recital which I had from a king great in fame and glory. This king,
defender of the northern world, whom I now cite, is my guarantee: a
prince beloved of the goddess of Victory. His name alone is a bulwark
against the empire of the Turks. I speak of the Polish king.[9] A king,
it is understood, can never lie.

He says, then, that upon the frontiers of his kingdom there are animals
that have always been at war among themselves, their passion for
fighting having been handed down from father to son. These animals, he
explains, are allied to the fox. Never has the science of war been more
skilfully pursued among men than it is pursued by these beasts, not even
in our present century. They have their advanced out-posts, their
sentinels and spies; their ambuscades, their expedients, and a thousand
other inventions of the pernicious and accursed science Warfare, a hag
born, herself, of Styx,[10] but giving birth to heroes.

Properly to sing of the battles of these four-footed warriors Homer
should return from beyond the shores of Acheron.[11] Ah! could he but do
so, and bring with him too the rival of old Epicurus,[12] what would the
latter say as to the examples I have narrated? He would say only what I
have already said, namely, that in the lower animals natural instinct is
sufficient to explain all the wonders I have told: that memory leads the
animal to repeat over and over again the actions it has made before and
found successful.

We, as human beings, do differently. Our wills decide for us; not the
bestial aim, nor the instinct. I walk, I speak, I feel in me a certain
force, an intelligent principle which all my bodily mechanism obeys.
This force is distinct from anything connected with my body. It is
indeed more easily conceived than is the body itself, and of all our