Religion and Anti-Vivisection †

In reading the literature of English physiology I have been struck by the continual recurrence of the word, "sacrifice." When a French or German physiologist has destroyed an animal, he says simply that he has killed it, whereas his English or American counterpart almost always says that he has "sacrificed" the animal. No doubt it will be objected that this is a mere convention, one beginning at last to be abandoned. But what lies behind the convention ? In the same way I have been impressed, while delving into the tremendous literary output of the British anti-vivisection movement, by the constant and habitual use of the words, "crucify" and "crucifixion." In writing of this sort, an animal is seldom said to have been tied or secured to an operating table: almost always it is described as having been "crucified," often, of course, with the gratuitous specification that its extremities have been nailed in place. If other evidence of the same tendency was not as plentiful as it is, I think this choice of words would be enough in itself to draw attention to the religious feeling-religious certainly in origin-which in Great Britain has permeated the whole issue of animal experimentation. This feeling has been exhibited by both sides in the controversy; indeed, with reference to the nineteenth century, it is hardly permissible to speak about "sides" at all, except in the most general way; for between the extremes of conviction, demanding total abolition of animal experiments on the one hand and absolute non-intervention on the other, almost every shade of opinion about what might or ought to be permitted was represented by both physicians and clergymen, by both scientists and laymen. There were occasions when science needed defending not only for, but against, its own practitioners. No one, I think, can fail to be struck by the ambivalent attitude of many physicians and physiologists to this question, even after the introduction of