PREFACE. XV 



sbow them that just that, when carried to its highest stages, is the 

 very truth of all the arts and sciences. As soon as this can be 

 done, all stories will move one degree higher; the kitchens will be 

 parlors, and a new drawing room will flower out of every house for 

 the great reception days. The order which will then conserve all 

 things, will not be solely that of the policeman, but it will be like 

 the order of creation, or like that of the notes in a good harmony, 

 where each keeps the rest to their posts. 



We have selected the human body to make a trial of the above 

 method, on account of its central importance and significance, and 

 because it is already the theatre of our common sense : neverthe- 

 less, any other object of science might have been chosen, and with 

 the same results. For wherever we go, we find that common sense 

 comes first; and when the subject is completed, again comes last. 

 First glances are always charged with it, in a more or less latent 

 form : the business of investigation is simply to eliminate it as pure 

 as possible from its accidents. 



In no science does the present state of knowledge appear so 

 manifestly as in physiology: in none is the handwriting on the 

 wall so plain. Great is the feast of professors here; but 3Iene, 

 Mene, Tekel, Uphdrsin, is brighter than their chandeliers. Chemistry 

 and cell-germs are the walls on which the lightning writes. Well 

 may we call them walls ; for it is impossible to conceive anything 

 more liuritaneous : prison stares us in the face while we are in that 

 company. Who of woman born can go further than to distil him- 

 self into gas, or to pound himself into cells? Annihilation, which 

 God forbids, must be the next stage of smallness. These respective 

 doctrines are the last solid points which are possible, and by nature 

 itself there is no passage beyond them. After these, the scientific 

 men themselves must evanesce ; for already their watchword to each 

 other is, "Hail, Bubble Brother! Hail, Nucleated Cell !" 



Before it came to this chaos, there was everything to show that 

 physiology, studied with the present objects, had completed its rule. 

 Its great outlines had long been traced, and its general problems 

 had ceased to occupy attention. It Lad become more and more 

 complicated and microscopic, and leaving the human frame, it was 

 gradually slipping down into the brute creation. Meanwhile the 



