Passion, the principle of universal motion,
is the eternal form of utterance by means of
which the Deity reveals his law and his will
to all his creatures. It impels man towards
happiness. Happiness is, for every creature,
the complete and continued exercise of all its
faculties, of all its natural attractions. The
creature is happy, when it is in its destined
path. Liberty, which is the means of happiness,
is obedience to the law of attraction.
The satellite is thoroughly persuaded that it
does nothing but follow its own will, when
it circles in the orbit assigned to it by
attraction. The Deity has proportioned attraction
to the destiny of his creatures; and
to guide them towards the pole of that destiny,
he has endowed them with a double compass:
Pleasure, which informs them when they are
in the right way, and Pain, which warns
them when they are erring. Flowers and
harvests, perfumes and joyous songs, bud
and burst forth at the breath of love. Those
endless joys, those ineffable harmonies, which,
at the first kiss of the sun, are awakened
from the bosom of sleeping nature, chant
aloud the motto of love. God is our father;
he therefore, desires our happiness, for it
is his own law which ordains that parents
should strive after the happiness of their
children. He is just; and, consequently,
every desire which he gives us is a, promise
which he makes us. [ Italics in the original.]
For instance, if he had not chosen that we
should be immortal, he would not have given
us the desire to be so; he would have given
us an inclination to the idea of annihilation.
Thousands of volumes have been written in
favour of the immortality of the soul, which
do not teach so much on this consolatory
subject as the immortal formula of attractions
proportioned to destinies a literal translation
of the three words: God is good!

And how, asks M. Toussenel, is it possible
to write a conscientious history of brutes,
without prefacing it by an abridged notice of
the creation—for which, unfortunately, there
is no room here—except to state, with
M. Toussenel, that human reason cannot
doubt that the earth has passed through all
the regular phases of the infancy of worlds?
The history of the revolutions of the earth is
written, in large and legible characters, upon
the stratifications of its mineral beds; wherein
we find, cased and ticketed in order and with
dates, the deposits of its various reigns—the
world of forests (fossil coal) and that of
gigantic saurians, of dragons and of bats, and
finally that of the mastodons, of the elephant,
and of the bear, who was the precursor of
man. Let us skip over these uninteresting
epochs to arrive at that in which the earth
was called upon to take part in the solar
system, in the character of the cardinal
planet of Friendship. This epoch is not far
removed. The earth is not, as Voltaire
asserts, "an old coquette who tries to hide
her wrinkles; " she is, on the contrary, a
very young star; and the proof is that our
planet is at this very moment passing through
the most painful phase of infancy, the phase
of dentition. At the present day, with M. de
Voltaire's permission, the earth is just now
cutting her teeth. The earth's teeth are
called printing, steam, cotton-gunpowder, and
aerial navigation, whose production causes
her so much suffering; but which are so
many instruments that humanity must
necessarily employ, in order to effect the
transit from civilisation to the superior social
phases; just as the infant, when once armed
with its canine teeth, whose growth has
given it so much pain, makes use of them to
pass on from soft boiled beef to solid
beef-steak.

After this homoeopathic sample of our
author's philosophy, we will listen to what he
has to say about a few " Animals which are
not objects of the chase." It will be easily
understood that M. Toussenel's Passional
Zoology might almost as justly be called
Zoological Metaphysics; that is, he illustrates
man by the aid of brutes, quite as much as he
explains brutes by the aid of man. For
instance, one of the mottoes on his title-page
is, "The best element of human nature is the
portion of dog which enters it." Many
readers, unacquainted with the writer's
complicated system of thought, might often
doubt whether he were in jest or earnest. It
is not clear to us, that he always knows himself.
His plan, in speaking of various beasts, is to
find in them analogies with corresponding
characters and classes of mankind; and to
take the opportunity of firing off a series of
satirical remarks and fanciful conceits, which
a severe-minded man would hardly allow to
be reasoning, still less induction, but which
are very amusing samples of moralising,
nevertheless, and are often far from devoid of
truth. Our object will be to pick out some
of these plums of philosophy to serve as a
dessert to the plain pudding of the preliminary
discourse.

The Mole is, perhaps, the safest animal to
begin with, because no individual will be
foolish enough to confess that he feels himself
hit hard by its peculiarities, or that the
analogical cap at all fits him.

Virgil has given a definition of the mole
without knowing it. "Monstrum horrendum,
informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." " A
horrid, misshapen, colossal monster, with
very indifferent eyesight." The mole, in fact,
is the most monstrous of all created beings.
It is the most powerful of quadrupeds, in
respect to muscular force, and the most
sanguinary of all the carnivores. It is the
most complete of all the mammifers, without
even excepting man. It is the champion of
all others; the best provided with the arms
of war, labour, and of love.

I have heard, says Monsieur Toussenel, a
great deal of talk about the strength of the
elephant, who carries on his back towers best provided with the arms
of war, of labour, and of love.

I have heard, says Monsieur Toussenel, a
great deal of talk about the strength of the
elephant, who carries on his back towers

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