Man loves the dog, but how much more ought he to love it if he considered, in the inflexible¹ harmony of the laws of nature, the sole exception, which is that love of a being that succeeds in piercing, in order to draw closer to us, the partitions, every elsewhere impermeable², that separate the species! We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that[Pg 41] surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us. A few creatures fear us, most are unaware³ of us, and not one loves us. In the world of plants, we have dumb and motionless slaves; but they serve us in spite of themselves. They simply endure our laws and our yoke⁴. They are impotent prisoners, victims incapable⁵ of escaping, but silently rebellious⁶; and, so soon as we lose sight of them, they hasten to betray us and return[Pg 42] to their former wild and mischievous⁷ liberty. The rose and the corn, had they wings, would fly at our approach like the birds.  
Among the animals, we number a few servants who have submitted only through indifference⁸, cowardice⁹ or stupidity: the uncertain and craven horse, who responds only to pain and is attached to nothing; the passive and dejected ass¹⁰, who stays with us only because he knows not what to do nor where to go,[Pg 43] but who nevertheless, under the cudgel and the pack-saddle, retains the idea that lurks¹¹ behind his ears; the cow and the ox, happy so long as they are eating, and docile¹² because, for centuries, they have not had a thought of their own; the affrighted sheep, who knows no other master than terror; the hen, who is faithful to the poultry-yard because she finds more maize¹³ and wheat there than in the neighbouring forest. I do not speak of the cat, to whom[Pg 44] we are nothing more than a too large and uneatable prey¹⁴: the ferocious¹⁵ cat, whose sidelong contempt tolerates us only as encumbering

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