second series on persons engaged in mathematical work or machine
designing, so as to ascertain the symptoms of cold scientific
activity? Then note the symptoms of a vivisector performing a
cruel experiment; and compare them with the voluptuary symptoms
and the mathematical symptoms? Such experiments would be quite as
interesting and important as any yet undertaken by the
vivisectors. They might open a line of investigation which would
finally make, for instance, the ascertainment of the guilt or
innocence of an accused person a much exacter process than the
very fallible methods of our criminal courts. But instead of
proposing such an investigation, our vivisectors offer us all the
pious protestations and all the huffy recriminations that any
common unscientific mortal offers when he is accused of unworthy
conduct.


ROUTINE

Yet most vivisectors would probably come triumphant out of such a
series of experiments, because vivisection is now a routine, like
butchering or hanging or flogging; and many of the men who
practise it do so only because it has been established as part of
the profession they have adopted. Far from enjoying it, they have
simply overcome their natural repugnance and become indifferent
to it, as men inevitably become indifferent to anything they do
often enough. It is this dangerous power of custom that makes it
so difficult to convince the common sense of mankind that any
established commercial or professional practice has its root in
passion. Let a routine once spring from passion, and you will
presently find thousands of routineers following it passionlessly