JUSTICE AND ANGER 



HE old writer who spoke of our fellow 

 mortals as " the gentle beasts who know 

 not lust nor anger " was a more accurate 

 observer than are the most of men. Even 

 now-a-days when science calls nothing 

 common or unclean, and humanity is not 

 afraid to own its animal origin, it is fairly bewildering to 

 see how preconceived ideas due to false conceptions and 

 false observations linger in the minds of men regarding the 

 beasts that perish. 



To lead a " cat and dog life," to " fight like wild beasts," 

 to have a " black dog on your back," all these, and many 

 another saying of the sort, point to the general belief that 

 animals are quarrelsome. Now, as a matter of fact, there is 

 more needless ill-temper and provoking self-assertion dis- 

 played in a square yard of village street than there is in a 

 square acre of the surrounding woods and fields where the 

 cattle and the birds and the beasts go about their several 

 occupations with a singular serenity and indifference to the 

 presence of their kind. 



Even if we revert from Anger to Justice, and accept 

 Cicero's definition that it " consists in doing no injury to 

 others " and " in conforming to recognised law," it still 



