d; for life consists neither in length of days nor in ease of body.
Greed of life and wrong done to secure it, will never work anything but
direst loss. As to knowledge, let justice guide thy search and thou wilt
know the sooner. Do the will of God, and thou shalt know God, and he
will open thine eyes to look into the very heart of knowledge. Force thy
violent way, and gain knowledge, to miss truth. Thou mayest wound the
heart of God, but thou canst not rend it asunder to find the Truth that
sits there enthroned.

What man would he be who accepted the offer to be healed and kept alive
by means which necessitated the torture of certain animals? Would he
feel himself a gentleman--walking the earth with the sense that his life
and conscious well-being were informed and upheld by the agonies of
other lives?

'I hope, sir, your health is better than it has been?'

'Thank you, I am wonderfully restored--have entered in truth upon a
fresh lease of life. My organism has been nourished with the agonies of
several dogs, and the pangs of a multitude of rabbits and guinea-pigs,
and I am aware of a marvellous change for the better. They gave me their
lives, and I gave them in return worse pains than mine. The bargain has
proved a quite satisfactory one! True, their lives were theirs, not
mine; but then their sufferings were theirs, not mine! They could not
defend themselves; they had not a word to say, so reasonable was the
exchange. Poor fools! they were neither so wise, nor so strong, nor such
lovers of comfort as I! If they could not take care of themselves, that
was their look-out, not mine! Every animal for himself!'

There was a certain patriotic priest who thought it better to put a just
man to death than that a whole nation should perish. Precious salvation
that might be wrought by injustice! But then the just man taught that
the rich man and the beggar must one day change places.

'To set the life of a dog against the life of a human being!'

No, but the torture of a dog against the prolonged life of a being
capable of torturing him. Priceless gain, the lengthening of such a
life, to the man and his friends and his country!

That the animals do not suffer so much as we should under like
inflictions, I hope true, and think true. But is toothache nothing,
because there are yet worse pains for head and face?

Not a few who now regard themselves as benefactors of mankind, will one
day be looked upon with a disapprobatio