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» Animals' Rights, "Experimental Torture"

Henry Salt, Animals' Rights, Considered in Relation to Social Progress, with a Bibliographical Appendix (London & New York, 1892; Print Basis for the Online Edition: London & New York: 1894; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003).

CHAPTER VII

EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE

GREAT is the change when we turn from the easy thoughtless indifferentism of the sportsman or the milliner to the more determined and deliberately chosen attitude of the scientist—so great, indeed, that by many people, even among professed champions of animals' rights, it is held impossible to trace such dissimilar lines of action to one and the same source. Yet it can be shown, I think, that in this instance, as in those already examined, the prime cause of man's injustice to the lower animals is the belief that they are mere automata, devoid alike of spirit, character, and individuality; only, while the ignorant sportsman expresses this contempt through the medium of the battue, and the milliner through that of the bonnet, the more seriously-minded physiologist works his work in the "experimental torture" of the laboratory. The difference lies in the temperament of the men and in the tone of their profession; but in their denial of the most elementary rights of the lower races, they are all inspired and instigated by one common prejudice.

The analytical method employed by modern science tends ultimately, in the hands of its most enlightened [73] exponents, to the recognition of a close relationship between mankind and the animals; but incidentally it has exercised a most sinister effect on the study of the jus animalium among the mass of average men. For consider the dealings of the so-called naturalist with the animals whose nature he makes it his business to observe ! In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he is wholly unappreciative of the essential distinctive quality, the individuality, of the subject of his investigations, and becomes nothing more than a contented accumulator of facts, an industrious dissector of carcases. "I think the most important requisite in describing an animal," says Thoreau, "is to be sure that you give its character and spirit, for in that you have, without error, the sum and effect of all its parts known and unknown. Surely the most important part of an animal is its anima, its vital spirit, on which is based its character and all the particulars by which it most concerns us. Yet most scientific books which treat of animals leave this out altogether, and what they describe are, as it were, phenomena of dead matter."

The whole system of our "natural history" as practised at the present time, is based on this deplorably partial and misleading method. Does a rare bird alight on our shores? It is at once slaughtered by some enterprising collector, and proudly handed over to the nearest taxidermist, that it may be "preserved," among a number of other stuffed corpses, in the local "Museum." It is a dismal business at best, this science of the fowling-piece and the dissecting-knife, but it is in keeping [74] with the materialistic tendency of a certain school of thought, and only a few of its professors rise out of it, and above it, to a maturer and more far-sighted understanding. "The child," says Michelet, "disports himself, shatters, and destroys; he finds his happiness in undoing. And science, in its childhood, does the same. It cannot study unless it kills. The sole use which it makes of a living mind is, in the first place, to dissect it. None carry into scientific pursuits that tender reverence for life which Nature rewards by unveiling to us her mysteries."

Under these circumstances, it is scarcely to be wondered at that modern scientists, their minds athirst for further and further opportunities of satisfying this analytical curiosity, should desire to have recourse to the experimental torture which is euphemistically described as "vivisection" They are caught and impelled by the overmastering passion of knowledge; and, as a handy subject for the gratification of this passion, they see before them the helpless race of animals, in part wild, in part domesticated, but alike regarded by the generality of mankind as incapable of possessing any "rights." They are practically accustomed (despite their ostensible disavowal of the Cartesian theory) to treat these animals as automata—things made to be killed and dissected and catalogued for the advancement of knowledge; they are, moreover, in their professional capacity, the lineal descendants of a class of men who, however kindly and considerate in other respects, have never scrupled to subordinate the strongest [75] promptings of humanness to the least of the supposed interests of science.^75*1 Given these conditions, it seems as inevitable that the physiologist should vivisect as that the country gentleman should shoot. Experimental torture is as appropriately the study of the half-enlightened man as sport is the amusement of the half-witted.

But the fact that vivisection is not, as some of its opponents would appear to regard it, a portentous, unaccountable phenomenon, but rather the logical outcome of a certain ill-balanced habit of mind, does not in any way detract from its intellectual and moral loathsomeness. It is idle to spend a single moment in advocating the rights of the lower animals, if such rights do not include a total and unqualified exemption from the awful tortures of vivisection—from the doom of being slowly and mercilessly dismembered, or flayed, or baked alive, or infected with some deadly virus, or subjected [76] to any of the numerous modes of torture inflicted by the Scientific Inquisition. Let us heartily endorse the words of Miss Cobbe on this crucial subject, that "the minimum of all possible rights plainly is—to be spared the worst of all possible wrongs; and if a horse or dog have no claim to be spared from being maddened and mangled after the fashion of Pasteur and Chauveau, then it is impossible it can have any right at all, or that any offence against it, by gentle or simple, can deserve punishment."

It is necessary to speak strongly and unmistakably on this point, because, as I have already said, there is a disposition on the part of some of the "friends of animals" to palter and compromise with vivisection, as if the alleged "utility" of its practices, or the "conscientious" motives of its professors, put it on an altogether different footing from other kinds of inhumanity. "Much against my own feelings," wrote one of these backsliders,^76*1 "I do see a warrant for vivisection in the case of harmful animals, and animals which are man's rivals for food. If an animal is doomed to be killed on other grounds, the vivisector, when its time comes, may step in, buy it, kill it in his own way, and take without self-reproach the gain to knowledge which he can get from its death. And my 'sweet is life' theory would further allow of animals being specially bred for vivisection—where and where only they would otherwise not have been bred at all." This astounding argument, which assumes the necessity of vivisection, gives [77] away it will be observed, the whole case of animals' rights.

The assertion, commonly made by the apologists of the Scientific Inquisition, that vivisection is justified by its utility—that it is, in fact, indispensable to the advance of knowledge and civilization^77*1—is founded on a mere half-view of the position; the scientist, as I have already remarked, is a half-enlightened man. Let us assume (a large assumption, certainly, controverted as it is by some most weighty medical testimony) that the progress of surgical science is assisted by the experiments of the vivisector. What then? Before rushing to the conclusion that vivisection is justifiable on that account, a wise man will take into full consideration the other, the moral side of the question—the hideous injustice of torturing an innocent animal, and the terrible wrong thereby done to the humane sense of the community.

The wise scientist and the wise humanist are identical. A true science cannot possibly ignore the solid incontrovertible fact, that the practice of vivisection is revolting to the human conscience, even among the ordinary members of a not over-sensitive society. The so-called [78] "science" (we are compelled unfortunately, in common parlance, to use the word in this specialized technical meaning) which deliberately overlooks this fact, and confines its view to the material aspects of the problem, is not science at all, but a one-sided assertion of the views which find favour with a particular class of men.

Nothing is necessary which is abhorrent, revolting, intolerable, to the general instincts of humanity. Better a thousand times that science should forego or postpone the questionable advantage of certain problematical discoveries, than that the moral conscience of the community should be unmistakably outraged by the confusion of right and wrong. The short cut is not always the right path; and to perpetrate a cruel injustice on the lower animals, and then attempt to excuse it on the ground that it will benefit posterity, is an argument which is as irrelevant as it is immoral. Ingenious it may be (in the way of hoodwinking the unwary) but it is certainly in no true sense scientific.

If there be one bright spot, one refreshing oasis, in the discussion of this dreary subject, it is the humorous recurrence of the old threadbare fallacy of "better for the animals themselves." Yes, even here, in the laboratory of the vivisector, amidst the baking and sawing and dissection, we are sometimes met by that familiar friend—the proud plea of a single-hearted regard for the interests of the suffering animals! Who knows but what some beneficent experimentalist, if only he be permitted to cut up a sufficient number of victims, may discover some potent remedy for all the lamented ills of the [79] as well as of the human creation? Can we doubt that the victims themselves, if once they could realize the noble object of their martyrdom, would vie with each other in rushing eagerly on the knife? The only marvel is that, where the cause is so meritorious, no human volunteer has as yet come forward to die under the hands of the vivisector!^79*1

It is fully admitted that experiments on men would be far more valuable and conclusive than experiments on animals; yet scientists usually disavow any wish to revive these practices, and indignantly deny the rumours, occasionally circulated, that the poorer patients in hospitals are the subjects of such anatomical curiosity. Now here, it will be observed, in the case of men, the moral aspect of vivisection is admitted by the scientist as a matter of course, yet in the case of animals it is allowed no weight whatever ! How can this strange inconsistency be justified, unless on the assumption that men have rights, but animals have no rights—in other words, that animals are mere things, possessed of no purpose, and no claim on the justice and forbearance of the community?

One of the most notable and ominous features in the apologies offered for vivisection is the assertion, so commonly [80] made by scientific writers, that it is "no worse" than certain kindred practices. When the upholders of any accused institution begin to plead that it is "no worse" than other institutions, we may feel quite assured that the case is a very bad one indeed—it is the drowning man catching at the last straw and shred of argument. Thus the advocates of experimental torture are reduced to the expedient of laying stress on the cruelties of the butcher and the herdsman, and inquiring why, if pole-axing and castration are permissible, vivisection may not also be permitted.^80*1 Sport, also, is a practice which has greatly shocked the susceptibilities of the humane vivisector. A writer in the "Fortnightly Review" has defined sport as "the love of the clever destruction of living things," and has calculated that "three millions of animals are yearly mangled by English sportsmen, in addition to those killed outright."^80*1

Now if the attack on vivisection emanated primarily or wholly from the apologists of the sportsman and slaughterer, this tu quoque of the scientist's must be allowed to be a smart, though rather flippant, retort; but when all cruelty is arraigned as inhuman and unjustifiable, an evasive answer of this kind ceases to have any relevancy or pertinence. Let us admit, however, that, in contrast with the childish brutality of the sportsman, the undoubted seriousness and conscientiousness of the vivisector (for I do not question that he acts fromconscientious [81] motives) may be counted to his advantage. But then we have to remember, on the other hand, that the conscientious man, when he goes wrong, is far more dangerous to society than the knave or the fool; indeed, the special horror of vivisection consists precisely in this fact, that it is not due to mere thoughtlessness and ignorance, but represents a deliberate, avowed, conscientious invasion of the very principle of animals' rights.

I have already said that it is idle to speculate which is the worst form of cruelty to animals, for certainly in this subject, if anywhere, we must "reject the lore of nicely calculated less or more." Vivisection, if there be any truth at all in the principle for which I am contending, is not the root, but the fine flower and consummation of barbarity and injustice—the ne plus ultra of iniquity in man's dealings with the lower races. The root of the evil lies, as I have throughout asserted, in that detestable assumption (detestable equally whether it be based on pseudo-religious or pseudo-scientific grounds) that there is a gulf, an impassable barrier, between man and the animals, and that the moral instincts of compassion, justice, and love, are to be as sedulously repressed and thwarted in the one direction as they are to be fostered and extended in the other.

For this very reason our crusade against the Scientific Inquisition, to be thorough and successful, must be founded on the rock of consistent opposition to cruelty in every form and phase; it is useless to denounce vivisection as the source of all inhumanities, and, while demanding its immediate suppression, to suppose that [82] other minor questions may be indefinitely postponed. It is true that the actual emancipation of the lower races, as of the human, can only proceed step by step, and that it is both natural and politic to strike first at what is most repulsive to the public conscience. I am not depreciating the wisdom of such a concentration of effort on any particular point, but warning my readers against the too common tendency to forget the general principle that underlies each individual protest.

The spirit in which we approach these matters should be a liberal and far-seeing one. Those who work for the abolition of vivisection, or any other particular wrong, should do so with the avowed purpose of capturing one stronghold of the enemy, not because they believe that the war will then be over, but because they will be able to use the position thus gained as an advantageous starting-point for still further progression.

Footnotes

75*¹ Vivisection is an ancient usage, having been practised for 2,000 years or more, in Egypt, Italy, and elsewhere. Human vivisection is mentioned by Galen as having been fashionable for centuries before his day, and Celsus informs us that "they procured criminals out of prison, and, dissecting them alive, contemplated, while they were yet breathing, what nature had before concealed." The sorcerers, too, of the Middle Ages tortured both human beings and animals, with a view to the discovery of their medicinal elixirs. The recognition of the rights of men has now made human vivisection criminal, and the scientific inquisition of the present time counts animals alone as its victims. And here the Act of 1876 has fortunately, though not sufficiently, restricted the powers of the vivisector in Great Britain.

76*¹ "The Rights of an Animal." by E. B. Nicholson, 1879.

77*¹ The medical argument of "utility" has always been held in terrorem over the unscientific assertion of animals' rights. Porphyry, writing in the third century, quotes the following from Claudius the Neapolitan, author of a treatise against abstinence from animal food. "How many will be prevented from having their diseases cured, if animals are abstained from ! For we see that those who are blind recover their sight by eating a viper." Some of the results that scientists "see" nowadays may appear equally strange to posterity!

79*¹ It is true, however, that Lord Aberdare, in presiding over the last annual meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in warning the society against entering on an anti-vivisection crusade, gave utterance to the delightfully comical remark that he had himself been thrice operated on, and was all the better for it !

80*¹ See J. Cotter Morrison's article on "Scientific versus Bucolic Vivisection," "Fortnightly Review," 1885.

80*² Professor Jevons, "Fortnightly Review," 1876