Were I commission'd to bestow
This power on creatures here below,
The beasts should have as much of mind
As infants of the human kind.
Think not the latter, from their birth?
It hence appears there are on earth
That have the simple power of thought
Where reason hath no knowledge wrought.
And on this wise an equal power I'd yield
To all the various tenants of the field;
Not reason such as in ourselves we find,
But something more than any mainspring blind.
A speck of matter I would subtilise
Almost beyond the reach of mental eyes;--
An atom's essence, one might say,
An extract of a solar ray,
More quick and pungent than a flame of fire,--
For if of flame the wood is sire,
Cannot the flame, itself refined,
Give some idea of the mind?
Comes not the purest gold
From lead, as we are told?
To feel and choose, my work should soar--
Unthinking judgment--nothing more.
No monkey of my manufacture
Should argue from his sense or fact, sure:
But my allotment to mankind
Should be of very different mind.
We men should share in double measure,
Or rather have a twofold treasure;
The one the soul, the same in all
That bear the name of animal--
The sages, dunces, great and small,
That tenant this our teeming ball;--
The other still another soul,
Which should to mortals here belong
In common with the angel throng;
Which, made an independent whole,
Could pierce the skies to worlds of light,
Within a point have room to be,--
Its life a morn, sans noon or night.
Exempt from all destructive change--
A thing as real as it is strange.
In infancy this child of day
Should glimmer but a feeble ray.
Its earthly organs stronger grown,
The beam of reason, brightly thrown,
Should pierce the darkness, thick and gross,
That holds the other prison'd close.

[1] _Madame de la Sabliere_.--See the following note; also the Translator's Preface. [2] _Perhaps you have not heard of it_?--Madame de la Sabliere was one of the most learned women of the age in which she lived, and knew more of the philosophy of Descartes, in which she was a believer, than our poet; but she dreaded the reputation of a "blue-stocking," and for this reason La Fontaine addresses her as if she might be ignorant of the Cartesian theory.--Translator. Moliere's _Femme Savante_, the object of which was to ridicule the French "blue-stockings," had been only recently produced upon the stage (1672), hence Madame de la Sabliere's fears, and La Fontaine's delicate forbearance. [3] _Beasts are mere machines_.--At this time the discussion as to the mind in animals was very rife in the salons of Paris. Madame de Sevigne often alludes to it in her Letters. La Fontaine further contends against the "mere machine" theory in Fable IX., Book XI. [4] _One of truly royal race_.--John Sobieski.--Translator. At the time this was written, Sobieski's great victory over the Turks at Choczim (1673) was resounding throughout Europe, and had made him King of Poland (1674). Sobieski had previously been a frequent visitor at the house of Madame de la Sabliere, where La Fontaine had often met him. Sobieski is again alluded to as a guest of Madame de la Sabliere, in Fable XV., Book XII. [5] _Old Epicurus' rival_.--Descartes.--Translator.

Fables of La Fontaine � a New Edition, with Notes by Gibbs, J. W. M., La Fontaine, Jean de, 1621-1695, Wright, Elizur, 1804-1885

II.--THE MAN AND THE ADDER.[6]