Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/28

16 controversy is the present method of using the lower animals in biological research, which has so enormously extended of late years. The essence of the controversy is the ethical question, viz.: Have we a right to torture?

It must be distinctly understood that there is here no question of our right under certain circumstances to put to death. Neither is there a doubt of the utility of rational experiment and of research. But the right to put to death in the most humane manner known to us, and the right to torture to death, are two widely different questions.

We have no right, for any purpose whatever, to torture a living creature to death, either by the mutilation of the organs, the slow deprivation of the necessary conditions of life, or the still slower process of destroying by the inoculation of disease.