There can be no doubt in the mind of a thoughtful observer that man and the lower animals have much in common--that; all have been framed with a purpose, and are ruled by natural laws. Some creatures excel in cunning, some in reason, some in activity, some in sloth--all have certain proclivities. In some, instinct leads them to eat grass, boughs, leaves, and fruits; in others, it teaches them to seek insects or other creatures for their food. All have, more or less, periodically a propensity to propagate;--which is attended in some by a pairing off of male and female, who consort for the purpose of having offspring and assisting each other in rearing them. In others, either where there is naturally an equality of the sexes or a preponderance of males, the latter instinctively fight with each other for a single mate, or for a number of females. Again, in the case of animals actuated by hunger, or by other motives, there are frequent battles, and the conquered is not only killed, but eaten. Or where two or more sets of animals are living, the one on land, the other in the air, we may find that one will rob the other. Nothing, for example, is much more common than for rats and crows to steal eggs, or for tigers to commit murder. Nature, then, being such as we find it, we cannot assert--reasonably--that a young stag when he covets a neighbour's wife and fights her present consort, for property in her, commits a crime against the Almighty,--nor can we say that a fox which steals a goose will be sent to hell. On the other hand, we should never think of commending a hungry lion for abstaining from killing a harmless lamb, nor of declaring that he has done a good action in the sight of heaven. In like manner, a writer in proverbs tells us that "men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry,"--and the general consent of mankind refuses to see the crime of murder in the slaughter of one, out of a miserable boat's crew, who is killed and eaten that the survivors may escape death from hunger. Society, too, is somewhat lenient when two men fight for the love of such a woman as Helen. But we readily recognise the fact that a community, or even a family, would be weakened and disorganized if theft was encouraged, and every pretty female was the cause of close fighting between man and man. Hence we see that, in reality, that which is called "the moral law," is a code which is intended to influence social life in this world, and not the position of human beings in the next.