In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for
doing to one another, are nature’s every day performances. Killing, the most
criminal act recognized by human laws, Nature does once to every being that
lives; and in a large proportion of cases, after protracted tortures such as
only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their
living fellow-creatures…. Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel,
casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with
stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger … and has
hundreds of others hideous deaths in reserve…. All this, Nature does with the
most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice.