48 The Carnivora. 
To my thinking, there is no difference in the moral responsibility. 
There may be some distinction, but to my eye it is microscopic. 
Were the two cases submitted to a higher judgment than that of 
any human law, would it fare better with the offender who turns 
the key in a door on a cat than with him who leaves it outside 
his house with an equal certainty that the unfortunate animal 
dies of starvation, or in its weakness falls a victim to the first 
boy who may throw a stone at it P Here is a clear field of 
action for the opponents of experiments on living animals for 
the purpose of physiological research. Without a doubt, more 
cats die annually of starvation in London than in all the 
physiological laboratories in the world, and they die a terrible 
death in consequence of the selfishness of those who are 
responsible for their well-being. Unfortunately, however, the 
case of these tortured cats does not present features which lend 
themselves to sensational or picturesque effects in advertise- 
ments and pictorial wall posters, and would not either arrest 
attention or draw subscriptions. The cat demands our thought- 
ful consideration the more by reason of its deficient moral and 
mental capabilities. Our ownership in it is precarious, and our 
control over it incomplete. It takes food from us with little or 
no expression of gratitude, and regards as its own the house in 
which we are graciously permitted to live with it. An animal 
so deficient in perception as this surely might be allowed to 
enjoy its delusions, and be protected from the consequences of 
our fruitless attempts to raise it to the platform of civilisation, 
when it is liable at any moment to be turned out to starve in the 
howling wilderness which we have made for it with bricks and 
mortar.* 
There are not any very adequate data for deciding on the 
powers of vision in the carnivora, but it may be taken for 
granted, perhaps, that that of the cats is not inferior to the 
same sense in other terrestrial mammalia. Of the delicacy 
* Since the above was written Iam glad to find that a t 
megteoted cats has been established in connection with toe Deas mime, a 
attersea. 
