UNDER THE SUN.
Ridentem dicere verum, quid vetat?
I HAVE it not in my nature to look at the animal world merely as a congregation of beasts. Nor can I bring myself to believe that everything, whether in fur, feathers, or scales, was created for my own special benefit as a human being. Man was not created till the sixth day, and is therefore the junior among the animals. It took no better effort of creative will to produce him than to produce caterpillars. Moreover, earth was already populated before he came, and sufficiently complete without him. He was a noble afterthought. Indeed, rather than maintain that man was created “higher than the beasts,” for the increase of his own self-importance, I would believe that he was created “a little lower than the angels,” for the increase of his humility.
At any rate, I prefer to think of the things of “the speechless world” as races of fellow creatures that have a very great deal in common with ourselves, but whom the pitiless advance of human interests is
