THE DESTRUCTIVE PRINCIPLE. 387 
more apparent than in the ordinary Otters, on account of the curious setting on of the 
hinder limbs and the comparative shortness of the tail, which is barely more than seven 
inches Jong, while the head and body measure three feet in leneth. The food of the 
Sea Otter is not restricted to fish, but is composed.of various animal productions, such as 
erustacea and molluscs. Some writers assert that, in default of its more legitimate food, 
it varies its diet by sea-weeds and other vegetable substances. 
Durine the progress of this work, several allusions have heen made to the destructive 
principle, as illustrated in the character of certain animals, and a few suggestions have 
been oflered as to its origin, its manifestation, and its object. The subject is too deep in 
its purport and too wide in its bearings to be comprehended within the limits of a single 
article, and it must therefore be resumed from time to time, as its various phases are 
exemplified by the nature of the various creatures which draw the breath of life. 
As in the animals which have already been mentioned the principle of terrestrial 
destruction has been manifested, so we find a further development of the same idea in the 
Otter, the destroyer of the waters. In order that we may rightly appreciate the part 
which the Otter plays in the great and ever-changing drama of Nature, it needs that we 
should as far as possible place ourselves in the position of the creatures among whom its 
destructive mission is fulfilled. 
A shoal of fish is swimming quietly through the clear stream, thinking of nothing but 
themselves, their food, and their physical enjoyment of existence. Suddenly, from some 
unknown sphere, of which they can form no true conception, comes flashing among them 
a strange and wondrous being, from whose presence they flee in instinctive terror. Flight 
is in vain from the dread pursuer, which seizes one of their companions in its deadly 
grasp, and in spite of the resistance of the struggling prey, bears it away into an unknown 
realm, whose wonders their dim sight cannot penetrate, and whose atmosphere is too 
etherial for their imperfect frames to breathe and live. Ever and anon the terrible 
pursuer is mysteriously among them, like the destroying angel among the Egyptians, and, 
as often as it is seen, snatches away one of their number in its fatal grasp, and vanishes 
together with its victim into the unseen realms above. 
To the fish, the Otter must appear as a supernatural being, for it comes from a world 
which is above their comprehension, and returns thereto at will, a visible and incarnate 
Death. All animals, creations, and existences, have some idea of a being that is superior 
to themselves, and that being, which to their minds conveys the highest idea, is to them 
the Divinity. So that to the fish, the Otter may stand in the light of deity—a 
remarkable type of the heathen ideas of the Divine nature. 
As yarious races and individuals of mankind are endowed with greater or smaller 
capacities, they must form an idea of a deity which is consonant with their own natures, 
and it therefore follows that the loftiest natures will worship the highest God. Therefore, 
we find in the history of the Israelitish nation, that the narrow-minded Jews copied the 
surrounding heathens in paying their fearful worship to the fiery Moloch, the cruel and 
murderous ‘deity of wrath ; while the poets and prophets prostrated their spirits in loving 
adoration before Jehovah, "the great Source of all, from whom, through whom, and by 
whom all things, beings, and essences came into existence. 
At the present day, and even in this country, the same contracted ideas are too 
evident, for there are many narrow-minded persons who are incapable of receiving a deity 
that is more loving than themselves, and can only appreciate one that is more powerful. 
Their form of praise is expressed by fear and trembling, and the amount of their reverence 
is measured by the amount of punishment which they think he can inflict upon them. 
So with the savage natives of the Southern seas, who consistently honour the representa- 
tions of their deity by piteous deprecations of his anger, and le trembling before him in 
slavish fear. Servile terror is the form of respect which they pay towards those whom 
they honour, and which they unscrupulously exact from those by whom they desire to be 
honoured. 
Still, there is a great truth in this power-worship of the savage and undeveloped 
nature, for it is a step in the improvement of the human race when they learn to 
cce2 
