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Darwin Correspondence Project

To The Times   21 April [1881]1

[Down.]

to the editor of the times.

Sir,—

I do not wish to discuss the views expressed by Miss Cobbe in the letter which appeared in The Times of the 19th inst.; but as she asserts that I have “misinformed” my correspondent in Sweden in saying that “the investigation of the matter by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against our English physiologists were false,” I will merely ask leave to refer to some other sentences from the report of the Commission.2

(1) The sentence— “It is not to be doubted that inhumanity may be found in persons of very high position as physiologists,” which Miss Cobbe quotes from page 17 of the report, and which, in her opinion, “can necessarily concern English physiologists alone and not foreigners,” is immediately followed by the words “We have seen that it was so in Majendie.” Majendie was a French physiologist who became notorious some half-century ago for his cruel experiments on living animals.3

(2) The Commissioners, after speaking of the “general sentiment of humanity” prevailing in this country, say (p.104):

“This principle is accepted generally by the very highly educated men whose lives are devoted either to scientific investigation and education or to the mitigation or the removal of the sufferings of their fellow-creatures; though differences of degree in regard to its practical application will be easily discernible by those who study the evidence as it has been laid before us.”

Again, according to the Commissioners (p.10):

“The secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, when asked whether the general tendency of the scientific world in this country is at variance with humanity, says he believes it to be very different, indeed, from that of foreign physiologists; and while giving it as the opinion of the society that experiments are performed which are in their nature beyond any legitimate province of science, and that the pain which they inflict is pain which it is not justifiable to inflict even for the scientific object in view, he readily acknowledges that he does not know a single case of wanton cruelty, and that in general the English physiologists have used anæsthetics where they think they can do so with safety to the experiment.”

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, | charles darwin

April 21.

Footnotes

The year is established by the date of publication of this letter in The Times.
Frances Power Cobbe’s letter was published in The Times, 19 April 1881, p. 8; it was a response to CD’s views on vivisection expressed in his letter to Frithiof Holmgren, [14] April 1881, which had been published in The Times, 18 April 1881, p. 10. In 1875, a Royal Commission had been set up to examine the regulation of vivisection; the findings were published in the Report of the Royal Commission on vivisection in 1876.
Report of the Royal Commission on vivisection, p. xvii. François Magendie rejected theory in favour of the experimental method in physiology, and laid much emphasis on the practice of vivisection; his public demonstration in London of the effects of cutting the cranial nerves in living dogs in 1824 had provoked an antivivisection campaign (DSB).
Report of the Royal Commission on vivisection, p. x.

Bibliography

Report of the Royal Commission on vivisection: Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes; with minutes of evidence and appendix; 1876 (C.1397, C.1397-1) XLI.277, 689. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers.

Summary

Replies to F. P. Cobbe’s letter [Times 19 Apr 1881] accusing CD of having misinformed his Swedish correspondent about the findings of the Royal Commission on vivisection.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13132
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
The Times
Sent from
[Down.]
Source of text
The Times, 22 April 1881, p. 11

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13132,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13132.xml

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