Grumpy Vegan

10. That, while the motive in sport is essentially selfish, in vivisection it is essentially unselfish.

It is my conviction that the non-scientific world is far too ready to attribute to the advocates of science all the virtues they are so ready to claim ; and when they put forward their favourite ad captandum argument that their labours are undergone for one pure motive—the good of humanity—society is far too ready to exclaim, with Mrs. Varden, “Here is a meek, righteous, thorough-going Christian, who, having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, and, caught them every one, makes light of their possession, and pants for more morality !” In other words, society is far too ready to accept the picture of the pale, worn devotee of science giving his days and nights to irksome and thankless toil, spurred on by no other motive than a boundless philanthropy. As one who has himself devoted much time and labour to scientific investigations, I desire to offer the strongest possible protest against this falsely coloured picture. I believe that any branch of science, when taken up by one who has a natural turn for it, will soon become as fascinating as sport to the most ardent sportsman, or as any form of pleasure to the most refined sensualist. The claim that hard work, or the endurance of privation, proves the existence of an unselfish motive, is simply monstrous. Grant to me that the miser is proved unselfish when he stints himself of food and sleep to add one more piece of gold to his secret hoard, that the place-hunter is proved unselfish when he toils through long years to reach the goal of his ambition, and I will grant to you that the laborious pursuit of science is proof positive of an unselfish motive. Of course I do not assert, of even a single scientific student, that his real motive is merely that craving for more knowledge, whether useful or useless, which is as natural an appetite as the craving for novelty or any other form of excitement. I only say that the lower motive would account for the observed conduct quite as well as the higher.

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) (1832-1898), English author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection” serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library.

10. That, while the motive in sport is essentially selfish, in vivisection it is essentially unselfish.

It is my conviction that the non-scientific world is far too ready to attribute to the advocates of science all the virtues they are so ready to claim ; and when they put forward their favourite ad captandum argument that their labours are undergone for one pure motive—the good of humanity—society is far too ready to exclaim, with Mrs. Varden, “Here is a meek, righteous, thorough-going Christian, who, having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, and, caught them every one, makes light of their possession, and pants for more morality !” In other words, society is far too ready to accept the picture of the pale, worn devotee of science giving his days and nights to irksome and thankless toil, spurred on by no other motive than a boundless philanthropy. As one who has himself devoted much time and labour to scientific investigations, I desire to offer the strongest possible protest against this falsely coloured picture. I believe that any branch of science, when taken up by one who has a natural turn for it, will soon become as fascinating as sport to the most ardent sportsman, or as any form of pleasure to the most refined sensualist. The claim that hard work, or the endurance of privation, proves the existence of an unselfish motive, is simply monstrous. Grant to me that the miser is proved unselfish when he stints himself of food and sleep to add one more piece of gold to his secret hoard, that the place-hunter is proved unselfish when he toils through long years to reach the goal of his ambition, and I will grant to you that the laborious pursuit of science is proof positive of an unselfish motive. Of course I do not assert, of even a single scientific student, that his real motive is merely that craving for more knowledge, whether useful or useless, which is as natural an appetite as the craving for novelty or any other form of excitement. I only say that the lower motive would account for the observed conduct quite as well as the higher.

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) (1832-1898), English author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection” serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library.

It is a humiliating but an undeniable truth, that man has something of the wild beast in him, that a thirst for blood can be aroused in him by witnessing a scene of carnage, and that the infliction of torture, when the first instincts of horror have been deadened by familiarity, may become, first, a matter of indifference, then a subject of morbid interest, then a positive pleasure, then a ghastly and ferocious delight.

Here again, however, the analogy of sport is of some service to the vivisector, and he may plead that the influence we dread is already at work among our sportsmen. This I will now consider.

9. That vivisection does not demoralise the character more than sport.

The opponents’ case would not, I think, suffer much even if this were admitted ; but I am inclined to demur to it as a universal truth. We must remember that much of the excitement and interest of sport depend on causes entirely unconnected with the infliction of pain, which is rather ignored than deliberately contemplated ; whereas in vivisection the painful effects constitute in many cases a part, in some cases the whole, of the interest felt by the spectator. And all they tell us of the highly developed intellect of the anatomical student, with which they contrast so contemptuously the low animal instincts of the foxhunter, is but another argument against themselves ; for surely the nobler the being we degrade, the greater is the injury we inflict on society. Corruptio optimi pessima.

“But all this ignores the motive of the action,” cry the vivisectors. “What is it in sport ? Mere pleasure. In this matter we hold an impregnable position.” Let us see.

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) (1832-1898), English author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection” serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library.

It is a humiliating but an undeniable truth, that man has something of the wild beast in him, that a thirst for blood can be aroused in him by witnessing a scene of carnage, and that the infliction of torture, when the first instincts of horror have been deadened by familiarity, may become, first, a matter of indifference, then a subject of morbid interest, then a positive pleasure, then a ghastly and ferocious delight.

Here again, however, the analogy of sport is of some service to the vivisector, and he may plead that the influence we dread is already at work among our sportsmen. This I will now consider.

9. That vivisection does not demoralise the character more than sport.

The opponents’ case would not, I think, suffer much even if this were admitted ; but I am inclined to demur to it as a universal truth. We must remember that much of the excitement and interest of sport depend on causes entirely unconnected with the infliction of pain, which is rather ignored than deliberately contemplated ; whereas in vivisection the painful effects constitute in many cases a part, in some cases the whole, of the interest felt by the spectator. And all they tell us of the highly developed intellect of the anatomical student, with which they contrast so contemptuously the low animal instincts of the foxhunter, is but another argument against themselves ; for surely the nobler the being we degrade, the greater is the injury we inflict on society. Corruptio optimi pessima.

“But all this ignores the motive of the action,” cry the vivisectors. “What is it in sport ? Mere pleasure. In this matter we hold an impregnable position.” Let us see.

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) (1832-1898), English author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection” serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library.

8. That vivisection has no demoralising effect on the character of the operator.

“Look at our surgeons !” they may exclaim. “Are they a demoralised or a brutalised class ? Yet you must admit that, in the operations they have to perform, they are perpetually contemplating pain—aye, and pain deliberately inflicted by their own hands.” The analogy is not a fair one ; since the immediate motive—of saving the life, or diminishing the sufferings, of the person operated on—is a counteracting influence in surgery, to which vivisection, with its shadowy hope of some day relieving the sufferings of some human being yet unborn, has nothing parallel to offer. This, however, is a question to be decided by evidence, not by argument. History furnishes us with but too many examples of the degradation of character produced by the deliberate pitiless contemplation of suffering. The effect of the national bull-fights on the Spanish character is a case in point. But we need not go to Spain for evidence : the following extract from the Echo, quoted in the Spectator for March 20, will be enough to enable the reader to judge for himself what sort of effect this practice is likely to have on the minds of students:— “But if yet more be necessary to satisfy the public mind on this latter point” (the effect on the operators),” the testimony of an English physiologist, known to the writer, maybe useful in conclusion. He was, present some time past at a lecture, in the course of which demonstrations were made on living dogs. When the unfortunate creatures cried and moaned under the operations, many of the students actually mimicked their cries in derision ! The gentleman who related this occurrence adds that the spectacle of the writhing animals and the fiendish behaviour of the audience so sickened him, that he could not wait for the conclusion of the lecture, but took his departure in disgust.”

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) (1832-1898), English author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection” serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library.