And when we speak of Science, we do not mean only the material benefits she scatters abroad; we think also of her power as a moral force. Material and moral conquests walk hand in hand. Science is the basis of the moral law. The universal consciousness of humanity grows greater by the acquisition of new truths. Each individual, by the very fact that he loves truth, has come to understand the moral ideal which should be ever before his eyes. And then, in a just measure, full of pity for all suffering, but placing the suffering of man at a higher price than the suffering of the animal, we shall strive to make the respect of animal suffering accord with the search for the splendid and indispensable and divine TRUTH. POST SCRIPTUM In the various works, notices, discourses, etc., which have been published upon Vivisection, generally against Vivisection, I find various erroneous assertions which it is important should be pointed out. I will do so briefly. There is, however, one assertion which appears fairly just to me. This is that in treatises on physiology, sufficient mention is not made of Vivisection, of its limits and of its abuses. At the beginning of a treatise on physiology, the author should distinctly declare there is always cruelty in vivisection conducted without chloroform or chloralose; the author should indicate that these anæsthetics ought to be administered under such or such conditions. Before initiating medical students into the study of life, it is also well to teach them to have respect for animal suffering. I would that it might be thoroughly understood that it is a matter of absolute necessity to operate upon the animal; and that when the physiologist resigns himself to this necessity he ought to perform the operation with sufficient humanity to prevent the animal from suffering. I willingly recognise that the absence of this first moral precept is a great gap in most treatises on physiology. This, however, is about all I can concede to anti-vivisectionists; for truly they indulge in such queer, extraordinary assertions that we are completely disconcerted. Some of these fanatics pretend, for example, that physiologists should practise vivisection upon themselves. To torture a dog is as criminal as to torture a child, according to them; and animal suffering is as much to be respected as human suffering! Truly such a paradox cannot be taken seriously; if it were admitted, evidently the question is settled. But it cannot be admitted, and the whole of our argument rests upon this principle, which appears quite evident, that living beings occupy different positions in the hierarchy of nature. Let us take a besieged city reduced to famine: will anyone pretend that the soldiers must be sacrificed before the horses, the mules, etc. Yet the case is exactly the same. It is in order to avoid the death of human beings that mice and guinea-pigs are put to death.