the effectiveness of its armament. We have only to turn to
Macaulay's description of the treatment of Charles II in his last
illness to see how strongly his physicians felt that their only
chance of cheating death was by outraging nature in tormenting
and disgusting their unfortunate patient. True, this was more
than two centuries ago; but I have heard my own nineteenth-
century grandfather describe the cupping and firing and nauseous
medicines of his time with perfect credulity as to their
beneficial effects; and some more modern treatments appear to me
quite as barbarous. It is in this way that vivisection pays the
doctor. It appeals to the fear and credulity of the savage in us;
and without fear and credulity half the private doctor's
occupation and seven-eighths of his influence would be gone.


THE HIGHER MOTIVE. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.

But the greatest force of all on the side of vivisection is the
mighty and indeed divine force of curiosity. Here we have no
decaying tribal instinct which men strive to root out of
themselves as they strive to root out the tiger's lust for blood.
On the contrary, the curiosity of the ape, or of the child who
pulls out the legs and wings of a fly to see what it will do
without them, or who, on being told that a cat dropped out of the
window will always fall on its legs, immediately tries the
experiment on the nearest cat from the highest window in the
house (I protest I did it myself from the first floor only), is
as nothing compared to the thirst for knowledge of the
philosopher, the poet, the biologist, and the naturalist. I have
always despised Adam because he had to be tempted by the woman,