Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-04-01
vIyIsECrIoN.

An animated controversy ls Deln8 car
ried on in England at present, as to the
permissibility of vivisection. The last
number of the Fortnightiy Reoieao contains
two articles, one against the practice, by
Chief Justice Coleridge, and the other de-
Tending it, by Dr.W. B. Carpenter. These
are typical papers, being both written by
men of very exceptional ability and stand
ing. The attack upon vivisection is not
little embarrassed by the circumstance
that most Of those who denounce it as
barbarous and cruel are advocates of field
sports, which it is obviously impossible to
defend from a similar charge. They are
therefore driven to shuttle rather painfully,
and to invent theories about the rights of
the animal creation which it would not be
possible to sustain seriously. Judge Cole
ridge boldly attacks the practice of vivi-
section, and denies that any benefits at all
proportionate to the evils inseparable from
it have resulted from it's employment. DIR.
Carpenter on the other hand shows by
specific instances that some very decided
and important benefits to humanity have
resulted from it, but he at the same time
strongly disapproves of the reckless way
in which the continental anatomists have
been accustomed tc infict pain upon ami
mails. The anti vivisectionists weaken
their case by trying to draw line between
the iustifable and the upjustifable treat
ment of animals by Man. They say that
it is quite proper to kill animals
for food, and to force them to labor but
that it is not right to injure them deliber-
ately. To this DR.. Carpenter replies by
showing that if it was necessary to use
whip and spur on a horse in order to
fetch doctor to wounded man, every.
body would agree to use those instruments
of torture that if it was necessary to ride
horse to death in carrying a reprieve to
condemned prisoner, the death of the
horse would be regarded as of no account
if the human life were saved by it. All
this is perfectly true. The fact is that the
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. are not thoroughgoing
enough. They have not the courage of
their convictions. But DR.. Carpenter is
quite mistaken in supposing that there
are not and never have been people
more logical and thorough in their reason.
ing and procedure. He says True it
sis that there are few amiable Vege-
"tarians who refuse to eat fish, flesh or
"fowl, on the ground that man has no
fright to take the life of any animal but
"never heard that such persons carried out
"their principle to the extent of cheerfully
"giving their own bodies to be bitten by
bloodthirsty insects, or letting rats and
"vermin multiply unchecked in their
dwellings"
Now it happens that this very thing
has actually been done. In India there are
sects which hold that all animals have an
equal right to existence with man, and
among the religious practices of these sects
is the sacrificing of their own bodies to
fieas and mosquitoes, and other blood
thirsty insects. How far the Buddhists
have carried this doctrine may be gathered
from that episode in Arnold's Light of
Asia" where Gautama gives himself up to
be devoured by the starving tigress
Our Lord bethought, "There is no other way
To help thi, murderess OF the woods but one.
By sunset these will die, having no meat;
There is no living hand win pity her,
Bloody with raw J., lean for lack OF blood.
Lo ! If feed her, who shall lose but !,
And how can love lose doing gifts kind
Even to the utlermost?' So saying, Buddh
Silently laid aside sandals and staff,
HIS sacred thread ;urban and cloth, and came
Forth from behind the milk bush on the sand,
Saving, "Ho! mother, here is meat for thee :!
1hereat the pershing beast yelped hoarse and shri
sprang from her cubs, and, burling to the earth
That willing victim, bad her feast OF him
With all the crooked daggers Of her claws
Rending his flesh, and sl her yellow fangs
Bashed in his blood the great cats burning breath
Mixed with the last sigh of s1ch fearless love"
Perhaps 1t is only in India that such de.
votion TO principle has been exhibited, but