The beaver is said to be among quadrupeds what the bee is among insects. Of societies there are three species in nature which we ought to consider attentively before we begin to compare them; namely, the free society of man, to which, next to God, he is indebted for all his power; the constrained society of large animals, always rendered transitory by the human species; and the forced society of certain little animals, which, coming into existence at one time, and in the same place, are obliged to live together. An individual, solitary as he comes from the hands of the Creator, is a sterile being, whose industry is confined to the use of his senses; nor is man himself, in a state of pure nature, unassisted by the aids of society, capable of multiplying or of being edified. All society, on the contrary, necessarily becomes fruitful, provided it be composed of beings of the same nature. From the necessity of seeking or avoiding each other, a succession of common movements will follow, from which frequently some work will result that has the appearance of having been conceived, conducted, and executed with intelligence. Thus the labours of the bee, which in a given place, such as a hive, or the hollow of an old tree, forms its own cell; those of the Cayenne fly, which is not only the architect of its own cell but the hive which is to contain it, are labours purely mechanical, and suppose no intelligence, no concerted project, no general views, but nothing more than physical necessities. A result of common movements, is at all times and places, performed in the same manner, by a swarm of little creatures not assembled from choice, but united by the force of nature. It is not society but numbers that operate in this case; it is a blind power which cannot be compared to that light by which all society is directed; I speak not of that pure light, that ray of divinity which has been communicated to man alone, and of which the beaver is certainly as destitute as any other animal. As their society is formed rather by a kind of choice than necessity, so it supposes at least a general concurrence and common views; it implies also a beam of intelligence, which, though widely different from that of man in principle, produces effects so similar as to warrant a comparison, not indeed with society, as it is found among civilized nations, but as it appears among savages just emerging from absolute solitude; a society which, with propriety, can alone be compared with that of animals.