DO THE SIMPLER ANIMALS FEEL PAIN? 347 



tive organs, as some suppose, is easily disj^roved ; you 

 have only to snip them off, and you will observe 

 the animal moving with the same vigour and grace 

 as before. Nay, if you cut the animal in pieces, 

 each section, provided it has a portion of the cili- 

 ated bands, will for days swim about with unabated 

 energy. 



The reader, who is of course a lover of animals, and 

 consequently of a sympathetic compassionate nature, 

 will probably feel some repulsion at the quiet way in 

 which he is recommended to snip off the Cydippe's 

 tentacles, and will energetically protest . against the 

 cruelty of physiologists who employ vivisection as a 

 means of experiment. It is very true that a grave 

 question has to be answered by the physiologist when, 

 for the sake of science, he inflicts pain. I confess that 

 my susceptibility altogether disqualifies me from wit- 

 nessing, much more from j^erforming, experiments 

 accompanied with pain. It was a long while before 

 I was able to j-ustify the French and Germans in 

 their wholesale slaughter of puppies, cats, rabbits, and 

 guinea-pigs. Nor can they be justified except by the 

 austere necessities of science. When this is their 

 object, we are wrong to accuse them of cruelty, because 

 cruelty is the indulgence of tyrannous love of power, 

 and their j)urpose is the grave investigation of truth. 

 Cruel they are not, unless surgery be also cruelty. 

 And in any case the reproach comes with an ill grace 

 from men who torture animals in the way of mere 

 sport, as in hunting, fishing, and the Kke. I hav€ 



