if the body journeys through the viscera of an animal—if its substance and essence become that animal—what happens to the soul? Hurricanes, avalanches, and volcanoes consume people, but such random acts of insensate violence are considered acts of God; they don’t pick their targets, nor do they metabolize them. It is rare that one is confronted, as these men were, with such overwhelming evidence of one’s own mutability in the face of a sentient natural force.
