THEOBALD SMITH 115 



It seems to me that there are two quite different ways 

 of estimating pain and suffering. One is to take a highly 

 subjective view of animal life and to project our own sensi- 

 tive and in many cases hypersensitive nature upon animals ; 

 in other words, to make animals human. The other is to 

 study animals themselves, to observe carefully the differ- 

 ences between the behavior and the actions of an inocu- 

 lated or operated animal and the healthy one near by. If 

 we wish to learn how to estimate suffering we must not only 

 carefully study the differences between sick and well, but 

 we must carefully avoid comparing a sick dog with a 

 healthy guinea pig, or an operated rabbit with a normal 

 cat. We must use strictly scientific methods to learn where 

 suffering occurs, so that we may avoid it. The squeal of 

 a ^guinea pig whose hair is being cut must not stampede us 

 from doing important work. Which method of estimating 

 cruelty and suffering is to prevail, the first or the second, 

 the observational or the subjective and hysterical? 



In the statements of the petitioners and in the various 

 pamphlets issued by humane societies we continually en- 

 counter the veiled or open accusation that operations on 

 animals are a great joy to the investigator, towards which 

 he gravitates through the pull of an inborn cruelty. This 

 view could only arise in the imagination for the following 

 reasons : 



1. The success of investigations requires that animals be 

 kept in the best surroundings available. 



2. Animal experiments are costly; the purchase and the 

 care is expensive. 



3. The actual operation is only the basis of many diver- 

 gent investigations in physics, chemistry, microscopy, etc., 

 in which animals do not figure at all. The more biolog- 

 ical science progresses the more important these collateral 

 studies become, the animal experiment being simply the 

 starting point. Even if the experimenter were simply to 



