The Moral Aspects of Vivisection (Classic Reprint)
Author | : Frances Power Cobbe |
Publisher | : Forgotten Books |
Total Pages | : 28 |
Release | : 2017-01-14 |
ISBN-10 | : 0243018452 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780243018451 |
Rating | : 4/5 (52 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Moral Aspects of Vivisection The notion of the extreme tenderness and sensibility of early youth, especially in the male human creature, is almost as purely conventional and remote from experience as the poetic fiction of an English Spring, all sunshine and flowers. That type of cruelty which comes of ignorance and reckless ness alike of their own suffering and that of others, and wherein Curiosity, not Malice, is the prevailing motive, is at its worst in adolescence; and only as years go by, and observations multiply, and the experience of pain ploughs up the heart, does sympathy grow by Slow degrees, till at last, as Sir Arthur Helps has pointed out, it may be predicted with certainty that a jury of old men will take the most merciful view of every case brought for their verdict. On the larger scale of nations and of humanity, the same process of initiation into the mysteries of suffering and of sympathy has gone forward, and we now behold society so far emerged from the age of barbarism that an English gentle man would no more insert now-a-days in his account book' (like the pious and charitable Alleyne) an item for Whip ping Of y Blind Beare, than the stream of traffic would proceed peacefully over Westminster Bridge were a Fenian's head to be exhibited on the cornice. The influences of civilization, of religion, of cultivation - 4n short, Of all kinds, mental and moral - have softened, like the rain of heaven, the crust of our dry, hard world, and there is every reasonto hope that, unless arrested or perverted, they will trickle downwards and permeate the whole soil of human society, till the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. When we think of what earth might become were the tiger passions within our race to be bred out at last, and the divine faculty of love and sympathy to attain its obviously intended develop ment, it would seem as if efforts for the improvement of our physical or sanitary conditions, or for the advance of arts, science or laws, were scarcely worth making, in com parison of any step which should bring us nearer to such an age of joy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.