I do not mean to say that
hatred and a desire to destroy are consequent to antipathies such as you
describe; but still, something may be said in favor of such a notion. It
appears to me but natural to seek the destruction of that which is
odious or irksome to any of our senses. Why do you crush the crawling
spider with your heel? You fear not its venom; inspect it, and the
mechanism of its make, the architecture of its own fabrication, are, to
the full, as wonderful as anything within your comprehension; but yet,
without knowing why, with an impulse given you, as it would seem, from
infancy, you seek its destruction with a persevering industry, which
might lead one to suppose you had in view your direst enemy."
"This is all very true; and from infancy up we do this thing, but the
cause can not be in any loathsomeness which its presence occasions in
the mind, for we perceive the same boy destroying with measured torture
the gaudiest butterfly which his hat can encompass."
"_Non sequitur_," said Rivers.
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