NINE REASONS AGAINST THE SCIENTIFIC TORTURE

1.

BECA

OF ANIMALS.

ECAUSE it cannot be justified without justifying the scientific torture of men. To torture a man is not wrong on the ground that he is intelligent or immortal, but only because he has a sensitive body: and the same is true of all vertebrated animals.

2. Because it cannot be practised without an immediate hardening of heart to students who grow up under it, and a spreading demoralization in the community.

3. Because in particular it becomes impossible to punish boys for indulging their boyish curiosity by cruel experiments, when philosophers indulge their philosophic curiosity by experiments prodigiously more cruel. So too, if a philosopher may try how many minutes it takes to bake a dog to death, or what amount of torture suffices to alienate his affection, rude men cannot be punished for trying which of two animals has greater endurance of wounds.

4. Because a medical degree is at best a test of intellectual attainment, not of gentleness, patience, and wisdom; and since one heartless man who has taken a medical degree can torture in living death tens of thousands of dogs, cats, and rabbits, no licence of torture can safely, wisely, or justly be granted to any one by virtue of his degree or station.

5. Because the increasing use of more and more artificial apparatus for ingeniously torturing our innocent, helpless, gentle, and imploring fellow creatures has been accompanied with an increasing tendency in the medical profession to approve of and promote artificial impurity in the blood and in morals; cruelty, recklessness, and impurity going hand in hand; so that we are threatened with demoralization of a complicated order from the profession which ought simply to minister to health.

6. Because it cannot be proved that any truth of science worth knowing is not attainable by legitimate observations and experiments which involve no cruelty, and especially by observations and experiments on human beings, with their full assent.

370 NINE REASONS AGAINST SCIENTIFIC TORTURE OF ANIMALS.

7. Because in particular it is denied by competent medical authorities that the circulation of the blood and the function of the nerves were discovered by vivisection; while other eminent persons have avowed that this cruel practice has perpetuated error and distracted students from truer modes of discovery.

8. Because it is not even pretended that the cruelties aim directly at the relief of human suffering. Avowedly they aim at science, that is, at the gratification of curiosity; any relief to man from it, is only contingent and barely possible, and to judge by results, may rather be called a fiction and a fraud not pious.

9. Because Christendom has long since been taunted by the nations beyond as the Hell of Animals, and Christianity must be eternally and fatally disgraced, if nations called Christian allow the perpetration of these heart-rending enormities under any pretext whatever.

REORGANIZATION OF ENGLISH INSTITUTIONS.

Lecture in Athenæum, Manchester, 1875.

ATHENEUM, MANCHESTER,

Friday, October 15th, 1875.

LA

ADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-I have chosen a formidable title for my lecture this evening. I hope I shall not weary you. I cannot be short and summary on so great a subject. I would rather speak than read: but I then should not be concise enough. I shall have to set forth the greatness of existing evils, in order to show the necessity of new organs. I beg you all to remember that when skill in a workman makes up for bad tools, it is at a vast expense of labour. The superiority of civilized to barbarian work turns chiefly on superior tools. Every prudent manufacturer seeks for the best machinery; and augurs that what is simple and old-fashioned ill competes with what is new and more elaborate so too is it in political organisation. For the permanent welfare of a population which grows in numbers and complexity, its social and political organs must also grow-that is, must become more numerous and complex, however simple in principle.

But since William III. became king of England, the Parliaments of Scotland and Ireland have been annihilated, and no subsidiary organs have replaced them. For 150 years we were so busy with wars, Continental or American, that our domestic institutions went into decay; India at the same time fell into our embrace, an enormous incubus. To subserve base intrigue, our boroughs were crippled and degraded; nor have they ever recovered their ancient powers. Parliament meanwhile is immensely aggrandized and immensely overworked. A debt of 800 millions was contracted by wars, and very little of it has been paid off in the last sixty years, though full forty of these have been years of great prosperity. Until centralization is admitted, permanent debt is not incurred. Our population is four times as great as William III. knew it; yet the people are more than ever divorced from the soil and cramped into towns. Notoriously

during war our Parliament is incapable of domestic reform. Lord John Russell, with actual tears in his eyes, laid aside his intended Reform Bill when he saw the Russian war impending. No wonder then, that our warlike period of a century and a half under a dominant Parliament was ruinous to our social state. Since the peace with France, serious efforts have been made for reform in detail, especially in repealing laws which ought never to have been enacted; vast efforts also to obtain a miserably small amount of organic reform. Things might be far worse; yet looking to the intelligence of the age, the advances of foreign nations and the energy of our own people, very many think that things might be far better; and therefore ought to be. But I add, our dangers from India and Asia are great and ever increasing; yet Parliament is unhelpful, and Ministries postpone everything that can be postponed. No great move seems possible, except after hideous calamity. Can this be a wisely ordered Constitution?

The reforms carried by Lord Grey in 1832, by Mr D'Israeli in 1867, have been exaggerated to the imagination by the long struggle needed to get them. Lord Grey destroyed many rotten boroughs. Good; but the chief positive change in each case was to extend the Parliamentary suffrage to new electors. Even so, the extension is very incomplete. The peasants have no vote, nor have wealthy and intelligent women; and when it is proposed to admit peasant householders, Whigs as well as Tories see grave objections; nor can I blame them. The last extension of the suffrage has hitherto done that which was predicted ;—it has virtually sold us into the hands of the richest men. Even the largest of the new constituencies consider chiefly who are their most liberal neighbours-liberality being the virtue which common minds best understand: hence the local rich, if ambitious enough to compete, gain the elections prevalently, and this makes some of the judges look askance on liberality. To have built almshouses or to have distributed coals is a highly suspicious act: it may soon be accounted virtual bribery if candidacy follow. Indiscriminate generosity may become a crime, even when it is unconditional and without political professions. If we were to extend household suffrage to the rural districts, elections must be still more expensive. Already it is only by rare exception that a man of very modest income, however independent, can aspire to sit in Parliament. Meanwhile the suffrage is of little value to us, if among several candidates not one excites in us a particle of enthusiasm.

The mode also of taking votes is fundamentally vicious, and gives scope to mischievous intrigue. If one seat is competed for by three condidates A, B, C, of whom A and B are alike far more acceptable to the constituency than C, yet by the splitting of votes between A and B perhaps C is elected, though he would be rejected decisively, if the question were proposed, pure and simple, "Will you have C?" The system of plumpers, when there are two candidates, equally fosters intrigue and uncertainty. The only plain and fair way is to divide the constituencies so that each may have but one representative, and then make them vote for or against each candidate separately. Whichever of the candidates has the greatest number of affirmative votes is evidently the least unacceptable to the constituency.

To disfranchise all, because some have been bribed, is truly wonderful, when the pure have no power whatever to restrain the impure. To unseat a member because an ardent friend or even agent has bribed, exposes him to ejection by a secret enemy who pretends friendship. Surely it needs to be shown that the candidate connived, else it suffices to strike off from his list the number of votes illegally won. But I shall, before I end, suggest a far shorter and more effectual remedy for all the evils of our Parliamentary elections.

Probably all of us agree that the nation collectively has a right to the best government, legislative and executive, which the intelligence of the age can afford; also, that only when Power or Privilege conduces to good government, ought Power or Privilege to be held by individuals or classes. These are among the AXIOMS from which I reason. Yet since the word Privilege, in a lecture on Organic Reform, may suggest to you the House of Lords, I at once drop a few words on that topic. I have very long believed that that House ought to be reformed, and I have more than once printed a scheme for so reforming it, that England may become proud of the House. But, whatever the cause, I find English Reformers positively determined not to touch the topic. Therefore I have resolved this evening to omit it. Yet, before I close, I intend to make one brief remark on this subject. In order to obtain the best legislation which the intelligence of the age admits, the first requisite is, that intelligent, upright, wise men be elected; next, that they shall legislate with fresh and clear minds, not wearied out with overwork, not distracted by topics too numerous, not heated by wine, not sleepy from the hour of the night, not hurried by the whipper-in of the party.