And cruel anodyne that chained the will,

Yet left the shuddering victim conscious still:

But Nature shrinks from foul and fierce attack,

Nor yields her holiest truths on such a murderer’s rack.

LIV.

True science finds its own by kindlier quest,

Nor lowers itself to torture’s loathsome test;

Multiplies not the sentient being’s pain,

But makes a keener lens of man’s own brain;

Seeks not by outrage dire a soul to grasp,