Suppose, then, that we look into this question. Was Professor Bowditch correct in assigning the beginnings of criticism concerning vivisection to Dr. Fleming's essay published in 1864? Or was its origin long before? Were the professors of the Medical School accurate of statement when they practically denied that cruelty in vivisection was a historic fact, and endorsed a reference to authenticated instances as "long lists of atrocities THAT NEVER OCCURRED"? Is it a fact--although Dr. Myers of Cambridge and Sir William Osler of Oxford apparently never heard of it--that it was the MEDICAL journals of England whose indignant condemnation of vivisection cruelties led up to its attempted regulation by law? The public assumes that authorities like these are not likely to err concerning methods of medical instruction or research. In the mind of the average man, every prepossession is in their favour; he cannot easily bring himself to believe that if cruelty ever existed, THEY should be so completely ignorant of it. It may, indeed, be questioned whether in the literature of controversy on the subject there has been a single defender of unrestricted freedom in vivisection, who has intelligently referred to the horrible experiments of past vivisectors except either to sneer or to condone. Even Mr. Stephen Paget, in his recent work, "Experiments upon Animals," never once condemned the cruelty that but a generation ago excited indignation throughout the medical profession of Great Britain. The truth of this matter is not to be attained by unquestioning acceptance of authority, but by a study of the history of the past. It would be impossible, except in a volume, to write a complete history of that protest against the unjustifiable cruelties of animal experimentation, which gradually led to a demand for their legal suppression. All that may here be attempted is a demonstration that the sentiment is not of recent origin; that more than a century ago the cruelties, which to-day are so carefully ignored, were unquestioned as facts, and that to medical journals of England is principally due that weighty condemnation of cruel vivisection, which probably more than any other influence was the foundation of the agitation for vivisection reform. CHAPTER III AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIVISECTOR English literature during the eighteenth century presents no more distinguished name than that of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer and essayist. His learning was immense; his judgments and criticisms were everywhere regarded with respect; and, above other great men of his time, he was fortunate in having as friend and companion one who produced the best biography that the world has ever known.