SO THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



hearer to act upon the very questionable 

 belief, as they say even the amiable enthu- 

 siasts of Port Royal acted upon the doctrine 

 that animals were mere unconscious automata, 

 by pushing their theory to the too practical 

 length of active cruelty. Let us at least give 

 the slugs and beetles the benefit of the doubt. 

 People often say that science makes men 

 unfeeling : for my own part, I fancy it makes 

 them only the more humane, since they are 

 the better able dimly to figure to themselves 

 the pleasures and pains of humbler beings as 

 they really are. The man of science perhaps 

 realises more vividly than all other men the 

 inner life and vague rights even of crawling 

 worms and ugly earwigs. 



I will take up this poor slug whose mishap 

 has set me preaching, and put him out of 

 his misery at once, if misery it be. My hoe 

 has cut through the soft flesh of the mantle 

 and hit against the little embedded shell. 

 Very few people know that a slug has a shell, 

 but it has, though quite hidden from view ; 



