THE EXTENT OF OUR RIGHTS OVER ANIMALS.
cm THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It is much to be regretted that men cannot discuss a difficult question without abuse and ridicule. What is de- manded of us is,—have we a right to inflict excruciating tor- tures upon unoffending animals in order to relieve human diseases, which have their seat in the brain, as the result, in nine cases out of ten, of neglect or violation of natural laws Animals have their rights as well as men. We all agree that we have dominion over them, so far as to use them for food, for clothing, and for help in our labour. But does the claim extend to experiments of the most cruel kind which pro- fessedly lead to results that would be better reached by slower and more trustworthy observation of the human patient ?
These tortures, inflicted upon our companions and fellow- heirs of earth, have been justified by the dictum that "the law of sacrifice is the law of life ; " but surely the value of all
such law depends upon the condition of its being voluntary. The examples, therefore, upon which the defenders of vivisec- tion rest, lose their significance. Soldiers and sailors who perish in war cannot present any true analogy. They can but die once, and so must animals whom we slay for food. Dr. Tylden, as well as others who have shortened their lives in the laboratory, have had other motives for their voluntary risk than self-sacrifice for the good of others. And the other example, adduced by Dr. Armand Ruffer in the Nineteenth Century, of horses left mangled on a battle-field, rather goes to strengthen the hands of the Peace Society than of the vivi- sectionist.
If the advocate of vivisectionism would shelter himself under the plea of sacrifice, he must find a fellow-man, if not himself, who is willing to have his own brain operated upon, instead of the unwilling animal descended, if modern science is to be credited, from the same ancestral ape as himself. If we have sacrificed the lives of millions, and desolated as many homes, in what we considered legitimate warfare, the sufferers have been more or less willing martyrs. On the other hand, if we may sacrifice involuntary victims to our theories of political wisdom and the public good, Ravachol the anarchist was not a murderer but a patriot, and an enlightened scientist.—I am, Sir, Sze.,
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