mains sont
vides_." As to the trying of drugs on animals, Dr. Pritchard, who is,
I believe, the best living authority on the subject, told the Royal
Commission (Minutes, 908), "I do not think that the use of drugs on
animals can be taken as a guide to the doses or to the action of the
same drugs on the human subjects." As to the discovery of antidotes to
poison, the only man who seems on the verge of any success is the
brave and noble fellow who has been trying such experiments not on
animals but on himself.

In conclusion, I must add one word on Dr. Pye-Smith's last sentence,
namely, "that legislation against vivisection is injurious to the best
interests of the community." Sir, I know not what vivisectors deem to
be the best interests of the community. For my part I do not reckon
them to be the influence of drugs, nor yet susceptible of being carved
out with surgical instruments. I do not think that they consist in
escape from physical pain, nor even in the prolongation for a few
years of our little earthly life. I hold that the best interests of
the community are the moral and immortal interests of every soul in
such community, namely, the conquest of selfishness, cowardice, and
cruelty, and the development of the god-like sense of justice and
love--the growth of the divinest thing in human nature, the faculty of
sympathizing with the joys and sorrows of all God's creatures.
Believing these to be "the best interests of the community," I ask,
without hesitation, for the suppression of this abominable trade,
which can best be described as "Pitilessness practised as a
profession." If vivisection be indeed the true method of studying
physiology, if physiology cannot be advanced except by vivisection,
if chemical observation and microscopic research be useless for the
purpose, and nothing but the torture of animals and the demoralization
of men will suffice for its progress--then, in God's name, I say, let
physiology stop at the point it has reached, even till the day of
doom.--I am, Sir, with apologies for the length of this letter, yours,
etc.

FRANCES POWER COBBE

* * * * *

Certainly, as regards the ethics of vivisection, nothing more eloquent
has ever been written than this closing paragraph.

In a letter to the London TIMES in December, 1884, Miss Cobbe writes
as follows:

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,--In your article on this subject on Satur