Consequently no method of investigation is the only
method; and no law forbidding any particular method can cut us off
from the knowledge we hope to gain by it. The only knowledge we lose by
forbidding cruelty is knowledge at first hand of cruelty itself, which
is precisely the knowledge humane people wish to be spared.

But the question remains: Do we all really wish to be spared that
knowledge? Are humane methods really to be preferred to cruel ones? Even
if the experiments come to nothing, may not their cruelty be enjoyed
for its own sake, as a sensational luxury? Let us face these questions
boldly, not shrinking from the fact that cruelty is one of the primitive
pleasures of mankind, and that the detection of its Protean disguises as
law, education, medicine, discipline, sport and so forth, is one of the
most difficult of the unending tasks of the legislator.

OUR OWN CRUELTIES

At first blush it may seem not only unnecessary, but even indecent, to
discuss such a proposition as the elevation of cruelty to the rank of a
human right. Unnecessary, because no vivisector confesses to a love of
cruelty for its own sake or claims any general fundamental right to be
cruel. Indecent, because there is an accepted convention to repudiate
cruelty; and vivisection is only tolerated by the law on condition that,
like judicial torture, it shall be done as mercifully as the nature of
the practice allows. But the moment the controversy becomes embittered,
the recriminations bandied between the opposed parties bring us
face-to-face with some very ugly truths. On one occasion I was invited
to speak at a large Anti-Vivisection meeting in the Queen's Hall in
London. I found myself on the platform with fox hunters, tame stag
hunters, men and women whose calendar was divided, not by pay days and
quarter days, but by seasons for killing animals for sport: the fox, the
hare, the otter, the partridge and the rest having each its appointed
date for slaughter. The ladies among us wore hats and cloaks and
head-dresses obtained by wholesale massacres, ruthless trappings,
callous extermination of our fellow creatures. We insisted on our
butchers supplying us with white veal, and were large and constant
consumers of pate de foie gras; both comestibles being obtained by
revolting methods. We sent our sons to public schools where indecent
flogging is a recognized method of taming the young human animal. Yet
we were all in hysterics of indign