IV.] ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 87 



perhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, under- 

 current of opinion that the phenomena of life are not 

 only widely different, in their superficial characters and 

 in their practical importance, from other natural events, 

 but that they do not follow in that definite order 

 which characterises the succession of all other occur- 

 rences, and the statement of which we call a law of 

 nature. 



Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of 

 belief in the value of knowledge respecting the laws 

 of health and disease, and of the foresight and care to 

 which knowledge is the essential preliminary, which 

 is so often noticeable ; and a corresponding laxity and 

 carelessness in practice, the results of which are too 

 frequently lamentable. 



It is said that among the many religious sects of 

 Eussia, there is one which holds that all disease is 

 brought about by the direct and special interference 

 of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks with repug- 

 nance upon both preventive and curative measures as 

 alike blasphemous interferences with the will of God. 

 Among ourselves, the "Peculiar People" are, I believe, 

 the only persons who hold the like doctrine in its 

 integrity, and carry it out with logical rigour. But 

 many of us are old enough to recollect that the 

 administration of chloroform in assuagement of the 

 pangs of childbirth was, at its introduction, strenuously 

 resisted upon similar grounds. 



I am not sure that the feeling, of which the doctrine 

 to which I have referred is the full expression, does 

 not lie at the bottom of the minds of a great many 



