Vivisection

Abstract

YOUR correspondent, Mr. C. A. Stevenson, referring to the miraculous narrative of St. Mark, chap, v., verses 26.32, reasons to the effect that if 2000 swine were destroyed to alleviate the sufferings of a single man, then are those physiologists to be justified who, for the benefit of the whole human race, sacrifice a few animals. But, unfortunately for the argument, neither from the narrative of St. Mark, nor from those in the other gospels, does it appear that the permission given to the “unclean spirits” to pass into the swine, after their expulsion from the “demoniac,” in any way contributed to his cure. On the contrary, it is distinctly implied that the demons might have been sent elsewhere than into the swine. For, according to St. Mark, they “besought” that they might not be sent “away out of the country”; or, as St. Luke has it, that they might not be commanded “to go out into the deep,” that is into the “abyss,” elsewhere translated “bottomless pit.” Thus, it seems to be taught that when driven out of the man, the demons might have become simply disembodied spirits; and, indeed, so far as we can gather, the permission to enter into the swine was purely exgratiâ.