Lemuel persisted in presenting himself under a sentimental aspect.

He had not forgiven his elder brother's rudeness yet--and he knew, by experience, the one weakness in Benjulia's character which, with his small resources, it was possible to attack.

"Thank you for your kind inquiries," he replied. "Never mind my head, so long as my heart's in the right place. I don't pretend to be clever--but I've got my feelings; and I could put some awkward questions on what you call Medical Research, if I had Morphew to help me."

"I'll help you," said Benjulia--interested in developing the state of his brother's brain.

"I don't believe you," said Lemuel--interested in developing the state of his brother's temper.

"Try me, Lemuel."

"All right, Nathan."

The two brothers returned to their chairs; reduced for once to the same moral level.

CHAPTER XXXII.

"Now," said Benjulia, "what is it to be? The favourite public bugbear?

Vivisection?"

"Yes."

"Very well. What can I do for you?"

"Tell me first," said Lemuel, "what is Law?"

"Nobody knows."

"Well, then, what _ought_ it to be?"

"Justice, I suppose."

"Let me wait a bit, Nathan, and get that into my mind."

Benjulia waited with exemplary patience.

"Now about yourself," Lemuel continued. "You won't be offended--will you? Should I be right, if I called you a dissector of living creatures?"

Benjulia was reminded of the day when he had discovered his brother in the laboratory. His dark complexion deepened in hue. His cold gray eyes seemed to promise a coming outbreak. Lemuel went on.

"Does the Law forbid you to make your experiments on a man?" he asked.

"Of course it does!"

"Why doesn't the Law forbid you to make your experiments on a dog?"

Benjulia's face cleared again. The one penetrable point in his ironclad nature had not been reached yet. That apparently childish question about the dog appeared, not only to have interested him, but to have taken him by surprise. His attention wandered away from his brother. His clear intellect put Lemuel's objection in closer logical form, and asked if there was any answer to it, thus:

The Law which forbids you to dissect a living man, allows you to dissect a living dog. Why?

There was positively no answer to this.

Suppose he said, Because a dog is an animal? Could he, as a physiologist, deny that a man is an animal too?

Suppose he said, Because a dog is the inferior creature in intellect?

The obvious answer to this would be, But the lower order of savage, or the lower order of lunatic, compared with the dog, is the inferior creature in intellect; and, in these cases, the dog has, on your own showing, the better right to protection of the two.

Suppose he said, Because a man is a creature with a soul, and a dog is a creature without a soul? This would be simply inviting another unanswerable question: How do you know?

Honestly accepting the dilemma which thus presented itself, the conclusion that followed seemed to be beyond dispute.

If the Law, in the matter of Vivisection, asserts the principle of interference, the Law has barred its right to place arbitrary limits on its own action. If it protects any living creatures, it is bound, in reason and in justice, to protect all.

"Well," said Lemuel, "am I to have an answer?"

"I'm not a lawyer."

With this convenient reply, Benjulia opened Mr. Morphew's letter, and read the forbidden part of it which began on the second page. There he found the very questions with which his brother had puzzled him--followed by the conclusion at which he had himself arrived!

"You interpreted the language of your dog just now," he said quietly to Lemuel; "and I naturally supposed your brain might be softening. Such as it is, I perceive that your memory is in working order. Accept my excuses for feeling your pulse. You have ceased to be an object of interest to me."

He returned to his reading. Lemuel watched him--still confidently waiting for results.

The letter proceeded in these terms:

"Your employer may perhaps be inclined to publish my work, if I can satisfy him that it will address itself to the general reader.

"We all know what are the false pretences, under which English physiologists practice their cruelties. I want to expose those false pretences in the simplest and plainest way, by appealing to my own experience as an ordinary working member of the medical profession.

"Take the pretence of increasing our knowledge of the curative action of poisons, by trying them on animals. The very poisons, the action of which dogs and cats have been needlessly tortured to demonstrate, I have successfully used on my human patients in the practice of a lifetime.

"I should also like to ask what proof there is that the effect of a poison on an animal may be trusted to inform us, with certainty, of the effect of the same poison on a man. To quote two instances only which justify doubt--and to take birds this time, by way of a change--a pigeon will swallow opium enough to kill a man, and will not be in the least affected by it; and parsley, which is an innocent herb in the stomach of a human being, is deadly poison to a parrot.

"I should deal in the same way, with the other pretence, of improving our practice of surgery by experiment on living animals.

"Not long since, I saw the diseased leg of a dog cut off at the hip joint. When the limb was removed, not a single vessel bled. Try the same operation on a man--and twelve or fifteen vessels must be tied as a matter of absolute necessity.

"Again. We are told by a great authority that the baking of dogs in ovens has led to new discoveries in treating fever. I have always supposed that the heat, in fever, is not a cause of disease, but a consequence. However, let that be, and let us still stick to experience.

Has this infernal cruelty produced results which help us to cure scarlet fever? Our bedside practice tells us that scarlet fever runs it course as it always did. I can multiply such examples as these by hundreds when I write my book.

"Briefly stated, you now have the method by which I propose to drag the scientific English Savage from his shelter behind the medical interests of humanity, and to show him in his true character,--as plainly as the scientific Foreign Savage shows himself of his own accord. _He_ doesn't shrink behind false pretences. _He_ doesn't add cant to cruelty. _He_ boldly proclaims the truth:--I do it, because I like it!"

Benjulia rose, and threw the letter on the floor.

_"I_ proclaim the truth," he said; _"I_ do it because I like it. There are some few Englishmen who treat ignorant public opinion with the contempt that it deserves--and I am one of them." He pointed scornfully to the letter. "That wordy old fool is right about the false pretences.

Publish his book, and I'll buy a copy of it."