A Rational and Humane Science 



The formal classification of animals and plants 

 — which now forms the main part of these 

 sciences — would then come in simply as an aid 

 and an auxiliary to the more direct and human 

 study. 



Again, let us take the science of Physiology. 

 At present this is mainly carried on by means 

 of Dissection or Vivisection. But both these 

 methods are unsatisfactory. Dissection, because 

 it amounts to studying the organisation of a 

 living creature by the examination of its dead 

 carcase ; and Vivisection, because it is not only 

 open to a similar objection, but because it necessarily 

 violates the highest relation of man to the animal 

 he is studying. There is, I believe, another 

 method — a method which has been known in the 

 East for centuries, though little regarded in the 

 West — which may perhaps be called the method 

 of Health. It consists in rendering the body, 

 by proper habits of life, pure and healthy, till 

 it becomes, as it were, transparent to the inner 

 eye, and then projecting the consciousness inward 

 so as to become almost as sensible of the structure 

 and function of the various internal organs, as 

 it usually is of the outer surface of the body. Of 

 course this is a process which cannot be effectu- 

 ated at once, and which may need help and cor- 

 roboration by external methods of study, but I 

 believe it is one which will lead to considerable 

 results. There is no doubt that many of the 

 Yogis of India attain to great skill in it. 



Similarly, from what we have already said 

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