414 THE WOELD OE LIFE 



ised, though it is usually a different kind of unhealthiness. 

 The only doctrine on this matter worthy of an evolutionist, or 

 of a believer in God, is that health of body and of mind are 

 the only natural safeguards against disease; and that securing 

 the conditions for such health for every individual is the one 

 and only test of a true civilisation. 



A few words in conclusion on the main question of pain in 

 the animal world. In my treatment of the subject I believe I 

 have given imnecessary weight to those appearances by which 

 alone we judge of pain in the lower animals. I feel sure that 

 those appearances are often deceptive, and that the only true 

 guide to the evolutionist is a full and careful consideration of 

 the amount of necessity there exists in each group for pain- 

 sensation to have been developed in order to preserve the young 

 from common dangers to life and limb before they have reached 

 full maturity. It is exactly the same argument as I have made 

 use of in discussing the question of how mxuch colour-sense can 

 have been developed in mammals or in butterflies. In both 

 cases it depends fundamentally on utilities of life-saving value 

 as required for the continuance of the race. Hitherto the prob- 

 lem has never been considered from this point of view, the only 

 one for the evolutionist to adopt. Hence the ludicrously exag- 

 gerated view adopted by men of such eminence and usually 

 of such calm judgment as Huxley — a view almost as far re- 

 moved from fact or science as the purely imaginary and 

 humanitarian dogma of the poet: 



The poor beetle, that we tread upon, 



In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 



As when a giant dies. 



Whatever the giant may feel, if the theory of evolution is 

 true, the '' poor beetle " certainly feels an almost irreducible 

 minimum of pain, probably none at all. 



