Justice in Death 87 



are, however, some few in the variations of temper natural 

 to animals, which have a small degree of this capacity, and 

 when it proves to be the beneficial kind of conduct, these 

 and their offspring survive, changing the inheritance of habit 

 slowly, little by little, a family slightly tame being slightly 

 encouraged and increased; and another very wild being 

 slowly crowded out by shortened lives and fewer progeny. 

 Here again death is to the individual a consequence of con- 

 duct which is unfit for its surroundings, perhaps innocently 

 because the surroundings have changed, yet by nature this 

 lack of fitness is treated in the same way as if it had been 

 the creature which had changed and had become responsibly 

 deficient. The purpose (if such a word may be used, regard- 

 ing a process like this) is beneficent and just toward the race, 

 as appears in a very few generations. Let it be noted that 

 the severity of the system is lessened in many races subject 

 to vicissitudes, by their having a quicker adaptability, a 

 quality which enables them very rapidly to expand and util- 

 ize any particular character in demand, and this process is 

 greatly helped by the short-lived fecundity which such 

 animals enjoy. 



Thus there is unfolded another principle, which is this. 

 The death which has an appearance of injustice is working 

 with other things to raise the race out of that injustice. And 

 as we study higher conduct and higher life we find the in- 

 justice getting less and less, although even the highest still 

 live under the same law. Consider such wild creatures as 

 deer. They guard and teach their young, and they produce 

 comparatively few. It is not necessary to the race that many 

 should be lost. Yet some are lost. In winter's snows, when 



