A CHAP TUB IN TRANSCENDENTAL PATHOLOGY. 659 



only for a certain number of years, and it is well known that many 

 of the most valuable standard works, both in prose and poetry, are 

 being continually republished in England without any remuneration 

 to the authors or their heirs. If authors have an inherent right to 

 the products of their brains, the lapse of time should be no reason for 

 taking that right away, and English publishers are as morally guilty 

 of robbery when they fail to make remuneration to such authors or 

 their legal representatives, after the law no longer protects them, as 

 are the American publishers who do the same with English copy- 

 right books for which there is no American protection. O most con- 

 scientious Briton ! when thou doest unto others as thou wouldst 

 that others should do unto thee, then mayst thou, with more con- 

 sistency, indulge in the abuse of those whom thou delightest to call 

 "piratical publishers." 



A CHAPTER IN TRANSCENDENTAL PATHOLOGY. 



IN his address to the Pathological Section of the British Medical 

 Association, on the occasion of its meeting at Worcester this 

 year, the distinguished president of the section, Dr. J. Hughlings- 

 Jackson, threw out the suggestion that inflammation should be re- 

 garded as a process of dissolution. His meaning will be fully intelli- 

 gible only to those who have some knowledge of the system of phi- 

 losophy which Mr. Herbert Spencer has given to the world. It may 

 be interesting, both to those who are familiar with Mr. Spencer's writ- 

 ings, and to those who are not, if we somewhat expand Dr. Jackson's 

 hint, and inquire briefly how far inflammation corresponds to Mr. 

 Spencer's definition of dissolution. If we find that it is included in 

 that definition, it may enable us to trace relations between inflamma- 

 tion and other allied processes mineral, vegetal, animal, psychological, 

 and social which can not but enlarge and make clearer our views of 

 it and them. 



Evolution, our readers will hardly need reminding, is the process 

 of growth and life ; dissolution, that of decay and death. The defi- 

 nition of inflammation which is given by one of the most eminent 

 writers upon the subject starts from the proposition that inflammation 

 is the result of injury. We should, therefore, a priori, expect that 

 changes which are the result of injury would have their analogues 

 rather in the processes of decay and death than in those of life and 

 growth. The definition of evolution which Mr. Spencer formulates is 

 as follows : " Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant 

 dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefi- 

 nite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, and 

 during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." 



