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area below, smashing his ankle. He told me afterwards that the 
accident at the time gave him no pain whatever, and until he was 
removed he was unaware of any injury. 
‘«« Pain iu a certain sense is entertaining ” has been quoted as an 
expression of a confirmed invalid. It is this entertaining property 
of paix for non-oversensitive natures that is alluded to by Leopardi. 
«« What remedy,” asks Tasso. ‘‘is there for weariness?” ‘* Sleep, 
opium and pain, replies the Spirit, and this last is the most potent 
of all, for while a man suffers he can never feel weary. Then speaks 
out the sensitive nature in Tasso. ‘I had rather be wearied all 
my life than take this medicine.’’ Shakespeare says, ‘‘ He jests at 
scars who never felt a wound.” 
It has been said, and I think with good reason, that our martyrs 
did not suffer the intolerable physical anguish that many people 
have ascribed to them; for their minds were intensely fixed on ~ 
other things. Doubtless there are many people who receive credit 
for bearing much pain when they experience little, and again, others 
receive little sympathy whilst suffering much, and it is for the 
reason that there exist such numerous grades of sensibility that 
corporal punishment must necessarily ever be disproportionate in 
its action. In speaking about pain in the lower animals, I do not 
wish to say anything that would underrate their real sufferings, 
but at the same time, I do firmly believe that animals are thought 
to suffer a great deal more pain than they generally do. We must 
remember that pain is entirely associated with the nervous system, 
and that the less this is developed in the animal scale the less 
sensitive is the animal. Several examples of this little sensitive- 
ness of pain might be given. The following are interesting :—A 
horse will eat grass with a broken leg with comparative comfort. 
A badger will overturn a nest of wasps, and remain eating the 
honey and larve, wholly indifferent to the abundant stings to which 
it is treated ; and we believe monkeys will sometimes sit and gnaw 
their own tails, provided they are not prehensile tails. We read 
of a gentleman who had to keep his monkey’s tail covered with 
tobacco juice in order to prevent this destructive process, while, as 
regards crabs and lobsters, even a fright will sometimes cause them 
to throw their claws away. Look at the immense murder which 
goes on amongst the animals low down in the animal scale. Cries 
of animals must not be confounded with the moans of pain; the 
two are entirely different and have different meanings. A dog 
always cries out before he is hurt. There is always a compensatory 
action existing in all forms and stages of life, and as we suffer 
more acutely than our animal friends, so are our opportunities for 
shielding our suffering greater; reason and experience teach us 
many ways of easing ourselves, but of this more anon. 
