December 16, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



873 



MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE HXJMA.NE SOCIETY. 



As to the note in Science (Nov. 25, 1898, p. 

 743) urging ' Men of Science and Physicians ' 

 to write to Senators of the United States in op- 

 position to a bill introduced to Congress by the 

 Humane Society for the restriction of vivisec- 

 tion, we ought to hope that the advice may not 

 be followed, without an investigation of the 

 merits of the case, on the part of the scientific 

 men who have hitherto accepted, without ques- 

 tion, the dicta of their medical, physiological 

 and biological friends on the subject. That a 

 great many scientific workers know as little 

 about the charges of 'wanton cruelty,' 'moral 

 degradation,' and unrestricted abuse of ex- 

 periment alleged by the anti-vivisectionists as 

 the general public there can be no doubt. The 

 necessary knowledge is out of their line of work 

 and observation, and about the only public in- 

 formation on the subject that comes in the way 

 of a busy man is presented in the tracts gratui- 

 tously presented and the bulletins and journals 

 published by, for example, the American and 

 Illinois Anti-vivisection Societies, 118 S. 17th 

 St., Philadelphia, and 275 East 42d St., Chi- 

 cago ; the National Anti-vivisection Society of 

 England, 20 Victoria St., London, S. W. ; the 

 Humane Education Committee, 61 Westminster 

 St., Providence, E. I. ; the Humane Societies 

 and Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

 Animals of Boston, New York (10East22d St.), 

 Philadelphia, etc ; the Audubon Society of 

 Pennsylvania and various States publishing and 

 dissiminating Our Fellow Creatures (Chicago). 

 Journal of Zoophily (Philadelphia), Our Animal 

 Friends (New York), The Zoophilist (London), 

 etc. , and abundant tracts and pamphlets. Not 

 unfrequently these materials, under prejudice 

 at the start, stocking the mails together with 

 a mass of modern second- and third-class postal 

 matter, go generally unexamined into the 

 waste-paper basket. 



The quoted writer in Science, however, 

 would assume that the question against the 

 Humane Societies and opponents of painful ex- 

 periments on living animals was fully settled in 

 the minds of scientific workers in general, and 

 it would appear from the unanimous vote (in 

 the absence of the writer) against the agitation, 

 at a recent meeting of the American Associa- 



tion for the Advancement of Science, that he is 

 right. Yet we believe that not one voter in 

 twenty at the above meeting was qualified to 

 vote, or, if challenged, would have said that 

 he had given the question scientifically just 

 consideration on its merits, either from having 

 studied the nature and rights of animal life or 

 from having investigated the experiments or ex- 

 perimenters as accused by the Humane Socie- 

 ties. 



Our colleagues, we might as well admit it, are 

 not exempted by their vocation from the weak- 

 ness of Adam, and we know that those among 

 them whose minds cannot always be said to be 

 ' open,' too often, by superior activity, 'push,' 

 etc., get the upper hand of meetings where 

 ' resolutions ' pass with little or no discussion. 

 However this may have been at the above con- 

 ference, we stand against the idea of the whole 

 class room turning aside in an alleged impor- 

 tant case, fit for their investigating specialty, to 

 follow the advice or unquestioned ipse-dixit of 

 a subdivision of their colleagues. 



On the other hand, it seems that it might be 

 commended to us as a phenomenon for wonder 

 and psychic research that any man, by means 

 of gratuitous work, worriment and sleepless 

 nights, in order to limit his own food supply, 

 restrict his range of clothes and adornment and 

 prevent the doctor from curing his own pain, 

 should work for the animals at all. To call the 

 members of the Humane Society fanatics is as 

 easy as to have applied that term to Socrates, 

 Galileo, Wilberforce or Wendell Phillips. 

 But without any prejudice in the matter, we 

 think that the humane agitation, founded on 

 the potent principle of sympathy or love for 

 all living creatures, so omnipotent a factor in 

 the management and development of mankind, 

 will go on. By the truth of the fully heard 

 case, Science will either judge or be judged. 

 H. C. Mercer. 



Section of American and Prehistoric 

 Archeology, University of Penn- 

 sylvania, November 26, 1898. 



[Me. Mercer appears to confuse the work of 

 the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

 Animals with the antics of the anti-vivisection 



