516 Bestiarianism v. Common Sense. [September, 
been under the impression that the sporting world had 
mainly, if not exclusively, enlisted under the Anti-Vivisec- 
tionist standard. The “ Society ” and the sporting-press 
are, to the best of our knowledge, against us. We have 
never seen a defence of physiological experimentation by any 
known, typical, game-preserver. We could give the names 
of fox-hunters, owners of buckhounds, battue-sportsmen, and 
anglers, whose sympathies are avowedly given to the Anti- 
ViviseCtion movement. Thus Mr. Froude, the eminent his- 
torian, a pronounced Anti-ViviseCtionist, is not merely an 
enthusiastic angler, but a defender of sport in general, as 
may be seen in his article on “ Cheneys and the House of 
Russell.” 
We deny, in short, that the lay support of “ vivisection ” 
is derived mainly from the sporting world, and even if this 
were accidentally the case we hold that it would prove 
nothing. The Game Laws, be their tendencies evil or good, 
— a question which it does not lie within our competence to 
discuss, — have nothing to do with the matter at issue. 
Before leaving this unhappy “ second avenue ” we ask 
whether the Birmingham Philosophical Society has not, like 
most such bodies, a rule prohibiting the introduction of party 
politics ? If so, how came such a breach of order to be 
tolerated ? 
Turn we to the third “ avenue ” — “ the religious one.” 
Here we read that “ the doCtrine of Evolution has affeCted 
religion, as it has everything else. Admitting that the so- 
called lower animals are part of ourselves, in being of one 
scheme and differing from us only in degree, no matter how 
they be considered, is to admit they have equal rights. 
These rights are in no case to be hastily and unfairly set 
aside, but should be all the more tenderly dealt with in that 
civilisation and inventions are every day making it more and 
more difficult for the animals to assert their independence, 
or as it were to vote upon the question ! ” To this strange 
perversion of Evolutionism we reply, — ist, by pronouncing 
Mr. Tait’s assumption of “ equal rights ” to be no legitimate 
inference from the fundamental truths of the New Natural 
History ; 2nd, that if animals have equal rights with man, 
so also have plants ; and 3rd, that if it be wrong to experi- 
ment upon our “ poor relations,” not less is it wrong to eat 
them, to enslave, and emasculate them. As Dr. Wilks well 
points out, it is a standing error of Bestiarians to speak as 
if there existed “ among the public some principle of conduCt 
towards the lower animals which has no place among expe- 
rimenters.” And again, “ If a horse could define his rights 
