of the world, which would overwhelm us without them but _because they have the same right with ourselves to life_.... A reason which is without reply, at least for generous souls, is the trust and confidence reposed in man by other animals. Nature has not taught them to distrust him. He is the only enemy whom she has not pointed out to them. Is it not evident proof that he was not intended to be so? For can one believe that Nature, who holds so just a balance, could have been willing to deceive all other beings in favour of man alone? It has been observed that birds of the gentle species express certain cries when they perceive the fox, the weasel, &c., although they have nothing to fear from them, without doubt, by reason of the analogy which they offer. They are the cries of hatred rather than of fear, whilst they utter these latter at sight of the eagle, of the hawk, &c. Now, it is certain that in all the islands on which man has landed, the native animals have not fled before them. They have been able to take even birds with the hand.” Gleïzès rejects the common fallacy that, because men have _acquired_ a lust for flesh, _therefore_ it is natural or proper for them. “It is a specious but very false reason to allege that, since man has acquired this taste, he ought to be permitted to indulge it--in the first place because Nature has not given him _cooked_ flesh, and because several ages must have rolled away before fire was used. It is very well known that there are many countries in which it was not known at the period of their discovery. Nature, then, could have given man only _raw_ or _living_ flesh, and we know that it is repugnant to him over the whole extent of the earth. Now it is exactly this character which essentially distinguishes animals of prey from others. The former, those at least of the larger species, have generally an extreme repugnance, not only for cooked flesh, but even for that which has lost its freshness. Man, then, is not carnivorous but under certain abnormal conditions; and his senses, to which he appeals in support of his carnivorousness, are perverted to such a degree, that he would devour his fellow-man without perceiving it, if they served him up in place of veal, the flesh of which is said to have the same taste. Thus Harpagus ate, without knowing it, the corpse of his son.” Gleïzès instances the case of Cows and of Reindeer who, in Norway, have been denaturalised so far as to feed on fish, and readily to take to that unnatural food.