6 IS ANIMAL LIFE SACRED ? 



provided for the baby bee, goes asleep in the form of 

 a chrysalis or pupa ; and, finally, emerging a full-grown 

 oil-beetle, crawls forth to seek a mate and begin a 

 fresh chapter in the sordid history of its race. 



Now what does all this suggest ? Does it not appear 

 that if life were really a ' sacred thing ' in a sense above 

 other natural forces, such as light and electricity, the 

 Designer of Nature would not have flung it about in 

 this contemptuous haphazard way? Would He not 

 have devised some means for perpetuating the race of 

 oil-beetles without such a prodigious rate of mortality ? 

 And what curious problems present themselves about 

 the life by which we set such store ! Is material 

 human life the same in essence as that of oil-beetles 

 and foxes and pheasants ? If not, where is the line to 

 be drawn ? To those who like to imagine human life 

 as something higher in kind, as well as in degree, than 

 that of the beasts of the field, it is a discouraging 

 thought that each is subject to similar influences, 

 depends equally on regular nourishment, endures each 

 its allotted span. It does not require proficiency in 

 the researches of Malthus to prove that men and 

 women multiply up to the limits of food supply with 

 as much certainty as mites in cheese or elephants in 

 a jungle. Is food plentiful in any given district? 

 There society will flourish and abound, to melt away as 

 soon as there is sign of shrinkage. 



And there, for the present, must be left this knotty 

 question. 



