170 A MORAL INFERENCE. 



imagine that He whose " mercy is over all his works/' would 

 do other than protect by a shield of comparative obtuseness 

 that innumerable multitude of living things, which, from their 

 numbers and minuteness, often also in the seeming end of 

 their creation (that of affording food for others), are exposed 

 to continual mutilation, as well as violent destruction. Were 

 it otherwise, independantly of what they would endure from 

 other agencies, of what an infinity of insect suffering should 

 we daily, hourly, minutely, be the involuntary cause ! Not a 

 summer ramble could we take not a ilower could we pluck 

 not a fruit or vegetable cat without exacting from agonised 

 multitudes a penalty for each enjoyment. Thought too hor- 

 rible to be a just onr ! 



Conclude, however, \\liat we may, it must still be admitted, 

 that unless we could for a season be conscious tenants of an 

 insect tabernacle, it is impossible to say exactly how, or how 

 much, an insici tenant feels on being summoned, vainly or 

 otherwise, to give up its habitation; and since on tliis point a 

 shade of uncertainty must ever rest, \\ e are bound to give our 

 little fellow-beings all the benefit of the doubt, and extend 

 even to them, as much as in us lies, the protection of our 

 golden rule. 



Children are almost always disposed to the commission of 

 acts of cruelty ; but only in most cases from ignorance or 

 want of thought; for there is, we believe, in everv unperverted 

 mind a natural repugnance to the taking of the life we cannot 



