IS NATURE CRUEL? 405 



kept down to their average population by the agency of those 

 that feed upon them, have little sensitiveness, perhaps only a 

 slight discomfort under the most severe injuries, and that they 

 probably suffer nothing at all when being devoured. For why 

 should they ? They exist to be dt.'voured ; their enormous pow- 

 ers of increase are for this end; they are subject to no danger- 

 ous bodily injury until the time comes to be devoured, and 

 therefore they need no guarding against it through the agency 

 of pain. In this category, of painless, or almost painless ani- 

 mals, I think we may place almost all aquatic animals up to 

 fishes, all the vast hordes of insects, probably all IMollusca and 

 worms; thus reducing the sphere of pain to a minimum 

 throughout all the earlier geological ages, and very largely even 

 now. 



When we see the sharp rows of teeth in the earlier binU 

 and flying reptiles, we immediately think of the pain suffered 

 by their prey ; but the teeth were in all probability necessary 

 for seizing the smooth-scaled fishes or smaller land-reptiles, 

 which were swallowed a moment afterw^ards ; and as no useful 

 purpose would be served by the devoured suffering pain in the 

 process, there is no reason to believe that they did so suffer. 

 The same reasoning will apply to most of the smaller birds 

 and mammals. These are all so wonderfullv adjusted to their 

 environments, that, in a state of nature, they can hardly suffer 

 at all from what we teinn accidents. Birds, mice, squiiTcls, 

 and the like, do not get limbs broken by falls, as we do. They 

 leani so quickly and certainly not to go beyond their powers 

 in climbing, jumping, or flying, that they are probahly never 

 injured except by rare natural causes, such a^^ lightning, hail, 

 forest-fires, etc., or by fichtino- amono' themselves; and those 

 who are injured without being killed by thc-^e various causes 

 form such a minute fraction of the whole as to be reasonably 

 negligible. The wounds received in fighting seem to be rarely 

 serious, and the rapiditv with whidi <uch wonn<ls h(>al in a 

 state of nature shows that whatever pain exists is not long- 

 continued. 



