le of master. After all, it is a man who serves his pet: he washes it, he feeds it, he plays with it, he even takes breaks in his schedule to assist his pet with going to the bathroom. How then can we consider the man as the master and not the pet? It almost seems like a relationship a King like Louis XIV had with his royal court. Montaigne then brings about his second point, in that he sees no difference between the qualities of man and those of animals. He states, “After all, what aspects of our human competence cannot be found in the activities of animals” (Montaigne 19). It is Montaigne’s contention that the qualities that human possesses are not unique but instead can be found in various organisms spanning the entire animal kingdom. Montagine’s first example of this is when he begs the question, “Is there any from of body politic more ordered, more varied in its allocations of tasks and duties or maintained with greater consistency that that of the bees” (Montaigne 19)? However Montaigne does not stop there, he continues to sight examples of how the swallows have a concept of structural engineering and of the properties of clay, water, and the process of evaporation with the building of their nests. He also points out how spiders make their web denser and one place and slacker in another and use a wide assortment of knots. Montaigne even concedes, “…how superior they are to us in most of their works and how weak our artistic skills are when it comes to imitation them” (Montaigne 20).On the subject of reasoning Montaigne offers the story of Chysippus and the fox. He tells how Chysippus watched the actions of a dog when it came upon three crossroads when trying to catch up to his master. The dog tries both the first and second paths, by inspecting the furiously and when he had not found any sign, charged down the third path with out even a hint of hesitation. The dog r...
