BIOLOGICAL TRAINING AND STUDIES. 855 



Anatomy, in the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, and, 

 thirdly, in the Department of Scientific Zoology. 



Under the head and in the Department of Physiology proper 

 and Anatomy, our list of papers and, I am happy to add, the circle 

 of faces around us suggest to us the following subjects as being 

 the topics of main interest for the present year : — the questions of 

 Spontaneous Generation ; that of the influence of organised parti- 

 cles in the production of disease ; that of the influence of particular 

 nervous and chemical agencies upon functions ; that of the localisa- 

 tion of cerebral functions ; that of the production and, indeed, of 

 the entire role in the economy of creation of such substances as fat 

 and albumen ; and, finally, that of the cost at which the work of 

 the animal machine is carried on. 



The question of Spontaneous Generation touches upon certain 

 susceptibilities which lie outside the realm of science. In this 

 place, however, we have to do only with scientific arguments, and 

 I trust that the Section will support the Committee in their wish 

 to exclude from our discussions all extraneous considerations. 

 Truth is one ; all roads which really lead to it will assuredly con- 

 verge sooner or later : our business is to see that the one we are 

 ourselves concerned with is properly laid out and metalled. 



Upon this matter I am glad to be able to fortify myself 

 by two authorities ; and first of these I will place an utter- 

 ance of Archbishop Whately, which may be found in the second 

 volume of his Life, pp. 56-68, and appears to have been uttered by 

 him, aet. ^"j^ an. 1844: *A person possessing real faith will be 

 fully convinced that whatever suppressed physical fact appears to 

 militate against his religion will be proved by physical investiga- 

 tion either to be unreal or else reconcilable with his religion. 

 If I were to found a church, one of my articles would be that 

 it is not allowable to bring forward Scripture or any religious 

 considerations at all to prove or disprove any physical theory or 

 any but religious and moral considerations.' My second quotation 

 shall be taken from the great work of one of the first, as I appre- 

 hend, of living theologians, John Macleod Campbell, * The Nature 

 of the Atonement,' pp. xxxii, xxxiii, Introd., and it runs thus: 

 There are ' other minds whose habits of pure scientific investigation 

 are to them a temptation to approach the claim of the kingdom of 

 God on our faith by a wrong path, causing them to ask for a kind 



