There was a life-giving power in the tips of Limanoran fingers that puzzled me at first. Why the mere touch should so soothe the lower creation that the agony of their wounds would soon vanish and their cries cease bewildered me for a time. My own pains rapidly disappeared under the touch of my proparents. I afterwards knew that part of the active magnetism of their system came through their fingers and they helped me to develop this channel of influence in myself. I could at last by passing my fingers over Thyriel’s hair or face relieve any tension of her nerves which might have produced pain; nay, I could hear her hair crackle under my touch when I had charged my system with much electricity. Once or twice I was able to draw a wounded bird to me, and change by my stroke on the feathers its cries of pain into low notes of content; but I could never draw the winged creation to me in clouds as Thyriel did. It was all the more surprising to me that they fenced off animal life from their island. What might they not have done with such powers over the lower creation? When I put my question into words, the answer was unhesitating and unanswerable. All failures in development had to be thrust from the path of progress; they could do nothing but clog it. If the Limanorans had little hesitation in the case of their own flesh and blood, they had still less when they had to deal with animals. It was quite true that many of the more highly developed of the servants of man had nobler natures than most of their masters, deeper loyalty, greater sincerity, truer and more lasting courage; much might and did come from companionship with their primitive and guilt-proof natures; but the fact that when associated with man they were destined to serve, made such good impracticable and rather brought out the mean and brutal tyranny of man than helped to implant in his nature their own virtues. Even with such noble qualities as they had it was impossible for them to overleap the many ages their systems had lagged behind in other respects, the open offensiveness of their grosser animal appetites and needs, their lack of that great instrument and teacher of the brain, a fully developed hand, and the inability to foresee beyond a few hours, days, or months. Nor could any human process prolong their period of life and postpone their day of dissolution. It was not a good thing for these pioneers of the human race to see the approach of death and its agonies in a being that could not assuage or postpone it. Still less beneficial was it to touch the carcases and reduce them to harmless atoms. The presence of animals meant the daily obtrusion of offensive sights that would either shock or degrade their natures. All that animals could do for them was already done by their science or their machinery. Nothing that had fallen so far behind in the race of life was worth the trouble of missionaryism; for the energy that was in it