THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OF LIVING 

 BEINGS. 



PHYSICS, chemistry, and physiology, are making marvel- 

 ous advances in our day, in their superficial range ; but it 

 is, perhaps, not so clearly remarked that they are at the 

 same time rising in their aims and aspirations. In propor- 

 tion as processes improve and doctrines grow established, 

 Science takes fresh courage to attack lofty problems with 

 new vigor, and boasts of bringing light and certainty to 

 their solution. It takes up by exact methods and with 

 very confident system the discussion of the most general 

 and comprehensive questions. Owning no longer any 

 limits to its investigation of the world of suns nor to its 

 researches in the world of atoms ; believing, too, that this 

 twofold quest must yield up to it all the hidden things of 

 matter and of spirit, no wonder that it is confident in its 

 power to win by such inquiry the knowledge of all that 

 has seemed hitherto a prize reserved to other capacities 

 than its own. Whether warranted or unwarranted, this 

 philosophic bent of modern science is in either case due to 

 the influence of a multitude of discoveries full of interest in 

 spite of their commonly abstract nature, full of rich instruc- 

 tion beneath the seeming barrenness of their details. 



If every one carries about with him certain notions as 

 to the conformation of the chief viscera of animals, few per- 

 sons, even among the most enlightened, have a suspicion 

 of the absorbing interest and the scope of our knowledge 



