198 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



From the theological side, we are told that this 

 is a state of probation, and that the seeming 

 injustices and immoralities of nature will be com 

 pensated by and by. But how this compensation 

 is to be effected, in the case of the great majority 

 of sentient things, is not clear. I apprehend that 

 no one is seriously prepared to maintain that the 

 ghosts of all the myriads of generations of her 

 bivorous animals which lived during the millions 

 of years of the earth's duration, before the appear 

 ance of man, and which have all that time been 

 tormented and devoured by carnivores, are to be 

 compensated by a perennial existence in clover; 

 while the ghosts of carnivores are to go to some 

 kennel where there is neither a pan of water nor a 

 bone with any meat on it. Besides, from the point 

 of view of morality, the last stage of things would be 

 worse than the first. For the carnivores, however 

 brutal and sanguinary, have only done that which, 

 if there is any evidence of contrivance in the 

 world, they were expressly constructed to do. 

 Moreover, carnivores and herbivores alike have been 

 subject to all the miseries incidental to old age, 

 disease, and over-multiplication, and both might 

 well put in a claim for "compensation" on this score. 



On the evolutionist side, on the other hand, we 

 are told to take comfort from the reflection that 

 the terrible struggle for existence tends to final 

 good, and that the suffering of the ancestor is paid 

 for by the increased perfection of the progeny. 

 There would be something in this argument if, in 



