Abernethy had a decided objection to experiments involving cruelty. He never made any himself that could fairly be so called; and he never alludes to the subject without some remark tending to show his disapproval of them. Nor is it, in our view, any disparagement that his benevolent feelings were largely influential in governing his opinions on this subject. He began his researches, with the ability and inclination to investigate Life under every phase, at a time when no one had begun, so far as we know, to question this mode of investigation. But, whilst he left no other untried, he only recognized experimenting on living animals so far as to show that his benevolence could be sufficiently discriminative to select experiments where the existence of suffering was doubtful, and that the doubt alone was sufficient to induce him to abandon the pursuit.
We are sorry to dismiss a subject of so great importance, both in a moral and physiological point of view, with what we feel to be so meagre a discussion. But it would require more than our whole space to examine the many thousand torturing experiments, and expose the uselessness and fallacies which they exemplify. We have elsewhere discussed the subject somewhat more at large[26]: here we have only the opportunity of just touching on it. The greatest respect we can pay the memory of a great man, is to apply carefully any principles which he may have left sufficiently matured for practical purposes; and so to treat those of which he may have only given us hints, or elementary suggestions[27], as shall most searchingly examine their nature and claims to further development and cultivation. If every opportunity is not sufficient to do this in full, we must comfort ourselves with the hope that, where there is not ability to produce conviction, there may appear sincerity of purpose sufficient to suggest what is even more valuable, "patient inquiry."
This is a duty we owe to every subject on which we venture to form any opinion, either in the study or the practice of our profession; and we have the utmost confidence that the scientific investigation and the moral argument will be found to coincide.
"Heaven's attribute is universal care,
And man's prerogative to rule, but spare."
[24] See the extracts from his Lectures at the College, in this volume.
[25] See Life by Brewster, 2 vols. 8vo.
[26] Remarks on Vivisection in relation to Physiological Investigation. T. Hatchard, 1847.
[27] See Extracts from Lectures, infra.