This argument, that practice is fruitful of discoveries, and science is barren of them, reaches its highest absurdity in the National Society's official journal; which praises extravagantly those methods of practice which were not discovered by the help of experiments on animals; praises them without experience, criticism, or understanding. It finds a statement, in the _Medical Annual_, that a year has passed without any great improvement in practice; and at once it lays the blame not on practice but on science. It fights hard against a fact which began in science, though it has been proved a thousand times over in practice. It accuses the bacteriologists now of caring nothing for human suffering, now of rushing after every new method of treatment and flooding the market with drugs. _There is money in the business_--that is the phrase of the _Zoophilist_. But there is money, also, in the anti-vivisection business. _If you can provide for the society's future in your will, may we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now_, says the London Society: _this is the most alive humane organisation in the world_. But the National Society says, _A grave injury is done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly unnecessary offices and salaries. We say that one office would amply suffice for all the work, and that one office would not need half-a-dozen paid secretaries._ II Let us leave the general arguments and come to the special arguments. Some of them are concerned with the experiments themselves, some with the men who made them, some with the administration of the Act. These special arguments must be arranged in some sort of order; but they cross and recross, and are of diverse natures, and any attempt at strict arrangement would fail. That the arrangement may be useful for immediate reference, and may help anybody to answer statements made at debates and lectures, a separate heading has been given to each argument. Those arguments are put first which are concerned with the experiments themselves, or with the men who made them; afterward come those which are concerned with the administration of the Act. HARVEY "It is perfectly true," says Mr. Berdoe, "that Harvey again and again, in the plainest terms, declares that his experiments on living animals aided him in his discoveries." I agree here with Mr. Berdoe. Then comes this sentence: _But that is not so important as it appears to be_. Why not? What is gained by this attempt to explain Harvey away? Dr. Bowie mistranslates him; Dr. Abiathar Wall half-quotes him; Mr. Adams says that Harvey did not ascribe his discoveries to experiments on animals; Mr. Berdoe says that he did; and Mr. Berdoe's society withdraws every pamphlet that involves acceptance of Dr. Bowie's mistranslation. Why should we take, on Harvey's work, any opinion but that of Harvey? SIR CHARLES BELL