62 ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE ii 



I will endeavour to answer that question. I 

 take it that all will admit there is definite Govern- 

 ment of this universe — that its pleasures and pains 

 are not scattered at random, but are distributed 

 in accordance with orderly and fixed laws, and that 

 it is only in accordance with all we know of the rest 

 of the world, that there should be an a<>reement 

 between one portion of the sensitive creation and 

 another in these matters. 



Surely then it interests us to know the lot of 

 other animal creatures — however far below us, they 

 are still the sole created thinii^s which share with 

 us the capability of pleasure and the susceptibility 

 to ])ain. 



I cannot but think that he who finds a certain 

 proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up 

 in the life of the very worms, will bear his own 

 share with more courage and submission; and will, 

 at any rate, view with suspicion those weakly 

 amiable theories of the Divine government, which 

 would have us believe pain to be an oversight and 

 a mistake, — to be corrected by and by. On the 

 other hand, the predominance of happiness among 

 livinfj thinjTS — their lavish beauty — the secret and 

 wonderful harmony which pervades them all, from 

 the highest to the lowest, are equally striking 

 refutations of that modern ^Lnnichean doctrine, 

 which exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked 

 with many tears, for mere utilitarian ends. 



There is yet another way in which natural his- 



