ther would
be, I know, unspeakable presumption. But to anyone who recognises
the authority of our Lord, and who persuades himself that he sees
which way that authority inclines, the mind of Christ must be the
guide of life. "Shouldest thou not have had compassion upon these,
even as I had pity on thee?" So He seems to me to say, and I shall
act accordingly.

CHAPTER VI: JOHN RUSKIN

No one who has ever read a line of Ruskin could doubt on which side his
mind and heart would be ranged in the controversy over vivisection.

Here was a lord of language who was also one of the great moral teachers
of the world. To him the torture of a helpless animal for a scientific
purpose was a defiance of religion and an insult to God. Such pursuits
he declared "were all carried on in defiance of what had hitherto been
held to be compassion and pity, and of the great link which bound
together the whole of creation from its Maker to the lowest creature."

[Picture: John Ruskin. From a drawing by Samuel Laurence in the
collection of John Lane]

He occupied the illustrious post of Slade Professor of art at Oxford when
convocation voted to endow vivisection in the University and install Dr.
Burdon Sanderson, the smotherer of dogs, in a laboratory set up for him.

In vain did Ruskin protest against this horrible educational cancer being
grafted on to the happiness, peace, and light of gracious Oxford.
Convocation preferred the blight of the coward Science to the cultivation
of all that was beautiful, distinguished, humane, and brave; and they
reaped as they had sown, they kept the dog smotherer and lost the radiant
spirit and uplifting eloquence of the inspired seer. Ruskin resigned and
Oxford heard that voice of supreme nobility no more.

The Vice-Chancellor for very shame could not bring himself to read
Ruskin's letter of resignation to convocation. The editor of the
_University Gazette_ also had the effrontery to leave a letter from
Ruskin, giving the reasons for his resignation, unpublished; and the
_Pall Mall Gazette_ crowned the edifice of poltroonery by announcing that
he had resigned owing to his "advancing years."

Evil communications corrupt good manners, and association with
vivisection led these dignitaries and editors to flout and insult a man
whose shoe strings they were not worthy to tie. Time is merciful and
their very names are forgotten.

Ruskin