DOG-GIVING 49 



fitted up with nerve-ganglia is capable of feeling pain, 

 which is a necessary consequence of the higher differentia- 

 tion of organisms on the one hand and, with fear, an 

 indispensable life-saving device on the other. Pain serves 

 both as a warning and a stimulus. But it is seldom, if 

 ever, protracted in wild nature, and where there is no 

 escape from death treading on its heels, then pain departs. 

 (See p. 94.) Disease, again, is practically unknown 

 in natural life ; it is a spectral auxiliary of man's conquests 

 over nature, and though animals are frequently enough 

 the hosts of parasites, in the majority of cases they suffer, 

 paradoxical as it may seem, very little harm from them. 

 The parasite is dangerous to health and life when it lodges 

 with a new host, viz., one which has not purchased im- 

 munity from it by a constitutional adaptation. Thirdly, 

 pain is rare in wild animal life, partly because the occa- 

 sions for it are not numerous, partly because the natural 

 process of recovery is extremely rapid, partly because it 

 is a human not an animal affliction, and, lastly, because 

 instantaneous or a mercifully swift death is the normal 

 method. Nature's slayers have been adapted through 

 millions of years to do their work without bungling, for 

 bungling spells starvation. Does not the most cursory 

 survey of animate nature impress more, brand upon 

 our minds a cardinal fact the fact of health, the health of 

 vibrantly, intensely living creatures, who are never bored 

 nor introspective, nor worried, nor embittered, nor 

 in fear of hell nor what their neighbours think 

 of them, but are so full of gladness and whole- 

 someness and sanity? It is true that domesticated 

 animals do suffer, often severely; but, where their 

 pains are not the result of cruelty or thoughtlessness on 

 the part of their owners, they suffer because they are arti- 

 ficially protected. There is short shrift for the wild 

 animal that is weakly or sickly, and by these eliminations 

 the universal health of nature has been built up. The 

 whole subject is indeed of great importance from the 



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