150 Cleanliness promoted by Scientific Discovery. 



and alleviating animal suffering has been already 

 alluded to (p. 80 81). True humanity consists not in 

 the abolition of experiments upon living creatures, 

 but in the judicious employment of them. Instead of 

 barbarously treating our suffering fellow creatures by 

 indolently and ignorantly allowing causes of disease 

 and pain to continually occur and take their course, it 

 urgently enforces upon us the duty of extending our 

 knowledge of physiology by means of new experi- 

 ments, observations and study. It would be un- 

 truthful to say that experiments purposely made 

 upon men and other animals do not yield new and 

 valuable information; Pharmacopoeias and Materia- 

 Medicaes are full of descriptions of the properties of 

 curative agents discovered by these and other 

 scientific methods. 



Amongst the lesser virtues which have been greatly 

 promoted by means of scientific research is that of 

 cleanliness. The origin of soap was the discovery of 

 the detergent properties of a boiled mixture of fat 

 and alkali. The numerous inventions which have 

 cheapened the most important soap-producing ma- 

 terial, viz., washing soda, and those which have 

 cheapened oil of vitriol, the chief substance consumed 

 in making washing-soda, have all contributed to the 

 cleanliness of mankind ; and it has been stated that 

 the degree of civilization of a nation might be ascer- 

 tained by the amounts consumed of those substances. 



Even the minor virtue of economy has been greatly 

 promoted by the results of scientific research. New 



