HENRY P. BOWD1TCH 6/ 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS HUXLEY 1 



(p. 467.) " Observation and experiment alone can 

 give us a real foundation for any kind of Natural 

 Knowledge, and any one who is acquainted with the 

 history of science is aware that not a single one of all 

 the great truths of modern physiology has been estab- 

 lished otherwise than by experiment on living things." 

 (Letter to Sir W. Harcourt) 



(p. 469.) " For the advantage and protection of 

 society, we all agree to inflict pain upon man --pain 

 of the most prolonged and acute character -- in our 

 prisons, and on our battlefields. If England were in- 

 vaded, we should have no hesitation about inflicting 

 -the maximum of suffering upon our invaders for no 

 other object than our own good. 



" But if the good of society and of a nation is a 

 sufficient plea for inflicting pain on men, I think it 

 may suffice us for experimenting on rabbits and 

 dogs." (From a letter to a student.) 



(p. 471.) " In discussing the draft with Litchfield I 

 recollect that I insisted strongly on the necessity of 

 allowing demonstrations to students, but I agreed that 

 it would be sufficient to permit such demonstrations 

 only as could be performed under anesthetics. 



" The second clause of the bill, however, by the 

 words ' for the purpose of new scientific discovery and 

 for no other purpose,' absolutely prohibits any kind 

 of demonstration. It would debar me from showing 

 the circulation in the web of a frog's foot or from 

 exhibiting the pulsations of the heart in a decapitated 

 frog." 2 (From a letter to Darwin.) 



1 Volume I. N. Y., Appleton, 1901. 



2 This would be also the result of House Bill 856, " painful and painless " 

 demonstrations being alike prohibited. 



