August 28, 1879] 



NATURE 



411 



this branch of science under as great disabilities as that sense of 

 humour would allow, which «o often redeems British ignorance 

 from its most mischievous results. 



The method that has given rise to so much excitement is the 

 performance of experiments upon living animals. Now, if this 

 Vfere injurious to the greatest good of the greatest number of the 

 community, or if freedom to perform these experiments inter- 

 fered with the freedom of other persons to abstain from them, 

 or if such experiments were forbidden by any religious or moral 

 authority, by the Ten Commandments, or by Mr. Matthew 

 Arnold, of course they mast be given up ; but equally, of course, 

 the science of physiology must alfo come to a stop, and the 

 fanner, the cattle-breeder, and the physician must be content 

 with such knowledge or such ignorance as he at present possesses. 

 I know it has been asserted that the science of the functions of 

 living organs is quite independent of experiment upon living 

 organs. But this is said by the same persons who have denied 

 that the art of setting right the functions of the body when they 

 go wrong has anything to do with the knowledge of what thos'e 

 functions are. 



If you could be persuaded that chemistry can make progress 

 without retorts and balances, that a geologist's hammer is a use- 

 less incumbrance, or that engineers can build bridges just as well 

 by the rule of thumb as by the knowledge gained in a workshop, 

 then you might believe that physiology also is independent of 

 experiment. 



It is absurd to object to the difficulties of the research or even 

 the contradictory results sometimes obtained. The functions of 

 a muscle or a gland are more complicated than those of water or 

 gas, and their investigation needs greater skill, more caution and 

 more frequent repetition. Imperfect experiments can lead to 

 nothing but error ; criticism from other physiologists, or from 

 scientific men experinced in other branches of research, is not 

 wanting and is always welcome. But vague assertion that further 

 progress is impossible by the very means which have led to all 

 our present knowledge, coming from those who "who are not 

 of our school" — or any school, is undeserving of serious 

 notice. 



The real contention of course is a moral one, that we ought to 

 relinquish the advantage of all experiments which are accom- 

 panied with pain to the creature experimented on. The botanist 

 may serve his plants as he pleases, and eventheanimal physiologist 

 may cut, or starve, or poison all sentient organisms which happen 

 not to possess a backbone, and he may try experiments with 

 all backboned animals, including himself and his friends, so long 

 as they do not hurt, but that must be the limit. On the most 

 extreme humanitarian views no objection can be made to experi- 

 ments upon animals in a state of insensibility to pain, and as 

 these constitute, happily, the vast majority of physiological ex- 

 periments, the question is narrowed to comparatively restricted 

 limits. Is it wrong to inflict painful experiments upon animals 

 for the sake of science? In the absence of any authority to 

 appeal to, we can but judge of the matter by analogy. Now it 

 has been the practice of all mankind, andjs still allowed by the 

 conmion consent both of law and feeling, that we should destroy 

 by more or less painful means, that we should enslave and force 

 to work, and mutilate by painful operations, and hunt to death, 

 and wound, and lacerate, and torture the brute creation for the 

 following objects : — for our own self-preservation, as when we 

 offer a reward for the killing of tigers and snakes in India ; for 

 our comfort as when we poison or otherwise destroy internal 

 parasites, and vermin, and rats, and rabbits. Our safety, our 

 food, our convenience, our wealth, or our amusement : all these 

 objects have been and are regarded by the great mass of man- 

 kind, and are held by the laws of every civilised country, to be 

 sufficiently important to justify the infliction of pain or death 

 upon animals in whatever numbers may be necessary. The only 

 restriction which Christian morality or in certain cases recent 

 legislation imposes upon such practises is, that no more pain 

 shall be inflicted than is necessary for the object in view. Kill- 

 ing or hurting domestic animals when moved by passion or by 

 the horrible delight which some depraved natures feel in the act 

 of inflicting pain was until lately the only recognised traasgres- 

 sion against the law of England. I trust I need not say that it 

 is only under such restrictions that physiologists desire to 

 work.' Any one who would inflict a single pang beyond what 

 is necessary for a scientific object, or would by carelessness fail 



» They are, in fact , the very limits that were put on record hy this Associa- 

 tion long before the agitation against physiology began. See Report for 



1871, p. m. 



to take due care of the animals he has to deal with, would be 

 justly amenable to public reprobation. And, remember it is 

 within these limits that the whole controversy lies, for after a 

 long and patient examination of all that could be said by our 

 accusers, the Royal Commission which was nominated for the 

 purpose unanimously reported that in this country at least scien- 

 tific experiments upon animals are free from abuse. 



What is deliberately asserted is that within the restrictions 

 which all humane persons impose upon themselves, it is lawful 

 to inflict pain or death upon animals for profit or for sport, for 

 money or for pastime ; that property and sport are in England 

 sacred things ; but that the practises which they justify are un- 

 justifiable when pursued with the object of increasing human 

 knowledge or of relieving human suffering. 



Of those persons who answer that they consider vivisection 

 for the sake of sport to be almost as detestable as vivisection for 

 the sake of duty, I would only ask first that they should deal 

 impartially with both offences, and secondly that since in the 

 one case their opinions are opposed to the practice of genteel 

 society, and in the other to the convictions of all who are quali- 

 fied to judge, they should at least contemplate the possibility of 

 being mistaken. Putting the question of field sports altogether 

 aside, you know perfectly well that in every village in England 

 an extremely painful mutilation is constantly performed upon 

 domestic animals in no registered laboratory, under no anxs- 

 thelics, and with no object but the convenience and profit of 

 the owner. You remember how when an epidemic threatened 

 the destruction of valuable property, every booby peer now eager 

 to stop, so far as in him lay, the advance of knowledge, was no 

 less eager to have carried out at the public expense any slaughter 

 and any experiments, painful or otherwise, which would save 

 his pocket. 



But you will say : all this seems reasonable enough ; but if . 

 so, how do you account for the prejudice against you, what has 

 induced so many amiable and otherwise sane persons to join in 

 the outcry against physiology ? '» 



First, I answer, it is due to the most frequent cause of folly — 

 Ignorance. Many persons supposed to be educated are so 

 destitute of the most ordinary conceptions of natural science that 

 they do not understand the necessity for experiments. So little 

 do they appreciate the difference between formal knowledge and 

 real knowledge, that a distinguished statesman once assured me 

 that he would as soon have his leg set by a man who had gained 

 what he called his knowledge from books, as by one who had 

 " walked the hospitals." Next, there is the vulgar dislike of 

 whatever is not obviously and immediately useful. When know- 

 ledge for its own sake is in question, those of the baser sort are 

 always ready to cry with equal ignorance of literature and of 

 science, " cui bono ? " 



In another class of persons, less ignorant and less stupid than 

 thefe two, opposition to physiological experiments appears to 

 spring from what may fairly be stigmatised as Sentiment, that is 

 to say, excitable, rather than deep feeling, uncontrolled by 

 reason. People first gratify their fancy by calling cats and dogs 

 our fellow creatures, which, in one sense, undoubtedly they are, 

 and then, by the familiar fallacy of an ambiguous middle term, 

 argue that it is cruel to put oitr fellow creatures to pain ; or, as 

 some would add, to reduce them to slavery, or to use them in any 

 way for our own, rather than their good. Such persons compel 

 their fellow creatures to drag them through the streets, they eat 

 their fellow creatures when sufficiently vivisected to be palatable, 

 and then find philosophical excuses for those who kill their 

 fellow creatiures for fun. But they are properly shocked when 

 their fellow creatures are hurt or killed for the benefit of man- 

 kind. Such persons have been accused of feminine weakness ; 

 but I must say that I have never found an intelligent woman 

 who could not see the rights of the case when fairly explained to 

 her, whereas I have met a few men who on this, as in other 

 matters, consistently refuse to give up to argument the notions 

 which were formed by prejudice. 



Tliis sentiment is, I admit, the degradation of just feeling. 

 To many unaffectedly compassionate hearts there is a peculiar 

 pang in thinking of suffering which is deliberately inflicted, 

 with only the jastification of duty, instead of the 'excuse 

 of ignorance or passion. They see in the heljilessness of 

 the dumb animals an appeal for pity, almost like that of 

 childhood, and are justly indignant with the selfish cruelty so 

 often exercised upon them. All honour to the efforts which have 

 banished so many cruel sports from England ; all honour to the 

 Society which seeks to prevent ciuelty to animals. If it can 



