335 
iSyg.] The Spiritual in Animals . 
for example, the doCtrine of compensation, so much insisted 
on in the case of man. If a “ land of the leal ” hereafter 
be needed to atone for the inequalities of the present human 
life, the same plea may be urged also on behalf of the lower 
animals. How widely different, for example, maybe the 
respective lots of horses. One may first see the light in a 
ducal stable, more comfortable than many a human 
dwelling ; he is reared and trained with the utmost care and 
consideration, and fed on the choicest food suitable to his 
tastes ; he becomes the pet of some lady of rank, and 
knows no harder task than to carry his mistress along 
Rotten Row. Another, from no fault of his own, is foaled 
in some rude shed, grows up amidst hunger, cruelty, and 
negleCt, and before his bones and muscles are matured is 
doomed to drag a costermonger’s cart — a similar fate to that 
which modern industrialism has prepared for the limbs and 
competitive examination for the brains of the young of our 
own species. Are not the respective destinies of these two 
horses almost as unequal as those of the financier and the 
farm-labourer ? 
It may perhaps be contended that such inequalities are 
due not to Nature, but to man’s interference. Let us, 
therefore, take an animal species not under special or direCt 
human influence. Suppose any common female butterfly- 
say a Vanessa Atalanta — lays one hundred eggs. A portion 
of these never come to life at all, or are destroyed by a 
variety of causes before hatching. The remainder become 
caterpillars in due course, but very few ever reach maturity. 
Some are devoured by birds ; others are pierced by ichneu- 
mons, and slowly consumed by parasitical larvae. A few 
pass safely through their early stages of being, and come 
forth as butterflies. But here again one in the very outset 
of his career may perish in a spider’s web ; another may 
encounter its fate in the net of a collector, whilst the birds 
will not fail to secure an ample share. A very few only of 
the original hundred will live out their allotted span, find 
mates, and die finally a natural death. Is not here, also, a 
fair case made out for a hereafter to balance the capricious 
inequalities of the present ? 
In like manner we may deal with the other arguments for 
human immortality, and show their applicability to the 
lower animals. Thus orators and essayists love to enlarge 
on the unsatisfactory nature of human life. It is, they tell 
us, vain, empty, and incapable of filling our desires — a dis- 
covery which by the way is never made until health or 
strength, or at any rate elasticity and animal spirits, are 
