v.] VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 77 



meaning and use of an act which he performs a score of times 

 every minute, and whose suspension would involve his imme 

 diate death ; I mean the act of breathing or who could state 

 in precise terms why it is that a confined atmosphere is injurious 

 to health. 



The practical value of Physiological knowledge ! Why is it that 

 educated men can be found to maintain that a slaughter-house 

 in the midst of a great city is rather a good thing than other 

 wise ? that mothers persist in exposing the largest possible 

 amount of surface of their children to the cold, by the absurd 

 style of dress they adopt, and then marvel at the peculiar 

 dispensation of Providence, which removes their infants by 

 bronchitis and gastric fever? Why is it that quackery rides 

 rampant 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 phenomena known as spirit- 

 rapping, table-turning, phreno-magnetism, and 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 laws 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, &quot;What is the use of 

 knowing all about these miserable animals what bearing has it 

 on human life ? &quot; 



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 be- 



