340 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, 
science, where all should be harmony and agreement; and also prove 
that essential to the establishment of every truth, is the passage of a 
long period of time. 
We hope it will not be deemed inconsistent with the commendation 
bestowed on Dr. E.’s work, that while acknowledging its full value, 
we augur that Miiller’s will be more frequently confided in as an au- 
thority : while Dr. E.’s compilation, being rendered more attractive 
by the copiousness and variety of its materials, will insure more ex- 
tensive perusal, and may probably have the good fortune to inspire 
its readers with a taste for its subject,—where genius leads, the 
world will follow—Miiller has beyond doubt established for himself 
claims to be so considered, and the confidence which he clearly has 
in himself will inevitably be shared by his readers. His book, then, 
holds a place of advantage over Elliotson’s, which savours more of 
the character of an arbitrator or umpire, than of a pioneer who has 
broke and cleared the ground for hmself. In these expressions it is 
very far from our intention to disparage its great merits: but it is 
certain that confidence is more likely to follow originality than imita- 
tion; and we make no doubt that every article in the physiological 
creed of Miller is the result of proofs with which all must be satis- 
fied ; and, where doubt was unavoidable, that he repeated for himself 
the experiments of others, and satisfied himself by this mode of veri- 
fication before he adopted a single particular. We cannot deny the 
probability that he sometimes shares the fate of his predecessors in 
being deceived by appearances, and deduces conclusions which his 
future observation, or that of others, may correct ; still he is not one 
likely to remain satisfied after the suspicion of fallacy : and it may be 
predicated of his candour that he would be the first to recant an 
error, whether of observation or of opinion. 
We expect that a long time must elapse ere another system of phy- 
siology will supersede Miiller’s ; and when that occurs, it will certainly 
owe its precedence to the added discovery and confirmation of time, 
rather than the substitution of other views for those, many of which 
this book will help to establish. He is not merely a correct obser- 
ver—demanding, as we have elsewhere shown, qualities so rarely 
found—but he reasons like one whose judgment could not be betray- 
ed by a sophism : it is severely inductive. His good fortune is con- 
spicuous in being translated by one who has rendered great—we had 
almost said complete-—justice to his original ; and the work, conse- 
quently, doth not read like a translation. The translation is worthy 
of the original; both are excellent, and will, doubtless, give an im- 
pulse to the study of a science which hath rendered great service to 
humanity, and, if prosecuted with zeal, promises to lay it under still 
greater obligations. Last, but not least, it will—at least, the hope is 
reasonable—stimulate our countrymen to an emulation of their con- 
tinental fellows, and no longer leave England subject to the reproach 
of bringing up the rear in this one of the medical sciences, instead of, 
