themselves,” was the approach used 
to teach the common people the virtue 
of being kind to animals. Whatever 
their method, says Turner, the Vic- 
torians “did enshrine a sympathy for 
suffering, and not only for suffering 
animals, among the dominant values 
of Anglo-American cultures.” 
The sympathy found several outlets. 
The new fashion for pets was encour- 
aged by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 
lump-in-the-throat description of a dog 
as “nothing but organized love, love 
on four feet that would die for you, 
yet cannot speak.” A vegetarian sect 
called the Dorrilites settled in Ver- 
mont in the 1 790s, but the mainstream 
of this movement had its source in 
the precepts of a British Swedenbor- 
gian named Cowherd whose disciples 
settled in Pennsylvania in 1817. 
The antivivisectionists were a re- 
action to the paradoxical actions of 
science. First, scientists gave a rational 
base to the animal welfare movement 
by establishing the biological relation- 
ship between humans and beasts. Then 
exploited this relationship to experi- 
ment on animals in order to find cures 
for human ills. That brought the an- 
tivivisectionists charging in to stop the 
scientists in their “inhumane” acts. 
They accused experimenters of gothic 
horrors: “men of science disembowel 
living horses and open the brains of 
dogs.” Compassion and goodness 
counted for more than knowledge, 
they declared, and doubted that vivi- 
section had any use at all. Such doubts 
were blown away once and for all in 
1894 when, after years of testing on 
animals, two Americans produced an 
antitoxin for diptheria. This not only 
conquered a frightening disease that 
killed two of every five infants that 
contracted it but also routed the an- 
tivivisectionists. They became more 
concerned — as most are today — with 
restricting animal experiments than 
with abolishing them. 
Although Turner ignores the in- 
structive role of nineteenth-century 
naturalists, he does pay attention to 
today’s environmentalists, whose hu- 
mane impulses, he observes, are di- 
rected at all nature, not just one part 
of it. The'jr new concern for man’s 
place in nature, he suggests, was born 
“from the unlikely womb of the Vic- 
torian love for animals.” 
Turner does a remarkable job of 
encompassing his many-faceted his- 
tory in a short 140 pages. His bib- 
liographic notes run a quarter as long 
as his text and are, in themselves, 
an engrossing index to the ramifica- 
tions of the subject. Out of his studies, 
he spins convincing analyses, although 
it is sometimes disconcerting to read, 
afterward, that they are not docu- 
mented fact but considered specula- 
tion. Still, the caveats are always 
there, even if the pace of the book 
might pull the reader too quickly past 
them. 
Turner could have paused from time 
to time to tell more about some of 
the people he presents. Queen Victoria 
is described as “the kingdom’s most 
prominent antivivisectionist,” and that 
is all we get on her. Henry Bergh’s 
foibles are detailed but not the cour- 
age that sent him out, tophatted and 
armed only with a piece of paper from 
a judge, to stop brawny carters from 
lashing their horses and bloody- 
handed abattoir workers from mind- 
lessly adding to the agonies of their 
victims. In fact, none of the unyielding 
dedication of the humane leaders 
comes through nor is it made plain 
that an iron rod of Christian duty re- 
inforced Victorian sentimentality. 
By design, Turner limits himself to 
England and America, never explain- 
ing the attitudes of other Western 
countries. This is not a complaint, 
however, but a regret. Turner’s adept 
scholarship, his perceptions of social 
history, and his frequent wit make 
Reckoning with the Beast an enliv- 
ening exposition of values we take too 
much for granted. And the jacket of 
the book is, in itself, an inspired com- 
ment. It is a painting by George 
Stubbs of a monkey looking out at 
his human kin with wise and wary 
eyes and evoking a question: Which 
beast should be reckoning with which? 
Joseph Kastner, a former editor of 
Life, and that magazine’s first nature 
editor, is the author of A Species 
of Eternity (Knopf), a history of early 
American naturalists. 
Painting by George Stubbs. Walker Art Gallery. Liverpool 
90 
