376 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



useful purpose would be served by the devoured suffering 

 pain in the process, there is no reason to believe that they 

 did so suffer. 



The same reasoning will apply to most of the smaller 

 birds and mammals. These are all so wonderfully adjusted 

 to their environments, that, in a state of nature, they can 

 hardly suffer at all from what we term accidents. Birds, 

 mice, squirrels, and the like, do not get limbs broken by 

 falls, as we do. They learn so quickly and certainly not to 

 go beyond their powers in climbing, jumping, or flying, that 

 they are probably never injured except by rare natural 

 causes, such as lightning, hail, forest-fires, etc., or by fighting 

 among themselves ; and those who are injured without being 

 killed by these various causes form such a minute fraction of 

 the whole as to be reasonably negligible. The wounds 

 received in fighting seem to be rarely serious, and the rapidity 

 with which such wounds heal in a state of nature shows that 

 whatever pain exists is not long-continued. 



It is only the large, heavy, slow-moving mammals which 

 can be subject to much accidental injury in a state of nature 

 from such causes as rock-falls, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, 

 or falling trees ; and in these cases by far the larger portion 

 would either escape unhurt or would be killed outright, so 

 that the amount of pain suffered would, in any circumstances, 

 be small ; and as pain has been developed for the necessary 

 purpose of safeguarding the body from often - recurring 

 dangers, not from those of rare occurrence, it need not be 

 very acute. Perhaps self-mutilation, or fighting to the death, 

 are the greatest dangers which most wild animals have to be 

 guarded against ; and no very extreme amount of pain would 

 be needed for this purpose, and therefore would not have 

 been produced. 



But it is undoubtedly not these lesser evils that have 

 led to the outcry against the cruelty of nature, but almost 

 wholly what is held to be the widespread existence of 

 elaborate contrivances for shedding blood or causing pain 

 that are seen throughout nature the vicious-looking teeth 

 and claws of the cat-tribe, the hooked beak and prehensile 

 talons of birds of prey, the poison fangs of serpents, the 

 stings of wasps, and many others. The idea that all these 



