PUKSIDKNTIAL ADUUKSS — H AR RIS. XXxix 



merits were held by men who were tUreacly resp.-ctahle 

 for they were already elergymeii. In the Army and Navy, 

 whatever else he was, lie was brave; but lie left any seience 

 which those services required to those far beneath him, 

 to those who were specially paid to bother about "beastly" 

 technical details. 



As regards the practice of Medicine, an applied science, 

 he held exactly the same view as the ancient Roman who 

 said that that was an occupation quite unworthy of a gentle- 

 man. But to do him justice, had this typical Englishman 

 desired the profession of pure science, there was none for 

 him to follow. The only professions he knew of were occu- 

 pations descended from a remote antiquity — the church, 

 fighting or the law — with all the prestige and privileges 

 appertaining to things of such ancient lineage. I remember 

 well, when, in the early nineties, I once filled up a form under 

 the heading "Profession" with _the word "physiologist," 

 my father exclaiming, "But that's^not a profession". He 

 was perfectly right from his mid- Victorian point of view; 

 it was not a profession in the sense that the Church, the 

 Services and the Law are professions. Where were the 

 ancient privileges, the social recognition, the pension-; or 

 fees for physiologists? Nowhere at that date, save as 

 subjective potentialities. There was a day when it was 

 true that the world had no need of physiologists. I was 

 told the aljsolute truth when I was once informed that as 

 far as my occupation was concerned with social recognition, 

 I might just as well have been a hangman. 



Science had not yet comejnto her own. 



No doubt Governments have officially recognized such 

 a science as Astronomy in the appointment of an Astronomer- 

 Royal because of the enormous importance Astronomy has 

 in its relations to navigation so especially important for 

 a seafaring nation as the English have always been. 



