You know what painful inconvenience there is in losing an arm or a leg. Well, the winged and footed beings that must bear this life suffer a great deal more than we do when one of their limbs becomes dismembered.
Man has to a degree remedied or replaced his crippled limbs, but I do not think any other of the higher animals have advanced so far, and as a result these creatures must endure their pain and distressing annoyance to the end.
Recently I watched a common house fly caught upon "fly paper," and studied intently every visible movement of it. Immediately upon alighting upon the sticky substance, its first thought, almost instantaneously, was to make an effort to free itself. At once I thought of the fly's instinct of "self-preservation," and contrasted it with the human's.
The fly must have had intelligence, since it knew that its life was in danger. And, since Nature does not deal in "fly paper," the fly's reasoning power told it of its peril. With unabated determination it vibrated its wings with lightning-like rapidity, and worked its legs unceasingly, breaking them in the attempt, in its efforts to pull itself away to freedom!
As I watched this fly in its labor, this thought came to me: Is the fly unlike the human being in its desire to live? Is it afraid of death and of the mystery of dissolution? Has it, too, all the agony of fear of passing to the "Great Beyond"? Has it, too, an imaginary God in the form of a Big Fly? And is it also afraid of that God's supposed wrath?
If the fly's desire to live is so great, what interest does it have in life?
Does it love? Does it derive happiness when it is able to labor to make happy its fly Juliet?
Does it want to live because it is ambitious and is trying to excel other flies?
Does it really think to better its species and solve the problem of its kind?
Is there a fly family to mourn its death?