viti NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS :>4."> 



quadrupeds ; and will demonstrate that, if it was 

 intended to do anything, it must have been 

 intended to perform exactly that butcher's work 

 which it executes so well. 



On the other hand, if we prefer to say no more 

 than there is good evidence for saying, it is un- 

 questionably true that the " nature " or innate 

 tendency of the whole race of tigers is to prey on 

 other large animals, men included, inasmuch as 

 not only is their bodily and mental constitution 

 especially fitted for that operation, but since they 

 must perish if they fail to perform it. Tigers (as 

 M. Dupont says of men) are charged with their 

 own preservation under penalty of death. More- 

 over, when we inquire into the past history of 

 these predaceous animals, we find that the cats, 

 great and small, are but the last term of a long 

 series of species of animals most of which are 

 now extinct ; which have succeeded one another 

 through the tertiary epoch, therefore, for many 

 thousands, or more probably millions, of years; 

 and which, in their capacity of butchering 

 machines, have undergone a steady though slow 

 and gradual improvement, every step of which has 

 been effected at the expense of an enormous total 

 of suffering to the animals butchered. If, then, we 

 deny that tigers have a natural right to torment 

 and devour men, we really impeach, not the con- 

 duct of the tigers, but the order of nature. And 

 if we ourselves, with our notions of right and 



