My dear Sir

I hope that you will excuse my troubling you once again. I received some days ago a letter from Prof: Huxley in Edinburgh, who says with respect to your Bill: “the professors here are all in arms about it; & as the papers have associated my name with the Bill, I shall have to repudiate it publicly, unless something can be done. But what in the world is to be done?”¹ D^r Burdon Sanderson is in nearly the same frame of mind about it.² The newspapers take different views of the purport of the Bill, but it seems generally supposed that it would prevent demonstrations on animals rendered insensible, & this seems to me a monstrous provision.³ It would moreover probably defeat the end desired; for D^r B. Sanderson, who demonstrates to his class on animals rendered insensible, told me that some of his students had declared to him that unless he had shown them what he had, they would have experimented on live animals for themselves. Certainly I do not believe that any one could thoroughly understand the action of the heart without having seen it in action.

I do not doubt that you wish to aid the progress of Physiology & at the same time save animals from all useless suffering, & in this case I believe that you could not do a greater service than to warn the Home Sec^y., with respect to the appointment of Royal Commissioners, that ordinary Doctors know little or nothing about Physiology as a science & are incompetent to judge of its high importance & of the probability of its hereafter conferring great benefits on mankind.⁴

Pray believe me | My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Charles Darwin