38 DARWINISM chap. 



exercise of the powers and faculties they possess, unmixed 

 with any serious dread. There is, in the next place, much 

 evidence to show that violent deaths, if not too prolonged, are 

 painless and easy ; even in the case of man, whose nervous 

 system is in all probability much more susceptible to pain than 

 that of most animals. In all cases in which persons have 

 escaped after being seized by a lion or tiger, they declare 

 that they suffered little or no pain, j^hysical or mental. A 

 well-known instance is that of Livingstone, who thus describes 

 his sensations when seized by a lion : " Starting and looking 

 half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing on me. 

 I was upon a little height ; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, 

 and we both came to the ground below together. Growling 

 horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does a 

 rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which 

 seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. 

 It causes a sort of dreaminess, in which there ivas no sense of 

 pain or feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all 

 that was happening. It was like what patients partially 

 under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the 

 operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition 

 was not the result of any mental process. The shake 

 annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking 

 round at the beast." 



This absence of pain is not peculiar to those seized by wild 

 beasts, but is equally produced by any accident which causes 

 a general shock to the system. Mr. Whymper describes an 

 accident to himself during one of his preliminary explorations 

 of the Matterhorn, when he fell several hundred feet, bounding 

 from rock to rock, till fortunately embedded in a snow-drift 

 near the edge of a tremendous precipice. He declares that 

 while falling and feeling blow after blow, he neither lost 

 consciousness nor suffered pain, merely thinking, calmly, that 

 a few more blows would finish him. We have therefore a 

 right to conclude, that when death follows soon after any 

 great shock it is as easy and painless a death as possible ; and 

 this is certainly what happens Avhen an animal is seized by a 

 beast of prey. For the enemy is one Avhich hunts for food, 

 not for pleasure or excitement ; and it is doubtful Avhether any 

 carnivorous animal in a state of nature begins to seek after 



