To judge from appearances, we are threatened with a new agitation
against vivisection. The recent controversy carried on in the columns
of the _Times_ revealed an amount of heat on the subject which can
hardly fail to find some new mode of motion on the platform, or even in
Parliament. It is evident that passions of no common fervor have been
kindled, at least, in one party to the controversy, and efforts will
probably be made to work the public mind up to a similar temperature.
The few observations which follow are intended to have, if possible,
a contrary effect. The question of vivisection should not be beyond
the possibility of a rational discussion. When antagonism, so fierce
and uncompromising, exists as in the present case, the presumption is
that the disputants argue from incompatible principles. Neither side
convinces or even seriously discomposes the other, because they are not
agreed as to the ultimate criteria of the debate.
It is evident that the first and most important point to be decided,
is: “What is the just and moral attitude of man towards the lower
animals?” or to put the question in another form: “What are the rights
of animals as against man?” Till these questions are answered with
some approach to definiteness, we clearly shall float about in vague
generalities. Formerly, animals had no rights; they have very few now
in some parts of the East. Man exercised his power and cruelty upon
them with little or no blame from the mass of his fellows. The improved
sentiment in this respect is one of the best proofs of progress that
we have to show. Cruelty to animals is not only punished by law, but
reprobated, we may believe—in spite of occasional brutalities—by
general public opinion. The point on which precision is required is,
how far this reformed sentiment is to extend? Does it allow us to use
animals (even to the extent of eating them) for our own purposes, on
the condition of treating them well on the whole, of not inflicting
upon them unnecessary pain; or should it logically lead to complete
abstention from meddling with them at all, from interfering with their
liberty, from making them work for us, and supplying by their bodies
a chief article of our food? Only the extreme sect of vegetarians
maintains this latter view, and with vegetarians we are not for the
moment concerned; and I am not aware that even vegetarians oppose
the labor of animals for the uses of man. Now, what I would wish to
point out is, that if we do allow the use of animals by man, it is a
practical impossibility to prevent the occasional, or even the frequent
infliction of great pain and suffering upon them, at times amounting
to cruelty; that if the infliction of cruelty is a valid argument
against the practice of vivisection, it is a valid argument against
a number of other practices, which nevertheless go unchallenged. The
general public has a right to ask the opponents of vivisection why they
are so peremptory in denouncing one, and relatively a small form of
cruelty, while they are silent and passive in reference to other and
much more common forms. We want to know the reason of what appears a
very great and palpable inconsistency. We could understand people who
said, “You have no more right to enslave, kill, and eat animals than
men; _à fortiori_, you may not vivisect them.” But it is not easy to
see how those who do not object, apparently, to the numberless cruel
usages to which the domesticated animals are inevitably subjected by
our enslavement of them, yet pass these all by and fix their eyes
exclusively on one minute form of cruelty, singling _that_ out for
exclusive obloquy and reprobation. Miss Cobbe (_Times_, Jan. 6) says,
“The whole practice (of vivisection) starts from a wrong view of the
use of the lower animals, and of their relations to us.” That may be
very true, but I question if Miss Cobbe had sufficiently considered
the number of “practices” which her principles should lead her to
pronounce as equally starting from a wrong view of the use of the
lower animals, and of their relation to us.
It is clear that the anti-vivisectionists are resolute in refusing
the challenge repeatedly made to them, either to denounce the
cruelties of sport or to hold their peace about the cruelties of
vivisection. One sees the shrewdness but hardly the consistency or
the courage of their policy in this respect. Sport is a time-honored
institution, the amusement of the “fine old English gentleman,” most
respectable, conservative, and connected with the landed interest;
hostility to it shows that you are a low radical fellow, quite remote
from the feeling of good society. Sport is therefore let alone. The
lingering agony and death of the wounded birds, the anguish of the
coursed hare, the misery of the hunted fox, even when not aggravated
by the veritable _auto da fé_ of smoking or burning him out if he
has taken to earth, the abominable cruelty of rabbit traps; these
forms of cruelty and “torture,” inasmuch as their sole object is the
amusement of our idle classes, do not move the indignant compassion
of the anti-vivisectionist. The sportsman may steal a horse when the
biologist may not look over a hedge. The constant cruelty to horses by
ill-fitting harness, over-loading, and over-driving must distress every
human mind. A tight collar which presses on the windpipe and makes
breathing a repeated pain must in its daily and hourly accumulation
produce an amount of suffering which few vivisectionists could equal
if they tried. Look at the forelegs of cab horses, especially of the
four-wheelers on night service, and mark their knees “over,” as it is
called, which means seriously diseased joint, probably never moved
without pain. The efforts of horses to keep their feet in “greasy”
weather on the wood pavement are horrible to witness. To such a nervous
animal as the horse the fear of falling is a very painful emotion; yet
hundreds of omnibuses tear along at express speed every morning and
evening, with loads which only the pluck of the animals enables them
to draw, and not a step of the journey between the City and the West
End is probably made without the presence of this painful emotion.
Every day, in some part of the route, a horse falls. Then occurs one
of the most repulsive incidents of the London streets, the gaping crowd
of idlers, through which is heard the unfailing prescription to “sit
on his head,” promptly carried out by some officious rough, who has
no scruples as to the “relations of the lower animals to us.” Again,
in war the sufferings and consumption of animals is simply frightful.
Field-officers—some of whom, it appears, are opposed to vivisection—are
generally rather proud, or they used to be, of having horses “shot
under them.” But this cannot occur without considerable torture to
the horses. The number of camels which slipped and “split up” in the
Afghan war has been variously stated between ten and fifteen thousand.
In either case animal suffering must have been on a colossal scale.
Now the point one would like to see cleared up is, why this almost
boundless field of animal suffering is ignored and the relatively
minute amount of it produced in the dissecting-rooms of biologists so
loudly denounced.
But what I wish particularly to call attention to is the practice
of vivisection as exercised by our graziers and breeders all over
the country on tens of thousands of animals yearly, by an operation
always involving great pain and occasional death. In a review intended
for general circulation the operation I refer to cannot be described
in detail, but every one will understand the allusion made. It is
performed on horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and fowls. With regard to the
horses the object is to make them docile and manageable. The eminent
Veterinary-Surgeon Youatt, in his book on the Horse (chap. xv.), speaks
of it as often performed “with haste, carelessness, and brutality:” but
even he is of opinion “that the old method of preventing hæmorrhage by
temporary pressure of the vessels while they are seared with a hot iron
_must not perhaps be abandoned_.” He objects strongly to a “practice of
some farmers,” who, by means of a ligature obtain their end, but “not
until the animal has suffered sadly,” and adds that inflammation and
death frequently ensue.
With regard to cattle, sheep, and pigs, the object of the operation
is to hasten growth, to increase size, and to improve the flavor of
the meat. The mutton, beef, and pork on which we feed are, with rare
exceptions, the flesh of animals who have been submitted to the painful
operation in question. In the case of the female pig the corresponding
operation is particularly severe; while as to fowls, the pain
inflicted was so excruciating in the opinion of an illustrious young
physiologist, whom science still mourns, that he on principle abstained
from eating the flesh of the capon.
Now there is no doubt that here we have vivisection in its most
extensive and harsh form. More animals are subjected to it in one year
than have been vivisected by biologists in half-a-century. It need not
be said that anæsthetics are not used, and if they were or could be
they would not assuage the suffering which follows the operation. It
will surely be only prudent for the opponents of scientific vivisection
to inform us why they are passive and silent with regard to bucolic
vivisection. They declare that knowledge obtained by the torture of
animals is impure, unholy, and vitiated at its source, and they reject
it with many expressions of scorn. What do they say to their daily
food which is obtained by the same means? They live by the results of
vivisection on the largest scale—the food they eat—and they spend a
good portion of their lives thus sustained in denouncing vivisection on
the smallest scale because it only produces knowledge. It is true that
they are not particular to conceal their suspicion that the knowledge
claimed to be derived from vivisection is an imposture and a sham.
Do they not, by the inconsistencies here briefly alluded to, their
hostility to alleged knowledge, and their devotion to very substantial
beef and mutton, the one and the other the products of vivisection,
expose themselves to a suspicion better founded than that which they
allow themselves to express? They question the value of vivisection,
may not the single-mindedness of their hostility to it be questioned
with better ground? Biology is now the frontier science exposed for
obvious reasons to the _odium theologicum_ in a marked degree. The
havoc it has made among cherished religious opinions amply accounts
for the dislike which it excites. But it is difficult to attack. On
the other hand, an outcry that its methods are cruel, immoral, and
revolting may serve as a useful diversion, and even give it a welcome
check. The Puritans, it was remarked, objected to bear-baiting, not
because it hurt the bear, but because it pleased the men. May we not
say that vivisection is opposed, not because it is painful to animals,
but because it tends to the advancement of science?
The question recurs, What is our proper relation to the lower
animals? May we use them? If so, abuse and cruelty will inevitably
occur. May we not use them? Then our civilisation and daily life
must be revolutionised to a degree not suggested or easy to
conceive.—_Fortnightly Review._