110 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 



enjoyments embittered by the contemplation of distant calamity. 

 The hare, notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its 

 enemies, is as playful, and apparently as happy, as any other 

 animal, until the very moment that the hounds appear in view. 



To this sketch of the Divine wisdom and goodness exhibited 

 in the economy of animal life, we may add another consideration 

 that equally tends to develope the attributes of the Great Author 

 of Nature. 



The three modes by which life is terminated, are disease, decay, 

 or violence. The brute creation, living according to the simple 

 dictates of nature, is not very subject to acute diseases ; and this 

 must certainly be esteemed a happy circumstance of animal life 

 But let us consider the state of suffering in which a poor anima. 

 is placed, when left to perish by age or decay. Man, in his sick- 

 nesses and infirmities, has the assistance of his fellow creatures, 

 who, if they cannot alleviate his pains, can at least minister to 

 his necessities, and supply the place of his own activity ; but the 

 brute, in his natural state, does every thing for himself. When, 

 therefore, his strength, his speed, or his senses fail, he is neces- 

 sarily delivered up either to absolute famine, or to the protracted 

 misery of a life slowly wasted by pain and scarcity of food. May 

 it not then be considered as a benevolent dispensation of Provi- 

 dence, that in the present constitution of things, animals general- 

 ly either fall victims to one another, or are slaughtered for the 

 sustenance of man ; and that few of them, either in a wild or do- 

 mestic state, suffer the miseries of helpless age and gradual decay ? 



To these considerations many others might be added, which 

 would appear tedious, and exceed the limits of our present de- 

 sign. Some, indeed, will be brought forward at another oppor- 

 tunity, as we would not weary the attention by too long a con- 

 finement fro one subject. It is, however, necessary in this place 

 to remark, that by the present constitution of things, a far great- 

 er number of creatures enjoy the blessing of existence than 

 could possibly be partakers of it in any other system. If all 

 animals lived on herbage, and their increase were not counter- 

 acted by their hostilities against one another, they must have been 

 destroyed by man, or otherwise the productions of the earth 

 could not have supported the immense hordes with which it 

 would long ago have been overspread; and all animated beings 

 must have perished by an universal famine. In the present sys- 

 tem of nature, the animal that has for some time enjoyed a happy 

 existence in browsing the herbage, at last becomes food for some 

 other, and thus all find subsistence. 



We have expatiated somewhat more largely on this subject, as 

 the circumstance of animals supporting life by devouring one 

 another, forms the chief, if not the only instance in the economy 



