JANUARY 3 



to be a sacred thing, see what a curious dilemma we 

 are landed in ! But for fox-hunting, foxes would have 

 become as extinct as wolves in the British Isles long 

 before our day. Fox-hunting, then, actually has been 

 the means of preserving the ' sacred thing,' and tens of 

 thousands of foxes have owed their existence to this 

 typical 'blood sport.' In pheasant shooting the case 

 seems still stronger. A man decides how many birds 

 he will have in his covers the following season five 

 hundred, a thousand, five thousand, according to his 

 means and the extent of his woods. He is absolute 

 master of the ' sacred thing ' at both ends ; he can call 

 into existence as many creatures as he can pay for, 

 and put an end to their existence on a given day, 

 provided he and his friends hold straight. 



' Ah ! but,' exclaims the humanitarian, ' that is the 

 worst case of all : life is sacred, and man has no right 

 to call it into existence merely for his amusement.' 



Indeed ! then let it be hoped, for sake of consistency, 

 that the schoolroom of the humanitarian contains no 

 little girls who delight in mating canary birds, of which 

 the offspring are condemned to life-long imprisonment. 



Be it noted that I am not discussing at present the 

 ultimate or immediate effect on human morals of playing 

 with life creating or destroying it but whether life is 

 a thing with which a man may play in that manner 

 without infringing the abstract moral law. One of the 

 most plausible points in the humanitarian argument is 

 that it is unlawful so to play with it : and it is a point, 

 in my judgment, far more worthy of consideration 



