That one who hated and denounced injustice of all kinds, and who sympathised with the suffering of all innocent life, should thus characterise the cruelty of the Slaughter-House is what we might naturally look for; as also that he should denounce the kindred and even worse atrocity of the physiological Laboratory. And it is a strange and unaccountable fact that, amongst the humanitarians of his time, he stands apparently alone in condemnation of the secret tortures of the vivisectionists and pathologists—although, perhaps, the almost universal silence may be attributable, in part, to the very secresy of the experiments which only recent vigilance has fully detected. Exposing the equally absurd and arrogant denial of reason and intelligence to other animals, and instancing the dog, he proceeds:—
“There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and dissect him alive to shew you the mezaraic veins. You discover in him all the same organs of feeling as in yourself. Answer me, Machinist [i.e., supporter of the theory of mere mechanical action], has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose that impertinent contradiction in Nature.”[167]
To the final triumph which in Paris awaited this champion of the weak, at the advanced age of 84, and the unexampled enthusiasm of the people, and the closing act of his eventful life, we can here merely refer. In Berlin, Friedrich ordered a solemn mass in the cathedral church in commemoration of his genius and virtues. A more enduring monument than any conventional mark of human vanity is the legacy which he left to posterity, which will last as long as the French language, and, still more, the humanity embodied in one of his later verses:—
“J’ai fait un peu de bien, c’est mon meilleur ouvrage.”
The faults of his character and writings which, for the most part, lie on the surface (one of the most regretable of which was his sometimes servile flattery of men in power, and the only excuse for which was his eagerness to gain them over to moderation and justice) will be deemed by impartial criticism to have been more than counterbalanced by his real and substantial merits. That he allowed his ardent indignation to overmaster the sense of propriety in too many instances, in dealing with subjects which ought to be dealt with in a judicial and serious manner, is that fault in his writings which must always cause the greatest regret. In his discourse at his reception by the French Academy he remarks that “the art of instruction, when it is perfect, in the long run, succeeds better than the art of sarcasm, because Satire dies with those who are the victims of it; while Reason and Virtue are eternal.” It would have been well, in many instances, had he practised this principle. But, however objectionably his convictions were sometimes expressed, his ardent love of truth and hatred of injustice have secured for him an imperishable fame; while Göthe’s estimate of his intellectual pre-eminence—that he has the greatest name in all Literature—is not likely soon to be disputed by Posterity.
XXV.
HALLER. 1708–1777.
THE founder of Modern Physiology was born at Berne. In 1723 he went to Tübingen to study medicine, afterwards to Leyden, where the famous Boerhaave was at the height of his reputation. Twelve years later he received the appointment of physician to the hospital at Berne; but soon afterwards he was invited by George II., as Elector of Hanover, to accept the professorship of anatomy and surgery at the University of Göttingen.
His scientific writings are extraordinarily numerous. From 1727 to 1777 he published nearly 200 treatises. His great work is his Elements of the Physiology of the Human Body (in Latin), 1757–1766—the most important treatise on medical science—or at least on anatomy and surgery—up to that time produced. The Icones Anatomicæ (“Anatomical Figures”) is “a marvellously accurate, well-engraved representation of the principal organs of the human body.” His writings are marked by unusual clearness of meaning, as well as by accurate and deep research.
We wish that we could here stop; but the force of truth compels us to affirm that, for us at least, his reputation, great as it is in science, has been for ever tarnished by his sacrifices—with frightful torture—of innocent victims on the altars of a selfish and sanguinary science.