90 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [v 



and gastric fever ? Why is it that quackery rides ram- 

 pant over the land ; and that not long ago, one of the 

 largest public rooms in this great city could be filled by 

 an audience gravely listening to the reverend expositor 

 of the doctrine — that the simple physiological phaanoinena 

 known as spirit-rapping, table-turning, phreno-magnetism, 

 and by I know not what other absurd and inappropriate 

 names, are due to the direct and personal agency of Satan ? 



"Why is all this, except from the utter ignorance as to 

 the simplest 7 aws of their own animal life, which prevails 

 among even the most highly educated persons in this 

 country ? 



But there are other branches of Biological Science, 

 besides Physiology proper, whose practical influence, 

 though less obvious, is not, as I believe, less certain. I 

 have heard educated men speak with an ill-disguised 

 contempt of the studies of the naturalist, and ask, not 

 without a shrug, " What is the use of knowing all about 

 these miserable animals — what bearing has it on human 

 life % " 



I will endeavour to answer that question. I take it 

 that all will admit there is definite Government of this 

 universe — that its pleasures and pains are not scattered 

 at random, but are distributed in accordance with orderly 

 and fixed laws, and that it is only in accordance with 

 all we know of the rest of the world, that there should 

 be an agreement between one portion of the sensitive 

 creation and another in these matters. 



Surely then it interests us to know the lot of other 

 animal creatures — however far below us, they are still 

 the sole created things which share with us the capability 

 of pleasure and the susceptibility to pain. 



I cannot but think that he who finds a certain pro- 

 portion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life 

 of the very worms, will bear his own share with mora 



