Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/112

 108 lame, the aged, and the supernumeraries, are consigned to speedy death; and while each suffering individual is soon relieved from pain, it contributes its enfeebled carcass to the support of its carnivorous benefactor, and leaves more room for the comfortable existence of the healthy survivors of its own species.

The same "police of Nature," which is thus beneficial to the great family of the inhabitants of the land, is established with equal advantage among the tenants of the sea. Of these also, there is one large division that lives on vegetables, and supplies the basis of food to the other division that is carnivorous. Here again we see, that in the absence of carnivore, the uncontrolled herbivore would multiply indefinitely, until the lack of food brought them also to the verge of starvation; and the sea would be crowded with creatures under the endurance of universal pain from hunger, while death by famine would be the termination of ill-fed and miserable lives.

The appointment of death by the agency of carnivore, as the ordinary termination of animal existence, appears therefore in its main results to be a dispensation of benevolence; it deducts much from the aggregate amount of the pain of universal death; it abridges, and almost annihilates, throughout the brute creation, the misery of disease, and accidental injuries, and lingering decay; and imposes such salutary restraint upon excessive increase of numbers, that the supply of food maintains perpetually a due ratio to the demand. The result is, that the surface of the land and depths of the waters are ever crowded with myriads of animated beings, the pleasures of whose life are co-extensive with its duration; and which, throughout the little day of existence that is allotted to them, fulfil with joy the functions for which they were created. Life to each individual is, a scene of continued feasting, in a region of plenty; and when unexpected death arrests its course, it repays with small interest the large debt, which it has contracted to the common fund of