears to be the last degree of timidity or insensibility, the female will suffer her lamb to be taken away without shewing any signs of anger, or trying to defend it, nor by the smallest difference in her bleating, expresses the smallest degree of sorrow[G]. [G] The veracity of this charge of indifference, will be doubted by all who have passed over the fertile plains of England, while these fleecy flocks were grazing in the spring, since, insensible indeed must be that breast, which has not felt the tender responses of the bleating ewe, and her distant lamb. But this animal, so contemptible in itself, so wanting in sentiment and interior qualities, is to man the most useful of all animals. Of itself it at the same time furnishes us with food and clothing; without reckoning the particular advantages we have from the milk, the fat, the skin, the bowels, the bones, and even the dung. This animal seems to evince that nature has given it nothing but what is for the advantage and convenience of man.