TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 149 



work. To serve as a groundwork, M-e must admit that physiology and anatomy 

 are not adapted. 



The corner-stone must, of course, be mathematics. Side by side with mathe- 

 matics the subjects which ought to chaini preference are physics and chemistry. 

 The latter, when taught and studied experimentally, is specially fitted to cultivate 

 that certainty, that convincedness of mind, that clear realization of facts seen not 

 by the bodily but by the intellectual eye, which constitute the scientific spirit. 

 A boy who has learnt to feel the certainty of the laws of chemical combination 

 can never, so long as he retains his mental soundness, relapse into that state of 

 vague indifference about facts which characterizes many imeducated persons, or 

 lose the habit of exactitude of conception and statement to which he is compelled 

 by practice in chemical reasoning. 



It is clear that anatomy and physiology cannot be recommended on the same 

 ground ; yet I believe that it may be wisely included in ordinary education, not as 

 a discipline, and not as a subject of examination, but on tlie ground that it is so 

 usefully applicable to the common affairs of life. It is imdoubtedly useful that 

 every one should know something of the structure and functions of his own body ; 

 and this for several reasons : first, because he is enabled thereby to take better care 

 of himself, and to understand how to preserve himself by reasonable precautions 

 against some of tlie well-recognized causes of disease. Another reason is, he is 

 thereby rendered not so liable as he would otherwise be to become the dupe of the 

 many quackeries which are afloat — more ready to take the advice of the doctor as 

 regards the regulation of his mode of life, less credulous about the efHcacy of drugs. 

 Let us now, in conclusion, say one word as to the influences which the general 

 adoption of a sj-stem based upon scientific training would exercise on scientific pro- 

 gress, and particularly on the progress of the science in which we are interested. 



I can illustrate this best by taking the medical student as an example. We 

 teachers of physiology to medical students know that when we begin first to talk 

 to them about the principles of the subject (e. (/. about chemical change as the 

 essential condition of all vital phenomena, about the relation between the pro- 

 duction of heat and external motion, about the exchange of gases in respiration, 

 and many other fundamental subjects) the great difficulty is that our auditors are 

 utterly at fault for want of those conceptions about matter and its powers which 

 are expressed by the words we are constantly using, such as solid, liquid, gas, 

 vapour, weight, density, volume, &c.,allof which to the average finished schoolboy 

 are perfectly meaningless. The rssult is that these fundamental conceptions, not 

 having been mastered at first, are not mastered at all, and the student begins to build 

 the superstructure without having had any opportunity of laying the foundation. 

 If the Vorhilduiuj were different, if students were to come to their work with the 

 scientific habit of mind already formed, it would not only make tliem better 

 students, but would retain its influence on them through life. The details might 

 fade from the memory, but the spirit would remain. 



I trust that it will not appear to the members of the iSection that I have, in any 

 of the observations I have made, forgotten that the object for which we are 

 assembled here is the promotion of the science of anatomj' and physiology. 

 Although I cannot claim for our science a more direct interest in scientific training 

 than for others, there are reasons (as I have endeavoured to show) why it suffers 

 more from the want of it than others — the chief one being that, as compared 

 with what we feel and know to be its real importance to the future welfare 

 of humanity, the practical benefits which immediately arise from it are not -Ncry 

 obvious. 



I have said very little indeed of another pressing difficulty which we have now 

 and, I believe, will have for many years to contend with — the want of pecuniaiy 

 resources ; because I know that in this country if educated public opinion can be 

 interested on behalf of any scientific object, and particularly if the intelligent 

 classes of the community can be shown, on good ground, that the furtlierance of 

 abstract science is a matter of vital importance to our national existence, the 

 really trifling public expenditure which would be required to enable us to compete 

 at least on equal terms with Germany, Austria, Bavaria, and Russia will at once be 

 forthcoming. 



