And indeed on the whole it would have disturbed his sense of order, to think that while some inferior creatures were innocently and unconsciously ascending in the scale of existence through their appointed gradations, others were being degraded to a condition below humanity for their sins committed in the human state. Punishment such degradation could not be deemed, unless the soul so punished retained its consciousness; and such consciousness would make it a different being from those who were externally of its fellow kind, and thus would the harmony of nature be destroyed: and to introduce discord there were to bring back Chaos. Bad enough as he saw is the inequality which prevails among mankind, though without it men would soon be all upon the dead level of animal and ferine life: But what is it to that which would appear in the lower world, if in the same species some individuals were guided only by their own proper instincts, and others endued with the consciousness of a human and reasonable mind. The consequences also of such a doctrine where it was believed could not but lead to pitiable follies, and melancholy superstitions. Has humanity ever been put to a viler use than by the Banians at Surat, who support a hospital for vermin in that city, and regale the souls of their friends who are undergoing penance in the shape of fleas, or in loathsome pedicular form, by hiring beggars to go in among them, and afford them pasture for the night! Even from his own system consequences followed which he could not reconcile to his wishes. Fond as he was of animals, it would have been a delight to him if he could have believed with the certainty of faith that he should have with him in Heaven all that he had loved on earth. But if they were only so many vehicles of the living spirit during its ascent to humanity,—only the egg, the caterpillar and the aurelia from which the human but immortal Psyche was to come forth at last, then must their uses be at an end in this earthly state: and Paradise he was sometimes tempted to think would want something if there were no beautiful insects to hover about its flowers, no birds to warble in its groves or glide upon its waters,—would not be the Paradise he longed for unless the lion were there to lie down with the lamb, and the antelope reclined its gentle head upon the leopard's breast. Fitting and desirable and necessary he considered the extinction of all noxious kinds, all which were connected with corruption, and might strictly be said to be of the earth earthly. But in his Paradise he would fain have whatever had been in Eden, before Paradise was lost, except the serpent.