* * * * It was' no doubt about time
for the Bishop of Durham to say something startling. Di. Henson is -normally a progressive thinker and the' reactionary doctrines to which he has just committed himself do certainly startle. He was speaking of the possibility of applying vivisection to criminals who had been condemned to death ; and he made the amazing statement that " in their case the issue of inherent human rights could not be raised, for these had already been cancelled." Cancelled ! Is personality destroyed because a person has committed a crime ? Dr. Henson not 'only ignores, utterly the distinction between' criminal law.- and ethical law, but even accord- ing to the less exaltedAtandards Of the fOrmer it is not true to say that a condemned Man has no rights. I am not arguing about the propriety' of vivisecting a huMan body whose owner may have been willing to offer it for scientific experiment. ' What I do denounce is the -barbarous Mediaeval conception of the nature of crime and the ethics of punishment so calmly set before us by a distinguished divine; . * * *
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