But if such is the meaning officially attached to the word “vivisection,” the teacher would be debarred from showing the circulation in a frog’s foot or in a tadpole’s tail; he must not show an animalcule, uncomfortably fixed under the microscope, nor prick his own finger for the sake of obtaining a drop of living blood.  The living particles which float in that liquid undoubtedly feel as much (or as little) as a frog under the influence of anaesthetics, or deprived of its brain, does; and the teacher who shows his pupils the wonderful phenomena exhibited by dying blood, might be charged with gloating over the agonies of the colourless corpuscles, with quite as much justice as I have been charged with inciting boys and girls to cruelty by describing the results of physiological experiments, which they are as likely to attempt as they are to determine the longitude of their schoolroom.

However, I will not trouble your Lordship with any further indication of the difficulties which, as I imagine, will attend the attempt to carry the Minute into operation, if instruction is to be given in Physiology, or even in general Biology.

[The upshot of the matter was that the Minute was altered so as to refer solely to future courses, and on February 20 he wrote to Mr. Forster:—­]

I cannot allow you to leave office without troubling you with the expression of my thanks for the very great kindness and consideration which I have received from you on all occasions, and particularly in regard to the question of vivisection, on which I ventured to some extent, though I think not very widely or really, to differ from you.

The modification which you were good enough to make in your minute removed all my objections to undertaking the Summer Course.

And I am sure that if that course had happened to be a physiological one I could do all I want to do in the way of experiment, without infringing the spirit of your minute, though I confess that the letter of it would cause me more perplexity.

[As to his general attitude to the subject, it must be noted, as said above in the letter to Sir J. Donnelly, that he never followed any line of research involving experiments on living and conscious animals.  Though, as will be seen from various letters, he considered such experiments justifiable, his personal feelings prevented him from performing them himself.  Like Charles Darwin, he was very fond of animals, and our pets in London found in him an indulgent master.

But if he did not care to undertake such experiments personally, he held it false sentiment to blame others who did disagreeable work for the good of humanity, and false logic to allow pain to be inflicted in the cause of sport while forbidding it for the cause of science. (See his address on “Instruction in Elementary Physiology” “Collected Essays” 3 300 seq.) Indeed, he declared that he trusted to the fox-hunting instincts of the House of Commons rather than to any real interest in science in that body, for a moderate treatment of the question of vivisection.