aller, one of the greatest
physiologists that ever lived, is said to have expressed in letters
deep regret for the suffering he had inflicted upon living animals.

We cannot doubt, however, that the experience of excruciating agony
affecting the very nerves upon which he had so often experimented must
have brought to the dying man a deeper realization of the pain he had
caused than he could otherwise have known. A noted surgeon, whose
finger was the seat of a felon, asked his hospital assistant to lance
it, at the same time cautioning him to be particularly careful to
cause as little pain as possible. "Why, I've often heard you tell
patients coming to the hospital not to mind the lancing--that the pain
to be felt was really nothing at all," replied the assistant.

"Ah, yes," rejoined the surgical sufferer, "but then, remember, I was
AT THE OTHER END OF THE KNIFE!" In watching the phenomena elicited by
experiments upon animals, there have been vivisectors who forget what
was felt "at the other end of the knife," and so became utterly
oblivious to the suffering they caused. A leading physiologist of
England once declared that he "HAD NO REGARD AT ALL" for the pain of
an animal vivisected, and that "he had no time, so to speak, for
thinking what the animal would feel or suffer"; that he never used
anaesthetics, "except for convenience' sake." Can such a man realize
the meaning of the word "PAIN"? Without sharp personal experience, can
anyone, adequately comprehend what it signifies?

Remorse may be evidence, not so much of exceptional delinquency as of
exceptional sensitiveness to ethical considerations. By the baser and
more degraded souls it is rarely experienced. The greatest criminals
usually meet their doom, untouched by any feeling of remorse. Perhaps
it does not greatly matter how this infinite regret is occasioned.
Sometimes--

"... pain in man
Has the high purpose of the flail and fan."

It separates and purifies. To one whose great suffering from disease
is long continued, there must come a clearer vision of the infinite
littleness of all transitory ambitions. Such supreme regret as that
which came to Reid has great value. The poor soul once so longed for
"fame"--which means only a little wider recognition to-day, and a
little more enduring remembrance by posterity than that which is
gained by the generality of mankind. Of that horde of torturers, avid
also f