136 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



hopeless ; they may say all Nature is cruel, and man 

 must of necessity be cruel to be in harmony with Nature. 

 Life exists by life living on life. This is quite true, 

 but we must also remember that it is only in the very 

 highly organized creature man, that the sensations of 

 the higher feelings are well marked, resulting from 

 his complex nervous formation. There is no evidence 

 of a like appreciation of pain existing in the lower 

 creation. u See, for instance, in this connection, Mr. 

 Alfred Russel Wallace's remarks on the ethical 

 aspect of the struggle for existence (Darwinism, 

 Chap. ii.). He gives examples in support of the 

 opinion that the supposed sufferings caused to animals 

 by the struggle for life have little real existence ; they 

 are rather the reflections of the imagined sensations of 

 cultivated men and women in similar circumstances." l 



1 " Social Evolution," Benjamin Kidd, 1895, p. 4'2. 



