22 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



torturing any creature, even a fly. Eemember God 

 made the fly as well as you. He made it beautiful, 

 and cares for it, and meant it to be happy, and it was 

 happy, but you have tortured it and killed it. Go and 

 remember that life is God's gift, and it displeases Him 

 to take it away wantonly." 



It was no doubt in great measure owing to this 

 tender regard for life in every creature however humble, 

 to his intense love of the lower animals, and to the 

 high estimate which close observation and study led 

 him to form of their intelligence and reasoning powers, 

 that he could never adopt the belief that " the spirit of 

 the beast that goeth downward," passeth to annihilation. 

 He was wont to marshal a long array of very strong 

 argument and cogent reasons in support of the theory 

 of their immortality, held also by many other able and 

 good men. 



I find the following note in his commonplace book, 

 written on the occasion of the death of an old and 

 favourite cat : " Two days ago my poor cat died 

 suddenly from rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs. 

 A finer, nobler animal of the kind never lived, twelve 

 or thirteen years old, in high plight. In enduring 

 affection to me, in sagacity, he was superior to most 

 dogs, and most useful as a mouser. I never had an 

 attachment for any animal so strong as for him, and 

 still to-day I can't get him out of my mind. I am 

 perfectly dull and distressed. Our regret at the loss of 

 a favourite of the lower animals is unalloyed by any 

 speck of moral evil, and by the uncertainty we are in as 



