[TO THE EDITOR OF THE •' TIMER."
SIR,—In commenting on my speech in the Vivisection debate, you are good enough to say that my " psychology is as crude as my mis- statement of the facts is glaring." Now, this is very plain language, and demands equal plainness in reply. You would not wish me to take up your space by restating my facts in order, and adducing proof of each. But the task of disproving them rests with you. If you can perform it, I will gladly acknowledge my error. But in the meantime, a mere assertion that I have misstated facts goes for nothing.
As to my "crude psychology," that, of course, is matter not of fact, bnt of opinion. I need not inform you that eminent casuists have held that not only equivocations and evasions, but actual lies, are allowable, and even necessary, in certain circumstances, and for certain ends. Without accepting this doctrine, I hold that the same casuistic considerations which would justify the worst practices of the Vivisectionists on the ground of scientific necessity, would justify the concealment or denial of them when the State interrogates with a view to their limitation or prohibition.
Nor, it appears, do I stand alone in this opinion. The champions of the Vivisectionists are with me. In yesterday's debate, you report Mr. Cartwright as having said, "If this Bill passed, experiments would be made upon human beings, instead of animals." And you report Mr. Play fair thus:" We might retard, but we could not atop, the progress of science. (Hear, hear.) If, at the instance of the greatest physiologists of the country, they were not going to allow these experiments to be made, they would relegate those experiments to foreign lands, or they would do what was much worse—they would create a criminal class among the highest professional men, in order to evade an unjust law. (Opposition cheers.) Now, it is not to be supposed that our men of science will experi- ment npofi human beings openly and avowedly. Such experiments would surely require concealment or evasion for their safe perform- ance. And Mr. Playfair goes further, and uses the very word which, in my month, so excites your ire, for he foretells the formation of "a criminal class among the highest professional men, in order to evade an unjust law."
Now, Sir, the mental and moral qualities in men of science which would reconcile them to this concealment and this evasion cannot be created by the passing of any Act of Parliament. Men who, on the showing of their friends and champions, would, if this Bill passed, be ready to experiment surreptitiously on human beings, and to form themselves into "a criminal class," in order to evade the law, must be regarded as not keenly sensitive to the moral heinousness of evasion or equivocation in the cause of science. Thus it would seem that Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Playfair are equally responsible with myself for the " injurious and baseless charge" which so
disturbs you, and that my psychology is not so crude as your criticism.
It only remains that I should say one word with reference to a point on which some confusion seems to exist. My charges were against vivisectionists as such, not against doctors. I, for one, most gladly acknowledge the abounding tenderness and humanity of our great physicians. But it must be borne in mind that they, as a rule, are only theoretical advocates of vivisection. They have no personal acquaintance with its horrors, least of all do they themselves actually vivisect. This makes all the difference between them and the "practical biologists."—I am, Sir, &c., House of Commons, April 5th, 1883. Gronaz W. E. RUSSELL.
[Mr. Russell perhaps is not aware that the extraordinary self-contradictions of some of the physiological witnesses at the time of the summons against Professor Ferrier, for vivisect- ing without a licence, sustains practically his charge of the- great danger of evasions and prevarications.—ED. Spectator.]
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