of the infirmities, the troubles, the miseries to which man is
compelled to submit in this world; in spite of the danger which his
alarmed imagination creates in regard to another, he is still foolish
enough to believe himself to be God's favorite, the only aim of all His
works. He imagines that the entire universe was made for him; he calls
himself arrogantly the king of nature, and ranks himself far above other
animals. Poor mortal! upon what can you establish your high pretensions?
It is, you say, upon your soul, upon your reason, upon your sublime
faculties, which place you in a condition to exercise an absolute
authority over the beings which surround you. But weak sovereign of this
world, art thou sure one instant of the duration of thy reign? The least
atoms of matter which you despise, are they not sufficient to deprive
you of your throne and life? Finally, does not the king of animals
terminate always by becoming food for the worms?

You speak of your soul. But do you know what your soul is? Do you not
see that this soul is but the assemblage of your organs, from which life
results? Would you refuse a soul to other animals who live, who think,
who judge, who compare, who seek pleasure, and avoid pain even as you
do, and who often possess organs which are better than your own? You
boast of your intellectual faculties, but these faculties which render
you so proud, do they make you any happier than other creatures? Do you
often make use of this reason which you glory in, and which religion
commands you not to listen to? Those animals which you disdain because
they are weaker or less cunning than yourself, are they subject to
troubles, to mental anxieties, to a thousand frivolous passions, to a
thousand imaginary needs, of which your heart is continually the prey?
Are they, like you, tormented by the past, alarmed for the future?

Limited solely to the present, what you call their instinct, and what I
call their intelligence, is it not sufficient to preserve and to defend
them and to provide for their needs? This instinct, of which you speak
with disdain, does it not often serve them much better than your
wonderful faculties? Their peaceable ignorance, is it not more
advantageous than these extravagant meditations and these futile
investigations which render you miserable, and for which you are driven
to murdering beings of your own noble kind? Finally, these animals, have
they, like mortals, a troubled imaginati