246 THE IMMORTALITY OF ANIMALS 



the defenseless, a cowardly action, and he gratifies 

 his malignity, a fiendish principle of joy. 



It is impossible for any one unless he is insensible 

 as a stone to the sight of suffering, or wilfully shuts 

 his eyes to the truth, to doubt for one moment the 

 appalling statement, that man by his cruelty, and 

 oppression, and injustice, has made himself the 

 enemy of the whole animal creation. Why is it 

 that almost every creature, with instinctive horror, 

 shuns the approach of man ? Is it not because the 

 creature has been made to feel that man is his 

 enemy, and that he is cruelly dealt with when he 

 falls into man's hands ? 



It is related that when Prof. J. D. Dana, the 

 great naturalist, was on his voyage in the South 

 Pacific seas, he landed on one of the coral islands 

 which had never before been visited by man. 



" He went ashore in the early morning, and be- 

 held a scene of tropic loveliness, brilliant with 

 beauty and abounding in life. A great flock of 

 tall, white birds was on the beach, and as he 

 walked towards them they looked at him with no 

 fear and with nothing but a gentle curiosity. 



" They never had been frightened by powder and 

 the deadly sting of the bullet. They knew nothing 



