iv Preface. 



while metaphysicians, moralists, and theologians have confused 

 rather than enlightened our ideas as to the moral nature of 

 man, and his consequent social requirements. 



I have endeavoured to write a plain, practical work, as free 

 as possible from technicalities, which will enable every reader 

 to understand the present condition of human society; the 

 structure and functions of the human body; the laws of genera- 

 tion, or the methods by which the species is continued and 

 character determined by hereditary influences ; the laws of 

 health ; the nature, prevention, and cure of diseases ; the moral 

 and social nature of man, and that state of morals and consti- 

 tution of society which will secure his highest earthly good, and 

 Ills greatest happiness. 



With this end I have divided my work into six distinct por 

 tions, each in a certain degree independent of the others, yet 

 all integral parts of the same general design. 



PART FIRST treats of the actual condition of humanity in 

 what are considered the most advanced human societies, giving 

 statistics of disease, and premature or preventable mortality ; of 

 poverty, and its evils and miseries; ignorance, drunkenness, 

 dishonesty, crime, immorality, and prostitution and its conse- 

 quences. This morbid social anatomy is a very painful, but, 

 it seemed to me, a very necessary examination of the symptoms 

 of a disordered and diseased society. 



PART SECOND, which will be to many readers the most inte 

 resting portion of the book, and from its subject and illustra- 

 tions the most delightful, treats of Matter, Force, and Life ; the 

 vegetable and animal creation; of man, and the wide differences 

 between him and all other creatures, and of the peculiar nature 

 and immortal destiny of humanity. This Part contains the 

 principles of general pliysiology, or the science of life, which 

 are applied and illustrated in the succeeding portions. 



PART THIRD contains a description of the human body ana 

 its most important organs and functions those of locomotion. 



