THE ETHICS OF VIVISECTION. 349 



pose is knowledge. I see no other interpretation to put upon his words, 

 and thus he places himself entirely at one with the rest of the anti-vivi- 

 sectionists. These writers select out of foreign works all the horrible 

 pictures they can find, and most unfairly ignore all those important 

 experiments made by the aid of the most trifling operations under 

 chloroform, and which have proved to be of inestimable benefit to ani- 

 mals and men. Lord Coleridge, although protesting against the charge 

 of antagonism to science, unwittingly shows how profoundly he mis- 

 understands the methods of scientific men, and consequently falls into 

 the same error as his more ignorant friends. However little sympathy 

 he may have with science, one would have thought that Whewell, Mill, 

 Jevons, and others had clearly demonstrated that the methods of science 

 can ODly be reached by accurate observation and well-devised experi- 

 ment. I am afraid, therefore, that scientists will scarcely consider that 

 man to be among their allies who believes their method is " to perform 

 a hundred thousand experiments in the hope that some new fact may 

 turn up." But this is only an example of the misleading nature of the 

 statements and expressions of the anti-vivisectionists. This very term 

 implies that their opponents are vivisectionists ; much in the same way 

 as, if a certain sect of vegetarians were to style themselves anti-sheep- 

 killers, all the rest of the world would be sheep-killers, and this oppro- 

 brious word would be employed toward any lady who was seen eating 

 a mutton-chop. The two cases are exactly analogous, for among the 

 thousands of medical and scientific men who see the advantages of 

 making experiments on animals there are scarcely twenty who would 

 be willing to undertake operations of so disagreeable a nature. Just 

 as the sheep-killers are those only who would protest against any laws 

 being made to prevent them eating animal food, so in like manner the 

 " vivisectionists " are those who maintain that legislation should not 

 prevent a few physiologists performing the experiments which they 

 judge necessary. What is asked by the vivisectionists is, that the 

 whole power of the law should not be brought to bear upon a handful 

 of accomplished men who are engaged in the service of science and 

 humanity. They do not object to laws being made to prohibit incom- 

 petent persons from experimenting. 



The difference between a dozen anti-vivisectionists and a dozen 

 scientific men can not possibly turn upon a moral question such as dis- 

 like of cruelty ; and, therefore, if the one can look upon an animal 

 injured and bleeding with serenity and the other not, it would be ow- 

 ing, as the former party assert, to usage or habit. Let this be admit- 

 ted, the converse is also true, and it may be safely conjectured that 

 much of the opposition to experimentation is due to the unpleasant 

 picture which the subject presents to the imagination. The difference 

 between sensitiveness and compassion, or active benevolence, was long 

 ago pointed out by f oleridge ; but for this difference, Howard would 

 be justly called the most hard-hearted of men. A lady shrinks with 



