DEGREES OF ANIMAL SENSITIVENESS. 13 



AMICUS. Unless so well authenticated, I 

 could not have believed it. 



PISCATOR. Considering the predatory habits of 

 fish, how subject they are to accidents, this low 

 degree of sensitiveness has no doubt been kindly 

 and wisely bestowed on them. We are too apt 

 to reason from our own feelings concerning the 

 feelings of other animals, and thereby make 

 great mistakes. Different races of animals are 

 certainly endowed with different degrees of 

 feeling ; we have a rough criterion of the degree 

 in the nervous system of each. Shakspeare it 

 is, I think, who says 



" The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 

 And the poor beetle which we tread upon 

 In corporal suffering feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies." 



Here we have truth and error mixed, and ad- 

 mirably expressed, and most humanely. The 

 truth is, and it is most true, that the sense of 

 death is most in apprehension, dying being 

 mostly without any acute pain, a state of stupor 

 or insensibility commonly preceding it. The 

 error is, the implied idea that the insect and 

 man are equally sensitive. 



AMICUS. I am glad to hear you speak thus, 



