THE VIVISECTION QUESTION. 623 



the succeeding chapter. Before passing on to this head, however, 

 two moral questions, fundamental to the whole discussion, must 

 be carefully considered. 



An assumption found in every, or almost every, antivivisec- 

 tion argument is that vivisection must be demoralizing to those 

 who practice or witness it. Neither fact nor proof is adduced. 

 From beginning to end it is pure tissue of antivivisection im- 

 agination, like the old assumptions against the first anatomists. 

 The assumption is not only unfounded but thoroughly irrational. 

 It would be precisely as sane to assume that a missionary who 

 goes to preach among the heathen tends to become heathenous ; 

 or that anything in the practice of surgery or medicine tends to 

 blunt the sensibilities of men in these professions. Granting that 

 there are brutal men in the medical profession, as there are in all 

 others, carries no proof that their work has made them so. It 

 may have made them decidedly more humane than they ever 

 would have been without it. 



On just this point I have taken the pains to collect the testi- 

 mony of experienced teachers of physiology in thirteen institu- 

 tions in this country, where the greater part of our vivisectional 

 work is done. In every case the moral effect of experimentation 

 is claimed to be wholesome, and in no case have they any evi- 

 dence of its being evil. I will quote from but one instance, the 

 experience of a professor in an institution for the higher educa- 

 tion of women. He writes : " In numerous cases students have 

 entered the course with decided objections to the practice of vivi- 

 section ; and in no case, so far as I know, have they left without 

 the removal of their objections and the substitution for them 

 of sound views as to the necessity and value of vivisectional 

 work." 



The other question is one which touches the bed rock of human 

 life : What is the use of living anyway ? It is Franklin's old 

 question, " What is the use of a baby, unless it is to become a 

 man ? " but with the added question, What is the use of the 

 man ? A good many people every year look their lives in the 

 face in this way, and, deciding that this life is of no use or worse 

 than no use, put an end to it. 



Furthermore, What is, or what may be, the value of a man's 

 life work ? And how far have we the moral right to pass judg- 

 ment as to the value or use of another's life or work ? With the 

 earth reeking in carnage and with humanity and animate Nature 

 writhing in pain, how is it possible to say that God has ordered 

 Nature wisely and mercifully ? And taking Nature as we find 

 it, what can man do about it ? 



One theory has always been that the forces of Nature and life 

 are far too vast for man's feeble powers to influence for good or 



