75. Animals Boswell: "But really, Sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don't know what to think of him." Johnson: "True, Sir, and when we see a very foolish fellow, we don't know what to think of him." Boswell: Life Link 113. Animals "We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him." Boswell: Life Link 221. Animals "There is much talk of the misery which we cause to the brute creation; but they are recompensed by existence. If they were not useful to man, and therefore protected by him, they would not be nearly so numerous." Boswell: Life Link 316. Animals An anecdote from Miss Seward: "I told him (says Miss Seward) in one of my latest visits to him, of a wonderful learned pig, which I had seen at Nottingham; and which did all that we have observed exhibited by dogs and horses. The subject amused him." "Then, (said he,) the pigs are a race unjustly calumniated. Pig has, it seems, not been wanting to man, but man to pig. We do not allow time for his education, we kill him at a year old." Boswell: Life Link 327. Animals; Ouch!!! We talked of the Ouran-Outang, and of Lord Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to speak. Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr. Crosbie said, that Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse. Johnson: "But, Sir, it is as possible that the Ouran-Outang does not speak, as that he speaks. However, I shall not contest the point. I should have thought it not possible to find a Monboddo; yet he exists." Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Link 349. Animals "Any of us would kill a cow, rather than not have beef." Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Link 371. Animals "Man is by the use of fire-arms made so much an overmatch for other animals, that in all countries, where they are in use, the wild part of the creation sensibly diminishes. There will probably not be long, either stags or roebucks in the islands. All the beasts of chase would have been lost long ago in countries well inhabited, had they not been preserved by laws for the pleasure of the rich." Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 605. Animals; Memory "Of memory, which makes so large a part of the excellence of the human soul, and which has so much influence upon all its other powers, but a small portion has been allotted to the animal world. We do not find the grief with which the dams lament the loss of their young proportionate to the tenderness with which they caress, the assiduity with which they feed, or the vehemence with which they defend them. Their regard for their offspring, when it is before their eyes, is not, in appearance, less than that of a human parent; but when it is taken away, it is very soon forgotten, and, after a short absence, if brought again, wholly disregarded. "That they have very little remembrance of any thing once out of the reach of their senses, and scarce any power of comparing the present with the past, and regulating their conclusions from experience, may be gathered from this, that their intellects are produced in their full perfection. The sparrow that was hatched last spring makes her first nest the ensuing season of the same materials, and with the same art as in any following year; and the hen conducts and shelters her first brood of chickens with all the prudence she ever attains." Johnson: Rambler #41 (August 7, 1750) Link 935. Animals; Knowledge "A man who thinks only on the particular object before him, goes not away much illuminated by having enjoyed the privilege of handling the tooth of a shark, or the paw of a white bear; yet there is nothing more worthy of admiration to a philosophical eye than the structure of animals, by which they are qualified to support life in the elements or climates to which they are appropriated; and of all natural bodies it must be generally confessed, that they exhibit evidences of infinite wisdom, bear their testimony to the supreme reason, and excite in the mind new raptures of gratitude and incentives to piety." Johnson: Rambler #83 (January 1, 1751) Link