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1876.] Biological Controversy and its Laws. 
be conscious of suffering, and also, under certain circum- 
stances, unconscious. We are not without grounds for 
supposing that the lower animals feel less acutely than he 
does.* But how are we to be certain that as a class they 
are always unconscious of pain ? Who has looked into the 
mind of a tortured horse or dog, and satisfied himself that it 
was unconscious of its misery, and therefore not miserable ? 
Andhowis the favoured sage who has done this wondrousthing 
to satisfy us that he has observed and interpreted aright ? Mr. 
Mivart tells us that a wasp deftly snipped in two with a pair 
of scissors, whilst sipping honey or syrup, will continue its 
banquet. We have seen an impaled dragon-fly greedily 
devour a blue-bottle presented to his jaws. The absence of 
struggle and disturbance is here taken as a proof that the 
animal does not feel. But if so, when we find a wounded 
animal writhing and screaming, may we not infer that it 
both feels and knows that it feels ? 
What of mental distress, sorrow, as distindt from bodily 
pain ? We know that this condition produces in brutes the 
very same results as in man. Dogs have been known to 
pine away and die for the loss of their masters. Female 
apes sometimes, “ sensational ” as it may seem, do not 
always recover from the effects of losing their infants. 
Birds have often drooped and died on losing their mates. A 
horse sometimes falls out of condition on parting with its 
yoke-fellow. Yet we are to believe that they are all the 
while unconscious of the distress they suffer ! In short, for 
the notion of the total unconsciousness of animals, we can 
find no valid evidence, but much against it, and must there- 
fore dismiss it to limbo as one of the many far-fetched and 
hopeless attempts to defend the “ great gulf.” 
We do not consider it legitimate to denounce any scientific 
hypothesis because some persons may find in it countenance 
for moral or social errors. But we cannot help pointing out 
that, had this unconsciousness of animals been advanced as 
a cardinal point of Darwinism, great would have been the 
outcry raised against the demoralising tendencies of modern 
science. Here, however, science pleads on the side of 
mercy, whilst Medievalism replies to every attempt to 
lighten the sufferings of domestic animals : “ No es 
Cristiano ! ” 
The whole work, despite the unquestionable ability which 
it evinces, must be pronounced disappointing-worthy, per- 
haps, of a Joseph de Maistre, but utterly unworthy of a 
* It is probable also that the lower races, or species— if we may venture to 
use the word— of mankind have less feeling than the higher. 
a b 0 
