{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26074/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26074","id":"gutenberg_26074","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26074","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Environmental Issues","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Vivisection"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1918 John Lane edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n        [Picture: Presentation slip from the edition transcribed]\n\n\n\n\n\n                               GREAT TESTIMONY\n                         AGAINST SCIENTIFIC CRUELTY\n                       :: COLLECTED AND EDUCED BY ::\n                        THE HONBLE. STEPHEN COLERIDGE\n                           WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                    LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD\n                   NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVIII\n\n   [Picture: Thomas Carlyle.  From a drawing by Samuel Laurence in the\n                         collection of John Lane]\n\n       PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIf the support of great and good men, famous throughout Christendom, will\navail to justify a cause, then indeed we who would utterly abolish the\ntorture of animals by vivisection can never be put out of countenance.\n\nDifficult would it be indeed to bring together the authority of so many\nresounding reputations against any other act of man, since slavery was\nabolished.\n\nThe poets, philosophers, saints and seers of England have united to\nanathematise it as an abomination, and as a deed only possible to a\ncraven.\n\nIt seems strange that in the face of such authentic condemnation the\nhorrid practice has not disappeared off the face of the civilised earth,\nuntil it is observed that it has received the shameless support of\nscience, which for two generations has usurped an authority over conduct\nfor which it possesses no credentials.  The modern prostration of mankind\nbefore science is a vile idolatry.  In the realm of ethics science is not\nconstructive but destructive.  It exalts the Tree of Knowledge and\ndepresses the Tree of Life.\n\nHow is the character of man elevated or purified by all the maddening\ninventions of science?  How indeed!  Are we made better men by being\nwhirled about the globe by machinery, by the increased opportunities for\nlimitless volubility, or by the ingenious devices for mutual destruction?\nAnd how are we morally advantaged by the knowledge of the infinite depths\nof space, the composition of the stars and the motions of the planets?\n\nThe old Persian, when his far-travelled offspring returned with these\nwonders to tell, replied: \"My son, thou sayest that one star spinneth\nabout another star; let it spin!\"\n\nAnd Ruskin once remarked: \"Newton explained why an apple fell, but he\nnever thought of explaining the exactly correlative, but infinitely more\ndifficult question, how the apple got up there.\"\n\nThe dead and dreary law of gravitation made it fall, but the glorious law\nof life, known only to God, drew it up out of the earth and hung it in\nall its inexplicable wonder high in the air.\n\nAnd I think herein is a very good parable applicable to ourselves and our\nage.\n\nScience has found out that everything in the Universe is falling towards\neverything else, or trying to do so, and we are so absorbed in this\ndeciduous discovery that we have forgotten to look up and observe the\nlovely things about us that by God's mercy have still escaped the\nwithering touch of scientific knowledge.\n\nBut Science has now moved beyond the comparatively innocuous accumulation\nof mechanical discoveries, and advancing into the domain of morals, has\nemerged in the sinister aspect of the defender of cruelty.\n\nThis may yet prove an usurpation that will lead to its ultimate\ndeposition and ignominy.  A time is coming when mankind will have no ear\nfor the advocates of what all the great and good and wise have denounced\nas wicked.\n\nIf Science comes before the world declaring that cruelty is necessary for\nits advance, the world will one day tell Science that it can stop where\nit is.\n\nIn the meanwhile that there can be no doubt in the mind of any man as to\nhow the greatest leaders of thought and loftiest teachers of conduct have\nunited in their condemnation of vivisection, I have thought it timely to\nbring them together, a noble array, in this book.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I: THE SEVENTH EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K.G.\nFIRST PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY\n\n\n [Picture: The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G.  From an engraving by W.\n                    J. Edwards after Frederick Sandys]\n\nThe seventh Earl of Shaftesbury consecrated a long life, and dedicated a\ngreat position to the service of the poor, the weak and the lost.  His\nlife and work were one of the chief glories of the nineteenth century.\nFrom early youth to venerable age his hand was outstretched to assuage\nthe miseries of the helpless and to deal a blow at cruelty and\nselfishness wherever he discerned it.\n\nBy his efforts women were brought up out of coal mines where they dragged\ntrucks on all fours like brute beasts, by his protests little boys were\nsaved from being forced to climb up inside chimneys risking their young\nlives and limbs that others might profit thereby.\n\nHe placed himself at the head of the fight against all cruelty to\nchildren and became the first President of the Society to put it down,\nwhich has now become great and powerful with officers in every town to\nguard child life and protect the helpless little things from all manner\nof nameless sufferings.\n\nHe championed the animal world and raised his voice against the\nunspeakable doings of the vivisectors, and the whole anti-vivisection\nmovement was started and built up under his wise and benign guidance, as\nfirst President of the Anti-Vivisection Society.\n\nHe belonged to the period when those who worked in the field of\nphilanthropy were almost exclusively concerned in curing, if they could,\nthe evils they perceived around them; but he himself was a pioneer of the\nlater school who aim also at preventing those evils.  Those who went\nbefore him sought to assist the poor and helpless, but while he\nendeavoured to do this with all his heart, he also strove to destroy the\ncauses of pauperism.  He perceived that physical squalor inevitably\nproduces spiritual squalor, and that if we are to make men think and live\ncleanly we must enable them to possess decent and clean homes.\n\nOthers of his family in the past had served the State with credit in the\ngreat public offices that satisfy men's reputable pride and honourable\nambition, but none before him had served his fellow creatures during a\nlong life with no other motive than to bind up their wounds and aggravate\nthe mercies of God.\n\nHis appearance when I had the happiness to know him intimately was noble\nand memorable, and he won his way less by commanding abilities than by\nweight of character.  His large benignity repressed the expression of any\nsmall or mean thought in his presence; and his arrival was sufficient\nwithout his saying a word to elevate the tone and manner of any\ndiscussion in which he was expected to participate.  He was incapable of\nasperity.\n\nIn the House of Lords there was conceded to him by universal courtesy a\nspecial seat which he occupied independently of the change of parties, a\ntribute of respect to his unique and distinguished position which as far\nas I am aware has at any rate in recent years been paid to no one else.\n\nHe was a survival of the times when rank more recognised its duties and\nreceived more homage than in the present day; for when I was young it was\nstill possible for the public to believe that peerages were only\nconferred on men for serious and meritorious services to the country, and\nthat those who succeeded to them by inheritance were trained to recognise\nthe large obligations of their station.\n\nHe lived in a great house on the west side of Grosvenor Square, tempering\nhis august surroundings with a personal austerity.  There he was easily\naccessible to anyone who came to him for good counsel and not to waste\nhis own or his host's time.\n\nEvery cabman and costermonger in London knew him by sight and would take\noff his cap to him if he saw him in the streets, and the poor in the East\nEnd knew his tall figure and distinguished countenance better than did\nthe men in the club windows in the West.\n\nThe beautiful monument to his memory in Regent Circus records that he was\n\"an example to his order,\" and yet better than this stately panegyric is\nthe happy accident, if it be one, that the poor flower girls of London\nhave pitched their camp upon the steps, and have successfully defied all\nthe efforts of Mr. Bumble to remove them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II: MISS FRANCES POWER COBBE\n\n\nMiss Frances Power Cobbe was the original organiser and founder in\nDecember, 1875, of the National Anti-Vivisection Society which until 1898\nbore the Title of the Victoria Street Society for the protection of\nanimals from vivisection.\n\nMany years before, in 1863, there lived at Florence a man who trafficked\nin torture named Schiff; \"among the inferior professors of medical\nknowledge,\" says Dr. Johnson, \"is a race of wretches, whose lives are\nonly varied by varieties of cruelty,\" and such an one was this miscreant.\n\nMiss Cobbe was then resident at Florence and was the correspondent of the\n_Daily News_, and in that paper she denounced the tortures inflicted on\nanimals by this dreadful man, which so affected her generous heart that\nfor the rest of her life her chief preoccupation became the desire to put\nan end to such abominations.\n\nIn 1874 Miss Cobbe drew up a memorial to the Council of the Royal Society\nfor the prevention of cruelty to animals urging upon them \"the immediate\nadoption of such measures as may approve themselves to their judgment as\nmost suitable to promote the end in view, namely, the _restriction of\nvivisection_.\"  And with indefatigable zeal she collected the signatures\nto it of a very large number of the most distinguished men in England;\namong them were such names as those of Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Tennyson,\nRobert Browning, John Morley, John Bright, Leslie Stephen, W. Lecky, B.\nJowett, John Ruskin, Dean Stanley, and Canon Liddon.\n\nIn view of the fierce advocacy of vivisection to which the present Lord\nKnutsford has committed himself it is interesting to record that his\nfather Sir Henry Holland's name appears among the signatories of this\nmemorial.\n\nThe Council of the R.S.P.C.A. in 1875 displayed all the familiar\ncharacteristics of the Council of to-day.  On receiving this notable\nmemorial they adopted the device of promising to appoint a sub-committee\nto consider the whole question of vivisection.  Unlike the sub-committee\nappointed in 1907 \"to consider the whole question of sport\" which never\nsat, it seems that this sub-committee on vivisection really did sit once,\nafter which no more was heard of it.\n\nMr. Colam the Secretary was sent to call on the leading vivisectors to\nask them about their own proceedings; and the Council appear to have\nimagined that, having asked the persons whose conduct was impugned what\nthey thought about that conduct, their function as representing the\nSociety entrusted with the protection of animals from cruelty was\nfulfilled.\n\nMiss Cobbe, like many of us to-day, really wanted cruelty to animals\nstopped, and she was not likely to be satisfied with such a farcical\nevasion, so she set to work and started the Victoria Street Society, and\nto her above all others therefore belongs the undying fame and glory of\nfirst raising aloft the standard of the imperishable cause for which that\nSociety exists and strives.\n\nIn that memorable year of 1875 the great Society in Jermyn Street,\nmisrepresented by a collection of somnolent inefficients, turned their\nbacks on tortured animals and stopped their ears to their cries of agony;\nand all the subsequent years are strewn with opportunities abandoned and\nduties neglected which one by one have been undertaken by fresh Societies\nof earnest souls who would wait no more while the Council in Jermyn\nStreet slept; and that the record should be maintained intact we have\nseen in the last three years the generous public subscribe an enormous\nsum of money for the care and cure of our horses at the war, only to\ndiscover that the Society is ready to acquiesce when those horses, that\nare worn out in our service, are sold abroad to the highest bidders!\n\nMiss Cobbe during her long combat against vivisection passed through\ndifferent phases of opinion as to the wisest parliamentary policy to\npursue.  At one time she advocated restriction, at another total\nabolition, and I will not here revive the domestic discussions and\ndifferences that were the consequence of the diverse views entertained by\nequally reputable and earnest workers in the cause.  It is enough to\nrecognise and acclaim the fine courage and ability that Miss Cobbe\nbrought to the service of suffering animals, and the splendid edifice of\nthe National Anti-Vivisection Society that was built up from the ground\nby her capable hands.\n\nShe suffered one cruel betrayal when she entrusted to another too ardent\ncontroversialist the translation of some German account of a severe\nvivisection, and discovered, after the publication of the description in\nEnglish, that her friend had suppressed in the translation the statement\nin the original that anaesthetics had been employed.\n\nThe ferocious attacks made upon her on that occasion she bore with what\nphilosophy so exasperating a situation permitted.\n\nMiss Cobbe was a remarkable person both in character and appearance, her\nhabiliments were quaint and practical, cut altogether shapelessly with\nimmense buttons symbolising the entire simplicity of her life and habits,\nher hair was cut off short, and her whole aspect suggested cheerfulness,\nrobustness, and magnanimity.  She was masterful in temperament, not\nalways ready to listen with urbanity to opinions she did not share, or to\nadmit that her conclusions could even conceivably have their foundations\nin doubtful premises.  But these very human characteristics in no way\ndiminished the personal affection she inspired in those among whom she\nmoved.  She lived a fine courageous life, and when she died, by an\nappropriate and beautiful coincidence, a dog was the only witness of her\nlast breath.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III: CARDINAL MANNING\nVICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY\n\n\nCardinal Manning was among the early supporters of the Anti-Vivisection\nmovement, and was a Vice-President of the National Anti-Vivisection\nSociety till his death.\n\nHe occasionally attended meetings of the committee at my request to\nassist the deliberations with his good counsel, and I remember one\noccasion when Lord Shaftesbury came and took the chair, and both the\nCardinal and my father and the Bishop of Oxford were present to assist in\nan important decision.\n\nI frequently went to the Archbishop's house at Westminster to consult\nhim; the sumptuous cathedral and palace had not then been built, and the\nhouse at the bottom of Carlisle Place had an air of cold austerity; there\nwere no carpets on the stone staircase, and the large room in which the\nCardinal received his visitors had nothing in it but a bare table and a\nfew cushionless chairs.  He accepted invitations to dinner from my\nfather, but although he was gracious and courtly, he ate nothing, and it\nwas understood that no attention was to be drawn to this abstinence.  He\ncannot have eaten much anywhere, for he was extremely emaciated.\n\nHe did a great service both to the cause of anti-vivisection and to his\nChurch in 1882.  It had been spread abroad, by whom, and on what\nauthority, I know not, that the Church of Rome had declined to support\nthose who desired to put down cruel experiments upon animals, and had\ndeclared that animals might lawfully be treated like stocks and stones;\nto this shocking suggestion the Cardinal gave a decisive and\nauthoritative denial at a meeting at Lord Shaftesbury's House on the 21st\nof June.\n\nHis words were as follows:--\n\n    I know that an impression has been made that those whom I represent\n    look, if not with approbation, at least with great indulgence, on the\n    practice of vivisection.  I grieve to say that abroad there are a\n    great many (whom I beg leave to say I do _not_ represent) who do\n    favour the practice; but this I do protest, that there is not a\n    religious instinct in nature, nor a religion of nature, nor is there\n    a word in revelation, either in the Old Testament or the New\n    Testament, nor is there to be found in the great theology which I do\n    represent, no, nor in any Act of the Church of which I am a member;\n    no, nor in the lives and utterances of any one of those great\n    servants of that Church who stand as examples, nor is there an\n    authoritative utterance anywhere to be found in favour of\n    vivisection.\n\nAnd later in the same speech he said:--\n\n    I do not believe this to be the way that the All-wise and All-good\n    Maker of us all has ordained for the discovery of the Healing Art\n    which is one of His greatest gifts to man.\n\nTwo years later at a Meeting at Prince's Hall on the 26th of June, 1884,\nwith Lord Shaftesbury in the Chair, the Cardinal in a single pregnant\nsentence dissipated the vivisectors' constant careless confusion of the\ntotally different moral acts of killing animals and torturing them.\n\n\"It is clear,\" he said, \"that the words 'kill and eat,' and the dominion\nwhich the beneficent Maker of all things has given to man over the lower\ncreatures, does not justify the infliction of exquisite torment in the\nname of Science.\"\n\nAt that time Lord Shaftesbury was the greatest representative of the\nChurch of England and the Cardinal the acknowledged head of the Church of\nRome in this country and as they earnestly agreed in condemning the\npractice of vivisection as wicked and abominable, it becomes impossible\nfor those who support it to bring to its defence any authorities on\nconduct at all comparable with that of these two great and good men.\n\n    The Cardinal gave the impression of a consciously eminent\n    ecclesiastic, who was determined to lift his Church into greatness in\n    England by all lawful means in his power; his appearance was ascetic,\n    distinguished, and memorable; he was manifestly a man of direct\n    nobility of life, and most lofty purpose--a great statesman for his\n    Church, leading an austere and detached life as an example in every\n    detail for the faithful in his community--a prince of the Roman\n    Church fulfilling his august function conspicuously and faultlessly\n    in full view of a critical public. {16}\n\nHis care for the poor and the noble simplicity of his life found its most\neloquent evidence at his death in the discovery that his entire worldly\npossessions amounted to sixty-eight pounds.\n\nHe had laid up his treasure where no rust and moth doth corrupt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV: ROBERT BROWNING\nVICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY\nDIED THE 12TH OF DECEMBER, 1889\n\n\n  [Picture: Robert Browning.  From a painting by Samuel Laurence in the\n                         collection of John Lane]\n\nTowards the end of 1874, as I have already remarked, Miss Cobbe prepared\na petition to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals\nof which the chief paragraph ran as follows:--\n\n    It is earnestly urged by your memorialists that the great and\n    influential Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals\n    may see fit to undertake the task (which appears strictly to fall\n    within its province) of placing suitable restrictions on this rapidly\n    increasing evil.  The vast benefit to the cause of humanity which the\n    Society has in the past half century effected, would, in our humble\n    estimation, remain altogether one-sided and incomplete, if, while\n    brutal carters and ignorant costermongers are brought to punishment\n    for maltreating the animals under their charge, learned and refined\n    gentlemen should be left unquestioned to inflict far more exquisite\n    pain upon still more sensitive creatures; as if the mere allegation\n    of a scientific purpose removed them above all legal or moral\n    responsibility.\n\nMiss Cobbe, confident of what Browning's reply would be, sent him this\npetition and asked him to return it with his signature if he approved of\nit.\n\nHis reply, which I believe has never as yet been published, redounds to\nhis immortal fame as a man of fortitude and humaneness.\n\nThis is what he wrote:\n\n                                                  19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W.\n                                                   _December_ 28_th_, '74.\n\n    DEAR MISS COBBE,\n\n    I return the petition, unsigned for the one good reason--that I have\n    just signed its fellow forwarded to me by Mr. Leslie Stephen.\n\n    You have heard \"I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort\n    to suppress vivisection\"; I dare not so honour my mere wishes and\n    prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but, this\n    I know, I would rather submit to the worst of the deaths, so far as\n    pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of\n    sparing me a twinge or two.  I return the paper, because I shall be\n    probably shut up here for the next week or more, and prevented from\n    seeing my friends: whoever would refuse to sign would certainly not\n    be of the number.\n\n                                         Ever truly--and gratefully yours,\n                                                          ROBERT BROWNING.\n\nFive years later in the volume of Dramatic Idyls issued in 1879, Browning\npublished his poem entitled \"Tray\" which extols the noble heroism of the\ndog and leaves nothing to be desired in its biting scorn of the\nvivisectors:\n\n    \"'Up he comes with the child, see tight\n    In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite\n    A depth of ten feet--twelve I bet!\n    Good dog!  What off again?  There's yet\n    Another child to save?  All right!\n\n    \"'How strange we saw no other fall!\n    It's instinct in the animal.\n    Good dog!  But he's a long while under:\n    If he got drowned I should not wonder--\n    Strong current, that against the wall!\n\n    \"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time\n    --What may the thing be?  Well, that's prime!\n    Now did you ever?  Reason reigns\n    In man alone, since all Tray's pains\n    Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'\n\n    \"And so, amid the laughter gay,\n    Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,--\n    Till somebody, prerogatived\n    With reason, reasoned:--'Why he dived\n    His brain would show us, I should say.\n\n    \"'John go and catch--or, if needs be\n    Purchase--that animal for me!\n    By vivisection, at expense\n    Of half an hour and eighteen pence\n    How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'\"\n\nHere then is enough to show with what earnest conviction this poet of\npowerful mind and pure life condemned the practice of vivisection.  He\nwas a man who breasted the world with a cheerful philosophy which\npermitted few external matters to disturb his habitual serenity.  But\nvivisection was one of them, and I have often heard him speak with fierce\ndetestation of what he called \"the coward Science.\"\n\nI do not think he ever addressed a public, or even private, meeting in\nhis life, and that may have left the unlettered world unaware of his deep\nloathing of the cruelties of the laboratories; but he was one of the\nearliest Englishmen of unquestioned distinction to join the\nanti-vivisection movement and to accept the office of Vice-President of\nour Society.\n\nI venture to think that in aftertimes his sanguine advocacy in this great\ncause will not be the least of his claims to the gratitude of his fellow\nmen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V: LORD COLERIDGE\nCHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND\nVICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL\nANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY\n\n\n           [Picture: Lord Coleridge, Chief Justice of England]\n\nI hope that my inclusion of my father in these articles on the first\nsupporters of the anti-vivisection movement will not be thought\nunbecoming.  I see no reason why I should not testify in these pages to\nthe unswerving adhesion he brought to the cause of humaneness both\ntowards men and women as well as towards animals, and the wise counsel he\nafforded to the pioneers of the fight against vivisection.\n\nIt is perhaps now long forgotten that he initiated, drafted and carried\nthrough the House of Commons when he sat in that assembly as member for\nExeter a Bill emancipating married women from the cruel conditions of\nservitude whereby their own earnings could legally be taken from them by\ntheir husbands.\n\nThis was the first of a series of wide-minded Acts of Parliament which\nestablished the position of women as no longer the mere chattels of their\nmale relatives.\n\nCruelty to animals of any kind roused in him a deep and abiding anger: he\nnever allowed a bearing rein to be inflicted upon his horses either in\nLondon or the country, nor was there ever a tied-up dog in his stables.\n\nLord Coleridge assisted in the efforts to get the Anti-Vivisection Bill\nof 1876 passed without the wrecking amendments that were at the last\nminute added to it; after the Bill was passed in its mutilated state Miss\nCobbe with a not unnatural impatience wrote to him and others saying that\n\"the supporters of vivisection having refused to accept a reasonable\ncompromise or to permit any line to be drawn between morally justifiable\npainless experiments and those which are heinously cruel and involve the\ntorture of the most sensitive animals\" she intended to endeavour to\ninduce the Society \"to condemn the practice altogether as inseparably\nbound up with criminal abuses\"; and henceforth to adopt \"the principle of\nuncompromising hostility to vivisection,\" and she asked him to let her\nknow whether he would give his support to her proposals.  His reply was\nwhat might have been expected from one who could not permit his\nirritation at the fate of the Bill to influence his parliamentary\nattitude.\n\n    I am afraid [he wrote] my answer must be in a sense which you will\n    think unfavourable.  I could not commit myself out of Parliament to\n    any view which I am not prepared to defend _in_ it.  And the\n    unreasonableness and what I think wrongdoing of the Medical Men would\n    not justify me as a legislator in voting for what _I_ think wrong\n    merely in opposition to them or because I could not bring them to\n    terms which I think just and right.\n\n    I do not say that this is at all necessarily the rule for a person\n    out of Parliament, because so long as you do not agitate for what you\n    think _wrong_ it is perfectly fair to agitate for more than you\n    expect to get as a means of getting something of what you think\n    right.  So that I find no fault whatever with any one who takes the\n    view you take; but my position is somewhat a peculiar one and I must\n    be cautious to an extent that some people may think coldness and\n    weakness.  I am not afraid of your judgment however.\n\nSix years later, in 1882, he wrote an article in the _Fortnightly Review_\nin which he definitely though reluctantly gave his adhesion to total\nabolition as the goal to be aimed at, but of course he never at any time\nassociated himself with the condemnation of all other measures for the\nmitigation of the cruelties of the laboratory or of the world at large\nthat has since been pronounced by the more extreme protagonists on the\nanti-vivisection side of the controversy.\n\nThis article dealt in a pungent severity with attacks made upon him in\nthe _Nineteenth Century_ by Sir James Paget, Professor Owen and Dr.\nWilks.  As far as I know none of them rejoined.  They had had enough!\n\nBut the last passage of the article is of a quality that I think my\nreaders will regard as fully justifying my reproducing it here,--I hope\nit will receive their endorsement--the hand that wrote it has long been\nstill, but thirty-four years have not made one word of it less true or\nless beautiful.\n\n    There is one authority, conclusive, no doubt, only to those who admit\n    it, conclusive only to those who believe that they can read it, to\n    which in conclusion I dare appeal.  When a bishop in the Southern\n    States had been defending slavery, he was asked what he thought our\n    Lord would have said, what looks He who turned and looked upon St.\n    Peter would have cast upon a slave-mart in New Orleans, where husband\n    was torn from wife, child from parent, and beautiful girls, with\n    scarce a tinge of colour in them, were sold into prostitution.  The\n    answer of the bishop is not known, but I will venture on a kindred\n    question.  What would our Lord have said, what looks would He have\n    bent, upon a chamber filled with \"the unoffending creatures which He\n    loves,\" dying under torture deliberately and intentionally inflicted?\n    or kept alive to endure further torment, in pursuit of knowledge?\n    Men must answer this question according to their consciences; and for\n    any man to make himself in such a matter a rule for any other would\n    be, I know, unspeakable presumption.  But to anyone who recognises\n    the authority of our Lord, and who persuades himself that he sees\n    which way that authority inclines, the mind of Christ must be the\n    guide of life.  \"Shouldest thou not have had compassion upon these,\n    even as I had pity on thee?\"  So He seems to me to say, and I shall\n    act accordingly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI: JOHN RUSKIN\n\n\nNo one who has ever read a line of Ruskin could doubt on which side his\nmind and heart would be ranged in the controversy over vivisection.\n\nHere was a lord of language who was also one of the great moral teachers\nof the world.  To him the torture of a helpless animal for a scientific\npurpose was a defiance of religion and an insult to God.  Such pursuits\nhe declared \"were all carried on in defiance of what had hitherto been\nheld to be compassion and pity, and of the great link which bound\ntogether the whole of creation from its Maker to the lowest creature.\"\n\n     [Picture: John Ruskin.  From a drawing by Samuel Laurence in the\n                         collection of John Lane]\n\nHe occupied the illustrious post of Slade Professor of art at Oxford when\nconvocation voted to endow vivisection in the University and install Dr.\nBurdon Sanderson, the smotherer of dogs, in a laboratory set up for him.\n\nIn vain did Ruskin protest against this horrible educational cancer being\ngrafted on to the happiness, peace, and light of gracious Oxford.\nConvocation preferred the blight of the coward Science to the cultivation\nof all that was beautiful, distinguished, humane, and brave; and they\nreaped as they had sown, they kept the dog smotherer and lost the radiant\nspirit and uplifting eloquence of the inspired seer.  Ruskin resigned and\nOxford heard that voice of supreme nobility no more.\n\nThe Vice-Chancellor for very shame could not bring himself to read\nRuskin's letter of resignation to convocation.  The editor of the\n_University Gazette_ also had the effrontery to leave a letter from\nRuskin, giving the reasons for his resignation, unpublished; and the\n_Pall Mall Gazette_ crowned the edifice of poltroonery by announcing that\nhe had resigned owing to his \"advancing years.\"\n\nEvil communications corrupt good manners, and association with\nvivisection led these dignitaries and editors to flout and insult a man\nwhose shoe strings they were not worthy to tie.  Time is merciful and\ntheir very names are forgotten.\n\nRuskin had, a little time before these events, asked the University for a\ngrant to build a well-lighted room for the undergraduates apart from the\nobscure and inconvenient Ruskin school; his request was instantly refused\non the plea that the University was in debt, yet in the very next year\nthis debt encumbered seat of learning and courtesy voted 10,000 pounds\nfor the erection of a laboratory for the vivisector and 2,000 pounds more\ntowards fitting it up and maintaining it,--for troughs and gags and cages\nand the rest of the horrible paraphernalia.\n\nThis must I should imagine be the most squalid page in the history of\nmodern Oxford.\n\nMore than thirty years have passed since that University thus publicly\npreferred a dog smootherer to one of the noblest of teachers and\nsaintliest of men.\n\nBoth are now long departed.  The one can no more block up the wind-pipes\nof living dogs and watch their dying convulsions, and the other can no\nlonger lead the minds of youths and maidens to seek and find beauty in\nthe visible world about them and recognise in it the hand of God--but the\nworld has known which of these men led the youth of Oxford to look up and\nwhich to look down, and to-day a merciful oblivion covers the names and\ndoings of this triumphant vivisector and his valiant supporters, while to\nthe farthest inch of the English-speaking realms the writings of Ruskin\nare treasured in a million homes and his name acclaimed with grateful\nreverence.\n\n_NOTE_.--This chapter on Ruskin having appeared as an article in _The\nAnimals' Defender and Zoophilist_ in March, 1917, and a copy of it having\nbeen sent to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, the\nfollowing correspondence ensued:--\n\n                                                    CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD,\n                                                      _March_ 3_rd_, 1917.\n\n    DEAR SIR,--I thank you for sending me the copy of _The Zoophilist_.\n    May I point out that it is not customary for the Vice-Chancellor to\n    read to Convocation the letters of Professors who resign, or to print\n    the letters in the Gazette?\n\n                                                         Yours very truly,\n                                                             T. B. STRONG.\n\n    HON. STEPHEN COLERIDGE.\n\n                                                      SOUTH WALES CIRCUIT,\n                                                    ASSIZE COURT, CARDIFF,\n                                                      _March_ 6_th_, 1917.\n\n    DEAR SIR,--I have received your letter of the 3rd of March informing\n    me that it is not customary for the Vice-Chancellor to read to\n    Convocation the letters of professors who resign or to print such\n    letters in the University Gazette, but I do not understand from you\n    that the Vice-Chancellor is precluded by any rule of Convocation from\n    reading such a letter, or that the editor if there be one of the\n    University Gazette is unable by any rule of his office to admit such\n    a letter to his columns--and I therefore feel that I was quite\n    entitled to make the comments I did in _The Animals' Defender and\n    Zoophilist_.  When such a man as Ruskin desired the reasons for his\n    resignation to be made clear, I take leave to think that the breach\n    of a custom that enabled the University to conceal those reasons and\n    even permit misapprehensions of those reasons to be given a wide\n    publicity, would have been better than its observance.  And a\n    University Gazette that refuses to publish the letter of a\n    world-famous professor of that University, must arrogate to itself a\n    title to which it can justly make no claim.\n\n                                                         Very truly yours,\n                                                        STEPHEN COLERIDGE.\n\n    THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH, VICE-CHANCELLOR, OXFORD.\n\nAt this distance of time it is probable that the present Dean of Christ\nChurch may not fully realise the sort of person Professor Sanderson, whom\nthe University preferred to Ruskin, was: I therefore think he may like to\nsee a letter I wrote at the time to the papers which has fortunately been\npreserved:\n\n    SIR,--I hope you will find room for an answer to the remarkable\n    letter of Professor Acland in your issue of the 9th, and to\n    \"F.R.S.'s\" attack on Miss Cobbe in that of the 10th of March.\n\n    Professor Acland says:--\n\n    \"I have to say to English parents that everyone at home and abroad,\n    who knows anything of biological science in England, will think them\n    fortunate if their children being students of medicine, fall under\n    the elevating influence of Professor Sanderson's scientific and\n    personal character.\"\n\n    And \"F.R.S.\" says:--\n\n    \"I was a very constant attendant at Dr. Sanderson's private\n    laboratory during the last ten years of his professorship at\n    University College, and during the whole of that time I never\n    witnessed a single operation involving pain.\"\n\n    Now, are we not justified in estimating Professor Sanderson's\n    nobility of disposition by his books?\n\n    He was joint author and editor of the \"Handbook for the Physiological\n    Laboratory,\" the publication in which of the tortures of animals\n    roused a feeling in the country that led to the appointment of the\n    Royal Commission to inquire into these practices.  And is he not now\n    one of the editors of the _Journal of Physiology_, which continually\n    details to the world experiments involving terrible torments?\n\n    In his \"Handbook of Physiology\" we find such descriptions as the\n    following:--\n\n    Page 319.  \"(109).--_Asphyxia by complete Occlusion of the\n    Trachea_.--For this purpose a cannula must be fixed air-tight in the\n    trachea, the mouth of which is of such form that it can be plugged\n    with a cork. . . . The phenomena as they present themselves in the\n    dog. . . .  _First minute_.  Excessive respiratory movements in which\n    at first the expansive efforts of the thoracic muscles, afterwards\n    the expulsive efforts of the abdominal wall, are most violent.\n    Towards the close of the first minute the animal becomes convulsed.\n    _Second minute_.  Early in the second minute the convulsions cease,\n    often suddenly; simultaneously with the cessation the expiratory\n    efforts become indistinguishable.  The iris is now dilated to a rim;\n    the eye does not close when the cornea is touched, nor does the pupil\n    react to light; all reflex reaction to stimuli has ceased.  All the\n    muscles except those of inspiration are flaccid, and the animal lies\n    in a state of tranquility which contrasts in the most striking way\n    with the storm which preceded it . . . _Third and fourth minute_.  As\n    death approaches the thoracic and abdominal movements which are\n    entirely respiratory become slow and slower as well as shallower. . . .\n    In the spasms which accompany the final gasps of an asphyxiated\n    animal the head is thrown back, the trunk straightening or arched\n    backwards, and the limbs are extended while the mouth gapes and the\n    nostrils dilate.  They are called by physiologists stretching\n    convulsions.\"\n\n    Page 320.  \"(110).--_Asphyxia by Slow Suffocation_.--When an animal\n    is allowed to breathe the same quantity of air repeatedly and\n    continuously out of a bag, the process being of much longer duration,\n    the phenomena can be studied with greater facility.\"\n\n    After this, is it \"ill-natured or ill-mannered\" to think that parents\n    will _not_ be fortunate if \"their children fall under the elevating\n    influence of Dr. Sanderson's scientific and personal character\"?\n\n    We want to know how medicine is advanced by the agonies of these\n    suffocated animals?\n\n    It may be true that Professor Sanderson at present holds no\n    certificate, nor does Dr. Michael Foster, who occupies a similar\n    position at Cambridge, but Dr. Michael Foster has \"assistants\" who\n    hold from time to time certificates, and quite lately, \"under his\n    guidance,\" a lady, Miss Emily Nunn, has been poisoning frogs till\n    their skin comes off.  There is nothing to prevent Professor\n    Sanderson from employing assistants.  The mind may be the mind of\n    Professor Sanderson, but the knife may be the knife of such a man as\n    Dr. Klein, who was his former assistant at the Brown Institution, and\n    who has publicly declared that \"he has no regard at all for the\n    sufferings of the animals.\"\n\n                                                    Your obedient servant,\n                                                        STEPHEN COLERIDGE.\n\n    12 OVINGTON GARDENS, LONDON,\n          _March_ 13_th_, 1885.\n\nOn the publication of this letter the Dean of Christ Church of that day,\nDean Liddell, wrote to me a long rambling letter which I could not then,\nand cannot now, publish because it concludes with these words:--\n\n    I have written this not for publication.  I will not engage in\n    newspaper controversy.  I write to you, out of respect for the name\n    you bear,--not in anger but in sorrow.\n\nTo this I replied:\n\n    To my letter in the Press you have no word to offer.  In it I quote\n    verbatim Professor Sanderson's own description of one of the many\n    wanton torments that he has inflicted upon the good creatures of God.\n    I ask how medicine is advanced by the agonies of the dogs he has\n    slowly suffocated, and I get no answer (though I have sent the letter\n    to him and some twenty other vivisectors) but this expression from\n    you of sorrow that the name I bear should be ranged on the side of\n    this man's opponents.\n\n    Sir, I am a young man, unskilled in polemics and unpractised in the\n    art of advocacy, no match for one of mature age, ripe experience, and\n    stored learning; but if an enthusiasm for mercy, a belief that human\n    life itself is not fitly bought by the torturing of the helpless, an\n    amazement that any Christian, nay that any man should call one of\n    these tormentors \"friend,\" be sentiments the holding of which by one\n    of my name fills you with sorrow if not with anger, it without doubt\n    is plain that our name is but a name to you, and that your respect\n    for it should have been withdrawn when it first came into prominence.\n\n    I do not believe you know what things these men have done; it is a\n    terrible task for any man to read their literature; if you had done\n    so I do indeed believe that not your sorrow only but your anger would\n    be deeply roused, but--not against me.\n\n                                                            I remain, Sir,\n                                        Faithfully and Respectfully yours,\n                                                        STEPHEN COLERIDGE.\n\nIt gives me peculiar pleasure to bring up this letter from the now\ndistant past; thirty-two years have not made me wish to withdraw or\nchange a word of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII: DR. JOHNSON\n\n\nOf all the Masters of letters that have adorned and elevated the speech\nof our race Dr. Johnson is in many ways the most lovable.  The son of a\npoor bookseller in Lichfield {40} with an uncouth figure and an\nundistinguished countenance, he rose by the massive force of his\ncharacter and the tireless persistence of his industry to an unchallenged\nsupremacy in the literary world of his age, displaying in his whole life\nthe truth of his own dictum that \"few things are impossible to diligence\nand skill.\"  Disdaining the common habit of the times he would owe\nnothing to the patronage of the great.  \"Is not a patron,\" he wrote to\nLord Chesterfield, \"one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for\nlife in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with\nhelp?\"\n\n  [Picture: Dr. Johnson.  From a contemporary etching published February\n                               10th, 1780]\n\nHe was not very patient with the stupid, or merciful to the absurd, and\nvanity never came into his presence without receiving swift and mortal\nblows; but the chastisement of his caustic tongue never fell upon modest\nworth, and there never lived a man who was a more faithful and\naffectionate friend.\n\nThe style of his writing is always balanced and sonorous, and everywhere\nand always is he \"the friend of the wise and teacher of the good.\"\n\nNo man was more ready to give forcible expression to his amusing\nprejudices, as when he exclaimed that \"the noblest prospect which a\nScotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England,\" but to\nbe able to assert of any act of man that Dr. Johnson in solemn\nseriousness condemned it, is for ever to arraign that act in the court of\nhuman morals; and so the judicious must concede that when his authority\ncan be cited in fierce and glowing denunciation of vivisectors they are\nleft in a demersed condition.\n\nI took occasion when giving evidence before the last Royal Commission on\nVivisection to rehearse Dr. Johnson's philippic which I now reproduce\nbelow, and the dejected and deflated aspect of the vivisectors on the\ncommission when I had finished it caused that moment to be one of those I\nshall always recall with exhilaration!  Not a word had one of them to say\nwhile I waited for any comment they might adventure, and after a\ndiverting and eloquent silence Lord Selby from the chair remarked, \"That\nleaves no doubt about Dr. Johnson's view in his day.\"  It most certainly\ndoes not!\n\n    The _Idlers_ that sport only with inanimate nature may claim some\n    indulgence; if they are useless, they are still innocent; but there\n    are others, whom I know not how to mention without more emotion than\n    my love of quiet willingly admits.  Among the inferior professors of\n    medical knowledge is a race of wretches whose lives are only varied\n    by varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to\n    tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in\n    various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of\n    the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more\n    acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies\n    are produced by poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the\n    veins, it is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of\n    the tender mind with images like these.  If such cruelties were not\n    practised it were to be desired that they should not be conceived;\n    but, since they are published every day with ostentation, let me be\n    allowed once to mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence.\n    _Mead_ has invidiously remarked of _Woodward_ that he gathered shells\n    and stones, and would pass for a philosopher.  With pretentions much\n    less reasonable the anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of\n    an animal and styles himself physician, prepares himself by familiar\n    cruelty for that profession which he is to exercise upon the tender\n    and the helpless, upon feeble bodies and broken minds, and by which\n    he has opportunities to extend his arts and torture, and continue\n    those experiments upon infancy and age, which he has hitherto tried\n    upon cats and dogs.  What is alleged in defence of these hateful\n    practices everyone knows, but the truth is that by knives, fire, and\n    poisons, knowledge is not always sought, and is very seldom attained.\n    I know not that by living dissections any discovery has been made by\n    which a single malady is more easily cured.  And if the knowledge of\n    physiology has been somewhat increased, he surely buys knowledge dear\n    who learns the use of the lacteals at the expense of his own\n    humanity.  It is time that a universal resentment should arise\n    against those horrid operations, which tend to harden the heart and\n    make the physician more dreadful than the gout or the stone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII: THOMAS CARLYLE\nVICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY\n\n\nThe world of letters and of ethics has hardly yet settled whether much of\nthe teaching of the Sage of Chelsea should be the subject of praise or\nblame.\n\nIn the advocacy of fine principles of conduct set forth for us in\nlanguage of surpassing eloquence and earnest conviction in many a page of\n\"Sartor Resartus,\" and scattered through innumerable pamphlets, Carlyle\ncommands the fervent adhesion of the honest, the brave, and the good;\nwhile in other parts of his writings his infatuated admiration of force,\nhowever clothed with brutality, and of strength, however marred with\nmendacity, are calculated as deeply to alienate the urbane man of the\nworld as the austere Christian.\n\nAnd this confusion in the estimate of Carlyle and of his teaching suffers\nan aggravation from the manifest malice of the biography of him\nperpetrated by his friend James Anthony Froude.  A man who is entrusted\nwith the task of writing the life of a great man who was also his friend\nneed not adopt the language of continuous panegyric, but to throw a\nbrilliant illumination upon the man's smaller domestic rugosities which\neven the weakest charity would conceal and the feeblest generosity would\nforget is a singularly spiteful betrayal.\n\nWhen something was said to Carlyle about the likelihood of the Dean of\nWestminster recognising his fame as justifying his interment in the\nAbbey, the rugged old man exclaimed, \"Deliver me from that\nbody-snatcher.\"  It would have been more to the purpose if he had been\ndelivered from his intimate friend as his biographer!\n\nThat Carlyle detested vivisection, however, must ever remain a great\ntribute both to him and to our cause.  Many circumstances of the man and\nhis teaching might have led the world to anticipate that he would very\nlikely be found indifferent on the subject.  His earnest adhesion to our\nprinciples leaves those who politely call us old women of both sexes in a\nfoolish case, for nothing could be more divertingly absurd than so to\nclassify Carlyle.\n\nI think Froude forgot to mention Carlyle's stern condemnation of\nvivisection in his biography, which is more remarkable inasmuch as Froude\nhimself was a firm and outspoken supporter of our cause.\n\nWhether we can faithfully take to heart and follow all the teaching of\nthis \"old Man eloquent\" will long remain a subject of debate, but no one\ncan rise from his works without recognising a moral grandeur in him that\nfar out-tops the very human flaws that may even serve to make him more\npenetrative to our own imperfect hearts.\n\nThere seems to be a law that compels all the truly great men of letters,\nfrom Shakespeare and Johnson down to our own day, to abhor the torture of\nanimals for our supposed benefit, and to that law Thomas Carlyle starkly\nadhered.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX: TENNYSON\nVICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY\n\n\n [Picture: Tennyson.  From an unpublished photograph in the possession of\n                 Charles Bruce Locker Tennyson, C. M. G.]\n\nTennyson, as was inevitable with a man of such nobility of mind and life,\nregarded the torture of animals for the sake of knowledge with \"the hate\nof hate, the scorn of scorn.\"\n\nIf authority be cited in great moral questions here is one that must\ncompel reverence from all but the poor trifler with his \"hollow smile and\nfrozen sneer.\"\n\nHe looked modern Science in the eye, perceived whither its aggrandisement\nof knowledge to a place supreme in human estimate, above conduct, must\ninevitably lead mankind, and proclaimed, in accents which can never die,\nthat it is impossible for man to acquiesce in a godless world.\n\nHe taught us that men's hearts can never be satisfied with a world\nexplained and comprised by the cold \"changeless law\" of foreordained\nevolution and inevitable destiny.  \"Knowledge comes,\" said he, \"but\nwisdom lingers.\"\n\nFrom the first, then, Tennyson lent the weight of his splendid name to\nthe cause of mercy, and I find his signature to the original great\npetition for the restriction of vivisection between those of Leslie\nStephen and Robert Browning on the same sheet of paper--a sheet of paper\nnow one of the treasured possessions of the National Anti-Vivisection\nSociety.\n\nAll the world knows the allusions in his works to those who \"carve the\nliving hound,\" and to curare, which he called \"the hellish oorali.\"  And\nthus this greatest poet of the Victorian age gave the weight of his\ncommanding authority for all time to a fierce condemnation of vivisection\nas the most awful and monstrous of the offsprings of modern Science.\n\nTennyson was religious in the widest and most inspiring sense.\n\n\"Almost the finest summing up of religion,\" he wrote, \"is 'to do justice,\nto love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.'\"\n\n\"To love mercy!\"  That is the true sign of magnanimity in man.  All holy\nmen, all brave men, all great and knightly men have loved mercy.  \"It is\nan attribute to God Himself.\"\n\nTime passes, and succeeding races of mankind, like the leaves of autumn,\nare blown away and perish, but countless men of heroic mould, reaching\nback into the dim mists of legend and down through innumerable years\nwhile the great world spins \"for ever down the ringing grooves of\nchange,\" have one and all been gloriously crowned with the same shining\ndiadem of mercy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X: CARDINAL NEWMAN\n\n\n  [Picture: Cardinal Newman.  From the portrait by Jane Fortescue, Lady\n                                Coleridge]\n\nIt is difficult perhaps for students of the younger generation to realise\nthe immense influence exercised among his contemporaries by Cardinal\nNewman, nor will a study of his writings adequately explain it to them.\n\nHe has hardly survived as a standard author, though he wrote a pure and\nlucid prose.  Those who leave the bulk of their literary work behind them\nin the form of sermons are inviting the world to neglect it.\n\nMoreover, though he was a past master of controversy, the arena in which\nhe fought with such doughty prowess amid the excited plaudits and\ndehortations of vast assemblies is now left solitary in echoing\nemptiness, and the crowds of to-day have passed away to abet the\ncombatants, on one side or the other, in very different fields of\ntourney.\n\nHere and there his writing ascends to a fine note of eloquence, as in his\ngreat exclamatory passage on music that begins thus:--\n\n    There are seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen: yet what a\n    slender outfit for so vast an enterprise!  What science brings so\n    much out of so little?  Out of what poor elements does some great\n    master in it create his new world!\n\nBut all his writings, religious and controversial, will not explain the\nimmense and dominating effect Newman produced upon his contemporaries.\nThat effect was due to the irresistible magic of his personality.  He was\nmanifestly one of the Saints of God, and his presence brought with it\ninto any company a sense of mighty power gloved in stainless humility.\nThough habitually bearing an aspect of wistful gentleness, his entry into\na room crowded with distinguished people made them all seem to be\nsomething less than they were before his arrival.\n\nA man of such a character commands by his visible presence, and those who\nhave not felt the spell of it do not comprehend the cause of his\nauthoritative influence among those who have.\n\nThe teaching of Newman on the great question of man's relation to the\nsentient creatures placed in his power in the world, must come to us with\nall the weight that is implicit in the utterance of one of such\nunquestioned sanctity.\n\nIt would be difficult in all his voluminous works to discover anything\nmore touching and moving than his reference to the sufferings of animals,\nwho as he says \"have done no harm,\" which is embedded in the seventh\nvolume of his Parochial and Plain Sermons:--\n\n    First, as to these sufferings, you will observe that our Lord is\n    called a Lamb in the text; that is, He was as defenceless and as\n    innocent as a lamb is.  Since then Scripture compares Him to this\n    inoffensive and unprotected animal, we may, without presumption or\n    irreverence, take the image as a means of conveying to our minds\n    those feelings which our Lord's sufferings should excite in us.  I\n    mean, consider how very horrible it is to read the accounts which\n    sometimes meet us of cruelties exercised on brute animals.  Does it\n    not sometimes make us shudder to hear tell of them, or to read them\n    in some chance publication which we take up?  At one time it is the\n    wanton deed of barbarous and angry owners who ill-treat their cattle,\n    or beasts of burden; and at another it is the cold-blooded and\n    calculating act of men of science, who make experiments on brute\n    animals, perhaps merely from a sort of curiosity.\n\n    I do not like to go into particulars, for many reasons, but one of\n    those instances which we read of as happening in this day, and which\n    seems more shocking than the rest, is when the poor dumb victim is\n    fastened against a wall, pierced, gashed, and so left to linger out\n    its life.  Now, do you not see that I have a reason for saying this,\n    and am not using these distressing words for nothing?  For what was\n    this but the very cruelty inflicted upon our Lord?  He was gashed\n    with the scourge, pierced through hands and feet, and so fastened to\n    the Cross, and there left, and that as a spectacle.  Now, what is it\n    moves our very hearts and sickens us so much as cruelty shown to poor\n    brutes?  I suppose this first, that they have done no harm; next,\n    that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice\n    and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings\n    so especially touching.  For instance, if they were dangerous\n    animals, take the case of wild beasts at large, able not only to\n    defend themselves, but even to attack us; much as we might dislike to\n    hear of their wounds and agony, yet our feelings would be of a very\n    different kind, but there is something so very dreadful, so satanic\n    in tormenting those who never have harmed us, and who cannot defend\n    themselves, who are utterly in our power, who have weapons neither of\n    offence nor defence, that none but very hardened persons can endure\n    the thought of it.\n\nLet us listen with all our hearts to this beautiful appeal.  Let us\nreverence the saintly man who made it, and who still speaks to us out of\nthe past.  Let us remember that Knowledge and the search for it may often\nbe cruel, but that Wisdom and those who follow it are always merciful.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI: THREE GREAT CHURCHMEN\n\n\nI have already recorded in these pages the strenuous opposition to\nvivisection displayed by the two greatest representatives of the Church\nof Rome that arose in England in the last century; and to all who adhere\nto that Church the authority of the two illustrious Cardinals Newman and\nManning must be decisive.\n\nThe most famous dignitaries of the English Church in the great Victorian\nage were also as firm in their condemnation of vivisection as were the\ngreat Cardinals.\n\nWhen I was a young man Dean Stanley was the Dean of Westminster, Dean\nVaughan was the Master of the Temple, and Liddon Canon of St. Paul's.\nThese were all men of world-wide distinction.  They were men who adorned\nand made splendid the offices and dignities they occupied, their names\nwere familiar in every corner of the land, they lent a lustre to the\nChurch of England, and each of them utterly condemned vivisection.\n\nIn these present times only a few people in the metropolis, and hardly\nanybody out of it, can tell without consulting some book of reference who\nmay be the estimable persons who to-day fill the Deanery of Westminster\nand the Mastership of the Temple, nor has Canon Liddon any successor that\nthe world acclaims, and I can vouch for it that none of them has ever\nextended to us a helping hand or publicly condemned the torture of\nanimals for scientific purposes.\n\nIt is always the loftiest names in literature and the most illustrious\nauthorities on ethics that are found ranged against the infliction of\nsuffering upon helpless animals for the enlargement of human knowledge.\n\nThose who support such inflictions are never in the first rank of\nliterature, art, or moral teaching.  Dean Stanley left behind him a\nreputation incomparably greater than any occupier of his Deanery that has\nsucceeded him.  The same must be conceded to Dean Vaughan at the Temple;\nand the eloquence of Canon Liddon compelled the absorbed attention of\nsuch congregations as are not now collected by the Canons that have\nfollowed him.  As far as I am aware, none of the successors of these\ngreat men have ever helped our cause at all.\n\nNo doubt whenever there shall arise in the ministry of the Church of\nEngland men of the commanding power, distinguished character, and potent\nspeech that these great men of the last generation displayed we shall\nfind them also espousing the cause of the helpless vivisected animals; in\nthe meanwhile the occupiers of the most dignified positions in the\nEstablished Church seem to have drifted into the somewhat ignoble\nattitude of avoiding the disagreeable subject of vivisection altogether.\nWhen we invite them to help us we receive either no reply at all, or a\nreply that is carefully evasive, or we are damned with faint praise while\nassured that the writer is too busy to give the subject the attention it\nneeds before any public utterance is possible upon it.  All of which\nmethods of dealing with the matter display much wisdom of the world and a\nvery human desire to avoid controversy and other uncomfortable mental and\nepistolary disturbance, but none of the spirit that led Archbishop Temple\nwhen he was Bishop of Exeter to stand unflinching on a temperance\nplatform while the publicans pelted him with flour.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII: QUEEN VICTORIA\n\n\nQueen Victoria has given her name to a period which has no parallel in\nmagnificence since the days of the great Elizabeth.\n\nThe galaxy of great poets, teachers, and philosophers that flourished in\nthe Victorian age cannot be matched in any similar series of years in all\nthe history of the modern world.\n\nWith her departure exhaustion seems to have come upon the world of\nletters for a time, and to the classic glories of the nineteenth century\nthere has succeeded an usurpation of journalists without the splendour of\ngenius or even the distinction of scholarship.\n\nAnd although we may perhaps recognise in Lord Beaconsfield's inclusive\nuse of the phrase to her of \"we authors, Madam\" something of the flattery\nof the courtier, yet assuredly in all her public addresses to her people\nthere is displayed a fine and biblical simplicity, and a directness of\nappeal indicative of a noble mind and a great heart.\n\nThe most penetrating criticism will fail to discover a fault either of\ntaste or diction or intent in any of these utterances.  They combine the\ndignity appropriate to the words of the greatest Sovereign of the World,\nwith the intimate friendliness that proceeds from the wellsprings of a\nsweet woman's heart.\n\nWorthily then did she reign over the most splendid times of our history.\n\nThat she should from the day she ascended the throne to the day of her\ndeath forward and abet all the enlargements of the spirit of mercy and\npity towards the suffering, whether among man or animals, was inevitable\nin a nature so benevolent.  And it may very well be that in far distant\ntimes the rise of humaneness to man and beast will be regarded as one of\nthe noblest characteristics of her reign.\n\nHer position above controversies precluded her from participating in\nthem, and made it difficult if not impossible for her publicly to espouse\nthe cause of the miserable creatures subjected to nameless sufferings in\nthe laboratories of the scientific.  But her sympathy with those who\nstrove and still strive to end those sufferings could not always be\nconcealed, and on a memorable occasion she expressed her concurrence in\nthe efforts of those who desired to see the laws sanctioning such\nsuffering totally abolished and repealed.\n\nVery fitting therefore it is that among those who earnestly condemned\nvivisection we should include the august name and fame of Queen Victoria.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII: COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A CLOUD OF WITNESSES\n\n\nAmong the eminent men and women of England whose names are not to be\nregarded as world famous in the sense that applies to those dealt with in\nthe foregoing chapters, but who nevertheless in their place and time were\nrecognised by their contemporaries and are still recognised by those now\nliving as persons of authority and ability, there can be cited a\ndistinguished array who consistently condemned vivisection as permitted\nand as practised in this country as immoral.  Among religious leaders may\nbe enumerated the following:--\n\nArchbishop McEvilly, of Tuam; Archbishop Crozier, Primate of Ireland;\nArchbishop Bagshawe; Bishop Westcott, of Durham; Bishop Moule, of Durham;\nBishop Harold Browne, of Winchester; Bishop Lord Arthur Hervey, of Bath\nand Wells; Bishop Ryle, of Liverpool; Bishop Walsham How, of Wakefield;\nBishop Ridding, of Southwell; Bishop Moorhouse, of Manchester; Bishop\nMackarness, of Oxford; Bishop Chinnery-Haldane, of Argyll and the Isles;\nBishop Barry, Primate of Australia; Dean Kichten.  Archdeacon\nWilberforce; Father Ignatius; General Booth, the founder of the Salvation\nArmy; Spurgeon; Hugh Price Hughes; Newman Hall; James Martineau; Stopford\nBrooke.\n\nAmong prominent teachers and scholars and philosophers and writers and\nartists and lawyers I find the following:--\n\nAlfred Russel Wallace, Freeman, Froude, Leslie Stephen, Richard Holt\nHutton, Sir Henry Taylor, Sir Lewis Morris, George Macdonald, Blackmore,\nWilkie Collins, \"Lewis Carroll,\" Robert Buchanan, Justin McCarthy, Sir\nArthur Arnold, Mrs. Somerville, Julia Wedgwood, Sir Edward Burne-Jones,\nWalter Crane, Sir Henry Irving, Lord Brampton (Mr. Justice Hawkins), and\nLord Chief Baron Kelly.\n\nI have made no research for great names in foreign countries, but some of\nthe most illustrious stand prominently before the world representing the\nthree greatest continental races:\n\nVictor Hugo, Wagner, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Rousseau.\n\nHere then I have brought together a very glorious company justifying the\ntitle I have affixed to this book.\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\n\nFrom this great cloud of witnesses I have omitted all those leaders of\nthought and morals, \"friends of the wise and teachers of the good\"\nsupporters of this great cause who are living.  I followed a like reserve\nin my \"Memories,\" making in them none but passing allusions to famous\npersons still alive.  I do not share the modern journalistic habit of\nuninvited public intrusion upon living people who may very well be\nunwilling at the moment to be dragged into controversy or exposed to\ninsult; and every one knows that the vivisectors and their friends have\nno manners, and flout all the Hague conventions of debate.\n\n\n\n\nBooks by the Hon. Stephen Coleridge\n\n\nVIVISECTION:\nA HEARTLESS SCIENCE\n\n\n                       _Crown_ 8_vo_, 5_s._ _net_.\n\n                           SOME PRESS OPINIONS.\n\n_Times_.--\"Mr. Coleridge is a leading champion of the anti-vivisection\ncause, and he here presents a reasoned indictment of the practice.  He is\na very able advocate, who generally gets the better of his opponent in a\ndialectical bout, and this book is written with great skill and force.\"\n\n_Western Mail_.--\"One cannot fail to be interested and impressed by the\nforensic power and ability in this book and by the humane spirit which\nhas led to its compilation.  Mr. Coleridge brings all his power of wit,\nirony, and sarcasm to the aid of his scientific knowledge.\"\n\n_Harrogate Times_.--\"The book is an epitome of reasons why 'all humane\nand thoughtful people' should disapprove of vivisection, and the sinister\neffects of the existence of this practice in our midst.  The statements\nare cogent, and will find a response in the heart of a wide\nconstituency.\"\n\n                       JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD.\n\n\n\nSONGS TO DESIDERIA\n\n\n                    _Crown_ 8_vo._ 3_s._ 6_d._ _net_.\n\n_Daily News_.--\"These songs and poems are intensely and sincerely felt .\n. . they have the fine, careful, literary coldness of some of the lyrics\nof Landor or of the more serious work of Peacock.  It is the poetry of a\nrefined and knightly nature . . . and it deserves to be studied and\nremembered . . . its mood is austere and its temper noble.\"\n\n_Globe_.--\"Excellent verses, easy, melodious, and charming.\"\n\n_Tribune_.--\"All lovers of poetry will be grateful for Mr. Stephen\nColeridge's volume.  Dainty and finished in execution, and instinct with\na genuine human sympathy, these lyrics betray the hand of a craftsman in\nverse. . . . Verses of this quality should secure for 'Songs to\nDesideria' a sincere welcome.\"\n\n_Glasgow Herald_.--\"The Hon. Stephen Coleridge has already established\nhis position among the more tuneful writers of true lyric verse, and into\nall that he writes the poet puts delicacy and true emotion, the former\nnever becomes mere phrase, the latter never degenerates into wordy\npassion.\"\n\n_South Wales Daily News_.--\"There is sometimes a depth of feeling in his\npassages for which one usually looks only in the great masters of English\nliterature.\"\n\n                       JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD.\n\n\n\nMEMORIES\n\n\n      _With Twelve Illustrations_.  _Demy_ 8_vo._ 7_s._ 6_d._ _net_.\n\n_Observer_.--\"Mr. Coleridge has furnished 'The Dictionary of National\nBiography' (or the Victorian part of it) with a supplement of wit and\nconversation.  And one hardly knows at which to marvel most, the number\nof celebrities he hauls up in his net, of the number of laughs he gets\nout of them.  His book is rich in fresh anecdote and the best light\nelements of personality.\"\n\nMR. JAMES DOUGLAS in the _Star_.--\"The best book of reminiscences I have\nread for a long time.  It teems with good stories about famous and\nfamiliar names.\"\n\n_Morning Post_.--\"Genuinely a record of the doings of others, and full of\nanecdote and incident.  Mr. Coleridge has written a delightful book, and\nhas told many interesting things of many famous men.\"\n\n_Daily Chronicle_.--\"Now this is the right sort of memories to put into\nprint; memories that are fresh and bright, piquant, and yet never\nill-natured, crowded with personal lights and anecdotes; in fine, a\nvolume of which one says: 'I would have liked to meet all those people\nand write about them as Mr. Coleridge has done.'\"\n\n                       JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD.\n\n\n\nAN EVENING IN MY LIBRARY AMONG THE ENGLISH POETS\n\n\n                    _Crown_ 8_vo._ 3_s._ 6_d._ _net_.\n\n_Guardian_.--\"A charmingly desultory set of essays, generous in\nappreciation, and not afraid to explore comparatively unbeaten tracks.\"\n\n_Quarterly Review_.--\"Every moment is one of pure literature.  He quotes\nhis favourite poets freely, giving us not a line or two but often a whole\npoem. . . .  There is many a racy criticism, and the humanitarian peeps\nout from not a few of them.  It is a volume full of lovely verse, and one\nthat will not only give unalloyed pleasure, but will cultivate a taste\nfor the sweetest and purest poetry.\"\n\n_Daily Mail_.--\"Mr. Coleridge has written a very pleasant and readable\nramble among the poets.  It is an anthology with a skilled writer leading\none on from gem to gem with delightful comment.\"\n\n                       JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{16}  My \"Memories,\" p. 63\n\n{40}  The book had \"Leicester\" but this was crossed out and \"Lichfield\"\nhand-printed in the margin.--DP.","title":"Great Testimony against scientific cruelty","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":11567}