Arthur Schopenhauer on Predation

“One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain [...] is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured.”

“[H]e saw in Java a plain far as the eye could reach entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battlefield; they were, however, merely the skeletons of large turtles, five feet long and three feet broad, and the same height, which come this way out of the sea in order to lay their eggs, and are then attacked by wild dogs , who with their united strength lay them on their backs, strip off their lower armour, that is, the small shell of the stomach, and so devour them alive. But often then a tiger pounces upon the dogs. Now all this misery repeats itself thousands and thousands of times, year out, year in. For this, then, these turtles are born. For whose guilt must they suffer this torment? Where fore the whole scene of horror? To this the only answer is: it is thus that the will to live objectifies itself.”