The Pros and Cons of Vivisection Part 5

It would, therefore, be altogether unjust to reproach the experimenter with barbarism or inhumanity; for more than any one else does he possess the sentiment of the immense misfortunes of humanity, and if he resigns himself to experimentation, it is because he sees behind his experiment an alleviation of the sufferings of both man and beast.

It is related that, in one of the great battles of the last century, a general, in order to protect the retreat of his army, was obliged to send a squadron of cavalry to make a hopeless charge upon the enemy's infantry.

This meant sending those brave fellows to certain death. Yet he did not hesitate; and with tears in his eyes he gave the order to charge, convinced, as every general should be, that it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice a few human lives for the salvation of the army, for the salvation of the country.

Well, then! We consider ourselves as soldiers waging battle against the blind, malefic forces of nature. On certain days, so as to triumph over disease and ignorance, we must sacrifice a few victims. Then we do not hesitate, and it is our duty not to hesitate.

It even seems to me that those men who pa.s.s their lives in nauseous rooms, amidst poison and virus, receiving no other recompense for long labours than the satisfaction of duty accomplished, merit the esteem and respect of every one. They seek neither wealth nor honours. It is not in the laboratories of physiology that a man grows rich. It is not in the laboratories of physiology that man wins high social positions. But what matter! He has used his life to alleviate the sufferings of others. He has had ever before him another ideal than that of the anti-vivisectionists, the ideal of human suffering, which is much more to be respected than animal suffering in spite of all empty words and phrases.

Therefore, when we speak of vivisection or of experimentation before young men, we must not be taxed with immorality; because work, the search for truth, pity for the misfortunes of man, pity also for the unfortunate animals--these I think are subjects which should enn.o.ble the minds of the young men who listen to us.

CHAPTER VII

ARE LAWS REGULATING VIVISECTION NECESSARY?

We will now briefly consider an interesting and highly practical side of the question. In certain countries, as in England, there are laws regulating vivisection. In other countries, as in France, Germany, and Italy, there is nothing a.n.a.logous; consequently public opinion on this point is uncertain.

In the beginning of this book, I acknowledged that, in spite of the exaggeration of their complaints, anti-vivisectionists had rendered real service to general morality by calling attention to the excesses committed by a few vivisectionists in the past. No one recognises this benefit more than I, and I willingly grant that their preaching has, on the whole, had a happy result. Is it however, expedient to go further, and to prohibit or simply to regulate vivisection?

For reasons given above, it seems to me that prohibition would be absurd and injurious, as well in the land of Harvey and Hunter as in the lands of Bernard and Pasteur, of Galvani and Spallanzani, of Johannes Muller and Helmholtz. Prohibition would mean closing the book of science, stemming all progress, condemning humanity eternally to the same miseries, to writhe, powerless, in the same old track. Fortunately, no one thinks seriously of suppressing physiological experimentation; and, therefore, we have no need to dwell on this point.

But regulation is quite a different thing from prohibition. Now, I showed that certain practices should be condemned. Should they, however, be condemned by law? Why should the law be subst.i.tuted for the exigencies of science? Here is a physiologist, fully conscious of the magnitude of his task, to whom the government or a university has confided the direction of a laboratory, who finds himself face to face with a problem needing to be solved. It is impossible to limit his efforts and to lay down principles from which he could not turn aside. Just as he is referred to for the purchase of his instruments and the nomination of his staff, so must he be left full lat.i.tude in the arrangement of his experiments. Nothing is so pernicious in matters of science as official regulation; it takes away all initiative, and does not allow the genius of the inventor to have full play.

As a matter of fact, even in England, the only country where up to the present the conditions of vivisection have been regulated by law, no one has ventured to confine the initiative of the experimenter within narrow regulations. And it is fortunate that no one has ventured to define the limits of experimental investigation, for most excellent work is due to contemporary English Physiologists--Schafer, Horsley, Sherrington, Langley, Bayliss, Starling, Stirling, etc. They have been able to pursue their researches freely, to the very great advantage of our science.

One should not, then, think of prohibiting such or such a proceeding in vivisection. It may even be dangerous to absolutely prohibit vivisections without anaesthesia. I make no mystery of my opinion on this point, since I have distinctly declared further back that no sensitive animal should ever be operated upon. I regard as a moral error all vivisection made on an animal capable of suffering. But I would leave the physiologist to be the judge in the matter. I do not believe the law should take his place; for perhaps cases will occur where anaesthesia is impossible, and he cannot be placed under the hard alternative of not making an experiment which his conscience as a _savant_ judges to be useful, or of disobeying the law.

Moreover, how are the many possible conditions of an experiment to be precisely laid down? Is the law to indicate the kind of anaesthetic to be used, and the degree of anaesthesia to be attained? Is it to prohibit all experiments on toxic actions? Many insoluble difficulties would be encountered, the sole result of which would be to paralyse the _savant_ in his researches or to cause him to break the laws of his country.

And yet I recognise that regulation is indispensable, but it ought not to bear on the nature of the experiment; it should deal solely with the person experimenting.

I believe the right of practising vivisection should not be accorded to every citizen, to every medical student; it should not be permissible for any chance person to take a dog, to fasten him down on the operating table, and to experiment on the brain, the glands, the muscles of that unfortunate animal, for that chance person is, in all probability, a clumsy and ignorant man. Vivisection may not be undertaken in a light-hearted fashion.

After all, science would lose nothing if such an experiment were not made, and I see no advantage in encouraging attempts of this sort which are condemned beforehand to be fruitless.

But in a laboratory of physiology, under the direction of the professor and his a.s.sistants, under their moral responsibility, vivisection should not be prohibited; the number of vivisections should not be limited, and no restrictions ought to be imposed.

As I have no intention of formulating or drawing up regulations or enacting laws, I shall not indicate the penalties to which those who violate the law should be liable. I shall content myself with enunciating this double principle: entire liberty in vivisection for professors of physiology and their a.s.sistants; prohibition of vivisection for all others.

CHAPTER VIII

VIVISECTION AND THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE

Let us now leave the opinions of anti-vivisectionists, and carry the problem on to higher ground. Let us see what are the rights of man in Nature, and what is the purpose of human life.

Amidst all the unsettled and contradictory theories acc.u.mulated by philosophers, thinkers and founders of religion, there remains scarcely any fixed and immutable theory save that of one dominating principle: The respect and love of our brothers in humanity. All else is contestable and contested. Though we are unable to demonstrate it formally, there is one universal moral law (the great Categorical Imperative of Kant) which commands us to be just and beneficent to our fellow-creatures. All the most subtle sophisms will never be able to persuade me that I ought not, above all things, to feel solicitude for the lives and happiness of men.

I willingly admit that beside man there is the animal, _our inferior brother_ as it has been ingeniously called, so that we have also our duties towards these inferior brothers. But _this must never be to the detriment of our real brothers_. It seems to me insane to consider the life of a cat of more account than that of a man; the pain of a dog than that of a child.

All the more so because living matter, if I may use that expression, possesses varying degrees of perfection; from the sea-weed up to man there are successive stages of living forms which const.i.tute an uninterrupted chain ending in its final phase, which is man.

Man, by his power of thought, and consequently of suffering, by the conception which he is able to make of the non-self, by his faculties of abstraction and the notion of good and evil, is vastly superior to every other living being. So that, for respecting, defending and loving men, I have not only the reason that man is my brother, but also that this brother is superior to every other living thing.

That is why a moral code must be essentially human, having for its highest object the happiness of other men. Every other code of morals, having in view a different purpose supporting itself on metaphysical lucubrations or haunted by puerile anxieties, such as the adoration of beasts, appears to me to bear the stamp of fetishism. An unknown power has caused us to be born; we are entirely ignorant of our destinies, we know not why we were born, why we die, why, following in the wake of countless generations, we transmit the vital spark to countless succeeding generations. We know nothing of all that; but it matters little from the point of view of our duty. Duty is independent of all theory. No mere religion is necessary to const.i.tute a moral code.

_h.o.m.o sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto_, or rather our moral code, will be the religion of humanity. It does not seem to me possible to conceive of any other.

And when we say humanity, we take that word in its largest acceptation. It is not a question of compatriots, nor of Europeans, nor even of humanity of to-day. It is also a question of the humanity of the future. We have our duties towards the man of to-day; but we have also our duties towards the man who will live in the centuries to come. We should prepare the way for a happier and better humanity. Our task is not limited to the present hour; it extends to all those human beings who will come after us. Inasmuch as we of to-day, at every moment of our lives, benefit from the acc.u.mulated services of our ancestors, so the men to come will profit by the benefits which we are endeavouring to prepare for them.

a.s.suredly, Humanity will not be eternal, and Science seems to prove that a time will come when the sun's heat will be insufficient to develop life on the surface of our puny planet. A time will come when the earth will have cooled down and become like our pale satellite, the moon, a dead star, where the debris of extinct mult.i.tudinous civilisations will disappear under the ice. But what matter! We have not to trouble ourselves about those far-off times. We have to think of the man of the coming centuries, and, at the same time, it goes without saying, of the man of to-day.

To lessen their misery, to make their existence less lamentable, to develop within them the sentiments of justice and brotherhood, to secure their moral welfare and their material welfare, that is our strict and sole duty.

I recognise no other.

Now, there is but one way open to attain this n.o.ble goal: Science. We are plunged in an ocean of gloom. All is dark, unknown, disturbing. We have not yet understood anything of the blind forces surrounding us on all sides. We are but feeble beings cast into the midst of sovereign powers which overwhelm and bear us down. Now, to avoid being completely and definitely crushed out of existence, it is necessary to penetrate into the nature of these forces. Alas! we shall never penetrate into them, for it is madness to think that a particle of the whole can ever fully cognise the whole; but we may at least demonstrate some facts, fathom some phenomena, perhaps trace a few of the features of certain laws. That is enough to make us instantly the masters of matter and not its slaves.

Every new truth at once brings about an amelioration in human conditions.

It may be said that our _happiness is made up of truth_. Let us suppose what is improbable, that is to say, that we have come to know all the laws of Nature, should we not immediately become all-powerful? Should we not be the sovereign masters of disease and pain, perhaps of old age and death?

Such, indeed, appears to be the conviction of the human societies which a.s.sign a preponderating role to Science. They have understood that there is no better future in store for the human being than that which Science will bring about for him.

To be able to appreciate the extent to which the man of to-day is materially and morally happier than the man of past ages, we have only to compare the present state of our civilisation with the state of past civilisations. We may say that an English labourer of to-day has a much easier existence than had an Italian prince of the fourteenth century.

Everywhere, the progress achieved by Science has entered into the life of each individual. We find it in the book we read, in the electricity which gives us light, in the train or the steamer which carries us to the uttermost corners of the earth in little time and at little cost. It is the same thing also with medicaments, which are certainly able to lessen the pain of disease.

Moral progress has kept pace with material progress. At the same time that matter has been overcome, our customs have become gentler; individual liberty is a sacred thing; each citizen takes part in the decisions of his government; there is no longer either slavery or torture or tyranny of conscience. In a word, the man of to-day is happier and more powerful than the man of bygone days.

This happiness has not been acquired through any providential "miracles."

No G.o.d came down from His Heaven to alleviate human misfortunes. It is man, and man alone, who, by his genius and his labours, has been able to make himself master of the forces which, even yesterday, held him in bondage.

And we cannot be too grateful to our fathers for their immense and fruitful labours, by which they succeeded in constructing the society in the midst of which we live. It is still wretched enough, this society of ours, afflicted with crimes and horrors, the infamy of which we understand full well; but however wretched it may be, it is a thousand times less wretched than was society of yore.

Therefore, this formal conclusion may at once be deduced; we must do for our descendants what our fathers did for us. We would be without excuse if we rested content to benefit from the works of our predecessors without ourselves also creating something, without leaving, by means of our personal labours, a better lot to our descendants. The man who has not understood this supreme duty is truly unworthy of being a man.

Verily, every individual, when he has arrived at the end of his life, should examine his conscience and ask himself if in the humble sphere of his action, he has not, even he also, contributed a stone to the human edifice, if he has not done his share in promoting and increasing the forces of humanity.

Since matters stand thus, since the development of Science is the fundamental condition of the happiness of man, we must resolutely put Science at the basis of every civilisation. Alas! it has not been so up to the present; and if we study the development of human societies, we see that they are above all things attracted to war. Science has had only the leavings. But the time has come when man should no longer believe that the principle of morality is man's struggle against man. That was the history of bye-gone times. The history of to-day, and especially the history of to-morrow, is the struggle of man against matter, the subjection of natural forces to our intelligence. And there is no other way to subjugate these forces than by learning to know them.

Then Science will be put in the foreground. And without making any cla.s.sification which distinguishes between the sciences, which are all useful, beautiful, and n.o.ble, for all contain a portion of truth, we shall be permitted to say that the Science of life is one of the most useful, the most n.o.ble, and the most beautiful.

Now, the Science of life is Physiology, taking physiology in its widest sense, that is to say, the study of normal beings and of diseased beings.

It is proved by innumerable facts, facts which only bad faith and ignorance can call into question, that our physiological knowledge is due, in a very large measure, to experimentation. If in thought we suppressed the scientific results which experimentation has conquered, we should have but an inferior science, within the reach of the Brahmans may be, but unworthy of our present scientific standing. We should know nothing of the circulation of the blood, nor the function of the blood corpuscles, nor the formation of sugar, nor the innervation of the glands, nor the contagiousness of disease, nor the power of poisons; we should be reduced to the notions of Hippocrates, we should be less advanced than Galileo, the first ingenious experimenter who indicated, less by his writings than by his experiments, that the basis of physiology, and consequently of the whole of pathology, is experimentation on animals.

Those most sincere persons who wish to banish experimentation from Science are consequently, I do not fear to say it, standing in the position of direct contradiction to true morality. To refuse man the right to study living nature, is as though we declared that living nature ought not to be known. Alas! anti-vivisectionists will not listen. In vain do we tell them that we, physiologists, preserve man from disease; that we have alleviated the ills of our human brothers. They stop up their ears; they shut their eyes; they have no pity for the sufferings of human beings. It seems as though the tears of their brethren were profoundly indifferent to them. Is this a high morality? Is this a realisation of their duty as men? They cover with opprobrium the names of Harvey and Jenner, Bernard and Pasteur, Spallanzani and Helmholtz. What base ingrat.i.tude! It is these great men who have turned aside many excruciating sufferings from humanity; it is these grand men who have bestowed a better lot on so many human beings. When, therefore, they dare to calumniate the masters who have scattered over us so much beneficence, anti-vivisectionists seem to me to be not only the most ungrateful but even the cruellest of men.

Fortunately the conquering march of Science will not be hindered. We shall never return to those sinister times when our great Vesalius had to forfeit his life for having dared to dissect a human corpse. We shall continue to make Science advance towards its great aim, the good of man.