CARNARIA. CARNIVORA. 75 



beasts advance in the accumulation of corporeal 

 means of destruction, they should recede in those 

 intellectual qualifications which might otherwise be 

 made the means of devastating the creation, while 

 they are the less necessary for their individual pre- 

 servation." * The season of activity allotted to car- 

 nivorous animals, is no less an instance of beneficent 

 providence. Were their ravages committed during 

 the day, how much greater would be the destruction 

 of human life ! But in the present constitution, the 

 one sleeping while the other wakes, the sacrifice of 

 man to the carnivorous brutes becomes an event of 

 comparatively infrequent occurrence. 



It has been demanded, Why were animals so rapa- 

 cious and destructive, created ? and the answer has 

 been somewhat complacently given, To keep down 

 the vast herds of ruminating animals, which other- 

 wise would destroy " every green herb." To the 

 question, Why are the herbivorous animals endowed 

 with powers of increase so far exceeding the wants 

 of man? the answer is equally ready; To supply 

 food for the carnivorous races. In other words the 

 antelope is useful to feed the lion ; and the lion is 

 no less useful to eat up the antelope. This rea- 

 soning is somewhat childish. The very question ap- 

 pears to originate in false principles. We are so 

 apt to take for granted that God had in view man's 

 convenience and welfare alone in forming this world, 

 that when we meet with any laws which appear 

 independent of, or even opposed to, his interest, we 

 * E. T. Bennett. 



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