I ask myself--suppose you knew that by inflicting prolonged pain on
100 rabbits you could discover a way to the extirpation of leprosy, or
consumption, or locomotor ataxy, or of suicidal melancholia among human
beings, dare you refuse to inflict that pain? Now I am quite unable
to say that I dare. That sort of daring would seem to me to be extreme
moral cowardice, to involve gross inconsistency.
For the advantage and protection of society, we all agree to inflict
pain upon man--pain of the most prolonged and acute character--in our
prisons, and on our battlefields. If England were invaded, we should
have no hesitation about inflicting the maximum of suffering upon our
invaders for no other object than our own good.
But if the good of society and of a nation is a sufficient plea for
inflicting pain on men, I think it may suffice us for experimenting on
rabbits or dogs.
At the same time, I think that a heavy moral responsibility rests on
those who perform experiments of the second kind.
The wanton infliction of pain on man or beast is a crime; pity is that
so many of those who (as I think rightly) hold this view, seem to
forget that the criminality lies in the wantonness and not in the act of
inflicting pain _per se_.