MAN'S RIGHT OVER ANIMALS. 765 



and woes. The case is controlled by the consideration of a superior 

 interest. The freedom of a people is at stake, and the interests of a 

 whole people at times exact the sacrifice of a few citizens. 



The struggle of the scientific investigator against natural forces in 

 some degree resembles the struggle of a people for its liberty. Mate- 

 rial laws bind us on all sides, and to secure deliverance from them it 

 is necessary to become acquainted with them. It is our liberty as 

 against the things it is necessary to conquer ; and it is not a dear bar- 

 gain to buy this at the price of a few dogs and a few skinned frogs. 



The sentimental spirits who are so much interested in the lot of 

 our victims seem to believe that there is no more important occu- 

 pation for them. We must undeceive them. There are more pains 

 than joys among the men on this little terrestrial globe. Instead of 

 busying themselves to prevent the researches which are being pri- 

 vately carried on in a few laboratories, let these charitable people 

 make an effort to put down the slave-trade, of which negroes are the 

 victims by thousands. Or let them endeavor to relieve the misery 

 which prevails everywhere from Greenland to the land of the Hotten- 

 tots. Let them try to suppress the terrible scourge of war, which has 

 made a hundred thousand times more human victims than all the 

 frogs, rabbits, and dogs that have been sacrificed by all the physiolo- 

 gists in the world. There is a task worthy of their activity. 



We are apt, when we speak of pains and martyrdom, to exaggerate 

 the sufferings of animals. There is no pain unless there is conscious- 

 ness and attention to the pain. The more intelligent a being is, the 

 more it can suffer. Unintelligent animals are incapable of feeling in 

 its fullness the sensation we call pain. We can not form an idea of 

 what a frog feels when we cut one of its nerves ; probably we never 

 shall know what it feels ; but it appears to me that the pain it feels 

 then is very vague and very confused. Compared to man, whose intel- 

 ligence is so clear, the inferior animals are like automatons : most of 

 their acts are half involuntary. They are not deliberate acts, maturely 

 reflected out, but irresistible impulsions of which the actors have im- 

 perfect consciousness. These animals live in a kind of dream or half 

 consciousness that excludes terrible pain. Their nerves are less excit- 

 able, and their brain is less susceptible of that clear percej)tion of self 

 without which pain can hardly be. 



It is not without reason that we feel little remorse in martvrizing 

 an animal of low degree in the series of beings. As we descend from 

 man to the plant, intelligence diminishes, consciousness becomes more 

 and more confused, and therefore the sensibility to pain is more and 

 more obtuse. This is only a personal opinion, and it would be impos- 

 sible to give a rigorous proof of it ; but every day's observation seems 

 to confirm its reality. 



No one has a right to believe that a physiologist takes any pleasure 

 in making animals suffer. For my part, I always feel a painful sensa- 



