AN INVASION FROM MARS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—To your interesting suggestions on this theme I would add one more ; perhaps sufficiently obvious. Suppose a nobler, wiser race from another planet had conquered all mankind and that the men of one human tribe had attached themselves (as you surmise some of us would do, like dogs) to their mighty masters. Suppose these humble dependants were faithful, obedient, devoted servants, loving their lords often with so blind an attachment that they were ready to die for them, and did actually not seldom die when they lost them. Now, add the simple hypothesis that these Martian masters of our world began to set themselves to elucidate certain curious questions—more or less useful or useless—by putting their human adorers to death with every form of torture which their ingenuity could devise. I beg to ask : Would this course of
action on the part of the lordly Martians be justifiable, honourable, and deserving of general respect,—or would they merit from the whole human race measureless horror and detestation ?
Does not such a parable bring to our consciousness the nameless baseness and treachery of the vivisection of animals now going on in hundreds of laboratories in Europe and America ? May not each poor dog on his torture-trough be heard to cry :—
"If this be right,—if my devotion, love, No mercy claim, only this dreadful end,—
If thou art justified by Him above In mocking thus the faith of thy poor friend ; Then, Man ! when thou,—trusting in Righteousness, Passest to judgment,—all earth's science vain, The God thou bast relied on, pledged to bless,
May justly doom thee to eternal pain."
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