412 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
That work of this kind is being accomplished, I may mention 
the recent experimental confirmation by Francis Galton of his 
* Law of Heredity,” published in 1889. In this monograph he 
gives a priorz reasons for computing that of the total heritage of 
the child, each of the two parents contributes one-fourth, each of 
the four grandparents one-sixteenth, and the remaining one-fourth 
from more remote ancestors. 
Galton has examined the pedigree book of the Basset (hound) 
Club with reference to the appearance of black in these hounds, 
and finds that the number of hounds in any generation which had 
black on them agreed with the calculated number according to the 
above law within an error of 1 per cent. The value of such a law 
(if it be established) as a contribution to the subject of heredity, 
and for its immediate practical value to breeders, can hardly be 
overestimated. This kind of work may quite well proceed, 
although one may not in the least appreciate the essential mechan- 
ism underlying heredity. The discovery of the laws concerning 
the attraction of matter for matter has proved sufficiently inter- 
esting and far-reaching in importance, although at the present 
time one has no conception of the details of the process. 
In tracing the development of physiology as it exists at the 
present time, the line of descent passes through Johannes Miller. 
Miller was essentially a comparative anatomist, and comparative 
physiologist, whose aim was the study of the essential phenomena 
of life in all its aspects. Miller was a vitalist, that is to say, he 
regarded the forces operating in living beings as something other, 
and essentially distinct from those of inorganic nature. He insisted 
upon the advantage to physiology which accrues by studying it 
from a comparative point of view, so that on the one hand sim- 
plicity of structure, and on the other differentiation of function 
might be utilized. His researches extended over the whole field of 
biological enquiry, and his text-book of physiology as a philosophical 
exposition of the subject at the time has never been surpassed. 
The characteristic of this book is its breadth of view. It is 
essentially a general physiology, the aims of which were to study 
the phenomena of life in all their aspects. Observations and 
experiments on every form of living creature here find a place, 
because Muller was convinced that an essential identity underlay 
the manifestations of every form of vital activity. 
Towards the latter end of his life Muller confined his attention 
more and more to the study of anatomy, and had little sympathy 
with the mechanical interpretation of vital phenomena maintained 
by the younger physiologists, among whom were some of his own 
pupils. 
Rather over fifty years ago the study of physiology received a 
great impetus, largely owing to five, at that time, young men, 
Ludwig, Helmholtz, Briicke, and du Bois Reymond in Germany, 
