PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS SECTION I. 
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endowed with life, a conscious mentality, and a moral sense invested 
with some freedom of will. In all this it may differ only in degree 
from the oracular and the scholastic, hut in its method of dealing with 
this complexity it stands alone. 
Take first the physical framework. This man is found to share 
with the material universe. By it he is brought under the iron heel 
of material law ; transgression has for him the same consequence as 
for other non-human combinations of matter. A first necessity of his 
well-being thus becomes obedience to physical law. The vitaleudow- 
ment may, of course, introduce new complications with which, however, 
science cannot deal, but the resultant life, as we know it. is in some 
inscrutable way bound up with matter, and its well-being is markedly 
influenced by material agencies. To every vital act, indeed, there is 
a material' setting; and it is with these material concomitants that 
science is fundamentally concerned. One thing at least, however, the 
vital endowment is responsible for — it brings us into relationships of 
the highest importance with the universe of life around, and binds us 
man to man, man to plant and animal, and man to germ. 
Similarly in the eyes of science the mental and moral are matters 
of development, and do not at once appear fully formed, as Athena is 
fabled to have sprung from the brain of Zeus. And whatever their 
origin, they too are so interwoven and bound up with material con- 
ditions, that for practical purposes their manifestations may he 
expressed in terms of material equations. The physical, indeed, 
reacts upon the mental and moral, just as they in turn react down- 
ward on the physical, and there is a material concomitant and even 
basis for thought and conduct, material causes for mental and moral 
disease, and material factors in mental and moral health. Nor does 
science seem to me to deny the possession by the individual of some 
inherent determining power whereby he can originate as well as 
respond. But, as a factor in life, this freedom of the will (however 
tremendous the results which theology rightly or wrongly traces to its 
abuse) ranks rather with the epicycles of the old Ptolemaic astronomy 
little wheels attached to and moved with much larger wheels, and 
capable of independent movement only within certain narrow limits. 
Intentional disregard of the laws of health, apart altogether from 
material. causes, remains thus a causative agent, but increasing 
observation seems to be ever lessening the area of its operations. 
Such, 1 venture to think, fairly represents the present scientific 
conception of man. The definition prepares us for the mode of 
intervention. Health must he in the first place very largely a matter 
of inheritance. It is worse than useless- — it becomes contrary to 
natural law to expect healthy offspring and yet disregard 
heredity. So far, of course, as mind and soul are concerned, 
apart from the physical basis, it is impossible, scientifically, to say 
whether there is or can be any such thing as inherited defect or excess, 
bar different, however, is it with the living physical basis. We can, 
within limits, compute the size of a molecule ; we can calculate the 
number of such molecules in a living cell, and thus, as Weismann has 
shown, frame a mechanical plan of heredity capable of explaining most, 
if not all the phenomena of inheritance. It is no longer a question 
of egg from egg,” or even “ cell from cell,” but “ molecule from 
molecule.” 
