VIVISECTION. 



FKOM time to time the necessity or non-necessity for vivisec- 

 tion is a question that comes up to harrow the public mind. 

 It has so come up of late, the presumed cruelties of French 

 veterinary practitioners having been the starting-point. I say 

 presumed, knowing nothing personally for or against. The 

 question, moreover, can be discussed impersonally, without 

 vilifying the French. 



There are some things in respect of which ideas intui- 

 tively arise so strongly tinctured with preconceptions that an 

 investigator's first care should be to admonish his own judg- 

 ment to be guided by evidence only ; as juries are admo- 

 nished by the presiding judge. 



Of such things assuredly vivisection is one. The all-wise 

 decree of God, whereby death is made a mystery, implies a 

 corresponding reverence for animal life ; reverence for all the 

 elaborate machinery with which life is associated, with which 

 animal vitality is alone compatible. The well-ordered mind 

 naturally shrinks from inflicting unnecessary pain ; it recoils 

 with shuddering and abhorrence from the idea of dissecting 

 a live animal. 



To bring laboured proofs in support of the proposition, 

 that the sentiment of repugnance to pain-infliction is natural 

 to every well-ordered human mind, is hardly needful. The 

 universality of that sentiment must be conceded ; concur- 

 rently with maintenance of the proposition, that no mere re- 

 pugnance of a mind to the idea of vivisection would furnish 



