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in a schoolboy's hands, or a worm writhing on a hook, does 

 not feel far more pity and compassion, than when they see an 

 eager gourmand cut through the adductor muscle of an oyster, 

 tear its shell open, dose its body with pungent pepper and 

 acrid vinegar, and then cranch it to death between their 

 grinders ? ' Oh/ they would say — if you were to twit them 

 with their inconsistency — the ' oyster is dead and cannot feel f 

 but they never consider whether this is really the case or not ; 

 for, if they did, they might soon convince themselves that the 

 creature is not killed by simply having its muscle cut through — 

 its nervous system is entire, and the heart may be seen to pul- 

 sate. If pain could be felt by an oyster, it is as capable of ex- 

 periencing it without its shell as with it; but it could not show 

 it by any external movement, the oidy muscle it possesses having 

 been cut through. It cannot speak, or twist about, or writhe, 

 and by its enforced quiescence it must give the looker-on the 

 notion that it is insensible and dead. Tie up a man's arms, 

 legs, and body, so that he shall not be able to move, fill 

 his mouth with a handkerchief, so that he shall not be able to 

 make any noise, and cover his face up too, and he would not 

 be able to express any pain he felt better than an oyster. 



" But writhing, contortion, and attempts to remove from 

 an irritating agent, are by no means proofs of the existence of 

 pain. They may be produced artificially when an animal is 

 dead ; and they may be witnessed in persons under the influ- 

 ence of mesmerism or cldoroform, who have assured us, on 

 returning to sensibility, that they were not produced by pain. 



" Some months ago, Dr. Esdafle, in India, very successfully 

 mesmerised a number of patients who had to undergo opera- 

 tions ; some of these, when under the knife, were quiet as 

 corpses, but their pulses were in every case accelerated ; others 

 tossed themselves about, writhed and twisted as if in great 

 agony, their pulses being, however, unaffected. All the patients, 

 on returning to themselves, declared earnestly and firmly that 

 they had felt no pain or any sensation whatever. 



