irectly for God,
and is not to be sacrificed for the advantage of a fellow-man. Thus
reason and Revelation in unison proclaim that we can use brute animals
as well as plants for our benefit, taking away their lives when it is
necessary or useful to do so for our own welfare; while no man is ever
allowed to slay his fellow-man for his own use or benefit: "At the hand
of every man will I require the life of man."

II. The first practical application I will make of these general
principles to the conduct of physicians is this: a physician and a
student of medicine can, with a safe conscience, use any brute animal
that has not been appropriated by another man, whether it be bug or bird
or beast, to experiment upon, whatever specious arguments humane
societies may advance to the contrary. Brute animals are for the use of
man, for his food and clothing, his mental and physical improvement, and
even his reasonable recreations. Man can lawfully hunt and fish and
practise his skill at the expense of the brute creation, notwithstanding
the modern fad of sentimentalists. The teacher and the pupil can use
vivisection, and thus to some extent prolong the sufferings of the brute
subject for the sake of science, of mental improvement, and intelligent
observation. But is not this cruelty? and has a man a right to be cruel?
No man has a right to be cruel; cruelty is a vice, it is degrading to
man's noble nature. But vivisection practised for scientific purposes is
not cruel. Cruelty implies the _wanton_ infliction of pain: there are
people who delight in seeing a victim tortured; this is cruelty or
savagery, and is a disgrace to man. Even to inflict pain without
benefit is cruel and wrong; but not when it is inflicted on the brute
creation for the benefit of man, unless the pain should be very great
and the benefit very small. Certainly it is right to cultivate habits of
kindness even to animals; but this matter must not be carried to excess.

The teaching of humane societies condemning all vivisection is due to
the exaggeration of a good sentiment and to ignorance of first
principles. For they suppose that sufferings inflicted on brute animals
are a violation of their rights. Now we maintain that brute animals have
no rights in the true sense of the word. To prove this thesis we must
explain what a right is and how men get to have rights. A _right_ is a
moral claim to a thing, which claim other persons are obliged to
respect. Since ev