484 Life and Immortality. 
are indestructible, as far as we know, it is difficult to believe 
that the span which gives to their union life, memory, 
affection, intelligence and fidelity is evanescent. 
“Every atom in the human frame, as well as in that of ani- 
mals, undergoes a periodical change by continual waste and 
renovation: the abode is changed, not its inhabitant. If 
animals have no future, the existence of many is most wretched. 
Multitudes are starved, cruelly beaten, and loaded during 
life; many die under a barbarous vivisection. 
“T cannot believe that any creature was created for 
uncompensated misery: it would be contrary to the attri- 
butes of God's mercy and justice. I am sincerely happy to 
find that I am not the only believer in the immortality of the 
lower animals.” 
To have given the many opinions that have been expressed 
by the good and wise of the past in favor of the belief that 
animals received, in common with man, a particle of the 
divine essence, and hence became immortal, would have 
extended this chapter beyond intended limits. We have 
room for just another witness. No one is better known for 
his convictions upon this subject than the late Dr. Wood, 
whose contributions to natural history are known the world 
over. Speaking of the death of his dog Rory, a creature 
that manifested in the flesh the strongest affection for his 
keeper, the Doctor says :— 
“T could not believe that an animal which would die of 
grief, as he died, for the absence of his master, would have his 
existence limited to this present world, and that such inten- 
sity of love should terminate at the same moment that the 
material heart ceased to beat.” 
When we think of the apparent inequality that is every- 
where to be seen in the lives both of man and beast, we can- 
not believe, as Mrs. Somerville has remarked, that any being 
was ‘created for uncompensated misery.” Some human 
beings are endowed with everything that a man can desire— 
health, strength, riches, accomplishments and capacity for 
