Vivisection / by C.S. Lewis.

  • C. S. Lewis
Date:
[1947?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Vivisection / by C.S. Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/16 (page 5)
    VIVISECTION C. S. Lewis IT IS the rarest thing in the world to hear a ra¬ tional discussion of vivisection. Those who dis¬ approve of it are commonly accused of “sentimental¬ ity,and very often their arguments justify the ac¬ cusation. They paint pictures of pretty little dogs on dissecting tables. But the other side lie open to exactly the same charge. They also often defend the practice by drawing pictures of suffering women and children whose pain can be relieved (we are assured) only by the fruits of vivisection. The one appeal, quite as clearly as the other, is addressed to emotion, to the particular emotion we call pity. And neither appeal proves anything. If the thing is right — and if right at all, it is a duty — then pity for the animal is one of the temptations we must resist in order to perform that duty. If the thing is wrong, then pity for human suffering is precisely the temptation which will most probably lure us into doing that wrong thing. But the real question — whether it is right or wrong — remains meanwhile just where it was. A rational discussion of this subject begins by in¬ quiring whether pain is, or is not, an evil. If it is not, then the case against vivisection falls. But then so does the case for vivisection. If it is not de¬ fended on the ground that it reduces human suffer- [5]