410 EEroitT — 1879. 



before the close of the present century, the discriminating knowledge which alone 

 prevents gifts of money from heing a curse instead of a blessing to a community, 

 may lead to the establishment of libraries, and museums, and laboratories by 

 universities and towns, which shall bear comparison, I will not say with those of 

 Paris, or Leipzic, or Bonn, but with the poorer but scarcely less distinguished 

 schools of Heidelburg and Gottingen, of Wurzberg and of Utrecht? 



Here and there we have institutions already under Government control and 

 patronage. Let them be maintained as efficiently and liberally as possible. The 

 British Museum and its Library, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew (happily preserved for the present from the short-sighted eagerness 

 of those who would destroy their scientific value), these are great national insti- 

 tutions of which we are justly proud. Successive Governments will have enough 

 to do to maintain their efficiency and to guard them from incompetent interference. 



Whatever may be thought of the duty of the State directly to encourage the 

 pursuit of Animal and Vegetable Physiology, one would have supposed that at least 

 what diplomatists call a benevolent neutrality would be shown to a pursuit so 

 laborious and costly, which demands trained workmen and the devotion of a life- 

 time, which is so important for the national wealth and health, and which, by 

 reason, by experience, and by testimony, we know to be the only guarantee for 

 advance in the various branches of the healing art. Why is it then that institutions 

 which owe nothing to government assistance, and men who spend their time and 

 talents in self-denying and unremunerative service for the public good, are not 

 suffered to pursue their beneficent work in peace? You know that certain persons 

 who profess to be shocked by the methods of physiological research have suc- 

 ceeded in placing this branch of science under as great disabilities as that sense 

 of humour would allow which so often redeems British ignorance from its most 

 mischievous results. 



The method that has given rise to so much excitement is the performance of 

 experiments upon living animals. Now, if this were injurious to the greatest good 

 of the greatest number of the community, or if freedom to perform these experi 

 ments interfered with tha freedom of other persons to abstain from them, or if such 

 experiments were forbidden by any religious or moral authority, by the Ten Com- 

 mandments or by Mr. Matthew Arnold, of course they must be given up ; but 

 equally, of course, the science of Physiology must also come to a stop, and the 

 farmer, the cattle-breeder, and the physician must be content with such knowledge 

 or such ignorance as he at present possesses. I know it has been asserted that the 

 science of the functions of living organs is quite independent of experiment upon 

 living organs. But this is said by the same persons who have denied that the 

 art of setting right the functions of the body when they go wrong has anything to 

 do with the knowledge of what those functions are. 



If you could be persuaded that Chemistry can make progress without retorts and 

 balances, that a geologist's hammer is a useless incumbrance, or that engineers can 

 build bridges just as well by the rule of thumb as by the knowledge gained in a 

 workshop, then you might believe that Physiology also is independent of experi- 

 ment. 



It is absurd to object to the difficulties of the research or even the contradictory 

 results sometimes obtained. The functions of a muscle or a gland are more com- 

 plicated than those of water or gas, and their investigation needs greater skill, more 

 caution, and more frequent repetition. Imperfect experiments can lead to nothing 

 but error ; criticism from other physiologists, or from scientific men experienced in 

 other branches of research, is not wanting and is always valuable. But vague 

 assertion that further progress is impossible by the very means which have led to 

 all our present knowledge, coming from those ' who are not of our school ' — or any 

 school, is undeserving of serious notice. 



The real contention of course is a moral one, that we ought to relinquish the 

 advantage of all experiments which are accompanied with pain to the creature 

 experimented on. The botanist may serve his plants as he pleases, and even the 

 animal physiologist may cut, or starve, or poison all sentient organisms which 

 happen not to possess a backbone, and he may try experiments with all backboned 



