human conduct, there will be a new
conception of JUSTICE toward every sentient being. It may mean
extinction of species; but it will notmean their torment. You and I
cannot hope for life long enough to see the realization of that
dream. And yet, sometimes I have wondered whether it be so far
distant as I have feared. But a little while ago, who of us could
have imagined that in our day, the Government of the United States
would listen to the cries of little birds, starving on their nests in
the swamps of Florida, and prohibit the importation of the egret
plumes? How much of hopefulness for the final triumph of th
eprinciples of humaneness lies in the passage of such a law!

I fancy that one day, all noxious animals, and especially those which
prery upon other creatures, will largely, if not entirely, disappear.
It is calculated that ever grown lion in South Africa kills for food,
every year, between 200 and 300 harmless animals, and each one of
which is as much entitled as the lion to the happiness of existence.
In great museums to-day, we see the remains of creatures, like the
sabre-toothed tiger, that lived probably, over a million years ago.
In a century or two, hence, the skeletons of the panther, the tiger,
the leopard and the lion, will be found in the same halls of science,
with those of other extinct species, that could exist only at the
expense of others' lives.

Some day the question of vivisection will be merged in the larger
problem, the adjustment of man's relations to animals on the basis of
JUSTICE. We who are assembled here to-day, certainly are not
forgetful of other cruelties than those which pertain to animal
experimentation. In the awful torment endured for days by animals
caught in steel traps in order that their death may contribute to the
adornment of women and the luxury of men; in the killing of seals,
accompanied by the starvation of their young; in the great variety of
blood-sports; in the slaughter of animals, destined for human food, in
all these, as well as in the cruelties that have pertained to
physiological inquiries, we see exemplified man's present indifference
to the highest ethical ideals. We do not oppose one phase of cruelty;
WE OPPOSE THEM ALL. And we may be assured, that when the day dawns in
which humanity shall seek to govern conduct by the ideal of universal
justice, then in some more blessed age than ours, the evils of
vivisection not only, but all phases of cruelt