at Home and A broad. 
1877.] 
107 
pure chemical science of which the nation is so justly 
proud. 
We have advanced, in the foregoing pages, our conviction 
that in Physiology and its Chemistry there is a necessity for 
reform, and have substantiated our view by faCts. We have 
shown that, here and there, men have lost sight of those 
ruling principles underlying all science, and have plunged 
blindly into the mazes of uncerebrated research, the con- 
flicting results of which have reduced them to a compromise 
between their intellect and their honour. In pursuing re- 
search we must ever bear in mind the ultimate objeCt of 
physiological chemistry, and the means by which this objeCt 
may be attained. 
Liebig assumed the existence of a vital force, powerful 
to develope from the seed the plant, and from the egg the 
bird ; but he yet acknowledged, above all men, that the 
aCtual processes of life, with all their complications of 
function, were based upon the same laws which exist be- 
tween matter and force in the chemist’s laboratory. We 
cannot therefore but regard those who hold the opinion that 
there is something in life which renders negative all our 
conclusions drawn from laboratory experiments, and nullifies 
all our hypotheses of functions, as men who fail to grasp 
thoroughly the conditions upon which life depends. 
The objeCt of physiological chemistry, then, is the reduc- 
tion to general laws of those phenomena which, in their 
multifarious co-relations, constitute the functions of life, in 
health and disease. To prosecute this study with hope of 
success it is essential that we should first become acquainted 
with the composition and constitution of those substances 
which are elaborated in the various tissues, organs, and 
fluids of the living body, and of which these are themselves 
constituted. It is only by means of such knowledge that 
we can be enabled to trace out the intricate concatenations 
of the various parts of the animal body, and of those meta- 
morphoses which are constantly in process in the living 
laboratory. 
From this it will be seen that the method in the study of 
Pathology is necessarily of the same order as that employed 
in Physiology, and the results of these parallel investiga- 
tions appear as the expressions of health and disease. 
In drawing towards the close of our Essay we admit that 
in the Science of Physiological Chemistry there are pending 
matters for research which might fairly be undertaken by 
men of ordinary attainments, at very little expense ; but 
