IS NATURE CRUEL? 401 



result whatever, than by another belief, wliich admits the suiiio 

 amount of pain into one earth only, and for a limitod period, 

 while whatever pain there is only exists for the grand ])iirpose 

 of developing a race of spiritual beings, who may thereafter 

 live without physical pain — also for all eternity I Tu put it 

 shortly — they prefer the conception of a universe in which 

 pain exists perpetually and uselessly, to one in whieli the pain 

 is strictly limited, while its beneficial results are eternal! 



Xone of these writers, however, nor, so far as T know, anv 

 evolutionist, has ever gone to the root of the problem, by con- 

 sidering the very existence of pain as being one of the essential 

 factors in evolution; as having been developed in the animal 

 world for a purpose ; as being strictly subordinated to the law 

 of utility ; and therefore never developed beyond what was 

 strictly needed for the preservation of life. It is from this 

 point of view that I shall now discuss the question, and it will 

 be found that it leads us to some very important conclusions. 

 In order to do this, we must consider what were the conditions 

 of the problem when life first appeared upon the earth. 



The general facts as to the rate of increase of animals and 

 plants have been given in Chapter VII. of this work ; but even 

 these facts, remarkable as they are, seem altogether insignifi- 

 cant when compared with those of the lowest fonns of life. 

 The most startling calculation of the kind I have seen was given 

 last year in a Royal Institution lecture on The Physical Basis 

 of Life, by W. B. Hardy, F.R.S. (a Cambridge tutor), as to 

 one of the infusoria (Paramecium) much used for experiment 

 and observation on account of its comparatively large size 

 (about T^ijth inch long) and its being veiw easily procured. 

 This species multiplies by division about twice in three days, and 

 has been kept under observation thus multiplying for more 

 than 100 generations. ]N'ow it is not very difiieult to calcnlato 

 what quantity of Paramecia would be produced in any given 

 number of generations, and what space they would occupy. 

 Xo non-mathematical person can imagine or will Wieve the 

 result. It is, that if the conditions were such (ns regards 



