Grumpy Vegan

I come now to another class of fallacies—those involved in the comparison, so often made, between vivisection and field-sports. If the theory, that the two are essentially similar, involved no worse consequence than that sport should be condemned by all who condemn vivisection, I should be by no means anxious to refute it. Unfortunately the other consequence is just as logical, and just as likely, that vivisection should be approved of by all who approve of sport.

The comparison rests on the assumption that the main evil laid to the charge of vivisection is the pain inflicted on the animal. This assumption I propose to deal with, further on, as a fallacy : at present I will admit it for the sake of argument, hoping to show that, even on this hypothesis, the vivisectors have a very poor case. In making this comparison their first claim is—

5. That it is fair to compare aggregates of pain.

“The aggregate amount of wrong”—I quote from an article in the Pall Mall Gazette for February 13— “which is perpetrated against animals by sportsmen in a single year probably exceeds that which some of them endure from vivisectors in half a century.” The best refutation of this fallacy would seem to be to trace it to its logical conclusion—that a very large number of trivial wrongs are equal to one great one. For instance, that a man, who by wiling adulterated bread inflicts a minute injury on the health of some thousands of persons, commits a crime equal to one murder. Once grasp this reductio ad absurdum, and you will be, ready to allow that the only fair comparison is between individual and individual.

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.

4. That man is infinitely more important than the lower animals, so that the infliction of animal suffering, however great, is justifiable if it prevent human suffering, however small.

This fallacy can be assumed only when unexpressed. To put it into words is almost to refute it. Few, even in an age where selfishness has almost become a religion, dare openly avow a selfishness so hideous as this ! While there are thousands, I believe, who would be ready to assure the vivisectors that, so far as their personal interests are concerned, they are ready to forego any prospect they may have of a diminution of pain, if it can only be secured by the infliction of so much pain on innocent creatures.

But I have a more serious charge than that of selfishness to bring against the scientific men who make this assumption. They use it dishonestly, recognising it when it tells in their favour, and ignoring it when it tells against them. For does it not presuppose the axiom that human and animal suffering differ in kind ? A strange assertion this, from the lips of people who tell us that man is twin-brother to the monkey ! Let them be at least consistent, and when they have proved that the lessening of human suffering is an end so great and glorious as to justify any means that will secure it, them give to the anthropomorphoid ape the benefit of the argument. Further than that I will not ask them to go, but will resign them in confidence to the guidance of an inexorable logic.

Had they only the candour and the courage to do it, I believe that they would choose the other horn of the dilemma, and would reply, “Yes, man is in the same category as the brute ; and just as we care not (you see it, so, we cannot deny it) how much pain we inflict on the one, so we care not, unless when deterred by legal penalties, how much we inflict on the other. The lust for scientific knowledge is our real guiding principle. The lessening of human suffering is a mere dummy set up to amuse sentimental dreamers.”

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.

4. That man is infinitely more important than the lower animals, so that the infliction of animal suffering, however great, is justifiable if it prevent human suffering, however small.

This fallacy can be assumed only when unexpressed. To put it into words is almost to refute it. Few, even in an age where selfishness has almost become a religion, dare openly avow a selfishness so hideous as this ! While there are thousands, I believe, who would be ready to assure the vivisectors that, so far as their personal interests are concerned, they are ready to forego any prospect they may have of a diminution of pain, if it can only be secured by the infliction of so much pain on innocent creatures.

But I have a more serious charge than that of selfishness to bring against the scientific men who make this assumption. They use it dishonestly, recognising it when it tells in their favour, and ignoring it when it tells against them. For does it not presuppose the axiom that human and animal suffering differ in kind ? A strange assertion this, from the lips of people who tell us that man is twin-brother to the monkey ! Let them be at least consistent, and when they have proved that the lessening of human suffering is an end so great and glorious as to justify any means that will secure it, them give to the anthropomorphoid ape the benefit of the argument. Further than that I will not ask them to go, but will resign them in confidence to the guidance of an inexorable logic.

Had they only the candour and the courage to do it, I believe that they would choose the other horn of the dilemma, and would reply, “Yes, man is in the same category as the brute ; and just as we care not (you see it, so, we cannot deny it) how much pain we inflict on the one, so we care not, unless when deterred by legal penalties, how much we inflict on the other. The lust for scientific knowledge is our real guiding principle. The lessening of human suffering is a mere dummy set up to amuse sentimental dreamers.”

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.

3. That our right to inflict pain on animals is coextensive with our right to kill, or even to exterminate a race (which prevents the existence of possible animals), all being alike infringements of their rights.

This is one of the commonest and most misleading of all the fallacies. Mr. Freeman, in an article on Field Sports and Vivisection, which appeared in the Fortnightly Review for May, 1874, appears to countenance this when he classes death and pain together, as if they were admitted to be homogeneous. For example—

“By cruelty then I understand, as I have understood throughout, not all infliction of death or suffering on man or beast, but their wrongful or needless infliction. . . . My positions then were two. First . . . that certain cases of the infliction of death or suffering on brute creatures may be blameworthy. The second was, that all infliction of death or suffering for the purpose of mere sport is one of those blameworthy cases.”

But in justice to Mr. Freeman I ought also to quote the following sentence, in which he takes the opposite view : “I must in all cases draw a wide distinction between mere killing and torture.”

In discussing “the rights of animals,” I think I may pass by, as needing no remark, the so-called right of a race of animals to, be perpetuated, and the still more shadowy right of a non-existent animal to come into existence. The only question worth consideration is whether the killing of an animal is a real infringement, of right. Once grant this, and a reductio ad absurdum is imminent, unless we are illogical enough to assign rights to animals in proportion to their size. Never may we destroy, for our convenience, some of a litter of puppies—or open a score of oysters when nineteen would have sufficed—or light a candle in a summer evening for mere pleasure, lest some hapless moth should rush to an untimely end! Nay, we must not even take a walk, with the certainty of crushing many an insect in our path, unless for really important business ! Surely all this is childish. In the absolute hopelessness of drawing a line anywhere, I conclude (and I believe that many, on considering the point, will agree with me) that man has an absolute right to inflict death on animals, without assigning any reason, provided that it be a painless death, but that any infliction of pain needs its special justification.

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.

3. That our right to inflict pain on animals is coextensive with our right to kill, or even to exterminate a race (which prevents the existence of possible animals), all being alike infringements of their rights.

This is one of the commonest and most misleading of all the fallacies. Mr. Freeman, in an article on Field Sports and Vivisection, which appeared in the Fortnightly Review for May, 1874, appears to countenance this when he classes death and pain together, as if they were admitted to be homogeneous. For example—

“By cruelty then I understand, as I have understood throughout, not all infliction of death or suffering on man or beast, but their wrongful or needless infliction. . . . My positions then were two. First . . . that certain cases of the infliction of death or suffering on brute creatures may be blameworthy. The second was, that all infliction of death or suffering for the purpose of mere sport is one of those blameworthy cases.”

But in justice to Mr. Freeman I ought also to quote the following sentence, in which he takes the opposite view : “I must in all cases draw a wide distinction between mere killing and torture.”

In discussing “the rights of animals,” I think I may pass by, as needing no remark, the so-called right of a race of animals to, be perpetuated, and the still more shadowy right of a non-existent animal to come into existence. The only question worth consideration is whether the killing of an animal is a real infringement, of right. Once grant this, and a reductio ad absurdum is imminent, unless we are illogical enough to assign rights to animals in proportion to their size. Never may we destroy, for our convenience, some of a litter of puppies—or open a score of oysters when nineteen would have sufficed—or light a candle in a summer evening for mere pleasure, lest some hapless moth should rush to an untimely end! Nay, we must not even take a walk, with the certainty of crushing many an insect in our path, unless for really important business ! Surely all this is childish. In the absolute hopelessness of drawing a line anywhere, I conclude (and I believe that many, on considering the point, will agree with me) that man has an absolute right to inflict death on animals, without assigning any reason, provided that it be a painless death, but that any infliction of pain needs its special justification.

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.

At a time when this painful subject is engrossing so large a share of public attention, no apology, I trust, is needed for the following attempt to formulate and classify some of the many fallacies, as they seem to me, which I have met with in the writings of those who advocate the practice. No greater service can be rendered to the cause of truth, in this fiercely contested field, than to reduce these shadowy, impalpable phantoms into definite forms, which can be seen, which can be grappled with, and which, when once fairly laid, we shall not need to exorcise a second time.

I begin with two contradictory propositions, which seem to constitute the two extremes, containing between them the golden mean of truth:—

1. That the infliction of pain on animals is a right of man, needing go justification.
2. That it is in no case justifiable.

The first of these is assumed in practice by many who would hardly venture to outrage the common feelings of humanity by stating it in terms. All who recognise the difference of right and wrong must admit, if the question be closely pressed, that, the infliction of pain is in some cases wrong. Those who deny it are not likely to be amenable to argument. For what common ground have we ? They must be restrained, like brute beasts, by physical force.

The second has been assumed by an Association lately formed for the total suppression of Vivisection, in whose manifesto it is placed in the same category with Slavery, as being an absolute evil, with which no terms can be made. I think I may assume that the proposition most generally accepted is an intermediate one, namely, that the infliction of pain is in some cases justifiable, but not in all.

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.