Note 71 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Man’s natural sense of personal fear probably originated the many fanciful ideas concerning the sævissima vipera:—it is truly said, Timor fecit deos. The surpassing subtlety of the brute, the female supposed to devour the male, and the young their parent, with the monstrous imaginative offshoots—dragons, fiery snakes, the great sea-serpent,—all such romantic zoology seems to have originated from one and the same source.