vindicate the beneficence of Nature, that we should be able to shew that all living things, noxious and innocuous, are useful to man.

Beasts of prey and venomous snakes are chargeable with destructive propensities which every year occasion the loss of several thousands of human lives, nor am I aware of any directly extenuating circumstances, or beneficial services, which might be alleged in their behalf. Indirectly, every object of knowledge must be of some service to man. Nature, however, wholly discountenances the idea that man is the sole object of the creation. He fills the most exalted place in the visible world. His position is sui generis; and so far as the intelligent appreciation of the order and meaning of Nature is concerned, without man there might as well be no life at all on the earth. Man is at the head of all, but he is not the solitary final cause of all.

Some may regard this conclusion as of too remote a character to be of much real importance. To myself it seems rather to be the substance underlying all moral inferences reasonably to be derived from Nature. Man, assumed to be the end and object of all, must look on the facts of Nature as either loyal or treasonable towards himself. His interests may not be in common with those of his surroundings. Circumstances, kind towards them, may appear unjust towards him; or, cruel towards them, may appear kind to him. It is only by recognising his place in Nature as a part of a great united whole that man can regard the teachings of Nature as trustworthy.

Man may not require that some of his race should annually be torn in pieces by tigers, or perish from the bites of rattlesnakes, without these creatures having to make any recompense to him, in order to teach him that they owe him no fealty. But it is possible to conceive of a state of things so invariably favourable to man as to suggest the flattering

notion that his interests alone are consulted in natural arrangements. And, in point of fact, so generally kind and useful is Nature towards him, that he not unfrequently makes this mistake, loses his temper, and abuses Nature without measure, whenever facts do not run smoothly with his pretensions.

In passing on to enquire whether any indications of cruelty in Nature are to be found amongst creatures inferior to man, it is proper for me to acknowledge the extreme value of Mr. Darwin's theory as forming a connecting link between an almost innumerable array of facts, which would otherwise. have to be considered, each on its own merits, a task well nigh impossible. Whether the theory of "natural selection," or "the battle of life," be sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, or not, it affords the only ascertained basis of operation available for our purpose.

The battle of life. The first impression made upon my own mind by the perusal and reperusal of Mr. Darwin's work on the origin of species, soon after it was first published, was very painful. It was indeed almost like listening to the knell of the departed joys of Nature. Flowers seem to flaunt their colours in pride of victory; and the very songs of the birds were truculent. A great discovery had no doubt been made; but many minds at the time felt, and there are those who continue to feel, that something had been taken from the aspect of Nature, the loss of which it was impossible not to deplore.

The question for the present day may be - Is there compensation? I think so. That which has been lost may be compared with our delight when, as children, the coppice with its bluebells and the honeysuckle in the lane were to us as true joys and blossoms of Paradise. That which has been gained is an intellectual gratification of the highest kind, but

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withal very grave. Under the new light Nature keeps no holidays. Birds and flowers are working for their lives when they warble or look pretty; and the light-hearted merry laugh finds no response "in the goode green woode when mavis and merle are singing." Under the absolute control of "natural selection," Nature is not cruel or mournful or melancholy, but only extremely business-like. Perhaps this may be the true aspect of life. I think not. There is an alternative. Perhaps, in recognising the battle of life, we see only one side of a great truth; and it may happen that with more perfect vision the gaiety of Nature may reappear.

That the battle of life does not increase the whole amount of suffering in the case of animals, seems to be sufficiently plain. The death of the victim that becomes the prey of some stronger or more subtle animal is attended by less pain than if the creature had lived to be destroyed by the infirmities of old age. Of what may be termed the natural death of wild animals very little is known; for the most part they disappear. But in the case of man's faithful companions, the dog and the horse, it is often felt to be an act of mercy, when extreme old age approaches, to accelerate death by some expeditious method. A trying thing it is to give the necessary order for the fatal shot that is to end the sufferings of an attached companion, brute only in name, that for years may have had no joy but in his master's service, nor any reward like that of his master's notice and word of praise. It is still more trying for the master to do the deed himself, lest the hand of an indifferent executioner should prolong even for a moment the passing struggle. Yet so clear is the merciful character of the act that it has often been thus done. Man, at no little cost to himself, out of love and mercy, does just what Nature does by the battle of life, only in the latter case, not the weakness of old age alone, but every infirmity and inferiority is taken into account.

In the millions of living things, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, that are devoured every day, the painful end is very short, and is limited to a duration which bears no comparison with the days or years of the previous enjoyment of life. For, notwithstanding their constant liability to the attacks of enemies, the tenants of the land and of the water, with few exceptions, pass their lives in unsuspecting enjoyInstead of sending forth her children to spend their lives ever harassed by painful apprehensions, Nature weaves for them a protective mantle of mimicry; and weak things wear their fears, in manifold broidery of plumage and hair and scale, upon their backs instead of in their hearts.

ment.

No one can reasonably doubt that much beauty of form and colour in animals has been developed through the exigencies of self-preservation. Captain Harris, who was almost the first to explore the wide plains in the interior of Africa, populated by vast herds of ruminant animals, together with fierce carnivora, describes the intense admiration with which he beheld for the first time some of the antelope tribe previously unknown to science. A biologist would tell us that the clear liquid eye of the springbok, in imitation of which the Egyptian lady stains the roots of her eyelashes with kohl, expresses an extreme need of watchfulness; that the conspicuously variegated skin of the animal enables it, even in the confusion of hasty flight, to recognise at a distance other individuals of its own kind and herd; that its outline is clear and fine as that of a racehorse, because a single ungainly pound of flesh must bring certain destruction upon the laggard animal when the crafty foe springs from his ambush upon the affrighted herd. The springbok is a beautiful creature; but the leopard and the lion have done their share in rendering it so... Perhaps natural beauty in any creature is seldom more willingly admired than when an angler, after a keenly contested struggle, fairly succeeds in

laying his fresh-run salmon of twenty pounds beside him on the green turf. Yet its lines owe something of their fineness to the destructive propensities of the otter. I see no cruelty here; it is better that inferior forms should have been killed off.

It has been alleged that Nature disposes all her arrangements for the benefit of the species, but cares not for the individual; does, in fact, unsparingly sacrifice the individual for the good of the species. There must be some misapprehension here. A species has no existence except as an aggregate of individuals; and the good of the species must mean the good of its constituents. Inferior forms in any species or race, so long as they exist, have all the advantages of which they are capable; and it is no hardship to them that their successors may be superior to themselves. Except in cases of degeneration, every animal or plant enjoys its position through the operation of long ages of development; suppose it destined to be supplanted-to the extent of its capacity as an individual-it has been befriended by Nature.

Self-sacrifice in Nature. For the sake of replying to a friendly criticism on this point, I may ask permission to quote a short passage from Notes by a Field Naturalist in the Western Tropics, referring to a wild forest road in the island of Dominica :

"The scene may be regarded as a battle-field of life; the strong crushing the weak, with no exemption from the common lot allowed even for the noblest or most beautiful of forms. Such an interpretation of Nature would be superficial and unworthy. Life and death thus intermingled are, in fact, a most impressive illustration of the greatest of all truths-that in Nature nothing lives or exists for its own sake alone. The noble tree strangled and at length borne down by the noxious parasite, and the delicate fern or moss eaten by the cankerworm, have no untimely, no ignoble end. In their witness to a law involving partial evil, but securing universal good, in no very remote sense they are martyrs, and fulfil a destiny higher even than the exhibition of their own perfect and unsoiled beauty."