186 THE LAW. 



for existence commenced with its gift ; and the reign of 

 death was inaugurated by the enjoyment of life. Constructed 

 as ISTature is, this seems part and parcel of her plan, and 

 the means by which the equipoise and balance of vitality is 

 maintained. The larger and more abundant plant-feeders, 

 ever pressing on the means of subsistence, are held in check 

 by the comparatively smaller and scantier flesh-eaters ; and, 

 so far as man can comprehend, it is only by some such com- 

 pensatory system that the greatest happiness of the greatest 

 numbers can be maintained. Besides, subjected as life is 

 to the inevitable laws of a material world, it must, for its 

 own comfort, learn to accommodate itself to the circum 

 stances by which it is surrounded ; and so, under this view, 

 the accident and reminiscence of pain become an institu- 

 tion for the animal's own benefit and protection. What 

 pleases will be pursued, what pains will be avoided ; while 

 the excess of force which destroys is, for the most part, mer- 

 cifully accompanied by insensibility and unconsciousness. 

 Life, like the world it inhabits, is after all but a system of 

 re-agency and compensation ; and in all our reasonings on 

 the question of Pain and Death we should ever remember 

 that "He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" may 

 have so ordained, that to the various grades of organisation 

 suffering and the terror of death should be merely compara- 

 tive, and that their intensity should be felt only where pain 

 becomes the penalty of the infringement of the eternal law 

 of right and wrong. 



[Distribution.] 



With regard to distribution, we also perceive that from 

 the beginning different areas have been peopled partly by 

 identical and partly by representative species. In the Pal- 

 seozoic epochs, the marine areas being apparently wider 



