ad imposed
upon the lower animals."[1]

[1] Reid's "Life," p. 252.

Undoubtedly, friends of the tormented vivisector attempted to comfort
him with the assurance--so often repeated in our day--that his
experiments on living animals had been carried on "for the benefit of
sick and suffering humanity." But Reid was too honest a man to permit
himself to be thus deluded while under the very shadow of death. For
him the time had come when the specious apologies for the infliction
of torture--so current in our day--could be of no avail in lessening
the poignant feeling of Remorse. In the dying hour men speak the
truth about their actions. It was so with Reid.

"He confessed to having thought much of Scientific FAME in his
labours, and IT WOULD BE UNTRUE TO SAY THAT THE ALLEVIATION OF HUMAN
SUFFERING was the motive always before him when he inflicted pain on
the lower animals."[2]

[2] Ibid., p. 65.

An operation seemed to hold out hope of relief from his terrible
agony. It was deemed best to perform it--as Reid had experimented--
without anaesthetics, "that the sufferer, with every sensation and
faculty alive, might literally become an operator upon himself." In
the course of a second operation, Dr. Wilson tells us: "THE SAME
NERVES and bloodvessels which had been the subject of Dr. Reid's most
important inquiries WERE LAID BARE IN HIMSELF, BY THE SURGEON'S
KNIFE." But all remedial measures were in vain. The two years of
apprehension, suspense, recognition, despair, of slowly increasing
physical torment and the agony of remorse, came at last to an end.
In July, 1849, he found the long-wished-for peace.

Seventy years ago the religious sentiment of Scotland easily favoured
that doctrine of Divine displeasure which seemed probable to Reid and
his friends. In our day, however, we are less certain of being able
to interpret the "judgments of God"; and if we regard it as a
remarkable coincidence, it is as far as we may safely go.
Coincidences of some kind are a universal experience.

That notorious vivisector, Dr. Brown-Se'quard, devoted many years of
his life to experiments on the seat of all that is concentrated and
exquisite in agony--the spinal cord. It was a curious coincidence
certainly, that in his last days the vivisector was affected by a
disease of the spinal cord, which at one time compelled him to go on
all-fours like a beast. Even the remorse of Reid finds a parallel,
for toward the end of his life, H