176 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. VI. 



CHAP. VI. 



DIRECT INJURIES INFLICTED BY ANIMALS. 



(192.) THAT MAN, divinely appointed to rule over 

 the works of creation, should yet be exposed to in- 

 numerable injuries, and even to certain death, from 

 those beings which he was appointed to govern, would 

 appear, at first sight, anomalous, and inconsistent with 

 the fitness of things. But we must recollect the period 

 when this dominion was given to him, and the altered 

 circumstances of the governor and the governed. It 

 was our first parent, in the garden of Eden, in a state 

 of blissful innocence, and when violence had not en- 

 tered the creation, whom the Almighty constituted 

 a representation of Himself, so far as the dominion 

 over the beings which surrounded him was concerned : 

 but no sooner had Adam violated his obedience to 

 his Creator, no sooner had he, himself, broken the 

 law of subordination, than the animal creation 

 caught, as it were, the same rebellious spirit ; they re- 

 nounced their allegiance to their appointed lord, and 

 either fled from his presence in dismay, or dared him 

 to enforce his superiority. Disobedience entered the 

 irrational, no less than the rational world ; and, from 

 that hour to this, the animal creation, with a few so- 

 litary exceptions, turn from man as from an enemy, 

 rather than court his assistance as a powerful friend. 

 The true Christian will extend this analogy to the 

 spiritual world. 



(193.) But though the dominion of man over the 

 brute creation is tacitly shown, in the fear which his 

 presence generally inspires, there are, nevertheless, many 

 tribes which, for wise but unknown purposes, are per- 

 mitted to injure him, as if to impress upon his re- 



