4 PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 



formed on living animals : these facts acquire 

 their intrinsic worth, from their exposing to our 

 view, internal operations which were before 

 concealed; thereby manifesting the natural 

 condition of things without altering it. 



Cruel and horrible as these experiments were, 

 if they cannot be justified, it is hoped that they 

 will find considerable palliation, in the motive 

 which led to the execution of them ; the ear- 

 nest hope which a few of these gentlemen enter- 

 tained, of bringing light out of darkness, and 

 that the sufferings of the brute might ultimately 

 prove beneficial to man. Although humanity 

 feels a pang at the recollection of such pur- 

 suits, they ought nevertheless to be tolerated to 

 a certain degree, when performed by those who, 

 having an end in view, are anxious to prove, by 

 the fact of experiment, the truth or error of the 

 principles of physiological science, entertained 

 by them. 



For that numerous class of pretenders to phy- 

 siology, for those minnows in science, who 

 without end or design, are impelled, by blind 

 chance and mere curiosity, to inflict the most 

 barbarous cruelties on cold and warm blooded 

 animals, there is no excuse ; any more than for 

 those, who mutilate and extirpate different or- 

 gans from the living system, in order to ascer- 

 tain the natural functions which those organs 

 are intended to perform, and the use which 



