310 
THE AIM AND OBJECT 
the veterinary surgeon ? The question has been already and 
satisfactorily answered. We cannot prevent many of the suffer- 
ings of our quadruped slaves. Our necessities often heavily tax 
them ; but where necessity and manifest convenience do not de- 
mand it, we have no right to make any wanton addition to their 
pains, and no expressed wish of the owner can justify the surgeon 
in being the instrument of inflicting unnecessary pain. 
But will not reasonings and feelings like these incapacitate the 
veterinary surgeon for the occasional discharge of his duty? Let 
us inquire into that. His object is the life, and usefulness, and 
enjoyment of his patient. In proportion as he has entered fully 
into this, and made it his ruling principle of action, will have 
been the pains he has bestowed in making himself thoroughly 
master of the nature and causes, and usual progress of the diseases 
which threaten the life, or impair the usefulness, or lessen the 
enjoyments of his patients ; and here, as with the human practi- 
tioner, his deep-felt interest with regard to his patient will give 
him a thousand times clearer views than the indifferent or brutal 
attendant can ever have. 
But when a serious operation is to be performed, which has 
the advantage, the humane or the reckless practitioner ? You 
have too acute feelings for a veterinary surgeon and an operator 
objects some one. Now, in the first place, we object to this 
term, always uttered with a half sneer, “ acute feelings,” “fine 
feelings.” There are no fine feelings in the case. It is a care- 
ful comparison of circumstances — the disease — the lesion — the 
means of relief — the probability of considerable or perfect relief, 
and the degree of suffering. It is a matter of calculation, found- 
ed on the acknowledgment of the principle, that we have no right 
to inflict unnecessary torture. If the result of the inquiry is, 
that the life of the animal will probably be saved, and with it the 
capability of enjoyment — if the after-pleasure will exceed the 
temporary suffering, humanity will demand the performance of 
that operation — and then the motives by which the humane 
practitioner is influenced will give him a degree of intellectual 
firmness and vigour, and a fertility of resources, which the rough, 
thoughtless, reckless man never had. The terms “ fine and acute 
