The old Catholic school was, of course, antagonistic to the recognition of animals’ rights, and we had controversies with Monsignor John S. Vaughan, among other sacerdotalist writers, when he laid down the ancient proposition that “beasts exist for the use and benefit of man.” It may be doubted whether argument is not a pure waste of time, when there is a fundamental difference of opinion as to data and principles: the sole reason for such debate was to ensure that the humanitarian view of the question was rightly placed before the public, and to show how strange was the alliance between sacerdotalist and vivisector. Evolutionary science has demonstrated beyond question the kinship of all sentient life; yet the scientist, in order to rake together a moral defence for his doings, condescends to take shelter under the same plea as the theologian, and having got rid of the old anthropocentric fallacy in the realm of science avails himself of that fallacy in the realm of ethics: a progressive in one branch of thought, he is still a medievalist in another. Thus scientist and sacerdotalist between them would perpetuate the experimental tortures of the laboratory. _Laborare est orare_ was the old saying; now it should be expanded by the Catholic school of vivisectionists into _laboratorium est oratorium_: the house of torture is the house of prayer. It is a beautiful and touching scene of reconciliation, this meeting of priest and professor over the torture-trough of the helpless animal. They might exclaim in Tennyson’s words: There above the little grave, O there above the little grave, We kissed again with tears.