ou speak, and know that I am speaking to
you; yet cannot I believe, so much does it seem to me to pass the bounds
of nature.

_Scip._ That is true, Berganza; and what makes the miracle greater is,
that we not only speak but hold intelligent discourse, as though we had
souls capable of reason; whereas we are so far from having it, that the
difference between brutes and man consists in this, that man is a
rational animal and the brute is irrational.

_Berg._ I hear all you say, Scipio; and that you say it, and that I
hear it, causes me fresh admiration and wonder. It is very true that in
the course of my life I have many a time heard tell of our great
endowments, insomuch that some, it appears, have been disposed to think
that we possess a natural instinct, so vivid and acute in many things
that it gives signs and tokens little short of demonstrating that we
have a certain sort of understanding capable of reason.

_Scip._ What I have heard highly extolled is our strong memory, our
gratitude, and great fidelity; so that it is usual to depict us as
symbols of friendship. Thus you will have seen (if it has ever come
under your notice) that, on the alabaster tombs, on which are
represented the figures of those interred in them, when they are husband
and wife, a figure of a dog is placed between the pair at their feet, in
token that in life their affection and fidelity to each other was
inviolable,

_Berg._ I know that there have been grateful dogs who have cast
themselves into the same grave with the bodies of their deceased
masters; others have stood over the graves in which their lords were
buried without quitting them or taking food till they died. I know,
likewise, that next to the elephant the dog holds the first place in the
way of appearing to possess understanding, then the horse, and last the
ape.

_Scip._ True; but you will surely confess that you never saw or heard
tell of any elephant, dog, horse, or monkey having talked: hence I
infer, that this fact of our coming by the gift of speech so
unexpectedly falls within the list of those things which are called
portents, the appearance of which indicates, as experience testifies,
that some great calamity threatens the nations.

_Berg._ That being so I can readily enough set down as a portentous
token what I heard a student say the other day as I passed through
Alcala de Henares.

_Scip._ What was that?

_Berg._ That of five thousand students this year attend