THE APPARENT CRUELTY OF NATURE. 269 
Such, however, does not follow at all. An instinct with an 
animal 7s an instinct pure and simple. The creature does 
what it does, not knowimg why it does it. The young 
squirrel, for example, lays up its winter store of provisions, 
with no possible knowledge that a foodless season of frost 
and snow is to follow. And if an instinct taught an animal 
more than this, it would be an instinct no longer—it would 
be reason. 
We ourselves possess the same instinct of self-preserva- 
tion, and often act upon it without the smallest thought of 
the consequences which may ensue if we do not. There is 
no time for thought ; but the instinct does its work. Clearly, 
then, the presence of that instinct in an animal does not 
necessarily imply anything beyond it; and all available 
evidence tends to show that nothing more is possessed. 
BRIEFLY to review, then, the line of my argument :— 
The lower animals, and, indeed, the vertebrates, as far at 
least as, and including, the reptiles, appear to possess no 
sense of pain whatever. And this deduction is based 
partly upon the very undeveloped character of the brain and 
the nervous system, partly upon the inference which must 
necessarily be drawn from ascertained facts. In the birds, 
the almost total absence of tactile nerves would seem to 
imply also the absence of sensitive nerves—the sensation of 
pain being only intensified touch. In the mammals, however, 
a capacity for suffermg clearly exists; but the analogy. of 
the human subject leads us to infer that even in them pain, 
when felt, must be far less in degree than that to which our 
own nervous organizations are subject, while the remarkable 
experiences of Dr. Livingstone and others seem to prove 
that predaceous animals, apparently the principal authors of 
pain in the natural world, inflict no real sufferings upon their 
victims at all. No dread of death to come, lastly, over- 
shadows an animal’s life; and, therefore, it seems only just 
and reasonable to conclude that no accusation of cruelty 
can be substantiated against Nature and Nature’s God. 
Much, on the contrary, may be said on the other side of 
the question. The law of destruction, and the incessant 
conflict waged between creatures of prey and their victims, 
practically ensures the survival of the strongest and 
healthiest forms. The slightest tendency to disease is at 
once eliminated, although by the rough surgery of the 
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