Present and Prospective 203 



perhaps any, drugs, but also by regulated exercises 

 purposely adapted to bring into wholesome action 

 all the muscles of the body ; whereby every 

 muscle may be made to contract and every minute 

 vital channel kept open, and so disease prevented 

 or stopped at its outset. How seldom, alas ! is 

 the alert anticipatory attack made upon the begin- 

 nings of evil, physical or moral ! 



Moreover, as the " life of relation " (using 

 Bichat's term; from the cradle onwards is the 

 organic education, mental and physical, of a 

 reflex mechanism whereby that which is con- 

 sciously and laboriously learnt is expressed easily 

 and automatically — such gradual instruction being 

 organic construction — a constant aim ought to be 

 to fashion it well, as well as to know how it works 

 best and to keep it in the best working order. 



After all, the recognition of the principle of 

 the reflex mechanism of the organism, and of that 

 which it implies medically, was not due in the 

 end to Descartes ; the lost truth had to be brought 

 to light again gradually and laboriously by many 

 later physiological inquirers, who, demonstrating 

 it by observation and experiment to the common 

 mind, are therefore called the discoverers. For 

 its habit is to ignore him who puts forth that 

 which it does not know, and to laud him who 

 succeeds in making it know. The instance may 

 serve to teach how much labour in rediscovering 

 forgotten truths might sometimes be saved by 

 a knowledge of that which past great men have 



