WCP780

[1]

Broadstone, Winborne

Oct^r. 5th 1902

Dr. J. H. Thornton¹

Dear Sir

Thanks for your letter & pamphlet on "Vivisection". I may say that I agree with all you say in your letter, & am acquainted with most of the facts in your pamphlet, which however, I have not yet been able to read through, as it has arrived at a time when I am moving here to lodgings while a new house I am building here is being finished; and I have really [2] more work & correspondence than I can cope with.

I have not referred to the subject of vivisection in my "Wonderful Century",² partly because I have no sufficient knowledge of it, but mainly because it is not specially connected with the 19th Century. Like many of my friends & critics you have not noticed that I have limited the scope of the book to an account of the new departures in science and its practical [3] applications, and ^{that I} do not profess to give even an outline of those new discoveries which are only modifications ^developments of, or additions to, previous discoveries. Owing to this misconception I propose to call my enlarged book –

The Century of New Ideas in Science & the Arts. Being an enlarged & illustrated Edition of "The Wonderful Century".

Phrenology, and Hypnotism, were ^practically discoveries of the 19th Century — In War, the uses of Steam and other Explosives then Gunpowder are new — Vaccination [4] was new, & the ^general enforcement of a surgical operation ^{by fine & imprisonment} was wholly new. Although vivisection is wholly bad, its evil effects are quite small as compared with the other matters I discuss in my "Failures", since it affects a very limited portion of a limited class — the Psychologists — & does not take away personal freedom. It is therefore in a different category of evils from those I deal with.

yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]