no THE WORLD OF LIFE 



migtit possibly lead to its death before it could either leave 

 offspring or serve as food to some higher form — only then 

 could pain have any use or meaning. 



I have now endeavoured, very roughly, to follow out this 

 principle to its logical results, which are, that only in the higher 

 and larger members of the highest vertebrates — mammals and 

 birds, do the conditions exist which render acute sensations of 

 pain necessary, or even serviceable. Only in the most highly 

 organised, such as dogs and horses, cattle, antelopes, and deer, 

 does there appear to be any need for acute sensations of pain, 

 and these are almost certainly, for reasons already given, very 

 much less than ours. The logical conclusion is, therefore, that 

 they only suffer a very moderate amount of pain from such 

 bodily injuries as they are subject to in a state of nature. 



I have already shown that in most cases, even from our much 

 higher standard, their death would be rapid and almost pain- 

 less ; whence it follows, that the widespread idea of the cruelty 

 of nature is almost wholly imaginary. It rests on the false 

 assumption that the sensations of the lower animals are neces- 

 sarily equal to our own, and takes no account whatever of these 

 fundamental principles of evolution which almost all the critics 

 profess to accept. 



There is, of course, a large body of facts which indicate that 

 whole classes of animals, though very highly organised, suffer 

 nothing which can be called pain, as in the insects ; and similar 

 facts show us that even the highest warm-blooded animals suffer 

 very much less than we do. But my argument here does not 

 depend upon any such evidence, but on the universally accepted 

 doctrine of evolution through adaptation. According to that 

 theory, it is only life-preserving variations, qualities, or faculties 

 that have survival value: pain is one of the most important of 

 these for us, but it is by no means so important to any other 

 animal, ^o other animal needs the pain-sensations that we 

 need; it is therefore absolutely certain that no other possesses 

 such sensations in more than a fractional degree of ours. What 



