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CRUELTY 70 ANIMALS-A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY. a33
Moreover, suppose that the vivisector is consoioualy nrged
on by the love of reputation or fame, I have yet to lea~n that
there i anything :immoral or selfish in such love. Milton hee
described the love of fame as lr that last infirmity of noble
minde.” To call it the love of notoriety is to use a questionbegging
epithet, assuming that vivisection is a cruel and
morally bad practice. Notoriety is reputation gained by bad
means, or those injurious to the community ; fame is reputation
gained by good means, or those beneficial to the community.
There are not the slightest grounds upon which to
attribute notoriety to the vivisector, while we attribute fame to
tho great statesman, orator, artist, engineer. And the desire
of reputation, too, may Le merely the desire of means towards
an unselfish end. One mho aspires to repeat the labours of a
Harvey, a Jenner, or a Simpson, might well adopt the words
which Tennysou has put into the mouth of Uerlin :
Fame with mcn,
Being but ampler mcnm to mrvo mankind,
Should ham small rest or pleasure in hcrsclf,
But work as vassal to the larger love,
That dwarfs tho pctty love of one to onc.
Use gave m e Fame at first, and Fame again
Increasing gme me Use. Lo, thcrc my boon!
What, other ? for men sought to prove mo Vila
c % # % #
Right wcll I know that Feme is half disfsmc,
Yet needs must work my work.
Looking to all the circumstances, we must concludo that
this agihtion against vivisection consists in a kid of soutimental
frenzy, excited in persons of peculiar susceptibility by
the minute descriptions of novel and sometimes painful operations
described in books on practical physiology. The actual
amount of pain inflicted cannot really be the ground of agitation,
because, on any supposition,’.the physical pain needlessly
inflicted by sportsmen, ratcatchers, and othera, ie infinitely
I have already maintained, the moral element of
cruelty is altogether wanting in vivisection-in all but a very
few cases. It is merely the novelty of the thing to people’e
minds, the apparent dhny and cool-bloodedness of cutting