shrew mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations, long since forgotten."-(Letter lxx.) Happily the vicar of the manor "stubbed and burnt" the last tree of the kind, and put an end to the practice in his locality.

It seems but fair to admit that if some animals are made to suffer as enemies, from antipathy and superstition, others are treated with kindness and affection from opposite causes, and from respect and gratitude for their virtues and services imaginary or real. Hence it is curious to find how, among almost every people, some animal is peculiarly favoured. Oppian informs us, that to kill a dolphin was deemed impious by the fishers of his day.

"The dolphin ne'er must bleed;

Detesting heaven resents th' inhuman deed."

The ibis was held sacred by the Egyptians. We learn from Sonnini that the Turks as well as the Greeks pay great respect to the weasel. It was formerly worshipped in the Thebais. "The Greek women carry their attention so far as not to disturb it; and they even treat it with a politeness truly whimsical. "Welcome," say they, when they perceive a weasel in their house; come in, my pretty wench; no harm shall happen to you here; you are quite at home; pray, make free," &c. They affirm that, sensible of these civilities, the weasel does no mischief; whereas, every thing would be devoured, add they, if they did not behave to this animal in a courteous man

ner.

66

The pagan nations of Siberia also (the Jakhuti, for instance,) have their favourite animals, the goose, the swan, or the raven, which they treat as sacred, and forbid to be eaten by any of their tribe.-STRAHLENBERG'S Siberia, p. 383. The semnopithecus entellus is held in such veneration by the Hindus, that they never destroy it, commit what ravages it may. The stork is a favourite in Holland, the magpie in the more northern states of Europe, and the red-breast is indebted to the well-known ballad, "The Babes in the Wood," as well as to its own confidence and familiarity, for the protection and friendship which it enjoys in the British islands.

The social affections must have an object on which they

can be indulged, and when men cannot find it in their own species, they seek it in another. Hence such caresses are often lavished on a bird or a beast, as excite ridicule or envy. Ladies have their lap-dogs, and men their hobbies. We blame them not; on the contrary, we deem a fondness for animals the certain index of a philanthropic disposition.

CAUSES OF CRUELTY.

SECTION SIXTH.

LOVE OF SCIENCE PERVERTED.-VIVISECTION.

"Ye who the mysteries of nature scan
With microscopic vision, O forbear

To purchase knowledge at the price, too dear,
Of violated mercy; nor the fane

Of heaven-taught science to a den convert
Of reeking slaughter, hung with horrid racks
And implements of torture! Spare the pangs
Of the poor victim whose imploring eye
Beseeches pity. On th' insensate frame,
Whence life has fled, the useful search pursue;
And even there with reverence, as aware
The vital spirit yet were hovering nigh,

Its old abode solicitous to guard
From wanton jest and cold indignity.”

W. H. D's Pleasures of Benevolence.

Incidere autem vivorum corpora et crudele et supervacuum est. CELSUS, p. 20.

He

It was maintained, prior to the age of Celsus, that in order to acquire an accurate knowledge of the human frame, it was necessary to inspect not only the internal structure of the dead, but to anatomize the living. rophilus, a native of Carthage, born in the reign of Ptolemy Soter, and also Erasistratus, were stigmatized by some and eulogised by others, for having dissected criminals taken from the public prisons, and, while they were yet alive, inspected the position, colour, figure, magnitude of those parts which had before been concealed. It was strongly argued, that the knowledge thus acquired was absolutely necessary to those who would discriminate between a healthy and an unsound state of the internal

parts of the body, and apply the proper remedy to the parts diseased; that the practice might be taxed with cruelty, but it was just that a few wicked men should expiate their crimes, and compensate the wrongs they had done to society, by suffering for the benefit of future generations.-CELSI Opera, p. 7. Patavii, 1750.

The natural and instinctive abhorrence which man feels for the dissection of his own species, even when dead, would cause him to revolt from its practice on the living. Accordingly, it does not appear ever to have come into extensive use; though a modern philosopher, M. de Maupertuis, has proved that it may not yet be without its advocates. In his letter to the King of Prussia on the advancement of science, he speaks "of the uses to be made of the punishment of criminals;" and says, “I should gladly see the lives of criminals made subservient to operations of this nature, even when there were but little hopes of success; nay, I should even think that we ought to hazard them without scruple, even for improvements of more remote utility. Discoveries might be made with regard to the wonderful union of the soul and body, if we had the courage to look for the bonds of this union in the brains of a living man. Let us not be shocked at the air of cruelty which this carries with it: the life of a man is nothing when put in comparison with the whole human race; and the life of a criminal is less than nothing."

How would this sage have been pleased, had he been selected as the favoured subject for the experiment which was to shew the "wonderful union" of body and soul? The experiment, to have ample justice, should by all means be made on a philosopher who felt an interest in the problem; for if made on one of the oi Toλ201, the many, it might prove inconclusive. But such a sage as Maupertuis could reason on the different steps of the process; explain all his sensations; indicate by expressive signs when "the bonds" were tightened or relaxed and if he felt a little pain, and began to tremble at dissolution, could draw consolation from the reflection that the life of a man is nothing; and the life even of a philosopher "less than nothing," in comparison of the pleasure

d;

that would be enjoyed by the whole human race in having the great mystery revealed!

Some of the contemporaries of Celsus, however, destitute of the light of the Illuminati, reasoned in a different strain. They reprobated the practice of anatomizing living men as cruel and unnecessary, and altogether unprofitable; they contended that the medical art has for its object the preservation, not the destruction of life; that the parts of a subject dissected alive no longer retain their original function or appearance; that as, even when the frame suffers no violence, it undergoes great changes from fear, want, lassitude, and other affections, much greater must be the changes caused by painful incisions; and, in short, that nothing can be more foolish than to suppose that the viscera, or members of a dying man, or of one who has just expired, are similar to those of a man in health. The dissection of some parts is attended by the immediate death of the subject, so that the dissector, after all, contemplates the parts not of a living but of a dead man, and he may be said to act cruelly the part of a cut-throat, rather than to inspect the intestines in their natural state of vitality. Accidents often furnish opportunities of seeing all that properly can be seen in living subjects, as when a gladiator falls wounded in the arena, a soldier on the field of battle, or a traveller has his limbs bruised and fractured by robbers. A prudent physician will, in such cases, inspect or examine the injured parts, and in prosecuting the means of saving life, not of inflicting death, he may learn from offices of mercy what others attempt to know by acts of dire cruelty. Nay, the laceration even of dead bodies is unnecessary; for though not cruel, it is indecent.

Such, according to Celsus, (pp. 11, 12.) were the opinions of two opposite classes of medical men. He says the question was discussed with much acrimony, and that many volumes were written upon it. For himself he steers a middle course; being decided in his belief that the dissection of living bodies is cruel and superfluous; that of the dead necessary to all students of medicine; a conclusion, I presume, in which all well-instructed physicians and surgeons will agree, so far at least as the

human subject is in question. With respect to the vivi

section of animals there still exists no small difference.

Our great Sir Francis Bacon observes, that " for the passages and pores it is true which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in life, which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly reproved, yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the inquiry needed not by him so lightly to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practises of surgery, but might have been well diverted upon dissection of beasts alive, which, notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts, may sufficiently satisfy this inquiry."—Vol. ii. p. 482.

The writer of these pages is not such an enemy to science, as to affirm that no animal should in any case be brought a living victim to her shrine. He admits that some useful discoveries, as those of the Lacteals, and of the circulation of the blood, have been made, or most clearly illustrated by vivisection. When a great and valuable object is to be attained, some expence of pain and suffering must be allowed. The life of a human being is more to be prized than that of a brute, and if one can be saved by the death of the other, there can be no hesitation as to the latter. But what the friends of humanity may and do justly complain of, is not only a wanton sacrifice of life, but the infliction of cruel and lingering torment, for the gratification of a useless curiosity. When facts have been ascertained and established by men of acknowledged skill and merited reputation, wherefore is any sciolist to venture on a repetition of the experiments by which those facts have been demonstrated? Wherefore are boys, who have just commenced the study of anatomy, to make upon living creatures their incipient efforts in this difficult art? Is it not enough to attend to the instructions of their teachers, and to practise upon inanimate creatures? May they not rest assured that the knowledge of which they are in quest has been already gained, and can be imparted to them on much more certain grounds than they could ever lay for themselves? Or, should they be exhorted to repeat all that