VIVISECTION.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:']
you allow me to supplement your reference to Sir William Thomson's condemnation of Dr. Rutherford's experi- ments, devised and carried out, as they were, in contempt and defiance of all logical rule, by the quotation of the following few lines from Locke's " Conduct of the Understanding?" They appear to me to indicate, with remarkable aptness and accuracy, the sources of the error into which they fall who devise such crude experimentation as a mode of " scientific " research, for the dis- covery of physiological truth :- "They," says Locke, " who attributed so much to logic, per- ceived very well and truly that it was not safe to trust the under- standing itself without the guard of any rules ; but the remedy reached not the evil, but became a part of it ; for the logic which took place, though it might do well enough in civil affairs, and the arts, which consisted in talk and opinion, yet comes very far short of subtlety in the real performances of Nature, and catching at what it cannot reach, has served to confirm and estab- lish errors rather than to open a way to Truth."—I am, Sir, &c.,
THE EDITOR OF THE "HOME CHRONICLER."
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