in pursuit of knowledge?" Society replies,
"No." If he pleads, "What! Not even if I have a chance of finding out
how to cure cancer by doing it?" Society still says, "Not even then." If
the scientist, making the best of his disappointment, goes on to ask may
he torture a dog, the stupid and callous people who do not realize that
a dog is a fellow-creature and sometimes a good friend, may say Yes,
though Shakespear, Dr. Johnson and their like may say No. But even those
who say "You may torture A dog" never say "You may torture MY dog." And
nobody says, "Yes, because in the pursuit of knowledge you may do as
you please." Just as even the stupidest people say, in effect, "If
you cannot attain to knowledge without burning your mother you must do
without knowledge," so the wisest people say, "If you cannot attain to
knowledge without torturing a dog, you must do without knowledge."

A FALSE ALTERNATIVE

But in practice you cannot persuade any wise man that this alternative
can ever be forced on anyone but a fool, or that a fool can be trusted
to learn anything from any experiment, cruel or humane. The Chinaman who
burnt down his house to roast his pig was no doubt honestly unable to
conceive any less disastrous way of cooking his dinner; and the
roast must have been spoiled after all (a perfect type of the average
vivisectionist experiment); but this did not prove that the Chinaman
was right: it only proved that the Chinaman was an incapable cook and,
fundamentally, a fool.

Take another celebrated experiment: one in sanitary reform. In the days
of Nero Rome was in the same predicament as London to-day. If some one
would burn down London, and it were rebuilt, as it would now have to be,
subject to the sanitary by-laws and Building Act provisions enforced
by the London County Council, it would be enormously improved; and the
average lifetime of Londoners would be considerably prolonged. Nero
argued in the same way about Rome. He employed incendiaries to set it
on fire; and he played the harp in scientific raptures whilst it was
burning. I am so far of Nero's way of thinking that I have often said,
when consulted by despairing sanitary reformers, that what London needs
to make her healthy is an earthquake. Why, then, it may be asked, do not
I, as a public-spirited man, employ incendiaries to set it on fire,
with a heroic disregard of the consequences to myself and others? Any
vivisector would, if he had the courage of