beginnings, and be well rooted in the system before the victim is
driven by discomfort to seek medical advice. On the other hand, a corn
or a toothache, neither of them very deadly ailments, create pain out of
all proportion to their gravity. And if we take the case of excessive
cold we have here an instance where instead of pain acting as a warning,
the danger just acts as an anaesthetic. The victim is oppressed by
drowsiness, sinks into insensibility, finally death. Here it is not the
approach of death that is painful, but the return to life, the pain of
restoring circulation being very severe indeed.

Fear, which may be classed as a species of pain, appears to act, in the
majority of instances, as an enemy, rather than as a friend to the
animal experiencing it. Thus Professor Mosso points out that in the
animal organism there exists a number of harmful reactions that increase
in number the graver the peril becomes. We have all read of the
"fascination" of the bird by the serpent, and there are other animals
that in the presence of an enemy become so palsied with fear as to
become incapable of defence, even that of flight. And with man it is not
as the danger becomes most acute that his nerves become steadier and his
courage firmer. The opposite is probably more often the case. In all
these cases it is as though nature had lured the animal or man into a
position of grave danger, and then does its best to divest him of
adequate means of defence against it.

Common sense revolts against the doctrine that pain is a good thing, and
the fact of this is everywhere seen in the attempt of man to get rid of
it. No one trusts it as a sure warning against disease, no one turns to
it as a means of purifying character. All these pleas are the mere
platitudes of a religious apologetic trying to harmonise a primitive
theory of things with a larger knowledge and a more developed moral
sense. Pain and suffering in the world remain facts whether we believe
in the existence of a God or not, but we are at least freed from the
paralysing horror of the belief that all the suffering and pain in
nature is part of a plan. If man realised all that that belief involved
it might indeed rob his mind of all strength to struggle against the
forces that make for his destruction. Fortunately no race of people
could act upon the logical implications of the theistic theory and
maintain its existence. In practice, as well as in theory, theism has
had