Despite the grotesque nature of Moreau’s work, he is allegedly furthering the bounds of scientific knowledge. The conscience of human society simply will not permit such brazen and disturbing experimentation. Prendick confirms this by his initial revulsion at the pain induced by Moreau’s experiments. Moreau argues that no one else is doing innovative work in vivisection because they do not have the stomach for it, particularly for the pain of other creatures. Although he could have remained in society by sacrificing his research, he instead chose to sacrifice his place in society so that he could continue his experiments on the island. Moreau, a pioneer in the field of vivisection, has been cast out of society for daring to push the limits of anatomical research by vivisecting a live dog. On the one hand, the fact that Moreau has been effectively exiled from for his work suggests that societal squeamishness often holds back scientific research-and, it follows, the potential for human progress.
Ultimately, the novel seems to warn against unchecked scientific experimentation, suggesting an ethical boundary that prevents such curiosity from becoming needlessly cruel. Through Moreau’s unregulated experimentation, Wells raises questions about the ethical cost of scientific experimentation-and, even more specifically, whether scientific knowledge is valuable in and of itself. The results are predictably grotesque: an island’s worth of part-animal, part-human Beast Folk. The scientist is consumed with his “research,” brutal experiments in which he tries to make human beings out of animals by reshaping their bodies and excising their brains, teaching them to repress their animal instincts and behave like humans. There, Moreau is carrying out experiments in vivisection-the dissection of live organisms-in secret, safely away from the prying eyes and petty ethics of human society. Wells’s novel tells the tale of Edward Prendick, a natural historian (a type of biologist), who, after surviving a shipwreck, arrives on Dr.
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