IRRATIONALISM 5 



caused by men, those only are ethically justifiable which are 

 caused, not for the sake oi gluttony, sloth, fashion, or amuse- 

 ment, but for the high object of reducing suffering among men 

 and other animals — that is to say, the very scientific experiments 

 which the irrationalist attacks ! 



His argument is therefore of no consequence, but it is of 

 interest to inquire how he reaches it. He does so merely by 

 considering the single sample. His mind is fixed on the experi- 

 ments alone, and all the innumerable other species and instances 

 of contact between men and animals become blurred in his 

 myopic vision. The only thing which he does see occupies the 

 whole of his mind, which has no room for more than one idea 

 at once. He becomes confused, and his judgment fails him — 

 like a hare's in the blaze of a motor-lamp. Indeed, so feeble 

 does his judgment become that, though he professes abhorrence 

 of all acts which cause pain, he himself generally continues to 

 eat meat, wear furs and feathers, and even enjoy sport ; and we 

 once heard a sportsman loudly condemning vivisectors at a 

 moment when a number of antelope and birds, just shot by him 

 for mere amusement, were lying dead in his verandah. Yet he 

 was quite a sane man — who indeed held a high post obtained by 

 competitive examination ! 



But this kind of person rarely stops at the mere innocent 

 irrationalism of inadvertence. He generally possesses enough 

 intelligence to feel the weight of the arguments which, later in 

 life, are brought against him ; but then his pride forbids him to 

 yield, and he has recourse to the invention of falsities to support 

 his credit as a reasoner. Thus the anti-vivisectionist invents 

 the utter untruths that experiments on animals have served no 

 useful purpose, and even that those who perform them do so in 

 order to gratify a supposed lust of cruelty. At this stage he is 

 past praying for ; he is no longer a reasoner, but merely one 

 who endeavours to escape conviction by the fabrication of evi- 

 dence, and nothing that others can say will ever persuade him 

 to retract a single one of his absurdities. 



Irrationalism is, generally, the enemy of humanity. In the 

 form of crankism it clings shrieking to the hands of science just 

 when she is engaged upon her most difficult but beneficent 

 labours, and, in the form of political party, it paralyses the efforts 

 of the wisest legislators. It brings wars by encouraging race- 

 antagonism, and it lowers philosophy by false ideals. It will 



