538 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION 1. 
he can produce works of which the beauty and consistency appeal to all 
educated human minds capable of appreciation. Similarly, the conventions of 
natural science, properly understood, appeal to the imagination of the scientist, 
call forth new ideas to his mind, and suggest fresh experiments to test those 
ideas; or, a chance empirical observation of an experimental nature, which 
without theory and scientific imagination would remain isolated and _ sterile, 
placed in relationship to the rest of the scheme of science, awakens thought, 
and may lead to a fresh departure and a long train of important discoveries. 
It was this correlation of the imagination with experimentation and the 
tracing out of relationship from point to point so as to develop the evolution 
of phenomena that characterised the science of medicine when new-born about 
seventy years ago, and differentiated it from the older nosological medicine in 
which imagination and experimentation, while both existing, seemed to possess 
independent existences and pay little regard the one to the other. 
It seems well-nigh forgotten nowadays by the majority of people that 
science and religion originally began together from a common thirst for know- 
ledge, and usually in the same type of mind endowed with a divine curiosity 
to know more of the origin and nature of things. 
Every great religion worthy of the name contains some account of the natural 
history and creation of the world, in addition to its metaphysical aspects, and 
reflects the degree of knowledge of natural science possessed by the nation in 
which it arose at the time of its birth. 
The fundamental error throughout the ages of human conceptions both in 
science and religion was that of a non-progressive world to which a stereotyped 
religion, or science, could be adapted for all time. Perfection was imaged 
where perfection, we are now happy to realise, was impossible, and, believing in 
this imaginary perfection and that all things new deviating from it were damn- 
able, men were prepared to burn one another at the stake rather than allow error 
to creep into the world in either science or religion. Thus there have been 
martyrs for the scientific conscience just as for religious belief, and at this 
distance in time we can perhaps better understand both inquisitor and martyr 
and realise that both were fighting for great ideals. 
Evolution has taught us that as knowledge broadens we must be prepared 
to have wider vision and abandon old theories and beliefs in the new-born light 
that makes the world better to-day than it was yesterday, and that also will 
show things up to our mental vision more clearly to-morrow than they stand 
out to-day. To the members of any great craft, or profession, or religious order, 
this scientific outlook, which accepts as fundamental a progressive world and 
insists that its votaries should adapt their lives to such a doctrine, is peculiarly 
difficult of assimilation. Routine fixes all men, and so when any new discovery 
appears to demand change from that order to which the mind has become 
accustomed, it is immediately looked upon with suspicion, and there being little 
plasticity of mind remaining, it is rejected as heretical or revolutionary after 
but scanty critical examination. The cry of the craft in danger has been used 
efficaciously on many occasions since the days of the Ephesian silversmiths, 
nor is such a cry at once to be set down to pure selfishness. A craft is often 
worth preserving long after the forces which have called it into being have 
commenced to slumber, and conservatism of this type is at times an important 
factor in social progress. However, there are certain limits which must not 
be surpassed, room must be made by adaptation for the new knowledge, or it will 
establish a craft of its own iconoclastic to much worth preserving in the older 
system. 
: It is important to insist upon these limitations, because a too reactionary 
spirit abroad in medicine between 1860 and 1880 prevented the world from 
benefiting from those remarkable discoveries by Pasteur and their proposed 
applications by Lister, which laid the foundations of modern medicine and 
modern surgery. These pioneers of the new age in medical science had to wage 
for many years a stern and bitter fight against the strong forces of ignorance 
and prejudice. But for this illogical resistance by men who would not even 
test the new discoveries, and instead spent their time in sneering at the new 
geniuses who had leadership to give the world, France and Germany would 
have been saved many thousands of brave lives in the great war of 1870-71. 
