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10. Violent death, and the devouring of one animal by another, are not purely benevolent, because pure benevolence would never inflict pain; but they are instances of destruction leading to beneficial results; that is, wherever death is introduced under the institutions of nature, it is accompanied with enjoyment or beneficial consequences to the very animals which are to become the subjects of it.

11. While the world is calculated to support only a limited number of living creatures, the lower animals have received from nature powers of reproduction far beyond what are necessary to supply the waste of natural decay, and they do not possess intellect sufficient to restrain their numbers within their means of subsistence. Herbivorous animals, in particular, are exceedingly prolific, and yet the supply of vegetable food is limited.

12. Hence, after multiplication for a few years, extensive starvation, the most painful and lingering of all deaths, and the most detrimental to the race, would inevitably ensue: but carnivorous animals have been instituted who kill and eat them; and by this means, not only do carnivorous animals reap the pleasures of life, but the numbers of the herbivorous are restrained within such limits that the individuals among them enjoy existence while they live.

13. The destroyers again are limited in their turn; the moment they become too numerous, and carry their devastations too far, their food fails them, and they die of starvation, or, in their conflicts for the supplies that remain, destroy one another. Nature seems averse from inflicting death extensively by starvation, probably because it impairs the constitution long before it extinguishes life, and has the tendency to produce degeneracy in the race.

10. How does violent death appear? What is said of these instances? 11. Is reproduction greater than natural decay and means of subsistence? 12. What would result after multiplication for a few years, if life was not destroyed? What class of animals are devoured by other animals? What are carnivorous animals? What are herbivorous animals?

13. How are the destroyers limited? Why is not life usually ended by starvation?

14. It may be remarked also, speculatively, that herbivorous animals must have existed in considerable numbers before the carnivorous began to exercise their functions; for many of the former must die, that one of the latter may live. If a single sheep and a single tiger had been placed together at first, the tiger would have eaten up the sheep at a few meals, and afterward died itself of starvation.

15. There is reason to believe that, in the state of nature, death is attended with very little suffering to the lower creatures. In natural decay the organs are worn out by mere age, and the animal sinks into gradual insensibility, unconscious that dissolution awaits it. Further, the wolf, the tiger, the lion, and other beasts of prey instituted by the Creator as instruments of violent death, are provided, in addition to Destructiveness, with large organs of Cautiousness and Secretiveness, which prompt them to steal upon their victims with the unexpected suddenness of a mandate of annihilation; and they are also impelled to inflict death in the most instantaneous and least painful method.

16. The tiger and lion spring from their covers with the rapidity of the thunderbolt, and one blow of their tremendous paws, inflicted at the junction of the head with the neck, produces instantaneous death. The eagle is taught to strike its sharp beak into the spine of the birds which it devours, and their agony endures scarcely for an instant.

17. It has been objected that the cat plays with the unhappy mouse, and prolongs its tortures; but the cat that does so is the pampered and well-fed inhabitant of a kitchen; the cat of nature is too eager to devour, to indulge in such luxurious gratifications. It kills in a moment, and eats. Here, then, is actually a regularly organized process for withdrawing individuals among the lower animals from existence, almost by a fiat of

14. What class of animals do some (speculatively) suppose existed first? What reasons are given for this supposition?

15, 16. Does death probably cause much pain to the lower animals? What is said of death from natural decay? How is death initigated when animals destroy each other?

17. What example is cited in objection to this? How is it answered?

destruction, and thereby providing for the comfortable subsistence of the creatures themselves while they live, and making way for a succession of new occupants.

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18. Nature," says St. Pierre, "does nothing in vain: she intends few animals to die of old age; and I believe that she has permitted to none except man to run the entire course of life, because in his case alone can old age be useful to the race. What would be the advantage of old animals, incapable of reflection, to a posterity born with instincts holding the place of experience; and how, on the other hand, would decrepit parents find support among offspring which instinctively leave them whenever they are able to swim, to fly, or to run? Old age would prove to such creatures a burden; of which beasts of prey mercifully deliver them."

19. Man, in his mode of putting the lower creatures to death, is not so tender as beasts of prey; but he might be so. Suppose the sheep to be guillotined, and not maltreated before its execution, the creature would never know that it had ceased to live. And, by the law which I have already explained, man does not with impunity add one unnecessary pang to the death of the inferior animals.

20. In the butcher who inflicts torments on calves, sheep, and cattle, while driving them to the slaughter, and who kills them in the way supposed to be most conducive to the gratification of his Acquisitiveness, such as bleeding them to death, by successive stages, prolonged for days to whiten their flesh, the animal faculties of Destructiveness, Acquisitiveness, and Self-Esteem predominate so decidedly in activity over the moral powers, that he is necessarily excluded from all the enjoyments attendant on the supremacy of the human faculties.

21. He, besides, goes into society under the influence of the

18. Is old age necessary to the human race? Is old age necessary to animals! Give some reasons for this.

19. Could man cause less pain in putting animals to death?

20. What effect does the cruelty of man toward animals have on his own happiness?

21. How does this cruelty cause suffering in human society? Is there ma levolence in the institution of death, as it regards the lower animals?

same base combination, and suffers at every hand animal retaliation; so that he does not escape with impunity for his outrages against the moral law. Here, then, we can perceive nothing malevolent in the institution of death, in so far as regards the lower animals. A pang certainly does attend it; but while Destructiveness must be recognized in the pain, Benevolence is equally perceptible in its effects.

nature.

22. To repair injuries sustained by objects governed exclusively by physical laws, no remedial process is instituted by If a mirror falls, and is smashed, it remains ever after in fragments; if a ship sinks, it lies still at the bottom of the ocean, chained down by the law of gravitation. Under the organic law, on the other hand, a distinct remedial process is established.

23. If a tree is blown over, every root that remains in the ground will double its exertions to preserve life; if a branch is lopped off, new branches will shoot out in its place; if a leg in an animal is broken, the bone will reunite; if a muscle is severed, it will grow together; if an artery is obliterated, the neighboring arteries will enlarge their dimensions, and perform its duty. The Creator, however, not to encourage animals to abuse this benevolent institution, has established pain as an attendant on infringement of the organic law, and made them suffer for the violation of it, even while he restores them. It is under this law that death has received its pangs.

24. Instant death is not attended with pain of any perceptible duration; and it is only when a lingering death occurs in youth and middle age that the suffering is severe. Dissolution, however, does not occur at these periods as a direct and intentional result of the organic laws, but as the consequence of infringement of them. Under the fair and legitimate operation of these laws, the individual whose constitution was at first sound,

22. How do organic and inorganic laws differ in regard to being repaired when injuries are sustained?

23. Mention instances of this remedial process in the organic world. What has the Creator established to prevent animals from abusing this benevolent institution?

24. When is suffering from death most severe? When does death produce but little pain?

and whose life has been in accordance with their dictates, will live till old age fairly wears out his organized frame, and then the pang of expiration is little perceptible.

25. This view of our constitution is objected to by some persons, because disease appears to them to invade our bodies, and after a time to end in death, or disappear without any organic cause being discoverable. On this subject I would observe, that there is a vast difference between the uncertain and the unascertained. It is now universally admitted that all the movements of matter are regulated by laws, and that the motions are never uncertain, although their laws may in some instances be unascertained.

26. The revolutions of the planets, for example, are fully understood, while those of some of the comets are yet unknown; but no philosopher imagines that the latter are uncertain. The minutest drop of water that descends the mighty Fall of Niagara is regulated in all its movements by definite laws, whether it rise in mist, and float in the atmosphere to distant regions, there to descend as rain; or be absorbed by a neighboring shrub, and reappear as an atom in a blossom adorning the Canadian shore; or be drunk up by a living creature, and sent into the wonderful circuit of its blood; or become a portion of an oak, which at a future time shall career over the ocean as a ship.

27. Nothing can be less ascertained, or probably less ascertainable by moral study, than the motions of such an atom; but every philosopher will, without a moment's hesitation, concede that not one of them is uncertain. The first element in a philosophic understanding is the capacity of extending the same conviction to the events evolved in every department of nature. 28. A man who sees disease occurring in youth or middle

25. Why is this view objected to by some?

26. What is said in regard to the revolution of planets and comets? What of a drop of water?

27. Will study enable us to fully ascertain these motions? How do philosophers regard them?

28. Who are not capable of reasoning on this subject? Can we always know that there is a connection between the discase and the organic cause?