444 VIVISECTION. 



The first limit is one imposed by an obvious and ever- 

 present moral conviction. I assume the tacit acquiescence 

 of every rational and sane human being to the general propo- 

 sition, that pain should not be inflicted not to say gratuit- 

 ously, but not without presumptive need. Animal life is 

 very precious ; pain is hateful. Vivisection should obviously 

 be restricted to occasions when there seem no possible means 

 of revealing the truth sought by any other class of experi- 

 ment. He who recklessly and cruelly adopts so terrible a 

 means of truth-revelation as vivisection, unmoved by pity for 

 the creature under the torture of his hands, thereby proclaims 

 himself unfitted for the task he has undertaken. Philosophy 

 has nothing to expect from the labours of such a man ; let 

 him, then, abandon her shrine, ceasing to desecrate her 

 temple. 



Instances there have been of foreign physiologists violat- 

 ing the conditions of restraint here laid down ; cutting live 

 animals to pieces recklessly and remorselessly; operating as 

 a sculptor might operate upon a block of marble, or a car-* 

 penter on a log of wood. Has science been advanced by 

 these men ? have the fields of science been enlarged through 

 their cruelties? Scarcely. I am disposed to think, in no 

 degree; but assuredly the physiological truths revealed by 

 these men are no way comparable for extent or importance 

 with others that owe their origin to men who shrank from 

 the infliction of pain, even when they deemed such infliction 

 needful. 



Perhaps the whole range of physiological inquiry does not 

 present an example of a truth appertaining to the mystery of 

 life so clearly revealed, so fully placed beyond the limits of 

 doubt or cavil, as that of the dual construction and dual 

 function of the spinal nerves. 



To apprehend the scope and purport of this subject, let it 

 be understood that the spinal nerves of a vertebrate animal 

 present to the eye a certain regularity of form and arrange- 



