Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2

by Thomas Henry Huxley

When the course of instruction in Physiology here was commenced, the question of giving experimental demonstrations became a matter of anxious consideration with me. It was clear that, without such demonstrations, the subject could not be properly taught. It was no less clear from what had happened to me when, as President of the British Association, I had defended Brown Sequard, that I might expect to meet with every description of abuse and misrepresentation if such demonstrations were given.

It did not appear to me, however, that the latter consideration ought to weigh with me, and I took such a course as I believe is defensible against everything but misrepresentation.

I gave strict instructions to the Demonstrators who assisted me that no such experiments were to be performed, unless the animal were previously rendered insensible to pain either by destruction of the brain or by the administration of anaesthetics, and I have every reason to believe that my instructions were carried out. I do not see what I can do beyond this, or how I can give Mr. Forster any better guarantee than is given in my assurance that my dislike to the infliction of pain both as a matter of principle and of feeling is quite as strong as his own can be.

If Mr. Forster is not satisfied with this assurance, and with its practical result that our experiments are made only on non-sentient animals, then I am afraid that my position as teacher of Physiology must come to an end.

If I am to act in that capacity I cannot consent to be prohibited from showing the circulation in a frog's foot because the frog is made slightly uncomfortable by being tied up for that purpose; nor from showing the fundamental properties of nerves, because extirpating the brain of the same animal inflicts one-thousandth part of the prolonged suffering which it undergoes when it makes its natural exit from the world by being slowly forced down the throat of a duck, and crushed and asphyxiated in that creature's stomach.

I shall be very glad to wait upon Mr. Forster if he desires to see me. Of course I am most anxious to meet his views as far as I can, consistently with my position as a person bound to teach properly any subject in which he undertakes to give instruction. But I am quite clear as to the amount of freedom of action which it is necessary I should retain, and if you will kindly communicate the contents of this letter to the Vice-President of the Council, he will be able to judge for himself how far his sense of what is right will leave me that freedom, or render it necessary for me to withdraw from what I should regard as a false position.

[But there was a further and more vital question. He had already declared through Major (now Sir John) Donnelly, that he would only undertake a course which involved no vivisection. Further to require an official assurance that he would not do that which he had explicitly affirmed he did not intend to do, affected him personally, and he therefore declined the proposal made to him to give the course in question.

It followed from the fact that experiments on animals formed no part of his official course, and from his refusal under the circumstances to undertake the non-official course, that his opinions and present practises in regard to the question of vivisection did not come under their Lordships' jurisdiction, and he protested against the introduction of his name, and of the approbation or disapprobation of his views, into an official document relating to a matter with which he had nothing to do.

In an intermediate paragraph of the same document, he could not resist asking for an official definition of vivisection as forbidden, in its relation to the experiments he had made to the class of teachers.]

I should have to ask whether it means that the teacher who has undertaken to perform no "vivisection experiments" is thereby debarred from inflicting pain, however slight, in order to observe the action of living matter; for it might be said to be unworthy quibbling, if, having accepted the conditions of the minute, he thought himself at liberty to inflict any amount of pain, so long as he did not actually cut.