The Ethical Aspects of Physical Research

Many writers, indeed, had laid down definite rules to guide our conduct towards domesticated animals, but these generally expressed a sense of duty towards their owners rather than towards the creatures themselves. In the case of Christian teachers, this omission of a sense of duty towards animals was partly based on the manner in which St. Paul interpreted the precept, " Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn," on which he remarks, " Doth God take care for oxen ? Or saith He it altogether for our sakes ? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written : that he that ploweth should plow in hope " (i Cor. ix. 9, 10), whilst scriptural passages in which our Lord spoke of even the sparrows as not forgotten before God were, rightly or wrongly, interpreted rather as bearing upon divine omniscience than upon interest in sparrows. Nor can we regard this absence of what is now popularly termed " humanitarianism " as at all peculiar to Christianity. Throughout the ancient world we find such a feeling of duty towards animals only in two quarters : in the one where