anatomy and physiology. 
649 
sities, and in one or two of the provincial schools, great efforts 
are being made to provide adequate buildings and appliances 
for the experimental teaching and study of physiology. It is, 
I think, a most encouraging sign of the times that, in this 
progressive movement, the initiative has been taken by Trinity 
College, Cambridge. That wealthy corporation, the name of 
which brings to our recollection the intellectual glories of 
our country, has provided for physiologists a place for study 
and labour, from which (short though the time is for which 
it has existed) three valuable researches have already sprung. 
To what the University of London has done within the 
past twelve months in establishing a laboratory for inquiries 
in one branch of physiology, that which relates to the origin 
and nature of disease, it is scarcely possible for me to refer, 
excepting so far as to express my hope that its influence will 
eventually be felt in strengthening the hold of physiology on 
practical medicine. Notwithstanding all these efforts, it will 
take years for us to regain the position we ought to maintain. 
The appliances and places for work have been obtained, 
and this is a great step forwards. But we still want the 
pecuniary resources which are necessary for the carrying out 
of systematic and continuous researches, and above all, we 
have still to educate workers. Of the two wants I have 
mentioned, the want of money and the want of workers, the 
latter is the most important. The difficulties which lie in 
our way in this respect are very great indeed. The obvious 
difficulty—the objection, I mean—which is always advanced 
by young men as a reason for not giving up their time to 
scientific research is, that it does not pay. But it need 
scarcely he said that the real difficulty is a more general one. 
It lies in the practical tendency of the national mind, which 
leads us Englishmen to underrate or depreciate any kind of 
knowledge which does not minister directly to personal 
comfort or advantage—a tendency which was embodied in 
the philosophy of Bacon, and has been thought by some to 
constitute its weakness. I have no doubt there are many in 
England who would not he deterred by the prospect of com¬ 
parative poverty, which in every country must be the part of 
those who devote themselves to abstract science, but very few 
who have the courage and resolution to follow this course in 
spite of a public opinion which estimates science on utilitarian 
principles. This leads me naturally to my second point, 
which is, that the most efficient means we can take to 
improve the position of our science in England are those 
which have for their object the enlightenment of public 
opinion, and that this is to be effected partly by diffusing in- 
