1882/ Bestiarianism v. Common Sense. 515 
yesterday ” ? Yet to this conclusion Mr. Tait’s line of argu- 
ment must lead us. We fear he forgets that Evolution is 
not always a movement upwards, so that the recent is not 
to be pronounced ipso facto superior to the old. 
We next come to a consideration so far-fetched, so alto- 
gether questionable in its essence, that we' are compelled to 
quote it word for word, lest we should be suspended of mis- 
representation : — 
“ The secqnd may be called a political avenue, and is also 
one of importance, though that importance is not visible at 
first sight, and may even be altogether denied by some of a 
particular shade of political conviction. But to those of us 
who regard the Game Laws as a prolific method of manu- 
facturing criminals, of wasting public money, of preventing 
the development of agricultural industry, and hindering the 
development of the peasant from his present serfdom to his 
possible and perfect citizenship, this avenue assumes a 
mighty importance when we discover that the lay support of 
vivisection is derived mainly from those who maintain costly 
pheasant preserves in order to become amateur poultry 
butchers, and who maim pigeons at Hurlingham under the 
idea that it is amusement. Anyone, therefore, who objects 
to the Game Laws from political conviction will put vivi- 
section upon its trial, and he must hear a good case before 
he consents to an acquittal ! ” 
This argument, if so it may be called, when stripped of 
its unnecessary and totally irrelevant verbiage, amounts to 
the contention that whatsoever a game-preserver or a mem- 
ber of a gun-club supports is, if not absolutely wrong, at 
least so suspicious that it must be compelled to prove its 
own innocence before it can secure its existence. Or if Mr. 
Tait’s assertion be generalised it amounts to this, that 
whatever a political opponent supports must be regarded 
with hostility ! ” The morality and the logic of such a con- 
tention stand on the same level, and need no exposure. This 
“ important ” second avenue is, in short, an appeal to the 
“ odium poliiicum ,” a weapon no less reprehensible than the 
now unfashionable odium theologicum. It may be, from one 
point of view, a clever strategical move to place “ anti-vivi- 
seCtionism ” in alliance with a political party, and to propi- 
tiate the genius loci. But it is a step ill-becoming anyone 
whose aim, we would fain hope, is truth. We should 
like to know what is the evidence to prove that the lay 
support of physiological experimentation is derived mainly 
from game-preservers and Hurlingham heroes ?* We have 
* It must be noted that England is at once the fccus of “ sport ” and of 
“ anti-vivise&ionism,” 
