404 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



The Evolution of Pain 



Taking it then as certain that the whole world-process is as 

 it is, because it is the only method that could have succeeded, 

 or that if there were alternative methods this was the best, let 

 us ascertain what cojiclusions necessarily follow from it. And, 

 first, we see that the whole cosmic process is based upon funda- 

 mental existences, properties, and forces, the visible results of 

 which we term the '' laws of nature,'' and that, in the organic 

 world at all events, these laws bring about continuous develop- 

 ment, on the whole progressive. One of the subsidiary results 

 of this mode of development is, that no organ, no sensation, no 

 faculty arises before it is needed, or in a greater degree than 

 it is needed. This is the essence of Darwinism. Hence we 

 may be sure that all the earlier forms of life possessed the 

 minimum of sensation required for the purposes of their short 

 existence ; that anything approaching to what we term '' pain " 

 was imknown to them. Thev had certain functions to fulfil 

 which they carried out almost automatically, though there was 

 no doubt a difference of sensation just enough to cause them to 

 act in one way rather than another. And as the whole purpose 

 of their existence and rapid increase was that they should pro- 

 vide food for other somewhat higher forms — in fact, to be 

 eaten — there was no reason whatever whv that kind of death 

 should have been painful to them. They could not avoid it, 

 and were not intended to avoid it. It may even have been not 

 only absolutely painless but slightly pleasurable — a sensation 

 of warmth, a quiet loss of the little consciousness they had, 

 and nothing more — " a sleep and a forgetting." 



People will not keep always in mind that pain exists in the 

 world for a purpose, and a most beneficent purpose — that of 

 aiding in the preservation of a sufficiency of the higher and 

 more perfectly organised forms, till they have reproduced their 

 hind. This being the case, it is almost as certain as anything 

 not personally known can be, that all animals which breed very 

 rapidly, which exist in vast numbers, and which are necessarily 



