Thus, all sane moralists
admit that one may sometimes tell a lie; but no sane moralist would
approve of telling a little boy to practise telling lies, in case he
might one day have to tell a justifiable one. Thus, morality has often
justified shooting a robber or a burglar. But it would not justify going
into the village Sunday school and shooting all the little boys who
looked as if they might grow up into burglars. The need may arise; but
the need must have arisen. It seems to me quite clear that if you step
across this limit you step off a precipice.
Now, whether torturing an animal is or is not an immoral thing, it is,
at least, a dreadful thing. It belongs to the order of exceptional and
even desperate acts. Except for some extraordinary reason I would not
grievously hurt an animal; with an extraordinary reason I would
grievously hurt him. If (for example) a mad elephant were pursuing me
and my family, and I could only shoot him so that he would die in
agony, he would have to die in agony. But the elephant would be there. I
would not do it to a hypothetical elephant. Now, it always seems to me
that this is the weak point in the ordinary vivisectionist argument,
"Suppose your wife were dying.
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