THREE-TOED SLOTH. 153 



drag themselves up a tree with much labour and 

 pain : their cry and interrupted accents they dare 

 only utter during the night. All these circum- 

 stances announce the misery of the Sloths, and 

 recal to our minds those defective monsters, those 

 imperfect sketches of nature, which, being hardly 

 endowed with the faculty of existence, could not 

 subsist for any length of time, and have accord- 

 ingly been struck out of the list of beings. If 

 the regions inhabited by the Sloths were not de- 

 sert, but had been long occupied by men and the 

 larger animals, these species would never have de- 

 scended to our times ; but would have been anni- 

 hilated, as in some future period will be the case. 

 We formerly remarked, that eveiy thing that pos- 

 sibly could be did really exist : of which the Sloths 

 are a striking example. They constitute the last 

 term of existence in the order of animals endowed 

 with flesh and blood. One other defect added to 

 the number would have totally prevented their 

 existence. To regard those bungled sketches as 

 beings equally perfect with others, to call in the 

 aid of final causes to account for such dispropor- 

 tioned productions, and to make Nature as bril- 

 liant in these as in her most beautiful animals, is 

 to view her through a narrow tube, and to substi- 

 tute our own fancies for her intentions. Why 

 should not some animals be created for misery, 

 since in the human species the greatest number of 

 individuals are devoted to pain from the moment 

 of their existence? Evil, it is true, proceeds more 

 from ourselves than from Nature. For a single 



