ON THE DREAD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE. 411 



scientific purposes. The animating impulse of an effort to awaken a 

 due sympathy with animal suffering and check an inconsiderate inflic- 

 tion of it is one which so entirely commands my esteem, that I would 

 willingly overlook the flagrant contradiction of people tolerating with- 

 out a murmur the fact that yearly millions of creatures are mutilated 

 and tortured to give a few men pleasure, to make food more palatable, 

 and domestic animals more tractable, yet are roused to fury by the fact 

 that a few score creatures are mutilated (a smaller number tortured) to 

 discover remedial agents and scientific truths. All the pain inflicted 

 for sport or other pleasure is condoned; the pain inflicted for scientific 

 ends is pronounced diabolical. Is it, therefore, not on account of the 

 suffering inflicted, but on account of the scientific purpose, that vivisec- 

 tion is to be reprobated ? Ten thousand times the amount of suffering 

 is disregarded if only its purpose be not that of acquiring knowledge. 

 And that this is so, is manifest in another case. For suffering may be 

 also inflicted on human beings, and on a large scale, without exciting 

 any outcry, if the motive be commercial advantage. Not to mention 

 wars undertaken to push commerce, let us only consider some industrial 

 experiment which will certainly drive hundreds of families from their 

 employment with starvation as the consequence ; yet the sufferings thus 

 occasioned, if they excite pity, weigh so little against the prospect of 

 the general good, that if the starving workmen revolt and destroy the 

 machinery, the philanthropist is ready to enforce on them the utmost 

 rigor of the law. Here the social benefit is allowed to override the 

 individual injury. That is to say, an experiment which has the pros- 

 pect of enlarging wealth may inflict suffering on men, women, and 

 children; but an experiment which has only the prospect of enlarging 

 knoioledge must be forbidden if it inflict suffering on animals ! Obvi- 

 ously such a contradiction could not be upheld if science were recog- 

 nized as a social benefit. It is not so recognized. And one indication 

 of this is the frequent accusation that physiologists are actuated by the 

 " selfish motive of acquiring reputation," not by the unselfish motive of 

 benefiting mankind. I will not pause to discuss the question of motives, 

 nor how far the selfish motive may further a social advantage; I will 

 only ask whether the motive of the industrial experimenter is less 

 selfish ? Unless science were a social benefit, no one would ardently 

 desire a scientific reputation. 1 



Having indicated the existence of the dread and dislike of science, 

 let us now glance at the causes. 



The primary cause is a misconception of what science is. No ra- 

 tional being dreads and dislikes knowledge. No one proclaims the 



1 When one observes those who believe hospitals and colleges to be important in- 

 stitutions, socially beneficial, threatening to withdraw all support unless the teachers 

 openly declare what they do not believe, namely, that vivisection for scientific ends is un- 

 justifiable, one is reminded of the recent outbreak of fanaticism on the part of the Jains. 

 This Hindoo sect has such a horror at the destruction of animal life that a group of the 

 most fervent murdered all the Mussulman butchers in the neighborhood. 



