6 14 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It is probable that this remarkable process of reduction has 

 some far-reaching significance with reference to the origin and 

 meaning of sexuality. Already theories concerning it have been 

 suggested ; but we are yet on the threshold of knowledge of the 

 facts on which profitable theories must be based, and, until we 

 have penetrated further within the portal, we can afford to sup- 

 press our propensity for speculation. 



THE VIVISECTION QUESTION. 



By C. F. HODGE, Ph. D., 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, CLARK UNIVERSITY. 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 



FOR about thirty years the vivisection question has been before 

 the public in this country. Discussion has often been hot and 

 bitter, both in the press and in society, and again it is upon us in 

 exactly its old form. What are we to do with it ? What, so far 

 as this country is concerned, has the controversy accomplished ? 

 After careful reading of all the important literature upon both 

 sides, it appears to me that nothing has been gained either way. 

 Both sides are practically where they were thirty years ago, and 

 the failure seems to be due to fundamental misunderstandings of 

 the real points at issue. In several hundred antivivisection pub- 

 lications I am unable to find a passage which reveals the least 

 conception on the part of their writers of the real purpose which 

 a physiologist has in his work. On the other side, while definite 

 arguments have been advanced, no generous effort has been made 

 to give the public a clear notion of what the physiologist in the 

 study of health and the pathologist in the study of disease are 

 driving at. Can something be said which shall do this ? Or 

 must physiologists work on under the distrust and suspicion of 

 society because their aims and purposes are misunderstood ? 



The real question at issue, moreover, has been buried under 

 personalities and under matters of detail, themselves involved in 

 bitterest possible medical controversy, and the merits of which 

 no amount of discussion, but time and experiment alone, can de- 

 termine. Only by freeing the argument entirely from these 

 things, and by placing it upon higher grounds, can we hope for 

 intelligent peace upon this contested field. What, then, is the pur- 

 pose of biological science ? 



Man finds himself in company upon the earth with an infinite 

 number of living things, and he has found it of inestimable value 

 to learn something about this maze of life. The science which 



