IN THE SHETLANDS 363 
“to hold as ’twere, the mirror up to nature”—for 
here, instead of the mirror, there should be nature 
herself. I would keep no animal in respect to which 
proper and adequate arrangements could not be made 
for it to live its own life, and, where practicable, to die 
its own death. And in regard to suffering inflicted 
by one animal on another, I would ask only this one 
question, and be governed by the answer: “Is such 
suffering in accordance with the laws of nature, and 
the conditions of things in the world at large, or is it 
not? In proportion as the power of exercising its 
natural functions and aptitudes is taken from it, I 
pity an animal, and that is why I hate—with an in- 
tellectual quite as much as with a humanitarian hatred 
—the miserable cellular confinement inflicted upon 
wild creatures in a Gardens like ours. But I would 
never curtail the activities of one animal in order to 
preserve the life or diminish the sufferings of another, 
though I would rigidly guard against those suffer- 
ings being unduly, ze. artificially, increased. In my 
snake-house, by the way, the question as to the pro- 
priety of presenting the inmates with domestic 
animals, could hardly arise, since it would be co-ex- 
tensive with a rabbit-warren, and my gardens indeed, 
could I have my real wish, would be quite as large as 
Rutlandshire (Yorkshire for choice). 
In the principle of interference, as between one 
animal and another, I have no belief. It does not 
appear to me to be sound or healthy in itself, and its 
effect must be to check the growth of knowledge. Not, 
