5iS Bestiarianism v. Common Seme. [September, 
candid “ anti-vivisedtor ” how they can be solved without 
diredl experiment ? premising that if any other method can be 
devised we shall be not merely satisfied, but grateful : — 
1. Connection, if any, between the physical and chemical 
properties of bodies and their physiological aCtion. 
Is atomic weight related, diredtly or inversely, with 
toxic power ? Do bodies chemically homologous pro- 
duce effects of the same class when introduced into 
the animal system ? 
2. Discovery, in the lower animals, of the functions of 
certain organs — e.g., the palpi of inseCts, arachnids, 
and crustaceans ; the specific difference in function 
of simple and compound eyes, where both co-exist. 
Conversely, the localising of the different senses, and 
the detection, possibly, of new ones. 
3. Determination of the causes which may determine, or 
at least influence, animal variability. Here belong 
experiments on the results of exposing animals for 
successive generations to abnormal thermic, luminous, 
or hygroscopic conditions ; to higher or lower degrees 
of atmospheric pressure ; to atmospheres of different 
chemical composition, or, in case of aquatic species, 
to water more or less charged with saline matter ; to 
a modified diet, &c., &c. 
We mention these instances not as an exhaustive cata- 
logue, but simply as specimens. We are aware that while 
under all these heads good work has been done, yet very 
much remains undone, and we must plead our inability to 
see how a final decision can be reached without experiment. 
The vast majority of the experiments required would indeed 
be in all probability painless, involving no bodily lesion at 
all. Yet, so far as vertebrate animals go, they would be, in 
the present state of the law, unsafe. They might occasion 
“ inconvenience,” and, given a wealthy and ignorant prose- 
cutor, an unscrupulous and ignorant counsel, and a fanatical 
and ignorant judge and jury, — commodities all easily to be 
met with, — the inconvenience might be construed as pain. 
Should the clamour of the enemies of Science prevail, we 
presume the same danger will be extended to inquiries on 
inserts, mollusks, and still lower forms of life. 
It may, or rather it will be, said that such experiments 
have no immediate utility, and merely serve to gratify our 
“ curiosity,” as the love of knowledge for its own sake is 
courteously called. Surely, we reply, it is at last time that 
we should rise superior to the stupid Philistinism of judging 
