THE MAN 45 



In 1870, Huxley's defense of Dr. Brown-Sequard 

 at the Liverpool meeting of the British Association 

 brought him into collision with the opponents of 

 vivisection, and the battle went on, in intermittent 

 fashion, for some seven years. Experiments had been 

 carried on, chiefly in France, without regard to animal 

 suffering, and also for the wholly needless purpose of 

 further demonstrating well-known facts in physiology 

 and pathology. Hence an agitation which, within 

 limits, commanded the sympathy .of all humanely 

 minded folk, and the appointment of a committee 

 by the Association to consider what steps should be 

 taken to reduce to its minimum the suffering entailed 

 by legitimate inquiry. The committee recommended 

 that there should be no experiments without the use 

 of anaesthetics ; or for the purpose of illustrating 

 truths already known ; or for practice in manual 

 dexterity ; and these provisions, with others of undue 

 stringency, were embodied in " An Act to amend the 

 law relating to Cruelty to Animals," passed in 1876. 

 Huxley held that " the wanton infliction of pain on 

 man or beast is a crime," l and that the vivisectionist 

 is justified only when his aim is the discovery of the 

 origin and nature of disease with a view to the 

 alleviation or removal of the suffering which it 

 causes. In this he has rendered incalculable service 



1 1. 436. 



