EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS, 
681 
an unfortunate rabbit, a little boy four years of age, be¬ 
longing to the vivisector, who was playing in the garden 
close to the summer-house where the experiment was going 
on, happened to fall from a wheelbarrow and cut his fore¬ 
head on the gravel. No sooner did the father hear the child 
cry, than, without a moment’s hesitation, abandoning rabbit, 
instruments, and everything at the most interesting moment, 
he snatched the child up in his arms, and gave way to demon¬ 
strations of the most acute sympathy. For an instant we 
could not help fancying that the cruel vivisector was about to 
faint away with emotion. 
It may be said without fear of contradiction, that if the 
habit of witnessing the sufferings of animals had the power 
to blunt sensibility, we never could have to record this scene, 
the principal actor in which has accomplished thousands of 
experiments upon the nervous system. Cruelty is not an 
acquired trait of human nature. It is an inherent vice which 
may be in some measure corrected by education, but can 
never be taught. 
To sum up our argument, we flatter ourselves that we have 
established the conviction in our hearers, that it would be 
going beyond a healthy appreciation of facts, to consider the 
practice of vivisection, w T hen confined to scientific research, 
as nothing more than cruelty to animals. This mode of ex¬ 
periment is justified by the elevation of its aim, by its utility, 
and by the immense results it has already produced. 
But in the same degree that we feel bound to approve the 
practice of vivisection when pursued for the exclusive ad¬ 
vancement of science, that is to say, with an object limited 
beforehand, whose just pursuit is sufficiently established by 
the usefulness of the research; so are we compelled to 
declare ourselves averse to the unrestrained practice of tor¬ 
turing, sometimes gratuitously inflicted upon poor dumb 
brutes by inexperienced hands, who torture without any 
fixed purpose. These tortures have never been turned to 
any other account than by provoking unexpected manifesta¬ 
tions, which serve to build up artificial theories, only made 
to be overthrown by the experiments of wise and judicious 
practitioners. 
For the sake of completeness, we add two other letters 
which have appeared in The Times . The writer of one of 
these, it will be seen, fully confirms the statements made by 
Mr. Spooner, from his own personal observations. 
XXXIII. 
68 
