I think it is one of the grandest features of Biology, that it occupies
this central position in human knowledge. There is no side of the human
mind which physiological study leaves uncultivated. Connected by
innumerable ties with abstract science, Physiology is yet in the most
intimate relation with humanity; and by teaching us that law and order,
and a definite scheme of development, regulate even the strangest and
wildest manifestations of individual life, she prepares the student to
look for a goal even amidst the erratic wanderings of mankind, and to
believe that history offers something more than an entertaining chaos--a
journal of a toilsome, tragi-comic march nowhither.
The preceding considerations have, I hope, served to indicate the
replies which befit the two first of the questions which I set before
you at starting, viz. what is the range and position of Physiological
Science as a branch of knowledge, and what is its value as a means of
mental discipline?
Its _subject-matter_ is a large moiety of the universe--its _position_
is midway between the physico-chemical and the social sciences. Its
_value_ as a branch of discipline is partly that which it has in common
with all sciences--the training and strengthening of common sense;
partly that which is more peculiar to itself--the great exercise which
it affords to the faculties of observation and comparison; and I may
add, the _exactness_ of knowledge which it requires on the part of those
among its votaries who desire to extend its boundaries.
If what has been said as to the position and scope of Biology be
correct, our third question--what is the practical value of
physiological instruction?--might, one would think, be left to answer
itself.
On other grounds even, were mankind deserving of the title "rational,"
which they arrogate to themselves, there can be no question that they
would consider as the most necessary of all branches of instruction for
themselves and for their children--that which professes to acquaint them
with the conditions of the existence they prize so highly--which teaches
them how to avoid disease and to cherish health, in themselves and those
who are dear to them.
I am addressing, I imagine, an audience of educated persons; and yet I
dare venture to assert, that with the exception of those of my hearers
who may chance to have received a medical education, there is not one
who could tell me what is the meaning and use of an act which he
performs a score of times every minute, and whose suspension would
involve his immediate death;--I mean the act of breathing--or who could
state in precise terms why it is that a confined atmosphere is injurious
to health.
The _Practical value_ of Physiological knowledge! Why is it that
educated men can be found to maintain that a slaughter-house in the
midst of a great city is rather a good thing than otherwise?--that
mothers persist in exposing the largest possible amount of surface of
their children to the cold, by the absurd style of dress they adopt, and
then marvel at the peculiar dispensation of Providence, which removes
their infants by bronchitis and gastric fever? Why is it that quackery
rides rampant over the land; and that not long ago, one of the largest
public rooms in this great city could be filled by an audience gravely
listening to the reverend expositor of the doctrine--that the simple
physiological phenomena known as spirit-rapping, table-turning,
phreno-magnetism, and by I know not what other absurd and inappropriate
names, are due to the direct and personal agency of Satan?
Why is all this, except from the utter ignorance as to the simplest laws
of their own animal life, which prevails among even the most highly
educated persons in this country?
But there are other branches of Biological Science, besides Physiology
proper, whose practical influence, though less obvious, is not, as I
believe, less certain. I have heard educated men speak with an
ill-disguised contempt of the studies of the naturalist, and ask, not
without a shrug, "What is the use of knowing all about these miserable
animals--what bearing has it on human life?"
I will endeavour to answer that question. I take it that all will admit
there is definite Government of this universe--that its pleasures and
pains are not scattered at random, but are distributed in accordance
with orderly and fixed laws, and that it is only in accordance with all
we know of the rest of the world, that there should be an agreement
between one portion of the sensitive creation and another in these
matters.
Surely then it interests us to know the lot of other animal
creatures--however far below us, they are still the sole created things
which share with us the capability of pleasure and the susceptibility to
pain.
I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and
evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his
own share with more courage and submission; and will, at any rate, view
with suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the Divine government,
which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake,--to
be corrected by and bye. On the other hand, the predominance of
happiness among living things--their lavish beauty--the secret and
wonderful harmony which pervades them all, from the highest to the
lowest, are equally striking refutations of that modern Manichean
doctrine, which exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked with many
tears, for mere utilitarian ends.
There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am convinced,
take a profound hold upon practical life,--and that is, by its influence
over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources of that pleasure
which is derivable from beauty. I do not pretend that natural-history
knowledge, as such, can increase our sense of the beautiful in natural
objects. I do not suppose that the dead soul of Peter Bell, of whom the
great poet of nature says,--
"A primrose by the river's brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,--
And it was nothing more,"--
would have been a whit roused from its apathy, by the information that
the primrose is a Dicotyledonous Exogen, with a monopetalous corolla and
central placentation. But I advocate natural-history knowledge from this
point of view, because it would lead us to _seek_ the beauties of
natural objects, instead of trusting to chance to force them on our
attention. To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or
sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works
of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach
him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue
of those which are worth turning round. Surely our innocent pleasures
are not so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or
any other source of them. We should fear being banished for our neglect
to that limbo, where the great Florentine tells us are those who during
this life "wept when they might be joyful."
But I shall be trespassing unwarrantably on your kindness, if I do not
proceed at once to my last point--the time at which Physiological
Science should first form a part of the Curriculum of Education.
The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science as
instruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, has
already been placed before you in a previous lecture: and it appears to
me, that, as with other sciences, the _common facts_ of Biology--the
uses of parts of the body--the names and habits of the living creatures
which surround us--may be taught with advantage to the youngest child.
Indeed, the avidity of children for this kind of knowledge, and the
comparative ease with which they retain it, is something quite
marvellous. I doubt whether any toy would be so acceptable to young
children as a vivarium, of the same kind as, but of course on a smaller
scale than, those admirable devices in the Zoological Gardens.
On the other hand, systematic teaching in Biology cannot be attempted
with success until the student has attained to a certain knowledge of
physics and chemistry: for though the phænomena of life are dependent
neither on physical nor on chemical, but on vital forces, yet they
result in all sorts of physical and chemical changes, which can only be
judged by their own laws.
And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to which I hope you see
reason to follow me.
Biology needs no apologist when she demands a place--and a prominent
place--in any scheme of education worthy of the name. Leave out the
Physiological sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the student
into the world, undisciplined in that science whose subject-matter would
best develope his powers of observation; ignorant of facts of the
deepest importance for his own and others' welfare; blind to the richest
sources of beauty in God's creation; and unprovided with that belief in
a living law, and an order manifesting itself in and through endless
change and variety, which might serve to check and moderate that phase
of despair through which, if he take an earnest interest in social
problems, he will assuredly sooner or later pass.
Finally, one word for myself. I have not hesitated to speak strongly
where I have felt strongly; and I am but too conscious that the
indicative and imperative moods have too often taken the place of the
more becoming subjunctive and conditional. I feel, therefore, how
necessary it is to beg you to forget the personality of him who has thus
ventured to address you, and to consider only the truth or error in what
has been said.