1 3 o PHYSIOLOGY AND PHIL OSOPHY. 



The philosophy of the present does not appear to have 

 advanced far beyond the physiology of 1,000 years ago. 



The philosopher who ventures to introduce physiology 

 into his philosophic system should be extremely careful not 

 to receive physiological facts which have been constructed 

 in the recesses of some inventive person's imagination, and 

 then argue as if they had been demonstrated to be true, nor 

 should he allow himself to accept and endorse without the 

 most rigid scrutiny the physiological theories of any par- 

 ticular school, far less seriously reason concerning the sup- 

 posed discoveries of any particular authority in physiology 

 who happened to have been for a time very fortunate in attract- 

 ing considerable attention and in exciting public applause. 

 Of all forms of scientific infallibility the physiological is at 

 the same time the most evanescent and the most constant. 

 The public must always have some .of its life science dis- 

 pensed by an authority it believes to be infallible, whom 

 it is sure to depose almost as soon as it has given him 

 power, in order that some one, more recently discovered 

 to be yet more infallible than the former favourite, may be 

 placed in his stead. 



There are, as everyone knows, some very simple ques- 

 tions the answers to which ought to contain the solution of 

 certain problems of the highest interest. These questions 

 have been incessantly asked ever since man discovered 

 himself to be a reasoning being. They have never been 

 conclusively answered, and some think they never will be 

 satisfactorily disposed of. It is indeed probable that there 

 will remain very little to ask about or to investigate, and 

 certainly there will be little worth enquiring about, perhaps 

 worth thinking about, when full and sufficient answers shall 



