HUNTING THE FOX 215 



much matter if they did,' are the happiest. But 

 in these days many people cannot take things with 

 such simplicity, and questions will obtrude them- 

 selves. Some people have qualms, and failing, as 

 it were, to make the best of either world, would go 

 on doing what their consciences condemn, or are at 

 all events uneasy about. It is better to face the 

 point and decide one way or the other. I have 

 already suggested that people who decide against 

 hunting are too anthropomorphic in their views of 

 the feelings of the hunted : they ascribe to mere 

 animal nature thoughts which are impossible to it, 

 and a memory of past pains and an anticipation of 

 future suffering which none but man is capable of. 



I never could see that Macaulay's often-quoted 

 Puritan, when he objected to bear-baiting, not be- 

 cause it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave 

 pleasure to the spectators, deserved the sting im- 

 plied in the epigram. If bear-baiting was a cruel, 

 cowardly, and unsportsmanlike pastime, then the 

 pleasure of the spectators was by far the worst 

 feature of it, and was the vulnerable point of the 

 diversion. The bear had no chance, the spectators 

 ran no risk, the pain inflicted was the source of the 

 pleasure. But between bear-baiting and foxhunting 

 there is no parallel. Those who delight in the latter 



