Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/291

Rh untouched on a shelf in the cottage. By accident one is broken and Autonous tastes the contents, which prove to be 'a most delicious and heady sort of Wine.' He is delighted, straightway opens the other bottle, and, sad to relate, gets drunk. Having quite by himself discovered the nature of God, he now, quite by himself, discovers the nature of intoxication. It is by this time apparent, I think, that Autonous is an unusually wise young fellow. Finding how ill the potations make him, he very properly throws 'the remainder of this beautiful Liquor, Bottle and all, into the Sea.'

During the feverish affection brought on by his bout, he walks a good deal at night, and is lucky enough (for thus, in the order of Providence, does good grow out of evil) to see the moon in eclipse. This phenomenon fills him with 'exceeding Amazement,' and for a time he does not know 'what to make of it.' But he is not the youth to be long puzzled over a little thing like an eclipse. Presently an eclipse of the sun occurs—seemingly for his personal benefit. Upon this, he sets to work in earnest, and soon clears up all the difficulty. Considering how long it took for the race at large to learn the real nature of an eclipse, we may regard this as one of our philosopher's most remarkable performances.

His continued study of animals—'some of which,' as he sagely remarks, 'afforded an excellent Pattern of Prudence and Industry, for the Imitation of Men'—leads to no less important results. Observing the beavers, in particular, he remarks 'with what true Policy every distinct Community' is 'governed under its peculiar Monarch'—the only wonder being that he did not infer from his investigations the principles of the Hanoverian Succession. Their methods of building houses and dams, of laying up supplies for the winter and of gnawing down trees with their teeth, specially delight him; and from their example, and that of the dog, he learns to swim; thus becoming acquainted with 'fresh matter for wonder 5 in the shape of fish. He now devotes a good deal of time to the contents of the cottage, and takes note of 'two or three knives and forks,' and a hatchet, the sharpness of which suggests a use similar to that which the beavers made of their teeth in cutting trees. Hammer and a bag of nails, a rusty sword, a bow, a silver tankard and some other utensils are also discovered by him, but these he confesses that he was never 'so ingenious' as to turn to account. But he learns the color and malleability of several metals, and as, by hacking at various articles with the chopper, he deprives them 'of the forms in which he found them,' so he concludes, by one of his rapid processes of reasoning, that 'they must by some like Operation'— by some human power and effort, he presumably means—'have been first wrought into the same.'

In this part of his story, Autonous of course depends a good deal