I am against the
cutting-up of conscious dogs for the same reason that I am in favour of
the eating of dead turkeys. The connection may not be obvious; but that
is because of the strangely unhealthy condition of modern thought. I am
against cruel vivisection as I am against a cruel anti-Christmas
asceticism, because they both involve the upsetting of existing
fellowships and the shocking of normal good feelings for the sake of
something that is intellectual, fanciful, and remote. It is not a human
thing, it is not a humane thing, when you see a poor woman staring
hungrily at a bloater, to think, not of the obvious feelings of the
woman, but of the unimaginable feelings of the deceased bloater.
Similarly, it is not human, it is not humane, when you look at a dog to
think about what theoretic discoveries you might possibly make if you
were allowed to bore a hole in his head. Both the humanitarians' fancy
about the feelings concealed inside the bloater, and the
vivisectionists' fancy about the knowledge concealed inside the dog, are
unhealthy fancies, because they upset a human sanity that is certain for
the sake of something that is of necessity uncertain. The
vivisectionist, for the sake of doing something that may or may not be
useful, does something that certainly is horrible.
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