﻿202 LIVING PLANTS 



Natural ri ht ^^^" °^ ^^^^ ^^ furnish a meal for one individu- 

 to food 'il ? Would it have been anymore or any less 



wrong to have eaten onl^^ animal food, or 

 only vegetable food ? Is there anything 

 wrong in the owl eating a mouse or in the 

 rabbit eating herbage? Evidently the an- 

 swer is clear and direct. Every being is enti- 

 tled by the very law of its nature, and by the 

 constitution of the organic world, to the food 

 needed for its sustenance, and animal life per 

 se is no more sacred than vegetable life. This 

 destruction of one being by another is in fact 

 the only method by which the balance of life 

 on the earth can be maintained; indeed, all 

 existence is vicarious, many lives are sacrificed 

 to maintain the few. 



The evolutionary argument, which has now 

 been illustrated, runs along two lines pointed 

 out by Malthus nearly a century ago, neither 

 favoring the individual. On the one hand ex- 

 cessive increase, and on the other, necessity for 

 food, cause a dire struggle for existence, in 

 which the race is benefited, but the individual 

 is generalh' worsted . From this point of view 

 Logic of the only right to live that an individual being 



goo orune can claim is vested in its chance possession of 

 strength and opportunity ; it lives merely 

 through good fortune. 



If we inquire into the object of living, we 

 shall find that the evolutionists, the pre-evo- 



