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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1837-1901] Victorian Age » Spectator Magazine

Clergy and Vivisection

John Wright

Letter to the Editor, Spectator Magazine

[1884-Feb-16] John Wright, letter to the editor, "The Clergy and Vivisection," Spectator Magazine 57 (1884 Feb 16): 216; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003.

THE CLERGY AND VIVISECTION.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—Is not this the false thought that is at the root of the apathy of the Clergy of the question of Vivisection ?—a man feels that there is a certain price that it would be immoral for him to pay in order that he might be delivered from pain, but he does not feel that it would be immoral to pay this price in order that others might be delivered from pain. He may hate and loathe the very thought of vivisection, and yet put a constraint upon his feelings, and permit it, for the sake of others. This would indeed be an act of self-sacrifice, and of unlawful self-sacrifice. It is surely in such a case as this that it is commanded us to love thy neighour only as ourselves,—to desire good for our neighbour only by such means as we should consider lawful to desire it for ourselves. Not to do this is not to love God with the whole heart's devotion, and consequently it is not really to love our neighbour, for its is to desire for him a lower, instead of a higher good. I fear that our social morality is apt to be paternal, instead of fraternal. A, B, C, and D are high-minded men, each of whom would refuse to allow vivisection for his own sake. But A is in favour of it, for the sake of B, C, and D ; B, for the sake of A, C, and D ; and so on, through the letters of the alphabet. In this way, each at the same time helps in forcing down the general standard of morality below his own ideal, and is himself the victim of this forcing-down.—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN P. WRIGHT. Oldbury Rectory, Bridgnorth, February 11th.