6o4 



NA TURE 



[OcTOBKR 2 2, 1 J 



has taken place, has resuUtd from the direct, immediate applica- 

 tion to the bedside of laboratory work, or tliat I wish to use 

 this to exalt the physiological horn. 1 would desire to lake a 

 higher and broader standpoint, namely this, that the close 

 relations and mutual interdependence of laboratory physiology 

 and that bedside physiology, wliich we sometimes call [latho- 

 logy, and the necessity of both for the medical art, are nowhere 

 more clearly shown than by the history t)f our recent advance in 

 a knowledge of the nervous system as a whole. In this, when 

 we strive to follow out the genesis of the new truths, it is 

 almost impossible to trace out that which has come from the 

 laboratory and that from the hospital ward, so closely have the 

 two worked together ; an idea started at the bedside has again 

 and again been extended, shaped or corrected by experimental 

 results, and been brought back in increased fruitfidness to the 

 bedside. On the other hand, a new observation, which, had 

 it been confined to the laboratory, would have remained barren 

 and without result, has no less often proved in the hands of the 

 physician the key to clinical problems, the unlocking of which 

 has in turn opened U]) new physiological ideas. 



And, though the scope of these Huxley lectures is to deal 

 with the relations of the sciences to the medical art, I shall, I 

 trust, be pardoned if I turn aside to point out that this swelling 

 knowledge of how- nerve-cell and nerve-fibre play their parts in 

 bringing about the complex work done by man's nervous system, 

 is not narrowed to the relief of those sufferings which come to 

 humanity in the sick room. Mankind suffers, much more deeply, 

 much more widely, through misdirected activities of the nervous 

 system, the meddling with which lies outside the immediate 

 calling of the doctor. Vet every doctor, I may say every 

 thoughtful man, cannot but recognise that the distinction 

 between a so-called physical and a so-called moral cause is often 

 a shadowy and indistinct one, and that certainly so-called moral 

 results are often the outcome, more or less direct, of so-called 

 physical events. I venture to say that he who realises how strong 

 a grip the physiologist and the physician, working hand in hand, 

 are laying on the secret workings of the nervous system, who 

 realises how step by step the two are seeing their way to 

 understand the chain of events issuing in that .sheaf of nervous 

 impulses which is the instrument of what we call a voluntary 

 act, mu.st have hopes that that knowledge will ere long give 

 man power over the issue of those impulses, to an extent of 

 which we have at present no idea. Not the mere mending of 

 a broken brain, but the education, development and guidance 

 of cerebral powers, by the light of a knowledge of cerebral 

 processes, is the office in the — we hope — not far future of the 

 physiology of the times to come. 



I might bring before you other illustrations of the theme 

 which I have in hand. I could, 1 think, .show you that the 

 very greatest of all recent advances in our art, that liased 

 on our knowledge of the ways and works of minute organisms, 

 has come about because several independent gains of science 

 met, in the fulness of time, and linked themselves together. 

 But my time is spent. 



I should be very loth, however, and you, I am sure, would 

 not wish that I should end this first Huxley lecture, without 

 some word as to what the great man, whose name the lectures 

 bear, had to do with the progress, on some jioints of which I 

 have touched. He had an influence, I think a very great 

 one, upon that progress, though his influence, as is natural, 

 bore most on the progress in this country. 



The condition and prospects of physiology in great Britain 

 at the present moment are, I venture to think, save and ex- 

 cept the needless bonds which the legislature has placed upon 

 it, better and brighter than they ever have been before. At 

 one lime, perhaps, it might have l)een said that physiology 

 was for the most part being made in Germany ; for, in spile 

 of the fact that some of the greatest and most pregnant ideas 

 in physiology have sprung from the English brain, it must 

 be confessed that in the more ordinary researches the output 

 in England has at limes lun been commensurate with her 

 activities of other kinds. But that cannot be said now. The 

 English physiological work of to-day is, both in quantity and 

 quality, at lea.sl equal to that of other nations, having respect 

 to English resources and opportunities. Part of this is prob- 

 ably due to that activity which is the natural response lo the 

 stimulus of obstacles ; the whip of the antivivisectionists has 

 defeated its own end. But it is also in part due to the influence 

 of Huxley. 



That influence was two-fold, direct and indirect. I need not 



NO. 1408, VOL. 54] 



remin<l you that nol only when he .sal on the benches of 

 Charing Cross Hospital, but all his life-long afterwards, Huxley 

 was at heart a jihysiologist. Physiology, the l)eauly of which 

 Wharton Jones made known to him, was his first love. That 

 .Morphology, which circum.stances led him to espouse, was but 

 a second love; and though his aftection for it grew with long- 

 continued daily comnuinicm, and he proved a faithful hu.sband, 

 devoting himself with steadfast energy to her to whom he had 

 been joined, his hearl went back again, and especially in the 

 early days, lo the love which was nol to be his. What he did 

 for morphology may perhaps give us a measure of what he 

 might have done for physiology, had liis early hopes been 

 realised. .As it was, he could show his leanings chiefly by 

 helping those who were following the career denied to himself. 

 Unable to put his own hand to the plough, he was ever re.idy 

 lo help others, whom fate had brought to that plough, especially 

 us younger ones, to keep the furrow straight. .\nd if I venture 

 lo say that the little which he who is now speaking to you has 

 been able to do, is chiefly the result of Huxley's influence and 

 help, it is because that only illustrates what he was doing at 

 many times and in many ways. 



His indirect influence was perhajjs greater even than his 

 direct. 



The man of science, conscious of his own strength, or rather 

 of the strength of that of which he is the instrument, is loo 

 often apt to underrate the weight and importance of public 

 opinion, of that which the world at large thinks of his work 

 and ways. Huxley, who had in him the making of a sagacious 

 statesman, never fell into this mistake. Though he felt as 

 keenly as any one the worthlessness of jioindar judgment upon 

 the value of any one scientific achievement, or as to the right 

 or wrong of any one scientific. utterance, he recogni.sed the im- 

 portance of securing towards science and scientific efforts in 

 general a right attitude of that popular opinion which is, after 

 all, the ultiiTiate appeal in all mundane affairs. 



And much of his activity was directed to this end. The time 

 which seemed to some wasted, he looked upon as well spent, 

 when it was used for the purpose of making the people at large 

 understand the worth and reach of science. No part of science 

 did he more constantly and fervently preach lo the common 

 folk, than that jiart which we call physiology. His little work 

 on physiology was written with this view, among others, that 

 by helping to spread a sound knowledge of what physiology 

 was, among the young of all classes, he was preparing the way 

 for a just appreciation among the |niblic of what were the aims 

 of physiology, and how necessary was the due encouragement 

 of it. 



And if, as I believe to be the case, physiology stands far 

 higher in public opinion, and if its just ambitions are more 

 clearly ajipreciated than they were fifty years ago, that is in 

 large measure due to liuxley's words and acts. I have not 

 forgotten that he was one of a Commission whose labours issued 

 in the forging of those chains to which I have referred : but 

 knowing soinelhing of Commissions, and bearing in mind what 

 were the views of men of high influence and position at that 

 time, I Ireni'ole to think of what might have been the fate of 

 physiology if a wise hand had not made the best of adverse 

 things. 



One aspect of Huxley's relations to science deserves, perhaps, 

 special comment. On nothing did he insist, perhaps, more 

 strongly than on the conception that great as are the material 

 benefits which accrue from science, greater still is the intellectual 

 and moral good which it brings to man ; and part of his zeal for 

 phj-siology was based on the conviction that great as is the help 

 which, as the basis of the knowledge of disease, and its appli- 

 cations to the healing art, it offers to suflering humanity in its 

 pains and ills, still greater is the promise which it gives of clear- 

 ing U]) the dark problems of human nature, and laying down 

 rules for human conduct. No token, in these present days, is 

 more striking or more mournful than that note of pessimism 

 which is sounded by so many men of letters, in our own land, no 

 less than in others, who, knowing nothing of, take no heed of 

 the ways and aims of science. Cast adrift from old moorings, 

 such men toss about in darkness on the waves of despair. Theie 

 was no such note from Huxley. He had marked the limits of 

 human knowledge, and had been led to doubt things about which 

 other men are sure, but he never doubted in the worth and 

 growing power of science, and, with a justified optimism, looked 

 forward with confident hope to its Ijeing man's help and guide in 

 the days to come. 



