IS NATURE' CRUEL ?
[To the Editor of the Sracreron.] Sm,—I cannot agree with Mr. Simon's statement in his letter in the Spectator of April 6th that cruelty is to be judged from the point of view of the victim. This is not the primary. sense of the word " cruel," though it may be used in this sense by extension. We do not as a rule call a volcano or an earthquake cruel. If words are to have any definite meaning in our language, surely cruelty implies a moral agent and a will to be cruel, and, moreover, connotes indifference to (if not actual pleasure in) another's suffering.
I still venture to think that the distinction I drew between subjective and objective cruelty in my letter in the Spectator of March 23 exactly hits off the difference. Objective cruelty is what Mr. Simon is thinking of. As we have said, it is not cruelty in the proper sense of the word. Nature is full of this kind of cruelty ; full, that is, of unnecessary suffering as judged from the standpoint of the victims or of third persons. But, then, it must not be forgotten that even the latter must be moral agents, capable of formulating a judgment of this sort.
It is not to the mouse, but to Mr. Simon and to me, that the cat's conduct appears " cruel."—r am, Sir, &e., E. C. OPPENREIM.
S. Andrea, Taormina, Sicilia, Italy.
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