# Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable LXX and LXXI

Fab. LXX.
A Camel at First Sight.
UPon the First Sight of a Camel, All people ran away from’t, in Amazement at so Monstrous a Bulk. Upon the Second Sight, finding that it did them No Hurt, they took Heart upon't, went up to’t, and View'd it, But when they came, upon Further Experience, to take notice, how Stupid a Beast it was, they Ty'd it up, Bridled it, Loaded it with Packs and Burdens; Set Boys upon the Back on't, and Treated it with the Last Degree of Contempt.
Fab. LXXI.
A Fox and a Lyon.
A Fox had the hap to fall into the Walk of a Lyon; (the First of the Kind that ever he saw) and he was ready to Drop down at the very sight of him. He came a While after, to see Another, and was Frighted still; but Nothing to What he was Be-​fore. It was his Chance, after This, to Meet a Third Lyon; and he had the Courage, Then, to Accost him, and to make a kind of an Acquaintance with him.
The Moral of the Two Fables above.
REFLEXION.
Things that at first seem Terrible, become Easy to us when we are Wonted to them; says the Old Moral; which holds, I confess, in the Case of the Camel, but not in That of the Lyon.
With leave of the Moralist, the Illustration does not come up to the Force and Intent of the Two Last Fables: Neither, in truth, is the very Design of them according to the True Reason of the Matter in Question. Things that seem Terrible, and are Not so, become not only Familiar, but Ridiculous to us, when we find that our Fears were Vain and Idle; as in the case of the Camel: But things on the contrary, that only Seem Terrible, but arr found upon Experience to be more Dangerous then we took them for: (as in the Strength, the Nimbleness, the Fierceness, and the Appetite of a Lyon.) These are Things, I say, that the Better we Know them, the More we Dread them: So that though we have Apprehensions, as well where there is No Peril, as where there Is: Yet Time teaches us to Distinguith the One from the Other. The Allusion would much better have held in the case of a Battle, where the Soldier grows Every day less apprehensive of the Hazzard, by seeing so many People Scape; and by Computing upon the Disproportion of Those that Outlive it, to Those that Fall in’t. We may however Learn from hence, that people may be Frighted as well Without Reason as With it. Now, in Propriety of Speaking, and in a Right Understanding of the Thing too, People were not so much Frighted, as they were Surpriz’d at the Bigness, and Uncouth Deformity of the Camel: But I could Wish, the Fox had been More and More affraid of the Lyon, the Oftner he Saw him; and the Doctrine would then have been to Govern our Passions by the Truth and Reason of Things, not by Appearances; but it holds however, that Custom goes a Great Way in making Matters Indifferent to us. "Tis much the same Case too, betwixt the People, and Bugg-Laws, and Acts of State, that it is here betwixt the Fox and the Lyon. Men look, upon the First Opening of a Publique Fast , as if Heaven and Earth were going together; Not a Shop Open; The Streets Quiet, and so Dismal a Countenance Every where, as if it were to Rain Fire and Brimstone the Next Moment. The Second Day is a Little Uneasy too, but not half so Frightful as the Former: and so in Two or Three days more, the Awe goes quite off, and the People come to their Wits , and fall to their Trade again, without any further Heed to the Matter.