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NOTWITHSTANDING the governor's opinion
seemed to be against him, yet the visionary philosopher
still persisted in his idea that the brutal nature was capable
of cultivation, if not in moral qualities, yet so far
as respected the acumen ingenii or the powers of the understanding.
He had before this time, turned his attention
to the instituting an academy, where he had a number
of animals, of different species, and amongst them
some squirrels which he had put to study Algebra. Harum
Scarum, thought, he had better have begun with
music, and taught them to play the fiddle. No jibe,
or jeer could move the visionary man from his purpose.
He argued that it had been the case with all experiments,
that the bulk of mankind were incredulous to the first essays.
And hence it was that in medicine, quacks had led
the way in all improvements. In the profession of the
law, precedent had enslaved. In mathematics, Erra Pater
that wrote the book of knowledge, was thought a visionary
man, though since his time greater credit has
been attached to the casting nativities. The diving bell
was an invention of Sir William Phips of New England,
and no one had faith in the success of it until he actually
explored the galleon at the Bahama Islands, and shewed
the treasure he had got from it. Paracelsus died with
the secret in his mouth, of the elixir of longevity, owing
to which accident, it is perhaps, that men do not live
now to the age of a thousand years. Parrots, jays and
black birds have been taught to speak; and why not
squirrels and racoons?

With these reasonings in his head, he was busy in
structing certain quadrupeds in their gesticulations, and
grimaces, that had the appearance occasionally of disputants.
The chattering which some of them exhibited,
sounded not a great deal unlike,

Bocardo, cesario, ferio, baralipton,

A number of horned cattle in an inclosure, he was engaged
in disposing to take the floor in turns like members
of a legislative body. He had employed a

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stenographer to take down their speeches in short hand. With
these he could use the same liberty that he had been used
to take, with members of the human species, which was
to make the speeches; or at least to new model them in
such a way, as to be a caricature, or an improvement.
Stenographer, said I; for I had the curiosity to visit this
menagerie; when you make a speech for a bear, as for instance,
for that Bruin which I see chained, you will be
careful, to make it rough, surly and congruent to nature.
The lowing of the cow, and the roaring of the bull, must
be translated, into loud sounds, very different from the
mewing of the cat, or the squealing of the pig.

By all means, said he, every thing in character. Now
said I, with respect to a legislature of beasts, it will not
be thought a matter of ridicule, to paraphrase what is
said as spoken by a buffaloe; or to insinuate the insignifience
of a member by calling him a ewe or an ass; or to
designate his heaviness in a debate by saying he is a
horse; for in this case, all things will be without figure,
and the truth.

However, the people thought the man deranged; and,
it would seem to me, not without reason; especially
when he had incurred considerable expense, in purchasing
up subjects of tuition. He had trappers in the woods;
and horse jockies employed to pick up lively colts that
might seem to be of parts, and scarcely a drover passed
through the settlement, with black cattle or swine, but
he was bartering for a calf, or a shoat.

Application had been made to a magistrate for an order
to confine him on a habeas corpus: he was brought before
the chief justice, and made his defence.

Chief justice, said he, though you are blind, in a
certain meaning of the term, yet I flatter myself, you can
see pretty plainly into this matter. It does not follow that
because a man is deficient in one sense, he is destitute of
another. On the contrary it is well known by observers
of human nature, that where one sense is denied, the remaining
become stronger. Even where an arm or a
limb is lost, of the human body, the arm or the limb
which remains, acquires an increase of power as if to supply
the want. Would Tiresias have ever passed for a
prophet if he had not wanted outward sight; or would
Meonides, have written his rhapsodies, or Milton his
divine poem?

So much the rather thou celestial light shine inward,

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and the mind through all her powers irradiate; there
plant eyes; all mist from thence, purge and disperse.

Not that I suppose that a man has equal advantage in
describing an object, who has never seen it, but takes
his impressions from the description of others. For it
must be rare, if a thing at all in nature, that a man can
be a poet who is born blind; but having lived to a considerable
age with his eye-sight, and received all the images
of things upon his mind, from the originals themselves,
it may be possible for him; nay it may be with
advantage over others, that he can recollect these, and
become more familiar with them in a reflex view, than
if he was disturbed with the images themselves renewed
from without. Certain it is that a man can think more
deeply and closely, with his eyes shut, than if he opened
them on surrounding objects. Darkness and silence
are favourable to contemplation.

Philosopher, said the chief justice, you do not seem to
be a plain man in regard to thinking closely. You wander
from the point. You are to be informed that you
have been taken into the keeping of the law, not as a bad
man, but as one standing in need of a protector, conceiving
you under the calamity of being a little deranged in
your nervous system, from a fever possibly, or some
cause, which constitutes a malady, not a crime. The enquiry
is whether you are in your right mind; a suspicion
to the contrary of which is excited by your congregating
cattle and wild beasts, in order as you say, to civilize
them, and make them members of society.

Experiments of this kind have with great difficulty
succeeded with the savages. And indeed, where they
have succeeded, it has been chiefly to the southward,
where the system is more relaxed, and the temper mild.
It appears madness in the abstract, to talk of humanizing
brutes, that are behind savages, and at a great interval.

That I deny, said the philosopher. Haud magno, intervallo—
said the latin schoolmaster.

I say that many of the human species are not before
the brutal.

“Man differs more from man than man from beast.”

These things are figuratively spoken, said the chief
justice. In poetry or prose, the meaning is no more
than that a portion of our species, have so far degraded

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themselves by obedience to the sensual appetite, that
like beasts they lose the face erect to heaven, and constantly
looking down upon their tables, without mental
enjoyment; or, that from a neglect of the cultivation of
moral reason, they may seem to want but the horn or the
hoof, to be like the cattle that graze the commons. This
is no more than the sentiment of Plato, which with the
expression in which it is clothed, is given by Longinus,
as an example of the sublime.

I am not just so far lost to reason, said the philososopher,
as to take figures for realities. I know that a
figure is but a short simile; or fable hit off in a few
words; and that orators, or satyrists among the poets,
or philosophers in their moral essays, by their burstings
and castings, mean no more than to dissect insignificance
or degradation, or sensual indulgence. It is not their
intention to communicate the idea that men actually become
quadrupeds; though I have seen some not far
from it. But still this does not affect the question, how
far the nature of beasts may be improvable. But admitting
the absurdity of the attempt, and that it carries
with it a presumption of derangement of the brain, is the
insanity prejudicial to the community? It can be but time
thrown away, which supposing me a man beside myself
cannot be of great value. I purchase all my stock that I
employ my pains upon, with the exception of a few that
have been bestowed to me. I had a present made me
of an elk from the mountains. This I am forming for an
ambassador, for which if he does not turn out fit, he can
be disposed of to a museum. Why should it be thought
impossible to instruct the four-footed creatures, and render
them capable of suffrage, if not of office? I have a
great deal of trouble with them in my school, it is true,
for they are apt to play truant. A young fox broke off
the other day, and I have not been able to recover him.

The discipline which I find it necessary to enforce is
not the mildest. I use a pretty rude ferule; and I have
occasion to exert authority, to quicken parts and application.

If I succeed, in bringing these sans culottes to be
good citizens, I shall have deserved well of the republic;
and if I should fail, no one's labour is lost but my
own. Experiments in every other way are indulged;
and even patents granted, where the invention has but
the appearance of succeeding. Why may I not be

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allowed to turn my attention to the making a justice of the
peace out of an elk, or a judge out of a buffaloe, if the
thing is possible? Especially, as instead of making a
demand for my production, if I should be so fortunate
as to be able to furnish these out of my manufactory, it
will cost the state nothing for the education, and as to
the officers themselves, the forage will be less expensive;
in some cases a few tufts; in others, a little grain
will suffice. If a horse-judge is invited to dine, a peck of
oats, of grass or corn, and a bundle of hay in the stable and
truss of straw to litter him at night, will be all that will
be wanted. This will be a great saving to poor rogues
that may wish to have it said that a judge dined with
them; not that they care for the judge, but that people
may think they have the law on their side. I say that hospitality
in this way, will be less expensive, and economy,
if not a moral, is at least a political virtue.

But independent of these contingent advantages and
barely possible, if you please, advantages, the money circulated
in the settlement by this instruction; or a college
of any kind which cannot but bring money, must increase
the value of property.

This last argument was popular, and struck the croud,
de circumstantibus. Several counsel present, as friends of
the court put in a word, catching at popularity, and gave
their opinions that they knew of no statute in the case; and
that, by the common law, every man had a right to traffic
in such purchases; and that no enquiry could reasonably
be made when a man bought a pig, whether he meant to
make a scholar of him, or a barbecue.

The chief justice inclined to be of the same opinion,
and the prisoner was enlarged.

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