But the question remains:  Do we all really wish to be spared that knowledge?  Are humane methods really to be preferred to cruel ones?  Even if the experiments come to nothing, may not their cruelty be enjoyed for its own sake, as a sensational luxury?  Let us face these questions boldly, not shrinking from the fact that cruelty is one of the primitive pleasures of mankind, and that the detection of its Protean disguises as law, education, medicine, discipline, sport and so forth, is one of the most difficult of the unending tasks of the legislator.

OUR OWN CRUELTIES

At first blush it may seem not only unnecessary, but even indecent, to discuss such a proposition as the elevation of cruelty to the rank of a human right.  Unnecessary, because no vivisector confesses to a love of cruelty for its own sake or claims any general fundamental right to be cruel.  Indecent, because there is an accepted convention to repudiate cruelty; and vivisection is only tolerated by the law on condition that, like judicial torture, it shall be done as mercifully as the nature of the practice allows.  But the moment the controversy becomes embittered, the recriminations bandied between the opposed parties bring us face-to-face with some very ugly truths.  On one occasion I was invited to speak at a large Anti-Vivisection meeting in the Queen’s Hall in London.  I found myself on the platform with fox hunters, tame stag hunters, men and women whose calendar was divided, not by pay days and quarter days, but by seasons for killing animals for sport:  the fox, the hare, the otter, the partridge and the rest having each its appointed date for slaughter.  The ladies among us wore hats and cloaks and head-dresses obtained by wholesale massacres, ruthless trappings, callous extermination of our fellow creatures.  We insisted on our butchers supplying us with white veal, and were large and constant consumers of pate de foie gras; both comestibles being obtained by revolting methods.  We sent our sons to public schools where indecent flogging is a recognized method of taming the young human animal.  Yet we were all in hysterics of indignation at the cruelties of the vivisectors.  These, if any were present, must have smiled sardonically at such inhuman humanitarians, whose daily habits and fashionable amusements cause more suffering in England in a week than all the vivisectors of Europe do in a year.  I made a very effective speech, not exclusively against vivisection, but against cruelty; and I have never been asked to speak since by that Society, nor do I expect to be, as I should probably give such offence to its most affluent subscribers that its attempts to suppress vivisection would be seriously hindered.  But that does not prevent the vivisectors from freely using the “youre another” retort, and using it with justice.