Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/43

Rh —not for their own benefit—is a demoralizing practice. The student becomes familiar with the use of gags, straps, screws, and all the paraphernalia of ingenious instruments invented for overpowering the resistance of the living creature, or for guarding the operator from injury in case the anaesthetic, when used, should give out too soon. He learns also how easy it is to experiment in secret.

By advanced instruction and post-graduate classes the student is led on to take active part under licensed authority in this fascinating, but morally dangerous, method of study. Moreover, the large body of subordinates, who are necessary to take charge of and prepare the animals, are trained in indifference to suffering, without any excuse of intellectual gain; and the same injurious inﬂuence extends in ever-widening circles—to the traders who invent and sell instruments of torture, and to those who supply the living material.

Now, the natural instinct to be cherished in human beings is protection and kindliness to infancy and all helpless creatures, not indifference to suffering or wilful infliction of it. As human conscience is a thing of growth or degradation,