Ebook The Modern Rack

Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein having done me the honour to propose to republish my principal contributions to the Vivisection controversy, I have gladly accepted their offer, and have selected from the mass the speeches, essays, and leaflets which constitute this small volume. In this collected form these papers may, I would fain hope, prove useful in supplying statements and arguments to those who are now carrying on the agitation against scientific cruelty, and who will continue, I doubt not, to fight the good fight when my share of it is done. Perhaps others also whose minds have never awakened to the meaning of this dreadful subject may be touched by something they may find in one or other of these varied discussions and appeals, and thus be drawn to aid us.

The articles in this book (with the exception of the first, which is of earlier date than those which follow it), have not been arranged chronologically; but, so far as was convenient, under the different departments of the controversy with which they are respectively concerned. As regards the scientific passages and descriptions of experiments in these papers, they have all been written with the help (or, at least, not without the revision) of men qualified to judge of each question; and I have no fears that their accuracy will be seriously impugned.