IVISECTION.
[To TES EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR;')
SII1,7-It is always with a certain surprise that I perceive the tacit assumption of so many of our opponents,—that all humane persons are alive to the claims of the lower animals. It is constantly assumed that what we are afraid of is the cruelty of cruel men. The only cruelty one would wish to punish is that of the cruel, but if that were the only cruelty we could prevent, one would be tempted to give up the cause in despair. What animals suffer from is the cruelty of the preoccupied. How many generous men and women one knows who would walk half a day to procure any comfort for an invalid, for instance, and would also allow a lame horse to be over-driven to save them- selves the most trifling inconvenience. It is never safe to infer the slightest care for animals, from evidence of the utmost care for human beings ; one has to learn whether it exists iu any man or woman, as one has to learn whether he or she speaks Italian, after hearing him or her speak French and German with fluency. Perhaps this is not quite so true as it used to be, but it is still so far true that we ought not to be sat,- posed to bring an imputation against any one, when we refuse to take it for granted that it is an object with him to save a cat or a dog from suffering. Still less ought this to be supposed, when all we refuse is to take it for granted that a man will not feel the sufferings of cats and dogs so great an object as to allow them to interfere with his most engrossing interest. There is, as you point out, evidence that he does not ; but the case. hardly needs evidence. We do not assume that men of science are worse than others, when we expect that they will not do this we merely assume that they are no better than others. If a kind-hearted man will let a horse endure any suffering, rather than he should miss a train (and surely it is a minority who• would not do so), why should it be thought that we speak harshly of a class of. men in believing that they would let a number of animals endure any suffering rather than fail in experiments which they think—sometimes with the exaggera- tion of their own achievements inevitable in all pursuits, and sometimes with truth—of importance to the object they have• most at heart P—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN OPPONENT OP VIVISECTION.
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