202 MISCELLANEA. [1875. 



tion was recommended went beyond the facts, the Report 

 went beyond the evidence, the Recommendations beyond the 

 Report ; and the Bill can hardly be said to have gone beyond 

 the Recommendations ; but rather to have contradicted them." 

 The legislation which my father worked for, as described 

 in the following letters, was practically what was introduced 

 as Dr. Lyon Playfair's Bill.] 



C. Darwin to Mrs. 'Litchfield* 



January 4, 1875. 



MY DEAR H. — Your letter has led me to think over vivisec- 

 tion (I wish some new word like anses-section could be 

 invented t) for some hours, and I will jot down my conclu- 

 sions, which will appear very unsatisfactory to you. I have 

 long thought physiology one of the greatest of sciences, sure 

 sooner, or more probably later, greatly to benefit mankind ; 

 but, judging from all other sciences, the benefits will accrue 

 only indirectly in the search for abstract truth. It is certain 

 that physiology can progress only by experiments on living 

 animals. Therefore the proposal to limit research to points 

 of which we can now see the bearings in regard to health, &c, 

 I look at as puerile. I thought at first it would be good to 

 limit vivisection to public laboratories ; but I have heard only 

 of those in London and Cambridge, and I think Oxford ; but 

 probably there may be a few others. Therefore only men 

 living in a few great towns would carry on investigation, and 

 this I should consider a great evil. If private men were per- 

 mitted to work in their own houses, and required a licence, I 

 do not see who is to determine whether any particular man 

 should receive one. It is young unknown men who are the 



* His daughter. abstract of which was published 



f He communicated to ' Nature' (p. 517). Dr. Wilder advocated the 



(Sept. 30, 1880) an article by Dr. use of the word ' Callisection ' for 



Wilder, of Cornell University, an painless operations on animals. 



