re often beyond the bounds
of things that are practicable. Fire-horses, however ill, should be
made to do their duty, even if it costs them any amount of suffering;
even as the artillerymen should, if the occasion calls for it, rush
their teams, though they know that the poor beasts are to die at the
goal. In a word, the only and supreme test of our relations to these
subjects is the well being of man considered from the higher point of
view. This principle we apply to our own kind; we are justified in like
action in case of the brutes. In this consideration, the offence to the
feelings of man which is caused by any act of cruelty, however
necessary, deserves its due weight.

The most serious matter connected with the question of the rights of
animals which is now under discussion relates to the use of these
creatures in the investigative work of the naturalist, or in the
repetition of the processes and results of those inquiries before
students. Although all judicious people are likely to welcome the
exceeding reprobation with which many philanthropists visit the
vivisectionists, and this for the reason that the state of mind
shows a rapid advance of the sympathetic motive, they are likely to
question the sound foundation of the objections that are raised to
experiments with animals, made for the purpose of discovering of
displaying the truths of nature.

So far as the work of research into the phenomena of life is
concerned, there can be no question as to its importance or as to the
fitness of sacrificing the lives of the lowlier creatures in any way
that may be necessary for the advancement of knowledge. In the last
half century there has been an improvement in the treatment and
prevention of diseases so great as almost to defy adequate
description. To take only the last of these precious gains, that in
relation to the treatment of diphtheria, the gain has been such that
although the process is not past its experimental stage the reduction
of the mortality in hospitals where the remedy is used has lowered
the death rate from above fifty to about fifteen per cent. of the
cases. Yet this result rests upon a vast amount of experiment which
has cost suffering and life to the lower animals; and to produce the
remedy which is used, horses have to be innoculated with the disease,
and thereby much pain is inflicted upon them. Weighed as against the
life of a human being, a host of the lower creatures must count as
nothing