And first of all, because there is in this world much suffering, human suffering, which it is more important to allay than that of the victims of vivisection. If our sole care were that of morality, what battles would we not have to fight! There are thousands of people in India who die of hunger; and throughout Asia whole populations perish of disease which a little hygiene could prevent. The hunger-evil is rife in Russia; most of the peasants in Sicily also never know what it is to satisfy their hunger. The misery of children is lamentable everywhere: in our large cities, Paris, Berlin, London, it is not exceptional, alas! to come across people dying of hunger. The terribly high rate of mortality among children less than a year old is due to hunger and to hunger alone. In Europe two million children, under one year of age, die every year solely because their parents are plunged in misery, because the mother, instead of nursing her child, is forced to work, to earn her living at manual labour, which dries up her milk. _These two million children who die of hunger are the disgrace of our civilisation._ And yet we continue to live in luxury, we look on calmly and indifferently at the agony of our human brothers, an agony which we could easily alleviate. For my part, willingly shall I allow myself to be melted with pity at the sight of tuberculous rabbits when I see those persons who champion these same rabbits, develop within themselves some pity for human suffering, a pity grown so deep, so powerful, that they devote their entire fortune towards rescuing their brethren from death through hunger. There is not only famine and want. There are many other social scourges; and these scourges are much more serious than vivisection can ever become. There is alcoholism, prostitution, war. And I have no need to say that alcoholism is an evil, that prostitution is an evil, that war is an evil. When human morality has been developed to such a pitch that man will no longer be able to look on these great social miseries without horror, it will be time enough perhaps to ask if it be permissible to seek for truth at the expense of a little animal suffering. But until then I have the right to stigmatise as hypocrisy all that immense pity which certain people profess for dogs, side by side with their immense heedlessness, which they do not fear to display, towards the fate of so many unfortunate human beings.