1872-1876] Vivisection 219 



Charles Darwin to his daughter Henrietta Litch field. 



MY DEAR H., 4 January, 1875. 



Your letter has led me to think over vivisection (I 

 wish some new word like ansesection could be invented) for 

 some hours, and I will jot down my conclusions, which will 

 appear very unsatisfactory to you. I have long thought 

 physiology one of the greatest of sciences, sure sooner, or 

 more probably later, greatly to benefit mankind; but, judg- 

 ing from all other sciences, the benefits will accrue only 

 indirectly in the search for abstract truth. It is certain 

 that physiology can progress only by experiments on living 

 animals. Therefore the proposal to limit research to points 

 of which we can now see the bearings in regard to health, 

 etc., I look at as puerile. I thought at first it would be good 

 to limit vivisection to public laboratories; but I have heard 

 only of those in London and Cambridge, and I think Oxford ; 

 but probably there may be a few others. Therefore only 

 men living in a few great towns could carry on investigation, 

 and this I should consider a great evil. If private men were 

 permitted to work in their own houses, and required a 

 license, I do not see who is to determine whether any par- 

 ticular man should receive one. It is young unknown men 

 who are the most likely to do good work. I would gladly 

 punish severely anyone who operated on an animal not 

 rendered insensible, if the experiment made this possible; 

 but here again I do not see that a magistrate or jury could 

 possibly determine such a point. Therefore I conclude if (as 

 is likely) some experiments have been tried too often, or 

 anaesthetics have not been used when they could have been, 

 the cure must be in the improvement of humanitarian 

 feelings. Under this point of view I have rejoiced at the 

 present agitation. If stringent laws are passed, and this is 

 likely, seeing how unscientific the House of Commons is, 

 and that the gentlemen of England are humane, as long as 

 their sports are not considered, which entail a hundred or 

 thousand-fold more suffering than the experiments of physi- 



