THE SPECIAL-CREATION-HYPOTIIESIS. 427 



lower order. So long, too, as we leave out all mortality but 

 that which, by carrying off the least perfect members of each 

 species, leaves the most perfect members to survive and 

 multiply; we see some compensating benefit reached through 

 the suffering inflicted. But what shall we say on finding 

 innumerable cases in which the suffering inflicted brings no 

 compensating benefit? What shall we say when we see the 

 inferior destroying the superior? What shall we say on 

 finding elaborate appliances for furthering the multiplication 

 of organisms incapable of feeling, at the expense of misery 

 to organisms capable of happiness ? 



Of the animal kingdom as a whole, more than half the 

 species are parasites. &quot; The number of these parasites,&quot; 

 says Prof. Owen, &quot; may be conceived when it is stated that 

 almost every known animal has its peculiar species, and 

 generally more than one, sometimes as many as, or even 

 more kinds than, infest the human body.&quot; This parasitism 

 begins among the most minute creatures and pervades the 

 entire animal kingdom from the lowest to the highest. Even 

 Protozoa, made visible to us only by the microscope, are 

 infested, as is Paramcecium by broods of Spli(Broplirya; while 

 in large and complex animals parasites are everywhere present 

 in great variety. More than this is true. There are para 

 sites upon parasites an arrangement such that those which 

 are torturing the creatures they inhabit are themselves tor 

 tured by indwelling creatures still smaller: looking like an 

 ingenious accumulation of pains upon pains. 



But passing over the evils thus inflicted on animals of in 

 ferior dignity, let us limit ourselves to the case of Man. The 

 Bothriocephalus latus and the Ttjcnia solium, are two kinds of 

 tape-worm, which flourish in the human intestines; produc 

 ing great constitutional disturbances, sometimes Bending in 

 insanity; and from the germs of the Tcctiia, when carried 

 into other parts of the body, arise certain partially-developed 

 forms known as Ci/sticerci, Echinococci, and Ccenuri, which 

 cause disorganization more or less extensive in the brain, the 



