NATURE 



455 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1874 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY AT MANCHESTER 



I3ROF. HUXLEY, whose breadth of view at once 

 claims attention for all he utters, has utilised the 

 opportunity afforded him by the opening of the new 

 Medical School at Owens College to call attention to 

 several points the discussion of which at the present time 

 is of the most vital importance. 



The rapid growth and increasing importance of Owens 

 College are known to all our readers, and the recent 

 addition of the new Medical School has added still 

 another Faculty to that teaching centre, so that, as Prof 

 Huxley very properly points out, the College is a Uni- 

 versity in the old sense in everything but the name. A 

 University in the new sense of course it is not, because it 

 does not yet possess the power of granting degrees. But 

 we imagine that the distinguished men who are directing 

 teaching and research at O wens College can well afford 

 to wait for this privilege, if privilege it be, especially if 

 older foundations set an example of emphasizing this 

 portion of their work to the neglect either of sound prac- 

 tical teaching or the advancement of knowledge which 

 we regard as of still higher importance. 



Prof. Huxley, by his approval of the location of the new 

 Medical School side by side with Arts and Science Facul- 

 ties, has not only brought again to the front the miserable 

 condition of the majority of our Medical Schools, but has 

 called into question the whole policy of Colleges of Science 

 and Institutions for Technical Training. This part of his 

 speech is so important and so connected, and there is so 

 much to ponder over in it, that we give it entire : — 



" Your Faculty ol Arts speaks for itself ; the distinction 

 of many of its members, and the fact that they are authors 

 of works well known and esteemed all over lingland, and 

 wherever the English language is read, is sufficient to give 

 that Faculty a high position. It certainly would not 

 become me to speak of its operations as if I were a judge 

 of them in any way whatever ; but I may be allowed as a 

 person whose pursuits lie elsewhere, and who has the 

 misfortune to be accused sometimes of seeing no merit 

 and desert in anything but his own pursuits, to say 

 that I trust that the position of the Arts Faculty in this 

 institution will never by a hairbreadth or shadow be 

 diminished, but that a sound and thorough training in 

 literature and general knowledge will be regarded hence- 

 forward, as very properly it is now, as the essential foun- 

 dation in the intellectual life of every educated man ; and 

 let me say, to no person is such education and such training 

 of greater importance than to us who are called men of 

 science. Our occupations are very engrossing, and they 

 can be pursued with success only by the intensest stress 

 and attention, and we are obliged even to limit ourselves 

 to particular fractions and particular portions of our own 

 study if we are to make any advance therein ; and unless 

 we have the good fortune to be trained in early youth to 

 take a broad and general view of the interests of human 

 nature, unless our tastes are disciplined and refined, and 

 unless we are led to see that we are citizens and men 

 before anything else, I say it will go very hard indeed 

 with men of science in future generations, and they will 

 run the risk of becoming scientific pedants when they 

 should be men, philosophers, and citizens. Still less, if 

 possible, can I have anything to say respecting the Faculty 

 of Law, but as regards that of Science, by which, of course, 

 is understood physical science, I can only express my un- 



VoL. x.-No. 25S 



measured satisfaction at the complete — I may almost say 

 magnificent — arrangements provided for the teaching of 

 this subject in this institution. The laboratory of my 

 friend the Professor of Chemistry has, I take it, few 

 parallels ; and if the laboratory of my friend the Pro- 

 fessor of Physics is not so complete, I am sure it is 

 far better than nine-tenths of such laboratories, and 

 I am certain that those benefactions at which I was 

 looking just now will, before long, enable him to put his 

 establishment on the same footing as to completeness and 

 magnificence as that of his colleague of Chemistry. I 

 understand — indeed I know very well, knowing how much 

 my distinguished friend, Prof. Roscoe, has been in this 

 institution — that he had, I beheve, the advantage of being 

 on the spot when the building went on, and although I 

 am sure he is the last min to take any more than his own 

 share, somehow he has got a good deal. But now I come 

 to that which is my proper subject to-day, and that is our 

 Medical School. I have not seen in the course of my 

 experience — I say it deliberately — I have not met with 

 any more efficiently organised institution than you have 

 within the four walls of that Medical School. I have some 

 acquaintance with such institutions, and their interests, 

 and I undertake to say that you will not find better con- 

 structed appHances for the teaching of those branches of 

 science which relate to medicine than you will find in that 

 school. Everything has been very carefully considered, 

 and everything has been done which the idea of conveni- 

 ence could suggest, or which efficiency requires to have 

 carried out. Addressing myself now rather to the lay 

 portion of my audience, it may astonish many and puzzle 

 them somewhat to know why so elaborate an apparatus is 

 needed for the teaching of medicine, and why men require 

 to spend so long a period of arduous study in that most 

 important of pursuits. I believe this surprise arises from 

 the prevalence in the general mind of the notion which was 

 once exceedingly common in the philosophical mind, that 

 the human body in general is dependent upon forces and 

 powers which are altogether different from those we find 

 working in other kinds of matter. It is not 200 years since 

 the notion existed that the vital processes of the body 

 were subject to some demon, who kept the body straight, 

 I suppose when in good temper, and let it go wrong 

 when out of sorts ; and when it was gravely supposed 

 that there was a broad gulf between the phenomena 

 of inorganic nature and those of life. Now let me say 

 this, that the whole of our modern scientific study of 

 medicine depends upon precisely the contrary assumption 

 — upon the assumption that the living body is a mechanism 

 infinitely more refined, and infinitely more difficult to 

 understand, than our coarse human machinery, but still a 

 mechanism governed by rules and laws which can be dis- 

 covered and which can be applied and reasoned from, in 

 order to understand its processes. Modern medicine, in 

 fact, is a kind of engineering. It is the attempt to under- 

 stand the machinery of the body for the purpose of being 

 able to put it right when it goes wrong. I have seen in your 

 great factories in Manchester some of those astonishingly 

 complicated pieces of machinery which seem almost 

 endowed with life, by which the products which make 

 Manchester so famous are produced. Let me put before 

 you the case of the possessor of one of those machines, 

 who, finding that it has gone wrong and that it will not 

 work properly, finds himself, as Sir Robert Peel would 

 have said, with three courses open to him — either that he 

 might sit down and hope that it would get better, and 

 perhaps even offer up his prayers that it might get better; 

 or who should send to the nearest blacksmith and tell him 

 to bring his hammer and bottle of oil, and tap here, or oil 

 there, in the chance of setting the machine right ; or 

 should, thirdly, send for some skilled and experienced 

 mechanic who from long study and familiarity with it 

 would be able to judge by the mode of action where it was 

 wrong, and be able to put his finger on the part which 



