"We see too," continued the dissertator, "what high importance nature has attacht to these processes of devouring, eating, chewing, and swallowing, and how in every sphere of existence they have been her main end and aim. What would become of all the animals upon the earth, of all the birds that roam through the air, and all the swarms of greater and lesser creatures that people the waters and the sea, unless every one of them had received a bill, payable at sight, upon his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit, as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those his subalterns, who have an assignment either one upon the other, or upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables, not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception he turns into food, making all classes of his subjects the sources of his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which serve him as his immediate vassals, or the flesh of which, whether from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong essences, butter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top, and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination, the mouth below is already lusting and licking its lips after the venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!" "Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind, would be extremely amusing."