e, in Germany,
in Denmark, and England. If any man was entitled by experience and
study to speak with some authority concerning vivisection, it was
William James of Harvard University.

He knew to what extent the practice of vivisection was carried on.
Calling upon me one day in Cambridge, we compared views, and although
he told me of certain experiments he proposed to make the next day, he
was emphatic in his denunciation of the atrocities which over and over
again were repeated in physiological laboratories throughout the
land. The men who raised their voices against all reform were--he
said--neither candid, nor honest, nor sincere.

Somewhat later, with some knowledge of his views, he was asked to hold
an honorary relation to the Vivisection Reform Society. His reply was
so characteristic of the man that it is here given:

"Dear Sir,

"I am made of too unorganized stuff to be a Vice-President of the
Vivisection Reform Society, and, moreover, I make it a principle not
to let my name appear anywhere where I am not doing practical work.
But I am glad to send you, in answer to your request, a statement of
my views, which you are at liberty to publish if you see fit.

"Much of the talk against vivisection is, in my opinion, as idiotic as
the talk in defence of it is uncandid; but your Society (if I rightly
understand its policy) aims not at abolishing vivisection, but at
regulating it ethically. AGAINST ANY REGULATION WHATEVER I understand
the various medical and scientific defenders of vivisection to
protest. Their invariable contention, implied or expressed, is that
it is no one's business what happens to an animal so long as the
individual who is handling it can plead that to increase Science is
his aim.

"This contention seems to me to flatly contradict the best conscience
of our time. The rights of the helpless--even though they be brutes--
must be protected by those who have superior power. The individual
vivisector must be held responsible to some authority which he fears.
The medical and scientific men, who time and time again have raised
their voices in opposition to all legal projects of regulation, KNOW
AS WELL AS ANYONE ELSE does the unspeakable possibilities of
callousness, wantonness, and meanness of human nature, and their
unanimity is the best example I know of the power of club opinion to
quell independence of mind. No well-organized sect or corporation of
men can ever be trusted to be tru