e never
been willing to consider this position, and, in controversy,
invariable fall back upon arguments applicable only to the views of
those who would abolish vivisection altogether.

There is yet another position to be taken; it is the attitude of
unconcern. From vast numbers nothing better can be expected. The man
who is utterly indifferent to the unnecessary agony accompanying the
slaughter of animals for food, or to the cruelties of sport, or the
woman whose vanity demands sacrifices of animals at the cost of
incalculable suffering, will take little or no interest in the
question of vivisections; nor is complicity with other phases of
torment and cruelty alone responsible for the indifference which so
generally exists. In every age, from the twilight of earliest savagery
down to the present time, the vast majority of human beings have been
inclined, not to doubt, but to believe, and especially to believe
those who claimed superior knowledge in matters of Life and Death.
This tendency to unquestioning faith has been the support of every
phase of injustice, of cruelty, and of wrong. It has led to
innumerable men and women of education and refinement to remit all
questions of animal experimentation to the vivisector and his friends,
precisely as they would have done had they lived three centuries ago,
and had it been theirs to decide on the morality of burning a witch.
On the other hand, the alliance between the laboratory and the medical
profession, their mutual endeavour to stifle criticism and to induce
approval of all vivisection whatever, has given rise to a new spirit
of inquiry. A moral question is never absolutely decided until it is
decided aright. If the problem of vivisection is ever settled, it
will be due, not to the influence of those who advocate unquestioning
faith in the humaneness of the average experimenter, who decline
inquiry, and who rest satisfied with their ignorance, but rather to
those who, having investigated the question for themselves, have given
all their influence for some measure of reform. In questions of
humanity, even the unwisdom of enthusiasm that tends toward reform is
far better than indifference and unconcern.

The ignorance of history, shown often by the advocates of unlimited
vivisection, is a singular phenomenon. The beginnings of this
controversy are not without interest. Let us glance at them.

CHAPTER II

ON CERTAIN