ADDRESS. 
XXXVIJ 
amongst our brethren in tlie United Sutes to make this discovery,—a dis- 
covery which will long place the name of Dr. Charles J. Jackson, its author, 
among the benefactors of our common nature. 
At the same time, much careful observation on the nutdiu ojterandi of this 
most singular agent seems still requisite before u general, systematic, safe, 
and successful application of it can be established for the relief of our 8ufrer> 
mg nature. So great, however, is die number of welJ>recordvd iustances of 
its having saved the patient from the pain of a surgical operation without 
any ill effect in reference to his subsequent recovery, as to make the subject 
of the influence of the vapour of ether upon the nervous system, and the 
moditicadoa of that influence on different temperaments, one eminently de¬ 
serving the attention of the Physiological Section of the Britisli Association. 
With regard to the functions of the primary division and jrartsof the bruin 
iteelf, there has been of late a happy tendency to substitute observations on 
the modifications of those parts in the series of tlie lower animals in the place 
of experimental mutilations on a single species, in reference to the advance¬ 
ment of cerebral physiology. Experiment is, no doubt, in aotne instances, 
indispensable: but we ought ever to rejoice when the sanu? end is attained 
by comparative anatomy rather than by experimental vivisections; and every 
true philosopher will concur with my most eminent friend, Professor Owen, 
in bis doubt (I quote his own words), “whether nature ever answers so truly 
when put to the torture as she docs when speaking volunmrily through her 
own experiments, if we may so call the ablation and addition of parts which 
comparative anatomy ofters to our contemplation*.” 
I was always struck with that passage in the ‘Life of Sir W. Jones,’ in 
wmcJi that great man, who unitedso many claims to the admiration of man- 
m , declined to accept the ofler of a friend to collect, and in collecting to 
put to death, a number of insects in the Eastern Islands, to be iransniittcd to 
aicutta. He did not, of course, deny the value and importance, and, in 
one sense, the necessity, of forming such collections: but he limited the 
right of possessing them to those who could use them ; and he would not 
lave one of those, the wonders of God’s animal world, put to death for the 
mere gratification of his own unscientific curiosity. I Ic quotes the lines of 
rerdusi, for which Saadi invokes a blessing on his spirit, and the last of 
w ich contains all my own morality in respect of the lower animals,— 
0 spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain : 
He lives with pleasure, and lie dies with pain. 
1 am aware that the doctrine assumed in thn fival line of the couplet in refer¬ 
ence to the particular insect is denied by some naturalists; and that the fact 
assumed in the last line, in reference to the lower animals, is denied by others, 
atever be the trutlt as to the first point, I liave no more doubt than I have 
my own existence that some of the lower animals leel severe pain: and 
our immortal Shaksjioare as to the corporal sufferance 
o t e beetle trod upon be not literally accurate—yet who is entitled to affirm 
e contrary ?._thi8j 1 think, is clear, that tlie child who is indulgi-J in mu- 
I ating or killing an insect for his own pleasure has learnt the first lesson of 
inhumanity to his own species. 
to the principle on which true results may be ob¬ 
tained from the ob^rved variations of organs in the animal scries, it is in 
w first place essential (( speak on the atuhority of Professor Owen, and, 
of course, not on my own) to determine the parts which truly answer to 
.Q... * Hunterian Lectures, Vertebrata, p. 187- 
