170 A MORAL INFERENCE. 



we imagine that He whose "mercy is over all his works," 

 would do other than protect by a shield of comparative ob- 

 tuseness that innumerable multitude of living things, which, 

 from their numbers and minuteness, often also in the seeming 

 end of their creation (that of affording food for others), are 

 exposed to continual mutilation, as well as violent destruction. 

 Were it otherwise, independently of what they would endure 

 from other agencies, of what an infinity of insect suffering 

 should we daily, hourly, minutely, be the involuntary cause ! 

 Not a summer ramble could we take not a flower could we 

 pluck not a fruit or vegetable eat without exacting from 

 agonised multitudes a penalty for each enjoyment. Thought 

 too horrible to be a just one'! 



Conclude, however, what we may, it must still be admitted, 

 that unless we could for a season be conscious tenants of an 

 insect tabernacle, it is impossible to say exactly how, or how 

 much an insect tenant feels on being summoned, vainly or 

 otherwise, to give up its habitation ; and since on this point 

 a shade of uncertainty must ever rest, we are bound to give 

 our little fellow-beings all the benefit of the doubt, and ex- 

 tend even to them, as much as in us lies, the protection of 

 our golden rule. 



Children are almost always disposed to the commission of 

 acts of cruelty ; but only in most cases from ignorance or want 

 of thought ; for there is, we believe, in every unperverted 

 mind a natural repugnance to the taking of the life we cannot 



