y the breaking of the vessels. Thence the author is led to
believe that the immortality granted to Adam, if he had been obedient,
would not have been an effect of his nature, but of the grace of God.

9. Now it was necessary for the conservation of corruptible animals that
they should have indications causing them to recognize a present danger,
and giving them the inclination to avoid it. That is why what is about to
cause a great injury must beforehand cause pain such as may force the
animal to efforts capable of repulsing or shunning the cause of this
discomfort, and of forestalling a greater evil. The dread of death helps
also to cause its avoidance: for it if were not so ugly and if the
dissolution of continuity were not so painful, very often animals would
take no precautions against perishing, or allowing the parts of their [414]
body to perish, and the strongest would have difficulty in subsisting for a
whole day.

God has also given hunger and thirst to animals, to compel them to feed and
maintain themselves by replacing that which is used up and which disappears
imperceptibly. These appetites are of use also to prompt them to work, in
order to procure a nourishment meet for their constitution, and which may
avail to invigorate them. It was even found necessary by the Author of
things that one animal very often should serve as food for another. This
hardly renders the victim more unhappy, since death caused by diseases is
generally just as painful as a violent death, if not more so; and animals
subject to being preyed upon by others, having neither foresight nor
anxiety for the future, have a life no less tranquil when they are not in
danger. It is the same with inundations, earthquakes, thunderbolts and
other disorders, which brute beasts do not fear, and which men have
ordinarily no cause to fear, since there are few that suffer thereby.

10. The Author of Nature has compensated for these evils and others, which
happen only seldom, with a thousand advantages that are ordinary and
constant. Hunger and thirst augment the pleasure experienced in the taking
of nourishment. Moderate work is an agreeable exercise of the animal's
powers; and sleep is also agreeable in an altogether opposite way,
restoring the forces through repose. But one of the pleasures most intense
is that which prompts animals to propagation. God, having taken care to
ensure that the species should be immortal, since the individual cannot be
so