Here, as I said at the outset, is a distinctively _human_ question, and one which cannot be evaded, even by those slippery reasoners who would shuffle out of the duty of humaneness to animals by pretending (in the face of evolutionary science) that there is no bond of consanguinity between the animals and mankind. By no possible sophistry can "educated" people be justified in placing this heavy burden of butchery on the hands of their social "inferiors." The vivisector and the sportsman have at least the courage to do their own devilries; and the work even of the hardened agents of "murderous millinery" and the fur-trade is diversified to some extent by travel and adventure. But the slaughterman's task is one of unrelieved, unmitigated brutality, involving the constant and systematic doing of deeds that are inhuman in themselves, degrading to the rough men who do them, and trebly disgraceful to the polite ladies and gentlemen at whose behest they are done. THE ÆSTHETIC ARGUMENT Closely connected with the humane argument is the æsthetic argument, the two being, in fact, twin branches of the same stem. For "humane," as the Latin shows, has the double meaning of "gentle" and "refined"; so that "humanity," in the original conception of the term, implies not only a moral regard for the rights of our fellow-beings, but also an æsthetic appreciation of what is beautiful and pure. Culture and good-breeding, together with justice and compassion, are the characteristics of humane man; and the fact that this twofold sense of the word has been well-nigh forgotten in the education of the modern "gentleman" may serve to explain why there is often such a grievious lack of gentleness in persons who claim to be refined. Our _literæ humaniores_ are a mere academic course of book-learning, the _humane_ element being altogether left out of account; and to such bathos has this divorce of gentleness and refinement carried us that, in some quarters, a "professor of humanity" is—a teacher of Latin grammar.