I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 37 



the seekers after natural knowledge of the kinds 

 called physical and chemical, have everywhere 

 found a definite order and succession of events 

 which seem never to be infringed. 



And how has it fared with " Physick " and 

 Anatomy ? Have the anatomist, the physiologist, 

 or the physician, whose business it has been to 

 devote themselves assiduously to that eminently 

 practical and direct end, the alleviation of the 

 sufferings of mankind, have they been able to 

 confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly 

 useful ? I fear they are the worst offenders of 

 all. For if the astronomer has set before us the 

 infinite magnitude of space, and the practical 

 eternity of the duration of the universe ; if the 

 physical and chemical philosophers have demon- 

 strated the infinite minuteness of its constituent c. 

 parts, and the practical eternity of matter and 

 of force; and if both have alike proclaimed the 

 universality of a definite and predicable order and 

 succession of events, the workers in biology have 

 not only accepted all these, but have added more 

 startling theses of their own. For, as the astrono- 

 mers discover in the earth no centre of the 

 universe, but an eccentric speck, so the naturalists 

 find man to be no centre of the living world, but 

 one amidst endless modifications of life ; and as [" 

 the astronomer observes the mark of practically 

 endless time set upon the arrangements of the 

 solar system so the student of life finds the records 



