EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
89 
teachers of physical science, that the whole of nature is full 
of design and of intelligent actions produced bv agents in 
themselves unintelligent. What, in fact, in its widest accep¬ 
tation, is law but the operation of the Divine will so con¬ 
trolling the forces of the universe as to produce a pre-ordained, 
specific, and intelligible result ? No writer that I know of 
has set forth this great principle more forcibly than our great 
exemplar, Harvey, who is at pains to show that the common 
elements of matter, and the forces connected with them—air, 
water, fire, the ocean, the very winds which waft navies to 
either India, nay even round the globe, and often by opposite 
courses—are, as he so eloquently expresses it, subservient to 
the will of the Supreme, Intelligent, and Eternal God, thereby 
surpassing their own powers, and producing that exquisite 
order, harmony, and design, which are evinced as plainly on 
the globe we inhabit as in the most elaborate and perfect 
animal.” 
Another, in language equally as eloquent, has said that the 
science of medicine— 
“consists in the application of a knowledge of life, and of 
the influences of matter upon life. If they began to study 
the nature, or rather the phenomena and laws, of life in man 
alone, they were soon irresistibly attracted to extend their 
observation to other creatures. As they proceeded in this 
study, the beauty and order and correlation of the organic 
and inorganic worlds opened more and more upon them ; 
their knowledge of each animal or plant became more perfect 
and luminous through the constantly multiplying beams of 
intelligence reflected at every step. This prominent position 
amongst the students of nature brought the medical profes¬ 
sion into the most friendly relations with the learned of all 
countries. And let no statesman or ruler of men undervalue 
the political power of the students of nature. Calm and 
secure in the armoury of truth, independent and great¬ 
hearted from the habit of free inquiry, beneficent from the 
contemplation of the proofs of the goodness of God, science 
was ever working peace and goodwill amongst men. 
Tyranny might control the press, blotting out the truth it 
feared, and publishing congenial falsehood. Science it could 
not control. Here, even in the most despotic countries, the 
human mind found healthy exercise. In all the ages of iron, 
when men had been held in political thraldom at home, and 
kept in savage enmity with their fellow-men abroad, the holy 
oil of science had ever tended to smooth the hardships of 
