cruelty to domestic animals under cover of the
anesthetic is only the extreme instance of the same social phenomenon as
the legalization of prizefighting under cover of the boxing glove. The
same passion explains the fascination of both practices; and in both,
the professors--pugilists and physiologists alike--have to persuade the
Home Office that their pursuits are painless and beneficial. But there
is also between them the remarkable difference that the pugilist, who
has to suffer as much as he inflicts, wants his work to be as painless
and harmless as possible whilst persuading the public that it is
thrillingly dangerous and destructive, whilst the vivisector wants to
enjoy a total exemption from humane restrictions in his laboratory
whilst persuading the public that pain is unknown there. Consequently
the vivisector is not only crueller than the prizefighter, but, through
the pressure of public opinion, a much more resolute and uncompromising
liar. For this no one but a Pharisee will single him out for special
blame. All public men lie, as a matter of good taste, on subjects which
are considered serious (in England a serious occasion means simply an
occasion on which nobody tells the truth); and however illogical or
capricious the point of honor may be in man, it is too absurd to assume
that the doctors who, from among innumerable methods of research,
select that of tormenting animals hideously, will hesitate to come on a
platform and tell a soothing fib to prevent the public from punishing
them. No criminal is expected to plead guilty, or to refrain from
pleading not guilty with all the plausibility at his command. In
prizefighting such mendacity is not necessary: on the contrary, if a
famous pugilist were to assure the public that a blow delivered with a
boxing glove could do no injury and cause no pain, and the public
believed him, the sport would instantly lose its following. It is the
prizefighter's interest to abolish the real cruelties of the ring and to
exaggerate the imaginary cruelties of it. It is the vivisector's
interest to refine upon the cruelties of the laboratory, whilst
persuading the public that his victims pass into a delicious euthanasia
and leave behind them a row of bottles containing infallible cures for
all the diseases. Just so, too, does the trainer of performing animals
assure us that his dogs and cats and elephants and lions are taught
their senseless feats by pure kindness.

The public,