484 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



society cannot fail to reap from that clearer perception of 

 the laws of vital and mental limitations which recent re- 

 search has so decisively established ; and I have also en- 

 deavoured to unfold the bearing of this view upon the sub- 

 ject of education ; but the results enumerated are far 

 from exhausting the broad applicability of the method. 

 The grand characteristic of science is its universality ; 

 what is it, indeed, but the latest report of the human mind 

 on the order of Nature ? Its principles are far-reaching 

 and all-inclusive, so that when a knowledge of the true 

 constitution of man is once attained, it confers insight into 

 all the multitudinous phases of human manifestation. The 

 same economy of power which science confers in the 

 material world, and by which we obtain a maximum of 

 effect from a minimum of force, she confers also in the 

 world of mind. When we have mastered the laws of 

 physical education we have the essential data for dealing 

 with questions of mental education, and these steps are the 

 indispensable preparation for an enlightened moral educa- 

 tion. And the same knowledge of the organism which 

 shows how it may be best developed, gives also the clue to 

 the understanding of its aberrant phenomena. That mys- 

 terious ground which has hitherto been the hot-bed of 

 noxious superstitions and dangerous quackeries, is re- 

 claimed to rational investigation, and the remarkable 

 effects of reverie, ecstasy, hysteria, hallucinations, spectral 

 illusions, dreaming, somnambulism, mesmerism, religious 

 epidemics, and other kindred displays of nervous mor- 

 bidity, find adequate explanation in the ascertained laws 

 of our being. This kind of knowledge is, furthermore, 

 not only of the highest value to all classes for practical 

 guidance, but the philosophical students of man, whether 

 viewing him in the moral, religious, social, aesthetic, ethno- 

 logical or historic aspects, must find their equal and indis- 

 pensable preparation in the mastery of the biological and 



