Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/76

 upon plenty. The most ancient and natural grounds of quarrels are lust and avarice, which though we may allow to be brethren or collateral branches of pride, are certainly the issues of want. For to speak in the phrase of writers upon the politics, we may observe in the republic of dogs (which in its original seems to be an institution of the many,) that the whole state is ever in the profoundest peace after a full meal, and that civil broils arise among them when it happens for one great bone to be seized on by some leading dog, who either divides it among the few, and then it falls to an oligarchy, or keeps it to himself, and then it runs up to a tyranny. The same reasoning also holds place among them in those dissensions we behold upon a turgescency in any of their females; for the right of possession lying in common, (it being impossible to establish a property in so delicate a case,) jealousies and suspicions do so abound that the whole commonwealth of that street is reduced to a manifest state of war, of every citizen against every citizen, till some one of more courage, conduct, or fortune than the rest, seizes and enjoys the prize; upon which naturally arises plenty of heart-burning, and envy, and snarling, against the happy dog. Again, if we look upon