Oct. 26, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



25i 



life," is a rule established rather than shaken by exceptions 

 and the attention directed to such exceptions. Yet the 

 mere fact that life is foiight for by all, and that the struggle 

 for life has been so potent a factor in the development of 

 life, does not in itself prove life to Vje an actual good. Death 

 comes not alone. To creatures full of life Death comes in 

 company with Pain and Suffering. It may be these which 

 move all living creatures to struggle for life, and not mere 

 fear of Death. 



Now, to the question, Is life worth living ? it would 

 be impossible to give an answer that would suit all. 

 Probably there have not been two human beings since the 

 world was made who, could they express their precise 

 opinion on this point, would give precisely the same answer. 

 Many whose whole lives have been full of sorrow and 

 trouble, who have had occasion many times to say that 

 man was Ijorn to sorrow, would yet, even taking survey of 

 their own sad lives, say, — Life is sweet. That many whose 

 own lives have been bitter enough, think yet that life is 

 sweet, is shown by this that among them have been found 

 those who have done most to foster the lives of others. 

 But many of them would say that life is sweet, speaking 

 even from their own experience of life. And on the other 

 hand many who are held by those around them to have had 

 little sorrow, who from childhood to old age have scarce 

 ever known pain or suffering, who have had more than 

 their fill of the pleasures of life, and have escaped the 

 usual share of life's afflictions, would speak of life as dull 

 and dreary if not bitter. It has been indeed from such men 

 that the doubting cry has come. Is life worth living 1 Men 

 of more varied experience would give other answers to that 

 vain question. All answers indeed must be as idle as the 

 question itself. Yet most men would give the answer 

 which says most for tlie pleasantness of life, — that, as a 

 whole, life is neither bitter nor sweet, neither sharp nor 

 cloying, but that it " has all the charm in bitter-sweetness 

 found." 



We are not concerned, however, to inquire what is the 

 true answer to the question. Is life worth living t Though 

 it is clear that if life is not worth living the observed 

 action of evolution has been unfortunate, and the result- 

 ing laws of conduct are a mistake, while the reverse must 

 be held if on the whole life is well worth living, yet so 

 far as our suV>Ject of inquiry is concerned, it matters not 

 wliich view we take. That which is common to both 

 views is all we have to consider. The man who holds 

 that life is worth living, so thinks because he believes that 

 the pleasures of life on the whole outweigh its pains and 

 sorrows. The man who holds that life is not worth 

 living does so because he thinks that the pains and 

 sorrows of life outweigh its pleasures. So much is true 

 independently of all ideas as to what are the real pleasures 

 or the real pains of life, or whether life here is most to be 

 consid(Ted or chiefly a future life with pleasures or pains 

 far greater in intensity and in duration than any known 

 here. 



Where or what the chief pleasures or pains of life 

 may be, when or how long endured, in no sort afi'ects the 

 conclusion that life is to be considered worth living or the 

 reverse according as happiness outvies misery or misery 

 happin(!ss, and that tlierefore the rightncss or wrongncss of 

 conduct must be Judged not by its direct action on life and 

 the fulness of life but by its indirect influence in in- 

 creasing or diminishing the totality of happiness. To<iuote 

 again the words of the grc:it teacher who is so often mis- 

 quoted and so much misunderstood : — 



" There is no escape; from the admission that in calling 

 good the conduct which subserves life, and bad the conduct 

 which hinders or destroys it, and in so implying that life is 



a blessing and not a curse, we are inevitably asserting that- 

 conduct is good or bad according as its total* eflTects are 

 pleasurable or painful." 



(To he continued.) 



THE FISHERIES EXHIBITION, 



By John Ernest Ady. 



r|"^HE next groups of organisms which claim our atten- 

 L tion are those which come under the zoological class 

 Aclinozoa. These animals comprise the sea-anemones, the 

 corals, and the delicate pelagic C lenophora. All these 

 orders are well represented in the Exhibition. We refer 

 the reader to Mr. Kimber's papers in this journal for a 

 brief sketch of the structure f and a detailed account of 

 some of the beautiful sea-anemones X which form a most 

 attractive feature of the aquarium tanks. 



To Mr. Kimber's description of the structure of a sea 

 anemone it may be added that when the body is examined 

 minutely with the microscope, it is found to consist of two 

 layers, as in the llydrozoa,\\ viz., the ectoderm and 

 endoderiii, and that between these comes a third layer or 

 mesodi-rni, which gives rise to the bands of muscular 

 fibres, itc. 



The sea-anemones are typical of the whole order 

 Actinozoa in all essential particulars; but more strictly 

 are they types of a particular group termed the " Helian- 

 thoid Polypes," or Ilexacoralla. They are so-called because 

 of the disposition of their soft parts, tentacles, A'c, in 

 multiples of six, but occasionally of five. The members 

 of the section appropriated by Mr. Kimber are all soft 

 polypes — that is, they seldom possess any skeleton, and 

 where one does exist it obtains in the form of a spurious 

 arrangement (of scattered spicules). They are almost 

 invariably simple, although compound species do exist, as 

 in our old commensal friend the Falytlioa on the glass-rope 

 sponge, and in Zodnthus. They usually have a base by 

 which they attach themselves to foreign objects, but 

 //i/anthus and others lead a free existence. 



The vast majority of the compound sea- anemones, how- 

 ever, secrete a skeleton, and these skeletons are popularly 

 known as corals. Now, corals are of two kinds, and these 

 are so very dillerent from each other that they may be dis- 

 tinguished and separated at a glance. Imagine a group of- 

 sea-anemones united to each other by their bases, so as to 

 form a compound, stem-like structure. The connnon tlesl>, 

 which is the bond of union of the separate polypes (as each 



* I have ventured to emphasise this word (tliough the emphasis 

 is not necessary for the ordinarily attentive), .simply because so 

 many have either actually misunderstood Jlr. Spencer's sayinfr 

 here, or else have pretended to do so. The word emphasised makes 

 the saying not only true but (as it was intended to be) obviously 

 true. Jlr. Spencer is hero purposely stating a truism, or what 

 ought to bo a truism. No matter what a man's doctrine in religious 

 mattens may be, no matter what his views as to a future state, tin- 

 saying above quoted is absolutely true. It is true in small matters 

 as well as in great. By overlooking the word " total," or by 

 treating the saying as though for the word "total" the word 

 " immediate" might honestly be substituted, the saying expresses 

 wluit Carlylo contemptuously called pig-pliilosopliy ; but Spencer's 

 actual saying is about as remote from pig-philosophy as any teaching 

 well ('onld be. It inculcates a philosophy more truly regardful of 

 self tlian the sheerest egoism, more justly and beneficently regardfnl 

 of others than the purest altruism. 



+ See Knowledge, July 13, 1883, p. 22, et scq. 



X See KNOWLEnQE, pp. 89, 115, 187, 214. 



\\ See Knowledge, p. 180, et seq. 



