Note 85 — CANTO III. MANIFESTO.

Would serve for stock to make mosquitoes.

Among other speculations also in the cause of humanity, bequeathed us by this friend of man, are the following, which will prove a great consolation to those who have foolishly supposed that the bloodshed and devastation, produced by war, were circumstances which ought to be lamented.

These remarks are published by Dr Darwin, as written under his own observations in the manuscript of his book, by a “philosophical friend,” whom he left in his library. It is supposed, however, that the doctor wrote them himself. At least the sentiments have his sanction.

“It consoles me to find, as I contemplate the whole of organized nature, that it is not in the power of any one personage, whether statesman or hero, to produce by his ill employed activity, so much misery as might have been supposed. Thus, if a Russian army, in these insane times, after having endured a laborious march of many hundred miles, is destroyed by a French army, in defence of their republic, what has happened? Forty thousand human creatures, dragged from their homes and connexions, cease to exist, and have manured the earth; but the quantity of organized matter, of which they were composed, presently revives in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables, and insects, and afterwards of quadrupeds and men; the sum of whose happiness is, perhaps, greater than that of the harrassed soldier, by whose destruction they have gained their existence! Is not this a consoling idea to a mind of universal sympathy? I fear you will think me a misanthrope, but I assure you a contrary sensation dwells in my bosom; and though I commiserate the evils of all organized beings, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.”” Phytologia, p. 558.