DESTRUCTION AND MERCY. 149 



and apparently to endure torturing pangs, by the lacerations to which they are subjected 

 by their destroyers. The reflection is a just one, and one which until late years has never 

 received a worthy answer. Endeavors were made to reconcile the Divine love with this 

 apparent cruelty, by asserting that the lower animals were endued with so low a sense 

 of pain that an injury which would inflict severest torture on a man, would cause but 

 a slight pang to the animal. Yet, as all animals are clearly sensitive to pain, and many 

 of them are known to feel it acutely, this argument has but trifling weight. Moreover, 

 the system which was insensible to pain would be equally dull to enjoyment, and thus 

 we should reduce the animal creation to a level but little higher than that of the 

 vegetables. 



The true answer is, that by some merciful and most marvellous provision the mode 

 of whose working is at present hidden, the sense of pain is driven out from the victim 

 as soon as it is seized or struck by its destroyer. The first person who seems to have 

 taken this view of the case was Livingstone, the well-known traveller, who learned the 

 lesson by personal experience. After describing an attack made upon a Lion he 

 proceeds : 



" Starting and looking half round, I saw the Lion just in the act of springing on me. 

 I was upon a little height ; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to 

 the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a 

 terrier-dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be 

 felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in 

 which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all 

 that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform, 

 describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition 

 was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no 

 sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced 

 in all animals killed by the carnivora ; and, if so, is a merciful provision by our 

 benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death." 



This fearful experience is, although most valuable, not a solitary one, and is made 

 more valuable by that very fact. I am acquainted with a similar story of an officer of 

 the Indian army, a German nobleman by birth, who, while in Bengal, was seized and 

 carried away by a tiger. He described the whole scene, in much the same language 

 as that of Livingstone, saying that as far as the bodily senses were concerned, the 

 chief sensation was that of a pleasant drowsiness, rather admixed with curiosity as to 

 the manner in which the brute was going to eat him. Only by his reasoning powers, 

 which remained unshaken, could he feel that his position was one of almost hopeless 

 danger, and that he ought to attempt escape. Perhaps, in so sudden and overwhelming 

 a shock, the mind may be startled for a time from its hold upon the nerves, and be, so 

 to speak, not at home to receive any impression from the nervous system. Many men 

 have fallen into the jaws of these fearful beasts, but very few have survived to tell 

 their tale. In the case of Livingstone, rescue came through the hands of a Hottenot 

 servant, who fired upon the Lion, and who was himself attacked by the infuriated 

 animal. In the latter instance, the intended victim owed his life to a sudden whim of 

 the tiger, which, after carrying him for some distance, threw him down, and went off 

 without him. The officer used playfully to attribute his escape to his meagre and 

 fleshless condition, which, as he said, induced the epicurean tiger to reject a dinner 

 on so lean and tough an animal as himself. 



Those who have been in action are familiar with the indifference with which the 

 severest wounds are received. There is one well-known instance of this apparent 

 insensibility to pain, which occurred in the Crimean war. An officer was stooping to 

 light his pipe at a camp-fire, when an enemy's shell plunged into the midst of the 

 embers, and exploded, knocking the pipe out of his hands. He uttered an exclamation 

 of annoyance at the loss of his pipe, unconscious that the fragments of the shell had 

 carried off several of his fingers and frightfully shattered other portions of his limbs. 

 Even in cases of natural death a similar phenomenon occurs, and those who have ex- 

 pressed, in their last illness, the most utter terror of death, meet their dreaded fate with 

 calm content welcoming death as a friend instead of fearing him as a foe. 



