But Science has now moved beyond the comparatively innocuous accumulation of mechanical discoveries, and advancing into the domain of morals, has emerged in the sinister aspect of the defender of cruelty.
This may yet prove an usurpation that will lead to its ultimate deposition and
ignominy. A time is coming when mankind will have no ear for the advocates of what all the great and good and wise have denounced as wicked.
If Science comes before the world declaring that cruelty is necessary for its advance, the world will one day tell Science that it can stop where it is.
In the meanwhile that there can be no doubt in the mind of any man as to how the greatest leaders of thought and loftiest teachers of conduct have united in their condemnation of vivisection, I have thought it timely to bring them together, a noble array, in this book.
CHAPTER I: THE SEVENTH EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K.G.
FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY
The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury consecrated a long life, and dedicated a great position to the service of the poor, the weak and the lost. His life and work were one of the chief glories of the nineteenth century. From early youth to venerable age his hand was outstretched to assuage the miseries of the helpless and to deal a blow at cruelty and selfishness wherever he discerned it.
By his efforts women were brought up out of coal mines where they dragged trucks on all fours like brute beasts, by his protests
little boys were saved from being forced to climb up inside chimneys risking their young lives and limbs that others might profit thereby.