518 
KEPLY TO MR. W. C. SPOONER’S PAPER 
immortal; are they to exist hereafter in the body or in the spirit 1 
If the former, where is the material to be found in the globe for cre¬ 
ating afresh all the lions and tigers, elephants, mastodons, and me¬ 
gatheriums, that have ever existed—to say nothing of the ante¬ 
lopes and the buffaloes innumerable, on which the former animals 
subsisted 1 Where are these large beasts to stand 1 How are they 
to move 1 What are they to live upon 1 They themselves have, 
ages since, been converted into food for vegetables, these vegetables 
into pabula for animals; and these again, perhaps, have become food 
for man; and thus the circle has been moving round, and the 
same mass of matter, whether it be carbon, or hydrogen, or oxygen, 
has probably, since the creation of the world, been the food of hun¬ 
dreds of plants, as well as animals, and consequently could never 
satisfy such numerous claimants, if animals were again to appear 
in the body. This, therefore, is out of the question; it must be 
their spirits only that are meant.” 
Why, Sir, if this argument is of any service to your cause, the 
doctrine of the immortality of man is shaken to its very base, and 
all the doctrines of morality and religion are at the mercy of the 
winds: our morality is imposture, our religion is hypocrisy, since 
it must be very evident that the same objections apply to ourselves. 
And here you have actually given me, although unconsciously, a 
strong argument in favour of animal restoration. Many of the 
mammalia eat the flesh of others; wolves and men eat sheep, and 
lions and tigers prey indiscriminately, not only on many of the 
animals of the desert, but even on us, the self-styled lords of the 
creation; and they, you are aware, have been known to frequently 
devour each other. Now, carry out your argument, and ask where 
the mass of matter is to be found to clothe these cannibals withal 1 
The system of living nature is all too mighty in its extent, and 
too wonderful in all its parts, to suppose, even for a moment, that 
the purpose for which men or wolves were created was that they 
might eat a sheep, any more than the purpose for which lions and 
tigers were created was that they might devour men and other 
weaker animals. This would be but a sorry conclusion; and, yet, 
if we look no further than mere matter in the utmost perfection of 
the organization of animals, this is the only conclusion at which 
we can arrive. And if we come only thus prepared, and proceed 
only thus far, the cui bono 1 will stand up like a lion in our path, 
and demand of us, “ Wherefore all this display of wisdom, of 
power, and of goodness, which bears the indelible and unconceala- 
ble impress of divinity upon its every step, if the ultimatum to be 
reached is nothing more than the feeding of a ravenous beast in 
the wilderness]” 
Nay, with such views, we find the racer breaks down with us 
