But neither does any government exempt the pursuit of knowledge, any more than the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness (as the American Constitution puts it), from all social conditions.  No man is allowed to put his mother into the stove because he desires to know how long an adult woman will survive at a temperature of 500 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how important or interesting that particular addition to the store of human knowledge may be.  A man who did so would have short work made not only of his right to knowledge, but of his right to live and all his other rights at the same time.  The right to knowledge is not the only right; and its exercise must be limited by respect for other rights, and for its own exercise by others.  When a man says to Society, “May I torture my mother in pursuit of knowledge?” Society replies, “No.”  If he pleads, “What!  Not even if I have a chance of finding out how to cure cancer by doing it?” Society still says, “Not even then.”  If the scientist, making the best of his disappointment, goes on to ask may he torture a dog, the stupid and callous people who do not realize that a dog is a fellow-creature and sometimes a good friend, may say Yes, though Shakespear, Dr. Johnson and their like may say No.  But even those who say “You may torture A dog” never say “You may torture my dog.”  And nobody says, “Yes, because in the pursuit of knowledge you may do as you please.”  Just as even the stupidest people say, in effect, “If you cannot attain to knowledge without burning your mother you must do without knowledge,” so the wisest people say, “If you cannot attain to knowledge without torturing a dog, you must do without knowledge.”

A FALSE ALTERNATIVE

But in practice you cannot persuade any wise man that this alternative can ever be forced on anyone but a fool, or that a fool can be trusted to learn anything from any experiment, cruel or humane.  The Chinaman who burnt down his house to roast his pig was no doubt honestly unable to conceive any less disastrous way of cooking his dinner; and the roast must have been spoiled after all (a perfect type of the average vivisectionist experiment); but this did not prove that the Chinaman was right:  it only proved that the Chinaman was an incapable cook and, fundamentally, a fool.

Take another celebrated experiment:  one in sanitary reform.  In the days of Nero Rome was in the same predicament as London to-day.  If some one would burn down London, and it were rebuilt, as it would now have to be, subject to the sanitary by-laws and Building Act provisions enforced by the London County Council, it would be enormously improved; and the average lifetime of Londoners would be considerably prolonged.  Nero argued in the same way about Rome.  He employed incendiaries to set it on fire; and he played the harp in scientific raptures whilst it was burning.  I am so far of Nero’s way