214 APPENDIX. [No. XIII. 



Faculty of Medicine of Paris refused leave to Ambrose Pare to print liis 

 work on the application of ligatures to arteries after operation. This 

 invention, I have no hesitation in asserting, is the most important prac- 

 tical application of science for the purposes of the surgeon which has 

 ever been submitted to the world, and yet, instead of being fostered by the 

 distinguished men of the age, it was opposed, and never would have com- 

 municated its benefits to the unhappy victims of amputation, had not 

 private interest been made with the king to allow the work to be printed, 

 and thus confer its blessings on mankind. Nor is this a solitary instance. 

 Did not the College of Physicians of London oppose the Royal Medico- 

 Chirurgical Society an association of the medical practitioners of this 

 country, unrivalled for the extent of information that it has disseminated 

 amongst those who devote their time to practise the healing art ? The 

 College of Surgeons, moreover, have looked with a jealous eye on that 

 great University of London, which promises, by the talent which it has 

 fostered, to effect great results for the improvement of our profession. 

 These extraordinary instances of ill-directed authority, by men of the 

 highest reputation in their day, show that we must receive with care their 

 edicts, and, instead of taking for granted that the medical education they 

 require is that best suited to make a practitioner of medicine, we must 

 examine for ourselves a subject of such fundamental importance to the 

 whole community. 



Disregarding, then, the orders of human councils, we must take 

 Nature for our guide, and, as a preliminary inquiry, we must study the 

 relation of man to the external world. Now, on a most cursory view of 

 those objects which are presented for our examination, we perceive that 

 bodies divide themselves into two great divisions one set in which no 

 changes are taking place, and another in which continual alterations are 

 occurring. These two sets of bodies we call respectively things with life, 

 or organic things ; things without life, or inorganic things. 



Let us take as a type of a lifeless thing this piece of ice, and consider 

 its qualities. We know that it is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen, in 

 fact an oxide of hydrogen, the two elements being held together by the 

 force of attraction. No change is taking place between these elements, 

 but it possesses its individual characteristic by virtue of that attraction. 

 As long as that attraction exists, it is still oxide of hydrogen, but a 

 destruction of that attraction, or a supervention of a new. one, would cause 

 it to be no longer an oxide of hydrogen, but some other body. I may act 

 upon this compound by external forces, and cause it to assume either the 

 liquid or gaseous state, but it is still an oxide of hydrogen ; and unless 

 I destroy the attraction existing between the oxygen and hydrogen, it 

 remains the same body. I can in the same way make this body hot, 

 luminous, electrical, or vibrating, without any alteration in its composi- 

 tion. I might divide it to its finite particle, or increase its bulk inde- 

 finitely, but still its characteristic as an oxide of hydrogen would not be 

 impaired. 



An inorganic body, then, possesses matter and force ; the force being 

 only exerted between its own particles. Other matter indeed may act 

 upon this matter, though it would not contribute in any way to produce 

 its individual existence. To express these facts in the fewest words and 

 most comprehensive manner, we may state that an inorganic body is a 



