GRADUATES IN MEDICINE. 331 



others as involving questions admitting only of metaphysical 

 discussion. But the reciprocal influences of the conscious 

 and material elements of the human constitution must be 

 admitted as all-important conditions of health and disease, and 

 the investigation of the laws of these two opposite influences 

 demands only a rigid adherence to both of the distinct 

 methods of inquiry respectively peculiar to psychical and to 

 physical science. And, moreover, this is not the question as 

 to whether the body is only a form of the mind, or the mind 

 a product of the body. It is not the question as to whether 

 the mind is merely deposited in the body, or whether the 

 mind accumulates and arranges the different parts of its own 

 habitation, and regulates and controls them during life. 

 These are questions interesting in the history of philosophy, 

 and involve metaphysical discussion properly so called ; but 

 they are questions having no immediate bearing on our topic, 

 which includes an extended series of facts, intimately and 

 immediately connected with the wellbeing of humanity. 



Every decided advance in philosophy or science is coinci- 

 dent with the ingress of clearer conceptions of the object to 

 be attained, and of the method of attaining it. Towards the 

 acquisition, therefore, of a clearer conception of our sub- 

 ject, it is very important, not only that the distinctive 

 characters of the conscious principle and of the material 

 frame should be kept steadily in view ; but also that the two 

 perfectly distinct methods of investigating them should be 

 rigorously adhered to. Now we find, in the present phase 

 of our professional science, that although the rigid application 

 of the precise methods of chemical and physical research to 

 the investigation of the organic structures and actions has 

 proved that the influence of chemical and physical force 

 extends far beyond the limits formerly assigned to it in the 

 living economy, nevertheless this has in no degree weakened 

 the evidence of a co-existing element in organisation neither 



