THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OF LIVING 
BEINGS. 
Puysics, chemistry, and physiology, are making marvel- 
ous advances in our day, in their superficial range; but it 
is, perhaps, not so clearly remarked that they are at the 
same time rising in their aims and aspirations. In propor- 
tion as processes improve and doctrines grow established, 
Science takes fresh courage to attack lofty problems with 
new vigor, and boasts of bringing light and certainty to 
their solution. It takes up by exact methods and with 
very confident system the discussion of the most general 
and comprehensive questions. Owning no longer any 
limits to its investigation of the world of suns nor to its 
researches in the world of atoms; believing, too, that this 
twofold quest must yield up to it all the hidden things of 
matter and of spirit, no wonder that it is confident in its 
power to win by such inquiry the knowledge of all that 
has seemed hitherto a prize reserved to other capacities 
than its own. Whether warranted or unwarranted, this 
philosophic bent of modern science is in either case due to 
the influence of a multitude of discoveries full of interest in 
spite of their commonly abstract nature, full of rich instruc- 
tion beneath the seeming barrenness of their details. 
If every one carries about with him certain notions as 
to the conformation of the chief viscera of animals, few per- 
sons, even among the most enlightened, have a suspicion 
of the absorbing interest and the scope of our knowledge 
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