the early-19th-century writer robert kerr relates how the king of goa "keeps certain elephants for the execution of malefactors. when one of these is brought forth to dispatch a criminal, if his keeper desires that the offender be destroyed speedily, this vast creature will instantly crush him to atoms under his foot; but if desired to torture him, will break his limbs successively, as men are broken on the wheel." the naturalist georges-louis leclerc, comte de buffon cited this flexibility of purpose as evidence that elephants were capable of "human reasoning, [rather] than a simple, natural instinct".