ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



ences but little physical suffering. Any one whose 

 life has been suddenly imperiled by a railway or a 

 runaway accident knows how blessed is the blank- 

 ness which comes over his mind at the most critical 

 moment; the suddenness and intensity of his alarm 

 blots out consciousness, and he retains no memory 

 of just what happened. The soldier in battle may be 

 seriously or fatally wounded and not be aware of it 

 till some time afterward. A crushing or tearing 

 blow disrupts the machinery of sensation. It is only 

 when we put ourselves in the place of the mouse 

 with which the cat is playing that we pity it; it does 

 not experience the agony we should feel under like 

 conditions; it is usually un wounded; it does not 

 know what awaits it and its comparative freedom 

 of movement soothes its alarm. 



Dr. Jacks speaks of the bloody work of the strug- 

 gle for existence, but the struggle for existence is 

 largely a bloodless struggle of adaptation. Through 

 it, every creature sooner or later finds its place, finds 

 where it fits into the scheme of things. Through it 

 the mouse finds its place, and the lion its, and man 

 has found his. Living bodies are not ready-made, so 

 to speak, like the parts of machinery; they are con- 

 stantly in the making, and their making is a process 

 of transformation. The horse, as we know him, was 

 millions of years in the making; so was the elephant; 

 so was man; so was every other form of life. The 

 struggle for existence as a whole is cruel only so far 



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