1894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 5 



petitioned against the establishment of a Pasteur Institute in India. 

 And that go-ahead Ladies' Club, or club of go-ahead ladies, The 

 Pioneer, among its numerous subjects for discussion has lately included 

 vivisection, and after an exciting debate declared it to be unjustifiable. 



The justifiability of this practice depends on questions that have 

 been questions since the beginning of civilisation, and that are likely 

 to remain without their answer for many centuries to come. We at 

 least do not presume to give an opinion. The above circumstances 

 have, however, suggested one or two reflections that may be of service 

 to both parties. 



Everyone that knows anything of the progress of science, in 

 whatever department it may be, is aware that it is effected by 

 circuitous and often retrogressive paths. Many are the blind alleys 

 up which we wander, many the pits into v/hich we fall. What 

 scientific man dares to say that he has never made a mistake'? If 

 such there be, we have small regard for him : be sure that he has 

 never made a discovery. It is a cheap jibe to say that Science 

 contradicts herself. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes was wiser when he wrote : — 



" Don't be consistent, but be simply true ! " 



What argument is it, then, to say that experiments on living 

 animals have in some cases led to wrong conclusions, or that those 

 who practised them have occasionally conducted unsuccessful opera- 

 tions ? Prove that the whole method is unscientific, and that will be 

 a valid argument. But who will be so rash as to maintain this, so 

 long as in all other sciences there are not one but two factors of 

 progress ; not only observation, but also experiment ? 



We should hardly imagine that, at the present day, there could 

 be found anyone who, having a knowledge of the subject, would deny 

 that, however numerous the failures, experiments on living animals 

 have been productive of great benefit to other animals. In both 

 cases Man is naturally included under the term Animal. It is this 

 benefit that is brought forward by the advocates of such experiments 

 in excuse of any pain that may be inflicted by their performance. 

 Benefit is, perhaps, not always derived ; on the other hand, pain is 

 by no means always inflicted. Let us assume that the exceptions 

 balance one another. We shall then have left in one scale some 

 amount of pain, some amount of benefit in the other. Now the 

 benefit consists in the alleviation or the removal of pain. But it must 

 be clearly borne in mind that, whereas the pain inflicted is on a 

 finite number of individuals during a certain comparatively short 

 space of time, the pain removed, on the other hand, is on an infinite 

 number of individuals for all the unknown future. Which then is 

 the heavier scale ? Surely none will deny that the pain destroyed 

 far outbalances the pain inflicted. Only on the assumption of an 

 immediate millennium, can any other answer be given to the question. 



