MAN'S RIGHT OVER ANIMALS. 761 



I love dogs for themselves ; I have as much compassion as any one 

 can have for them when they are suffering ; I know by experience 

 that their friendship is a precious resource in solitude ; but, however, 

 much I may feel for dogs, I should never hesitate to sacrifice the dear- 

 est pet among them all for the existence of a human being, even were 

 the man unknown to me, or the lowest of savages. Hesitation as be- 

 tween a dog and a man is not permissible. We owe aid and love to 

 the beings who are nearest to us, in the degree that they are nearer, 

 to a Frenchman more than to a Chinese, to a man more than to an 

 animal. We are all of the great human family, to all the individuals 

 of which we owe justice and assistance, while we owe to animals 

 pity and protection only when they involve no harm to our human 

 brethren. 



The principal object of science, and particularly of physiological 

 science, is to be useful to men. Knowledge of the laws of Nature 

 alone can help us to assuage the miseries of our existence. Every 

 step of progress in our knowledge leads in the end to a forward step 

 in our career. Even though we may not immediately comprehend the 

 practical utility of a particular discovery, it will eventually bear a sure 

 fruit. The innumerable and mysterious facts of the medium in which 

 we live are subject to fixed laws that are only imperfectly known. All 

 our efforts should tend to elucidate these laws ; and science — that is, 

 the investigation of the grand laws of Nature — seems to be one of 

 the principal functions of human energy. A very high value should, 

 therefore, be set upon everything that aids the progress of science. 



It is an erroneous view of science to expect that it shall at once give 

 a result useful, palpable, and precise, or an instantaneous practical 

 application. Science has nothing to do with utility ; or, rather, the 

 true utilitarians are those whose hopes are in future science. They are 

 forced to respect the science of to-day, even when it appears useless^ 

 because it is bringing us nearer to the science of to-morrow, which 

 alone can effect some great alleviation to human suffering. 



Who could have conceived, when Galvani announced that, on touch- 

 ing the foot of a frog with copper and zinc, he provoked contractions 

 of its muscles, that this little fact would lead, by a remarkable series 

 of discoveries, to the invention of the galvanic battery, electric teleg- 

 raphy, and dynamic electricity ? If Galvani had not observed the feet 

 of frogs, the electric telegraph would never have existed, nor the elec- 

 tric light, nor any of those marvelous machines which constitute one 

 of the greatest series of forces man now has at his disposal. Yet, at 

 the moment Galvani was making his discovery, would we not, at least 

 apparently, have had a right to condemn his sterile and bloody experi- 

 ments ? What benefit could men gain from a massacre of frogs strung 

 along a balcony-rail ? 



Every new discovery, however trivial it may seem at first, is big 

 with discoveries to come. One truth is the germ of innumerable 



