236 The Bible of Nature 



to believe that the supposed torments and mise- 

 ries of animals have little real existence — that 

 the amount of actual suffering caused by the 

 struggle for existence is altogether insignificant/' 

 . . . "Animals are spared from the pain of 

 anticipating death; violent deaths, if not too 

 prolonged, are painless and easy; neither do 

 those which die of cold or hunger suffer much; 

 the popular idea of the struggle for existence en- 

 tailing misery and pain on the animal world is the 

 very reverse of the truth." This is cheerful opti- 

 mism, yet even Darwin, who confessed that he 

 found in the world "too much misery," concludes 

 his chapter on the struggle for Existence with the 

 sentence, "When we reflect on the struggle, we 

 may console ourselves with the full belief that the 

 war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, 

 that death is generally prompt, and that the vigor- 

 ous, the healthy, and the happy survive and 

 multiply." 



If we say that it is not so much the cruelty that 

 repels us, but the rank egoism of it all, then we 

 are raising a different problem, which was con- 

 sidered in connection with Huxley's contrast of 

 human and cosmic evolution. 



Or if we allow ourselves to think of the wastage 

 of individual life, we raise another problem. 

 "Admirable doubtless," Prof. D. G. Ritchie wrote, 

 "this scheme of salvation for the elect by the dam- 



