The suburban citizen., 1900-05-05

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position it was found that every step
was stained with blood That life
was war and suffering the common lot
of all; that animals preyed upon plants
aud mau upon animals and bacteria
upon man, cycle Of suffering; that
every species was an Ishmael; that
birds and butterflies were not the care
less, joyous things the poet thought
them, living only for beauty and pleas
ure, but were engaged in terrible
struggle for existence; that the
song of birds was war-cry aud the
adornment of the butterfly was merely
war-paint. It was found that there
was an awful waste in nature, waste
of time, waste of work, waste of life.
OF q million seeds sown by the wind
only one lived. A thousand eggs we're
cast upon the waters to produce one
fish. A hundred men labor and
sweat that one might rise. 1t was an
awful revelation that of science fifty
years ago. No wonder that it drove
men insane; made them pessimists,
atheists. If science had stopped here
it would have been 4 gospel of des-
pair.
But it did not stop; another step
changed it to a gospel of hope. 1t was
discovered that this suffering, that
looked to casual glance like an i'm
piedmont to progress, was really its
cause; that pain was the handspring
of the universe; that war was the
mother of all things, as the Greek bad
said long ago; that the rod of affliction
was the modelling tool by which God
created all living things; that there
could have been no happiness now if
there had been no suffering in the
past; that Joy is the offspring of sor-
row, out of war. comes peace and
through death comes life. This
changed the whole view. 1t put op-
timism in the place Of pessimism. Man
could see the uses OF adversely.
There was q time when there was
no suffering in the world. But TINT
was when there was no life; when the
earth was without form and void and
darkness was upon the face OF the
deep. With life came suffering, and
increased with it. Progress may be
defined as increase in the capacity for
suffering. A stonagdoes not feel pain,
probably plant does. Ancient ami
mails suffered less than their descend
ants. The gigantic saurians that used
to creep across the Rocky Mountain
plains were as big as a house, but
their brains could have been put into
tea cup. Not much chance fer pain
there. And finally man came, a crea-
ture built upon a new and improved
plan; but his chief endowment was
that he was able to suffer more. Sew
eral new kinds of suffering were in
vented expressly for him. He alone
of all the animals suffers in anJicipa-
tion of coming perils, and grieves over
the errors of the past. 1t is the greater
capacity for suffering that has made
men what they are. These are they
who have come up out Of great tribu-
lation.
The earliest animals were built to
avoid suffering. They were as big as
an animal could be, and walk. The
sensitive parts were protected, Os in
our modern iron-clads, by defensive
armor as thick as could be carried;
hide and scales almost impenetrable.
Now these animals are all extinct,
They were beaten in the struggle for
existence, and by what? BY little
animals with the nerves on the out
side The animals that were easiest
hurt conquered those that were most
protected. Now our museums are
filed with the relics of these obsolete
forms, models of inventions that die
not work we'll, and on the walls are
hanging the armor Of the knights oI
the Middle Ages, who were beaten by
men without armor. The best pro
tected animal now in existence is the
clam; the least protected is the man
To try to escape suffering is not gooc
plan. 1t has been tried on a large
scale, and it does not work.
There was time when there was
no death in the world This was long
after the creation of living beings; if
by death we mean q definite and GER
tain period to life. The infusoria, the
simplest organisms, are immortal.
They do not die a natural death, al.
though they can be killed. These
tiny specks of protoplasm grow and
divide, but we cannot say that one
part is the parent of the other. 1t is
the same individual, only separated
into two parts for convenience. Il
lives and grows as long as the proper
conditions prevail; not merely fol
three score years and ten, but foi
thousands Of years Iu fact, the frs
created speck OF protoplasm is living
yet, divided into innumerable parts.
Later there came beings that died
spontaneously, at the end of a giyer
time. 1t was apparently a great dis
advantage that an animal should die
when it had acquired the strength and
skill Of maturity, and that q new in
dividual should have 10 pass through
the period of helpless infancy, Bu
the animals that died progressed anC
developed, while those that did no
die remained stationary. Death cam,
into fba world that we might have ,