1881 INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS 307 



I was greatly tempted for a short time by the prospect 

 of rest, but when I came to look into the matter closely 

 there were many disadvantages. I do not think I am 

 cut out for a Don nor your mother for a Donness we 

 have had thirty years' freedom in London, and are too 

 old to put in harness. 



Moreover, in a monetary sense I should have lost 

 rather than gained. 



My astonishment at the proposal was unfeigned, and 

 I begin to think I may yet be a Bishop. Ever your 

 loving father, T. H. HUXLEY. 



His other occupations this year were the Medical 

 Acts Commission, which sat until the following year, 

 and the International Medical Congress. 



The Congress detained him in London this 

 summer later than usual. It lasted from the 3rd to 

 the 9th of August, on which day he delivered a 

 concluding address on "The Connection of the 

 Biological Sciences with Medicine " (Coll. Ess. iii. p. 

 347). He showed how medicine was gradually raised 

 from mere empiricism and based upon true patho- 

 logical principles, through the independent growth of 

 physiological knowledge, and its correlation to 

 chemistry and physics. "It is a peculiarity," he 

 remarks, "of the physical sciences that they are 

 independent in proportion as they are imperfect." 

 Yet "there could be no real science of pathology 

 until the science of physiology had reached a degree 

 of perfection unattained, and indeed unattainable, 

 until quite recent times." Historically speaking, 

 modern physiology, he pointed out, began with 



