[1]

Times Ap 19. 81

MR. DARWIN AND VIVISECTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,– May I, as president of the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, request you to insert in your paper a letter from Miss Cobbe, our able and hon. secretary, in answer to one from Professor Darwin, which appeared this morning?

I am, myself, among those who, in the language of the learned Professor, "are deeply ungrateful to the benefactors of mankind." It is, on the contrary, an honour and a joy to be deeply grateful to such distinguished men as the late Sir Charles Bell, and others still living, who have confessed their experiments to have been unnecessary, cruel, and without results.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

SHAFTESBURY.

Liverpool, April 18.

[second letter from Frances Power Cobbe is incomplete and the remainder is transcribed from another copy]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir, — Mr. Darwin, in the letter which you publish to-day, has fallen into some errors, which, in the case of a man of his celebrated accuracy, are not a little remarkable. Apparently, Blue-books are less in this great philosopher's line of study than pigeons or carnivorous plants. Mr. Darwin says that he "took an active part in trying to get an Act passed such as would have removed all just cause of complaint (on the subject of Vivisection), and at the same time have left physiologists free to pursue their researches," a Bill very different from that which has since been passed. This Bill, which Mr. Darwin promoted, was brought into the House of Commons by Dr. Lyon Playfair, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and Mr. Evelyn Ashley, and ordered to be printed, May 12, 1875. If Mr. Darwin will be at the trouble to compare this Bill (which is printed in the appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on Vivisection) with the existing Act of 1876, and point out in what respect the former is "very different" from the latter, he will confer a favour on many of your readers who find both the principles and details of the two Bills almost identical.

Secondly, Mr. Darwin repeats the assertion, which has been boldly made again and again by the advocates of Vivisection (as it would seem with sublime confidence in the inability of the general public to consult Parliamentary Papers), that "the investigation of the matter by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against the English physiologists were false". Now, Sir, the Report of the same Royal Commission (page 17), which lies before me as I write, contains the following carefully-drawn and well-weighed phrases: "It is manifest that the practice (of Vivisection) is from its very nature liable to great abuse…. It is not to be doubted that inhumanity may be found in persons of very high position as physiologists… That very severe experiments are constantly performed cannot be doubted…. Besides the cases in which inhumanity exists, we are satisfied that there are others in which carelessness and indifference prevail to an extent sufficient to form a ground for legislative interference." These phrases which, as referring to reasons for "legislative interference," can necessarily concern English physiologists alone and not foreigners, afford, I venture to think, a direct contradiction to Mr. Darwin's assertion. Instead of the investigations before the Commission proving, as he says they did, "that the accusations against English physiologists were false," they proved to the conviction even of Mr. Huxley and Mr. Erichsen, that in the main they were true. Considering that the Report goes on to say, "Evidence of this nature is not easily obtained," this result was a remarkable vindication of the principle of "magna est Veritas" and that such a man as Mr. Darwin should write to Sweden to mis- inform his correspondent, and through him all Europe, respecting the registered result of a great public inquiry, appears to me exceedingly to be regretted. As to Mr. Darwin's concluding observations respecting the benefits already derived from vivisection, I am of course not competent to argue with so great an authority. It sometimes [would appear, however, that men of science mistake the discovery of the cause of a disease, and the means of its transmission, for the very different discovery of an available remedy.

Professor Virchow's experiments in conveying trichinosis to rabbits were announced with a flourish of trumpets five years ago. Surely we ought not to have heard of the recent outbreak of that dreadful malady had those experiments been so immensely beneficial as Mr; Darwin would have us believe? We seem to be always condemned to listen to a repetition of the story of the old Egyptian magicians who succeeded in reproducing the Plagues, but failed to cure them.

But lastly, Sir, I beg to ask whether the principles of the evolution philosophy require us to believe that the advancement of the "noble science" of physiology is so supreme an object of human effort that the corresponding retreat and disappearance of the sentiments of compassion and sympathy must be accounted as of no consequence in the balance? Ought we to rejoice if a human being has spent a lifetime in the work (or, as some of us deem it, in the heinous sin) of deliberate torture of God's harmless creatures, if, at the end of all, he can boast that he has added a detail or two to the store of physiological facts? A living professor of this noble science concludes his report on his own systematic tormenting of scores of animals ("larding" them with nails and other devices) by the remark that he has pursued his investigations con molto amore e pazienza (Del Dolore p. 25). If only one human soul had descended to such a moral abyss as this confession reveals, I should, for my part, consider that the pursuit which had led him thither, instead of being an "incalculable benefit to humanity," had done our race more injury than physical science, were her proudest boasts verified, could repay. What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world of knowledge and lose his own heart and his own conscience?

I am, Sir, yours truly,

Frances Power Cobbe,

Hon. Secretary, Society for the Protection of

Animals from Vivisection.]