284 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING 



through the exercise of the reasoning faculty, to do for him- 

 self; and the ancient philosopher meant no more. And in 

 clearing away the giants of the reptile dynasty when their 

 kingdom had passed away, and then re-introducing the class 

 as much shrunken in their proportions as restricted in their 

 domains, the Creator seems to have been doing for the 

 mammals what man, in the character of a " mighty hunter 

 before the Lord," does for himself There is in nature very 

 little of what can be called war. The cities of this country 

 cannot be said to be in a state of war, though their cattle - 

 markets are thronged every week with animals for slaughter, 

 and the butcher and fishmonger find their places of business 

 thronged with customers. And such, in the main, is the con- 

 dition of the animal world ; — it consists of its two classes, — 

 animals of prey, and the animals upon which they prey : its 

 wars are simply those of the butcher and fisher, lightened bv 

 a dash of the enjoyments of the sportsman. 



•* The creatures see of flood and field, 

 And those that travel on the wind, 

 With them no strife can last ; they live 

 In peace and peace of mind." 



Generally speaking, the carnivorous mammalia respect one 

 another : lion does not war with tiger, nor the leopard con- 

 tend with the hyena. But the carnivorous reptiles manifest 

 no such respect for the carnivorous mammals. There are 

 fierce contests in their native jungles, on the banks of the 

 Ganges, between the gavial and the tiger; and in the steam- 

 ing forests of South America, the boa-constrictor casts his 

 terrible coil scarce less readily round the puma than the 

 antelope. A world which, after it had become a home of 

 the higher herbivorous and more powerful carnivorous mam- 

 mals, continued to retain the gigantic reptiles of its earlier 

 ages, would be a world of horrid, exterminating war, and 

 altogether rather a place of torment than a scene of inter- 



