412 report — 1879. 



persons supposed to be educated are so destitute of the most ordinary conceptions 

 of natural science that they do not understand the necessity for experiments. So 

 little do they appreciate tbe difference between formal knowledge and real know- 

 ledge, that a distinguished statesman once assured me that he would as soon have 

 his leg set by a man who had gained what he called his knowledge from books, as by 

 one who had ' walked the hospitals.' Next, there is the vulgar dislike of whatever 

 is not obviously and immediately useful. When knowledge for its own sake is in 

 question, those of the baser sort are always ready to cry with equal igncance of 

 literature and of science, Cut bono f 



In another class of persons, less ignorant and less stupid than these two, oppo- 

 sition to physiological experiments appears to spring from what may fairly be 

 stigmatised as Sentiment, that is to say, excitable, rather than deep feeling, uncon- 

 trolled by reason, People first gratify their fancy by calling cats and dogs our 

 fellow creatures, which, in one sense, undoubtedly they are, and then, by the 

 familiar fallacy of an ambiguous middle term, argue that it is cruel to put our 

 fellow creatures to pain ; or, as some would add, to reduce them to slavery, or to 

 use them in any way for our own, rather than their good. Such persons compel 

 their fellow creatures to drag them through the streets, they eat their fellow crea- 

 tures when sufficiently vivisected to be palatable, and they find philosophical 

 excuses for those who kill their fellow creatures for fun. But they are properly 

 shocked when their fellow creatures are hurt or killed for the benefit of mankind. 

 Such persons have been accused of feminine weakness ; but I must say that I have 

 never found an intelligent woman who could not see the rights of the case when 

 fairly explained to her, whereas I have met a few men who on this, as in other 

 matters, consistently refuse to give up to argument the notions which were formed 

 by prejudice. 



This sentiment is, I admit, the degradation of j ust feeling. To many unafiectedly 

 compassionate hearts there is a peculiar pang in thinking of suffering which is 

 deliberately inflicted, with only the justification of duty, instead of the excuse of 

 ignorance or passion. They see in the helplessness of the dumb animals an appeal 

 for pity, almost like that of childhood, and are justly indignant with the selfish 

 cruelty so often exercised upon them. All honour to the efforts which have 

 banished so many cruel sports from England ; all honour to the Society which seeks 

 to prevent cruelty to animals. If it can point to any additional means by which 

 the sufferings of animals in the cause of Science can be diminished, we shall be 

 anxious to adopt tliem. If it can point to any abuse in one of our laboratories, we 

 will hasten to correct it. This Society has honourably declared that they know of 

 none. That physiologists have been heedless, or even callous, in their ex- 

 periments upon animals in past times, when men were strangely insensible even to 

 human suffering, or in countries where a healthy result of Christian civilisation 

 has not yet been seen in habitual gentleness to animals, I need not deny. Such 

 cases have been eagerly sought and sometimes most unfairly judged. Only 

 lately a learned body felt itself not strong enough to retain the admittedly in- 

 valuable services of an eminent foreigner who had once admitted that when 

 absorbed in scientific and beneficent researches he lost sight of any pain that might 

 be inflicted. 1 Is not this the very excuse which is held valid in the case of sport? 

 Doubtless we ought to be ever mindful of every branch of duty, but such occasional 

 forgetfulness does not show hardness of heart. It is an excusable weakness for a 

 student of medicine to shudder or to faint at the sight of blood, but he learns that 

 this merely physical sensibility becomes selfish and mischievous if indulged : he is 

 taught to suppress all such exhibition of emotion, and to let it stimulate without 

 interfering with his efforts to relieve. But no one surely would think the hysterical 

 vouth more truly humane than the surgeon whose compassion is shown in the very 

 firmness with which he inflicts a temporary pain for an ultimate good. 



1 Fortunately, Dr. Klein, whose researches in microscopic anatomy and pathology 

 are so well known and appreciated, knows that he retains the confidence and respect 

 of his scientific brethren, and we hope that his honourable connection with the largest 

 school of medicine in London will strengthen other and closer ties in binding him 

 to England. 



