6 7 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



justified, therefore, in killing the animal, he is not justified in causing 

 it pain. He is bound, in fact, to kill the animal in such a way as to 

 cause as little pain as is consistent with his own interest. The death 

 of a sheep in a butcher's slaughter-house is painful ; but men cannot 

 therefore be said to do wrong in killing a sheep for food. They kill 

 it with as little pain as is under the circumstances possible. They 

 could not make the pain less, except by the introduction of elaborate 

 and costly methods which would probably ruin the butcher or spoil 

 the meat, or at least, in the present state of our knowledge and of the 

 market, do damage to the interests of mankind. The death of an ox, 

 again, is more painful than that of a sheep ; but men do not therefore 

 feel bound to live on mutton alone. They consider that the advantages 

 of a mixed diet of beef and mutton justify them in inflicting that 

 additional quantity of pain which is suffered whenever an ox is felled. 



In short, this, under one aspect, is a selfish world. The struggle 

 for existence is its guiding principle. If we believe that man is to 

 govern the world, and he must either govern or succumb, then we 

 must be prepared to use animals selfishly, if you please to call it so — 

 to use animals for our advantage — to kill them when we have need of 

 their deaths — to kill them with pain when the pain is for our benefit; 

 and, inasmuch as the greater includes the less, to inflict pain without 

 death where their pain does us good. 1 Our good is, in fact, the rule 

 of our conduct toward animals. Whenever an animal is killed by 

 man, or suffers pain at the hand of man, without benefit to man, or 

 where the same benefit could be gained without the death or without 

 the pain, then the death or the pain can be no longer justified. The 

 man who inflicts them is a cruel man ; he no longer does good, but 

 harm, to humanity, and humanity ought to stop his hand. 



I feel that I ought almost to apologize to the reader for having 

 spent so much of his time over what are almost truisms ; but so many 

 absurd statements are continually being made, and so many whimsical 

 ideas broached, that it seemed desirable to have a clear understanding 

 concerning the principles which should guide our general conduct 

 toward animals before discussing the special subject of vivisection. 



We have now to inquire whether the deaths and pains which the 

 word vivisection implies are, or have been, wrought for the benefit of 

 mankind, inasmuch as they have led to knowledge and power which 

 could not otherwise have been gained ; or whether they had not been 

 wrought for the benefit of mankind, inasmuch as they have not led to 

 knowledge and power, or the power and knowledge might have been 

 gained in some other way, or, being gained by many deaths and much 

 pain, have been so small that mankind could well have done without 



1 Some writers have urged that while man is perfectly justified in hilling any number 

 of animals, he is not justified in causing pain. From the point of view of the animal this 

 is simply a grotesque absurdity ; from the point of view of man we shall have to speak 

 of it later on. 



