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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



science must not inflict the least pain on any 

 animal for the most beneficent object, any 

 one else may inflict the most exquisite tor- 

 tures on any non-domestic animal that is, 

 on ninety-nine hundredths of the brute crea- 

 tion without any punishment at all. If he 

 can show that the torture was inflicted from 

 cruelty, from gluttony, for money, for amuse- 

 ment for any motive, in fact, except a de- 

 sire to do good by extending knowledge he 

 enjoys the most perfect impunity ; but woe 

 to him if in his infliction of pain there is 

 any alloy of science ! " 



An attempt was made to protect 

 animals from pain against the sports- 

 man as well as the man of science, by 

 putting both upon the same footing as 

 regards penalties, but it failed. Mr. 

 Lowe says : 



" A motion to extend the law which for- 

 bade the cruelly abusing or torturing any 

 domestic animal, to animals non-domestic, 

 and to increase the penalty to a level with 

 the penalty imposed for performing a pain- 

 ful experiment, was lost by a large majority, 

 the Government voting against it. . . . The 

 efforts, therefore, of the two Houses of Par- 

 liament to introduce humanity into our laws, 

 as regards animals, stands thus : 



" 1. Absolute liberty to torture all non- 

 domestic animals except by way of scientific 

 experiment. 



" 2. Practical liberty for any one who can 

 afford to pay five pounds to torture domestic 

 animals except by way of scientific experi- 

 ment. 



"3. No punishment for painful experi- 

 ment except by leave of the Secretary of 

 State." 



Now, politicians are not partial to 

 science, but the British Government 

 would never have committed itself to 

 such ridiculous legislation except for the 

 pressure of a fanatical agitation which 

 grew out of no real sympathy with the 

 sufferings of the lower animals. Had 

 it been so, the crusade would have been 

 directed against.sportsmen for their ex- 

 tensive and selfish infliction of cruelty, 

 rather than against the physiologists 

 for the small amount of pain which 

 they caused, and that, too, in the 

 unselfish and beneficent pursuit of' 

 knowledge which is designed to miti- 

 gate human suffering and save human 



life. The agitation was incited by fic- 

 titious horrors, and was worked up and 

 sustained in a business way by prac- 

 tised manipulators of popular passion 

 and prejudice. It was directed against 

 a certain class of scientific men, and had 

 its chief root in those narrow preju- 

 dices against science which the press 

 and the pulpit have recently done so 

 much to nourish and sustain. There 

 has been an especial dread of biological 

 science, because it meddles with the 

 mysteries of life, and aims to explain 

 things which ignorance and supersti- 

 tion would rather not have explained. 

 Experiments upon animals are looked 

 upon with abhorrence, not solely be- 

 cause of the creatures' suffering, but 

 also because the knowledge thus de- 

 duced and applied to man is held to be 

 derogatory and degrading to his nobler 

 nature. The anti-vivisection move- 

 ment, in short, was very much a result 

 of that feeling of jealousy and hostility 

 toward science which is by no means 

 confined to the ignorant classes, and 

 which it was not difficult to inflame into 

 the fanatical intensity of an aggressive 

 and intolerant popular movement. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNITED 



STATES. 



The hundredth anniversary of Adam 

 Smith's " Wealth of Nations " has been 

 the occasion in England of a pretty 

 careful review of the science which he 

 founded its methods, its province, its 

 achievements, and its prospect of fu- 

 ture usefulness with the result, not of 

 reaching definite conclusions, but of 

 revealing very wide differences of opin- 

 ion as to what political economy really 

 is. The general tone of the discussion 

 is decidedly doleful ; dissatisfaction with 

 the present and doubt as to the future 

 being the only points upon which there 

 is unanimity. Politicians and newspa- 

 pers alike declare that the centennial 

 marks the decline and not the con- 

 summation of the "dismal science;" 



