im. Why not test the diagnosis scientifically?
Why not perform a careful series of experiments on persons under the
influence of voluptuous ecstasy, so as to ascertain its physiological
symptoms? Then perform a second series on persons engaged in
mathematical work or machine designing, so as to ascertain the symptoms
of cold scientific activity? Then note the symptoms of a vivisector
performing a cruel experiment; and compare them with the voluptuary
symptoms and the mathematical symptoms? Such experiments would be quite
as interesting and important as any yet undertaken by the vivisectors.
They might open a line of investigation which would finally make, for
instance, the ascertainment of the guilt or innocence of an accused
person a much exacter process than the very fallible methods of our
criminal courts. But instead of proposing such an investigation, our
vivisectors offer us all the pious protestations and all the huffy
recriminations that any common unscientific mortal offers when he is
accused of unworthy conduct.

ROUTINE

Yet most vivisectors would probably come triumphant out of such a series
of experiments, because vivisection is now a routine, like butchering
or hanging or flogging; and many of the men who practise it do so only
because it has been established as part of the profession they have
adopted. Far from enjoying it, they have simply overcome their natural
repugnance and become indifferent to it, as men inevitably become
indifferent to anything they do often enough. It is this dangerous power
of custom that makes it so difficult to convince the common sense of
mankind that any established commercial or professional practice has its
root in passion. Let a routine once spring from passion, and you will
presently find thousands of routineers following it passionlessly for
a livelihood. Thus it always seems strained to speak of the religious
convictions of a clergyman, because nine out of ten clergymen have no
religions convictions: they are ordinary officials carrying on a routine
of baptizing, marrying, and churching; praying, reciting, and preaching;
and, like solicitors or doctors, getting away from their duties with
relief to hunt, to garden, to keep bees, to go into society, and the
like. In the same way many people do cruel and vile things without being
in the least cruel or vile, because the routine to which they have been
brought up is superstitiously cruel and vile. To say that every m