LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE VIVISECTION DEBATE.
[TO TIM EDITOR OF TUB " SPROTATOR."]
Sfa,—The reports in the morning papers of my speech on Vivi- section were no much condensed, that I do not complain of your blaming me for omitting from my definition of cruelty a qualifi- cation on which I really dwelt at some length. Having defined cruelty as "the infliction of unnecessary pain," I went on to say that pain might be unnecessary in two ways. One of these was, when the object for which the pain was inflicted was one which aid not justify the infliction of any pain ; the other was, when, though the object justified pain, yet the amount of pain was greater than was necessary for the attaining of the -object. Thus limited, I still think my definition of cruelty a perfectly sound one ; I venture to think it preferable to your own.
You define cruelty to be the infliction upon another creature of a degree of suffering such as we would not endure for our- selves, or permit the infliction of upon another of our own race, for the purpose in question. Now, my objection to this defini- tion, when you attempt to apply it to the case of animals is,— that it is at once too wide and too narrow. It is too wide, be- cause it includes the pain of being killed for food. For as none of us, I presume, would consent to endure pain, or see it inflicted on others of our race for this purpose, it follows from your definition that to kill an animal for food is cruelty.
On the other hand, your definition is too narrow, for it takes no note of all those eases in which we are, or ought to be, willing to endure exquisite pain of mind or body, in order to save others from it. Human life is full of instances of such vicarious suffering. Why, then, according to your definition, is such suffering, when inflicted on an animal, cruel? True, the animal is not, as the man is, an assenting party to the suffering ; but as this applies equally to the case of killing for food, this objection could only consistently be urged by a vegetarian.
I have, moreover, this further objection to your definition,— that it is practically more cruel than mine. For, as it makes the test of cruelty to lie altogether in the willingness of the person inflicting pain to suffer the like for a like purpose, it would prove that the tortures inflicted on his prisoner by a Red Indian, or on a heretic by an Inquisitor, are not cruel, inasmuch as those who inflicted theni would doubtless have been ready (many of them proved so) to bear the same pain in each case, 4‘ for the purpose in question,"—i.e., in the one case, for the main- tenance of a tribal 'custom ; in the other, for the maintenance of the Faith. In short, your subjective test of cruelty would leave the gentler and more sensitive natures at the mercy always of the harder and fiercer ones, every man being justified by it in in- flicting pain upon others in proportion to his own insensibility to it, or in proportion to the fanaticism which -might enable him to despise it, "for the purpose in question."
Let me add a word as to your distinction between "killing" and 4' torture," which is one largely insisted upon in this Vivisection controversy. It seems to me to be quite irrelevant, for it rests upon two assumptions, neither of which is capable of proof. One is that killing is never accompanied by torture ; the other, that Vivisection always is no accompanied.
Now, granting, as I do, and as you candidly do also, the difficulty of defining torture, I maintain that there is no defini- tion of it that you can frame which will include the pain of Vivisection, and will exclude the pain of killing for food. If torture mean merely exquisite or prolonged pain, I am certain that there is torture attending many kinds of killing, both for food, and for commerce. The bird or rabbit that we wound in shooting ; the rat we poison to protect our food ; the whale we harpoon and spear to death, through long hours of agony, in order that we may have train-oil and whalebone, suffer
• as much, I suspect, and for as long a time, as if they were vivi- sected. On the other hand, if the test of torture be—what I think you make it—the "moral relations" between the operator and the animal, then I fail to see how it is torture to inflict pain upon an animal in order to cure a man of a disease, and not torture to inflict it in order to cure him of hunger ; or how the inflictor is "a mere instrument of anguish" in the one case, and not in the other. On the other hand, taking into account the requirements of the Vivisection Act as regards the use of anaesthetics, and the subsequent killing of the animal, I am certain that there is less either of pain or of torture now
necessarily connected with Vivisection in this country, than there is with killing for food, commerce, and convenience.
As regards the general purport of my speech, I have only to say that it was spoken in defence of an Act which greatly re- stricts Vivisection, and which I declared myself not only willing, but anxious to amend, if it can be proved insufficient for its true purpose,—the prevention of cruelty to animals. All such cruelty I abhor as deeply as my critics can do. I am not, I trust, what some of them are good enough to tell me that I am, "a fool," "a brute," "a savage," "an incarnate devil," one "over whose damnation no recording angel will ever shed a tear." Controversial amenities of this kind make me thankful that your subjective test of cruelty is not yet legal, otherwise, I might fare badly in the hands of my hysterical correspondents. Meanwhile, happily for me, abuse is not tor. ture, any more than screaming is argument.—I am, Sir, ctc.,
W. C. PETERBOROUGH.
The Palace, Peterborough, July 218t.
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