I waived that as a point, but then he referred to medicine and surgery and all the mechanical developments as well as the ameliorative efforts of life, such as laws relating to child labor, workingmen’s compensation and hours, compulsory safety devices and the like, as specific proofs of a desire on the part of nature, working through man, to make life easier for man, a wish on her part to provide him, slowly and stumblingly, mayhap, with things helpful to him in his condition here. Without interrupting him, I allowed him to call to mind the Protestant Reformation, how it had ended once and for all the iniquities of the Inquisition; the rise of Christianity, and how, temporarily at least, it had modified if not entirely ended the brutalities of Paganism. Anesthetics, and how they had served to ameliorate pain. I could have pointed out that life itself was living on life and always had been, and that as yet no substitute for the flesh of helpless animals had been furnished man as food. (He could not hear my thoughts.) The automobile, he went on, had already practically eliminated the long sufferings of the horse; our anti-slavery rebellion and humane opposition in other countries had once and for all put an end to human slavery; also he called to mind the growth of humane societies of one kind and another, that ministered to many tortured animals. And humane laws were being constantly passed and enforced to better if not entirely cure inhuman conditions. I confess I was interested, if not convinced. In spite of life itself existing on life, there was too much in what he said to permit any one to pass over it indifferently. But there came to my mind just the same all the many instances of crass accident and brutish mischance which are neither prevented nor cured by anything—the thousands who are annually killed in railroad accidents and industrial plants, despite protective mechanisms and fortifying laws compelling their use; the thousands who die yearly from epidemics of influenza, smallpox, yellow fever, cholera and widespread dissemination of cancer, consumption and related ills. These I mentioned. He admitted the force of the point but insisted that man, impelled by nature, not only for his own immediate protection but by reason of a sympathy aroused through pain endured by him, was moved to kindly action. Besides if nature loved brutality and inhumanity and suffering why should any atom of it wish to escape pain, and why in those atoms should it generate sympathy and tears and rejoicing at escape from suffering by man, why sorrow and horror at the accidental or intentional infliction of disaster on man by nature or man?