694 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO 



of the reason in medical, and, indeed, in other investigations. 

 Under the term Biological Science are included, besides pure 

 Physiology, Human and Microscopic Anatomy, Comparative Ana- 

 tomy also ; and in this place, as your visit to the Museum will 

 have convinced you, we give considerable, but as we hope, not 

 undue prominence to this latter branch of study. I propose to 

 speak of the bearings of Biology on Medicine in each, but, owing 

 to our local speciality just alluded to, specially in the last men- 

 tioned of these four departments. And I must ask you to bear in 

 mind that the very constant reference which I shall make, if not 

 in my address, at all events in my notes, to the works and writings 

 of others, is in like manner to be explained by my wish to have a 

 distinctive colouring given to this address by the local peculiarities 

 of the great educational centre in which we are assembled. For 

 one of the most distinctive peculiarities of this ancient University 

 is the formation within its precincts of such a library of modern 

 science as will shortly have no superior, and but few rivals, in the 

 world. This we owe to the well-advised administration of the 

 funds of that famous physician. Dr. Radcliffe ; and it is from a 

 wish to make a sort of acknowledgment of the obligation which 

 medical and other sciences owe to him and his trustees, that I shall 

 so constantly, at least in print, refer to the chapters and pages of 

 the innumerable books which their enlightened munificence has put 

 here at the disposal of the student. It is not, I can assure myself, 

 from any irritable anxiety to impugn or depreciate the work of 

 others, that I have so constantly consulted and specified their 

 pages ; nor, I trust, have I allowed myself to be tempted into the 

 unpardonable fault of using, or rather abusing, a great opportunity 

 by making upon it a petty personal display. Rather have I felt it 

 to be my duty to occupy this hour as you occupy your lives, in 

 doing what it may be possible to do for the good of humanity. 

 Your presence and your example make me feel that any other 

 course would be but impertinence ; and I have therefore kept con- 

 stantly before my eyes Bacon's sentence in condemnation of all 

 empty parade of useless erudition — Vana est omnis eruditionis osten- 

 tatio nisi utilem operam secum ducat. 



The title of Niemeyer's work on medicine, the seventh edition of 

 which has recently appeared and come into my hands, will furnish 

 me with an excellent text for my first head — The Connection and 



