THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 25 



I should travel beyond the bounds of our Society if I tried to 

 ■show how, on the materials supplied by physicist and physiologist, 

 Herbert Spencer has sought to graft upon this basis a system of 

 ■psychology. 



But I do claim for the Victorian era these, the greatest, as I 

 have said, of generalisations, the doctrines of evolution and con- 

 servation of energy. 



But more noticeable, perhaps, than anything else during these 

 past 50 years has been the practical achievements of science. 

 Our scientists and natural philosophers have not been dreaming 

 mere idle dreams — living in a world of fancy far removed from 

 the world of action. Dreams there have been that for wondrous 

 imaginings and bold conceptions have soared beyond the poet's 

 piercing eye. But, lo ! these dreams of yesterday are the 

 actuaUties of to-day. The Greeks, in their best day of poetry, 

 were the most practical, and the poetry of the science of this 

 Victorian era has passed from intellectual imaging to be the work- 

 man of humanity. 



Do you remember that the railway from London to Liverpool 

 was not completed till nearly a year after the Queen's ascension ? 

 That man travelled no faster than perhaps Abraham or 

 Pharaoh did? That the first full-powered steamboat had not 

 crossed the Atlantic ? That it took a letter days to go from 

 London to Aberdeen, and at a cost of is. 3i-d? In the early 

 3'ears of the reign, Wheatstone, and Cooke, and Morse were just 

 bringing out their patents for "giving signals and sounding alarms 

 in distant places by means of electric currents transmitted through 

 metallic circuit." 



Think of the vast system of railway communication that has 

 sprung up, covering with iron network almost every land ; of the 

 fleets of mighty steamers ploughing every ocean, and bringing 

 together the ends of the earth — travel changed from a painful 

 weariness to a luxurious pleasure Think of the telegraph wires, 

 passing over mighty mountains, through fertile valleys, knitting, 

 in a great embrace, classic lands and modern countries ; diving 

 into the hidden depths of mysterious seas ; circling the world 

 q 'ick as Ariel's girdle — all the product of the scientific thought 

 aiid industry of the last half century. 



Picture, if you can, the ill-drained, ill-ventilated towns and cities, 

 houses cursed with darkness, for a sapient Government had 

 taxed the windows — the first principles of hygiene hardly 

 formulated. 



In surgery, anesthetics unknown, for I well remember one of 

 the leading surgeons of the North of England performing his first 

 operation by the aid of what was then known as "Formic acid." 



