Hor. I have heard that whales live upon nothing else; that must make a fine consumption.
Cleo. That is the general opinion, I suppose, because they never find any fish in them; and because there are vast multitudes of insects in those seas, hovering on the surface of the water. This creature likewise helps to corroborate my assertion, that in the numbers produced of every species, the greatest regard is had to the consumption of them: This prodigious animal being too big to be swallowed, nature in it has quite altered the economy observed in all other fish; for they are viviparous, engender like other viviparous animals, and have never above two or three young ones at a time. For the continuance of every species among such an infinite variety of creatures as this globe yields, it was highly necessary, that the provision for their destruction should not be less ample, than that which was made for the generation of them; and therefore the solicitude of nature in procuring death, and the consumption of animals, is visibly superior to the care she takes to seed and preserve them.
Cleo. Millions of her creatures are starved every year, and doomed to perish for want of sustenance; but whenever any die, there is always plenty of mouths to devour them. But then, again, she gives all she has: nothing is so fine or elaborate, as that she grudges it for food; nor is any thing more extensive or impartial than her bounty: she thinks nothing too good for the meanest of her broods, and all creatures are equally welcome to every thing they can find to eat. How curious is the workmanship in the structure of a common fly; how inimitable are the celerity of his wings, and the quickness of all his motions in hot weather! Should a Pythagorean, that was likewise a good master in mechanics, by the help of a microscope, pry into every minute part of this changeable creature, and duly consider the elegancy of its machinery, would he not think it great pity, that thousands of millions of animated beings, so nicely wrought and admirably finished, should every day be devoured by little birds and spiders, of which we stand in so little need? Nay, do not you think yourself, that things would have been managed full as well, is the quantity of flies had been less, and there had been no spiders at all?
Hor. I remember the fable of the Acorn and the Pumkin too well to answer you; I do not trouble my head about it.
Cleo. Yet you found fault with the means, which I supposed Providence had made use of to make men associate; I mean the common danger they were in from wild beasts: though you owned the probability of its having been the first motive of their uniting.
Hor. I cannot believe that Providence should have no greater regard to our species, than it has to flies, and the spawn of fish: or that nature has ever sported with the fate of human creatures, as she does with the lives of insects, and been as wantonly lavish of the first, as she seems to be of the latter. I wonder how you can reconcile this to religion; you that are such a stickler for Christianity.
Cleo. Religion has nothing to do with it. But we are so full of our own species, and the excellency of it, that we have no leisure seriously to consider the system of this earth; I mean the plan on which the economy of it is built, in relation to the living creatures that are in and upon it.
Hor. I do not speak as to our species, but in respect to the Deity: has religion nothing to do with it, that you make God the author of so much cruelty and malice?
Cleo. It is impossible, you should speak otherwise, than in relation to our species, when you make use of those expressions, which can only signify to us the intentions things were done with, or the sentiments human creatures have of them; and nothing can be called cruel or malicious in regard to him who did it, unless his thoughts and designs were such in doing it. All actions in nature, abstractly considered, are equally indifferent; and whatever it may be to individual creatures, to die is not a greater evil to this earth, or the whole universe, than it is to be born.