TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 411 



animals, including- himself and his friends, so long- as they do not hurt, hut that 

 must be the limit. On the most extreme humanitarian views no objection can be 

 made to experiments upon animals in a state of insensibility to pain, and as these 

 constitute, happily, the vast majority of physiological experiments, the question is 

 narrowed to comparatively restricted limits. Is it wrong- to inflict painful experi- 

 ments upon animals for the sake of Science ? In the absence of any authority to 

 appeal to, we can but judge of the matter by analogy. Now it has been the prac- 

 tice of all mankind, and is still allowed by the common consent both of law and 

 feeling-, that we should destroy by more or less painful means, that we should 

 enslave and force to work, and mutilate by painful operations, and hunt to death, 

 and wound, and lacerate, and torture the brute creation for the following objects : — 

 for our own self-preservation, as when we offer a reward for the killing of 

 tigers and snakes in India ; for our comfort, as when we poison or otherwise 

 destroy internal parasites, and vermin, and rats, and rabbits. Our safety, our 

 food, our convenience, our wealth, or our amusement : all these objects have been 

 and are regarded by the great mass of mankind, and are held by the laws of 

 every civilised country to be sufficiently important to justify the infliction 

 of pain or death upon animals in whatever numbers may be necessary. The only 

 restriction which Christian morality or in certain cases recent legislation imposes 

 upon such practices is, that no more pain shall be inflicted than is necessary for the 

 object in view. Killing or hurting domestic animals when moved by passion or 

 by the horrible delight which some depraved natures feel in the act of inflicting 

 pain was until lately the only recognised transgression against the law of England. 

 I trust I need not say that it is only under such restrictions that physiologists desire 

 to work. 1 Anyone who would inflict a single pang beyond what is necessary for a 

 scientific object, or would by carelessness fail to take due care of the animals he 

 has to deal with, would be justly amenable to public reprobation. And, remember 

 it is within these limits that the whole controversy lies, for after a long and patient 

 examination of all that could he said by our accusers, the Royal Commission which 

 was nominated for the purpose unanimously reported that in this country at least 

 scientific experiments upon animals are free from abuse. 



What is deliberately asserted is that within the restrictions which all humane 

 persons impose upon themselves, it is lawful to inflict pain or death upon animals 

 for profit or for sport, for money or for pastime : that property and sport are in 

 England sacred things; but that the practices which they justify are unjustifiable 

 when pursued with the object of increasing human knowledge or of relieving human 

 suffering. 



Of those persons who answer that they consider vivisection for the sake of sport 

 to be almost as detestable as vivisection for the sake of duty, I would only ask 

 first that they should deal impartially with both offences ; and secondly, that since 

 in the one case their opinions are opposed to the practice of genteel society, and 

 in the other to the convictions of all who are qualified to judge, they should 

 at least contemplate the possibility of being mistaken. Putting the question of 

 field sports altogether aside, you know perfectly well that in every village in 

 England an extremely painful mutilation is constantly performed upon domestic 

 animals in no registered laboratory, under no anaesthetics, and with no object but 

 the convenience and profit of the owner. You remember how when an epidemic 

 threatened the destruction of valuable property, every booby peer now eager to stop, 

 so far as in him lies, the advance of knowledge, was no less eager to have carried 

 out at the public expense any slaughter and any experiments, painful or other- 

 wise, which would save his pocket. 



But you will say : all this seems reasonable enough ; but if so, how do you 

 account for the prejudice against you, what has induced so many amiable and 

 otherwise sane persons to join in the outcry against Physiology ? 



First, I answer, it is due to the most frequent cause of folly — Ignorance. Many 



1 They are, in fact, the very limits that were put on record by this Association 

 long before the agitation against Physiology began. See Pveport for 1871, p. 144. 



