164 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VJ 



in course of time, place medicine and hygiene upon a 

 rational basis. 



The dangers of prohibition by law are discussed in 

 a letter to Sir W. Harcourt : 



You wish me to say what, in my opinion, would be 

 the effect of the total suppression of experiments on living 

 animals on the progress of physiological science in this 

 cotintry. 



I have no hesitation in replying that it would almost 

 entirely arrest that progress. Indeed, it is obvious that 

 such an effect must follow the measure, for a man can no 

 more develop a true conception of living action out of 

 his inner consciousness than he can that of a camel. 

 Observation and experiment alone can give us a real 

 foundation for any kind of Natural Knowledge, and any 

 one who is acquainted with the history of science is aware 

 that not a single one of all the great truths of modern 

 physiology has been established otherwise than by experi- 

 ment on living things. 



Happily the abolition of physiological experiment in 

 this country, should such a fatal legislative mistake ever 

 be made, will be powerless to arrest the progress of science 

 elsewhere. But we shall import our physiology as we do 

 our hock and our claret from Germany and France ; those 

 of our young physiologists and pathologiste who can afford 

 to travel will carry on their researches in Paris and in 

 Berlin, where they will be under no restraint whatever, 

 or it may be that the foreign laboratories will carry out 

 the investigations devised here by the few persons who 

 have the courage, in spite of all obstacles, to attempt to 

 save British science from extinction. 



I doubt if such a result will contribute to the diminu- 

 tion of animal suffering. I am sure that it will do as 

 much harm as anything can do to the English school of 

 Physiology, Pathology, and Pharmacology, and therefore 

 to the progress of rational medicine. 



