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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1837-1901] Victorian Age » William Hamilton Drummond

William Hamilton Drummond

Rights of Animals

Causes of Cruelty: Love of Science Perverted—Vivisection

[1838] William Hamilton Drummond, "Causes of Cruelty: Love of Science Perverted—Vivisection," ch. 9 §. 6 in The Rights of Animals, and Man's Obligation to Treat Them with Humanity (Boston, 1838;Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks).

If we can imagine some unfortunate animal, when brought to the dissecting-room for experiment, to be for the occasion endowed with speech and "sanctity of reason," we might farther imagine it to address the sacrificer in terms like these: " Your power, I admit, is not to be resisted. The Almighty has given you dominion over me; but it is a dominion of justice and mercy, not of cruelty and wrong.…Suppose yourself, for a moment, in the power of a being as much superior to you, as you to me, and that he was preparing to subject you to the same process of investigation as you have prepared for me, what would be your feelings? You are filled with indignation and horror when you read of the cruelties sometimes practised by men on each other; for you think them more sensibly alive to pain than other creatures, and your sympathies are more strongly excited for beings like yourself. Notwithstanding, it is happy for them that you dare not dissect living men with impunity, since the step from one degree of wickedness to another is not always difficult. But are not the inferior creatures, as you call them, capable of acute sensation? Are they not composed of the same materials as man? Do they not exhibit as much delicacy of construction; are not their muscles as tender; their nerves as finely strung? And do not their writhings and contortions under the knife and the saw, the hammer and chisel, their lamentable cries, and groans, and shrieks, which send a shudder even to the demonstrator's iron heart, declare their sufferings in language sufficiently intelligible ? You hope to make some new discovery, forsooth, and you care not at what expense. Egregious vanity ! You would penetrate into the secret things which belong only to Jehovah; you would force your way into the Holy of Holies, which the law of God prohibits. Beware lest you perish in the attempt. But how are you qualified for this ambitious enterprize? Have you learned all that has been already taught ? Have you so thoroughly investigated and found all that inanimate frame is capable of unfolding, that nothing remains to be achieved; and to gratify a preposterous ambition, and a criminal curiosity, must you commence a course of diabolical experiments on living creatures, in hope of discovering something new? And suppose this as yet undiscovered something to be found, what will be its real use in the medical profession, and what will atone for the guilt you must incur in prosecuting the inquiry? You are desirous of celebrity. Well, let it be an honest celebrity, and pursue it in such paths as virtue will approve. Never let the genius of evil be your conductor to the temple of fame. Though all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, were to be the reward of your falling down and worshipping the enemy of God and man, what would you be profited ? You are now preparing to immolate me, by horrible tortures, on the blood-stained altar that he loves; and what will you gain by the sacrifice, but the harrowing reflection of having perpetrated an enormous atrocity, against which I protest, and make my final appeal to heaven?" (167-9)