L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VLR5 ITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 m
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE HALL OF CHRIST CHURCH 
 
 August 4, 1868 
 
 BY 
 
 HENKY W. ACLAND 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 HONORARY PHYSICIAN TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION 
 
 1868
 
 THE MEDICINE OF MODERN TIMES. 
 
 The meeting which was held last year by 
 your Association in Dublin was attended by 
 circumstances never to be forgotten. The great 
 interest of that delightful metropolis, the fer- 
 vent hospitality of our hosts, the pre-eminence 
 of our President, bequeathed to his successor 
 a task from which any man, however fortunately 
 placed, might reasonably shrink. 
 
 Two motives only have induced me to accept 
 the honour most graciously offered, of following 
 him as your President : the one, the strong 
 desire to help in carrying on his and your work 
 of last year ; the other, the conviction (more 
 than justified by the great kindness already 
 shown to me) that you will only require such 
 hearty service as it is in my power to render. 
 To all, whether to your distinguished Officers, 
 to my valued co-adjutors in this place, to those 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE PRESENT EPOCH 
 
 present from this or other countries, I look for 
 a continuance of that kindness and support. 
 Confident of this, I anticipate a useful and 
 happy meeting, though we are shorn of some 
 of the splendours of Dublin, and remote from 
 the exhilarating buoyancy of Irish life. 
 
 It has been said that one chief art in a 
 President's Address is to advance no serious 
 opinions, and to provoke no criticism. A speaker 
 cannot, however, speak with advantage unless 
 he express thoughts which awaken a response in 
 the head and the heart of his hearers. The test 
 of the success or failure of his attempt must be 
 their approval or condemnation. 
 
 Pleasant and bright as I hope our meeting 
 will be, full as it should be of the double 
 objects of such a gathering, — the advance of 
 our common pursuits and the calling forth the 
 kindly feelings of a common profession, — I much 
 mistake your wishes if you do not desire that 
 something more than an agreeable retrospect, 
 more also than words of hearty welcome, should 
 occupy us for a brief space to-night. 
 
 We are living in a critical period of our 
 country's history ; in a new era in the history 
 of Man. Every part of our social fabric is 
 now undergoing scrutiny, revision, and reform. 
 
 * uiuc !^
 
 AN EPOCH OF CHANGE. o 
 
 Government, trade, institutions, laws, the artificial 
 usages of society, the character to be given to our 
 children by the method of their early training, 
 are not only being criticised, but are most of 
 them being changed — changed with unexampled 
 rapidity ; and the change is, some think, a ten- 
 dency to absolute perfection, or, according to one 
 philosopher, a last plunge down the Falls of 
 Niagara. The facility with which ideas are 
 communicated through the whole human family, 
 distinguishes our age from all that precede it. 
 Our own profession is not exempt from these 
 influences : even if it were, we are part of the 
 body politic, and as wise men we might do 
 well to look forth from the fretted shelter of 
 this ancient Hall, itself a memorial of the 
 ferment of the Reformation, and, scanning the 
 clouds as they drift along, take the bearing of 
 our own course in the stream of time. 
 
 The accomplished authors of the special 
 addresses which you will hear at your gene- 
 ral meetings. Professor Rolleston, Professor 
 Haughton, and Dr. Gull, will bring before you 
 abundant illustrations of the present state of 
 three great departments of the science and 
 the art we profess. While waiting for these 
 addresses and for the other more technical
 
 6 MEDICAL CHARACTER. 
 
 communications which you will hear, I propose 
 to take a general survey of the position occupied 
 by our professional knowledge in relation to 
 other branches of knowledge, and to consider 
 the objects which ought to be held in view when 
 we discuss the temper required of us by our 
 times, and the training proper for the formation 
 of that character and temper. 
 
 No better illustration of what is meant by 
 Medical character and temper can perhaps be 
 found than in the words deep graven in the 
 hearts of true Physicians for a hundred genera- 
 tions : — 
 
 6 Katpos o^vs 7] be irelpa (KpaKep-iy rj be KpLcm x^aXeTj^. 
 
 How may every age — some more than others, 
 but yet every age — for itself exclaim, ' Yes ! 
 opportunity fleets by and is lost. Old expe- 
 rience is a quicksand. Sound judgment is hard, 
 above all things.' 
 
 The traditions of our present resting-place 
 may well induce us to ask, in the language of 
 this grey old aphorism : — 
 
 Are we losing opportunities now ? 
 
 Is our experience fallacious 1 
 
 Is not judgment in science and in art still 
 hard '?
 
 SCIENCE AND HUMANITY. 7 
 
 x^re we attempting what cannot be done ? 
 or spurning what can even now be accom- 
 plished ? 
 
 What will our children's children say of us 
 and of our day ? 
 
 Will they bless us for the training we gave 
 them, and the example we set 1 Or will they 
 say that our conclusions were baseless or rash, 
 the tasks we bequeathed to them unnecessarily 
 difficult 1 
 
 Now, in judging of the Medical character, we 
 set aside of course all reference to individuals. 
 We form an ideal character. And vet. the ideal 
 cannot be considered wholly in an abstract way. 
 We have to judge of it in its relations, — first, 
 to the condition of Science, and secondly, to the 
 constant properties and the variable accidents of 
 Humanity. 
 
 In the present age Science is advancing, and 
 the means of its progress are increasing with 
 altogether unexampled rapidity. No bounds can 
 be set to its possible conquests. A profession 
 dependent on Science must vary with that on 
 which it depends ; and if it does not advance 
 with the advance of Science, that fact proves it 
 to be in error.
 
 8 SCIENCE AND HUMANITY. 
 
 Humanity has its constant properties and its 
 variable accidents ; its constants of need of 
 food, of warmth, and of clothing ; its constants 
 of sickness and disease ; its constants of relative 
 poverty and relative wealth ; its constants of 
 yearning after good, and exposure to misery 
 and guilt. But Humanity has also its vari- 
 able accidents of climate, of fashion, of ease, 
 of luxury, of degradation ; not like death un- 
 avoidable and irremediable, but accidents, 
 terrible accidents — such as, however formidable 
 and perilous, to a certain extent may be avoided 
 or can be remedied. 
 
 Eeflection will show to what a vast range of 
 subjects Medicine is linked, by these two cir- 
 cumstances, — the progress of Science and the 
 fluctuations of Humanity. How numerous are 
 the points of Science which touch us more or less 
 closely ! How intimately are we bound up with 
 the sufferings and the sorrows, physical and 
 mental, of mankind ! 
 
 It is this necessary law of connection with 
 Science as a whole, and with Man as a whole, 
 which makes both the difficulty and the glory 
 of our work in the body politic ; and it is this 
 connection which pre-eminently now, at this 
 period of the history of our country and of
 
 MEDICINE AS ART AND SCIENCE. 9 
 
 human knowledge, makes a revision of our pre- 
 sent state desirable and indeed unavoidable. 
 
 Let us then consider, first, the relation of 
 Modern Medicine to Modem Science. 
 
 It was just now said that Medicine is ne- 
 cessarily linked to the existing condition of 
 Science. This statement must be examined 
 more closely. Medicine is at once in advance 
 of the exact Sciences so called, and behind 
 them. It is in advance of them, inasmuch as 
 it clinically observes as facts some things 
 which Science has not yet fully explained ; and 
 it believes with strong conviction what can at 
 present be neither demonstrated nor ignored. 
 It is behind them, inasmuch as they claim for 
 every fact of Science an exactness to which 
 Medicine cannot always pretend. 
 
 But Medicine too long consented to regard 
 itself as an Art as distinguished from Science. 
 It cannot wholly fulfil its function till it asserts, 
 and has entirely substantiated, its claim as one 
 of the band of Sciences that precisely interpret 
 the phsenomena of Nature. 
 
 Now the existing relations of pure Science and 
 Medicine are both direct and indirect. In the 
 direct relations it follows the lead of Science
 
 10 DIRECT RELATIONS. 
 
 without hesitation ; in the indirect relations it 
 cannot afford always to wait for positive in- 
 structions. Let us look for a moment at each 
 of these relations. 
 
 The relations are direct in the case of all 
 those means of modern invention and research 
 which are applied daily, in ways of which half 
 a century ago there was no conception, to the 
 discovery and the explanation of physiological 
 and pathological phaenomfena. To the inter- 
 pretation of sounds heard within the body, 
 Laennec and a host of subsequent observers 
 brought precise acoustical observation and 
 experiment, and showed us how to map out 
 the condition of internal parts, the action 
 of which we hear but cannot see : so that 
 though we are not always able to say absolutely 
 what is the nature of an abnormity, producing 
 an abnormal phsenomenon, we can at least say 
 what it is not. By applications of optical instru- 
 ments Czermak and Cruise have laid open to 
 us many organs of the body before inscrutable 
 — the pharynx, the vocal chords, the trachea, 
 the vagina, the uterus, the bladder ; so that the 
 actual but hidden causes of many phsenomena 
 are no longer matter of argument, but of sight 
 and demonstration. The secrets of the eye, I
 
 PHYSICAL METHODS. 11 
 
 need not say, are now disclosed by means of the 
 physical contrivances of Helmholtz and others, 
 assisted by the many elucidations contributed 
 by our own countrymen. Ogle and Allbutt in 
 this country, and others on the Continent, are 
 working out the further proposition that some 
 states of the eye are not only important in 
 themselves as local abnormities, but as being 
 pathognomic of other suspected conditions in 
 other and distant organs. The sense of touch 
 is so supplemented by the skilful apparatus 
 of Marey that the wave phaenomena of the 
 pulse and heart are registered ; and thereby, 
 through indirect but clear induction, we can 
 fathom the secrets not only of the circulatory 
 apparatus, but of nerve action and nerve lesion 
 behind and beyond. And am I to add in this 
 company that the very romance of zoological 
 evolution is brought to enlarge our knowledge 
 of the parasites that infest our bodies, modi- 
 fying sanitary regulations in a remarkable 
 manner, or that in every practitioner's hand 
 the microscope and the test tube answer in a 
 moment questions once unanswerable, though 
 on them hang issues of life and of deaths 
 
 It were tedious to you, and unbecoming in 
 me, to tell of these things in detail — for they
 
 12 INDIRECT RELATIONS. 
 
 are of the alphabet of Modern Medicine in its 
 every-day work. They are named only to recall 
 in the argument a few out of many instances of 
 the direct application of scientific appliance and 
 method to the progress of medical knowledge 
 by means of light, sound, and direct touch. The 
 exploration of the nervous system by electrical 
 agencies, by manometers and the like, through the 
 recent labours of many, but of late especially of 
 M. Duchenne de Boulogne, and the registration of 
 changes of temperature in evidence of chemical 
 alterations and in proof of corresponding altera- 
 tions in the organism, should be cited as among 
 the less developed but equally certain advances 
 of physical enquiry as applied to disease. 
 
 The indirect relations of Medicine to the 
 other branches of Physical Science are more 
 remarkable still, but being also more remote 
 are less familiar. 
 
 Foremost it should be remembered what is the 
 effect of the temjyer of Modern Science on Modern 
 Medicine. Now it must at once be granted that 
 opinion and authority in Medicine have ceased 
 to have any value as such, except where the 
 authority is derived from high moral and in- 
 tellectual qualities combined with large experi- 
 ence. But this is a personal question, like the
 
 SCIENTIFIC AND CLINICAL TEMPER. 13 
 
 personal equation of astronomical observers, and 
 does not affect the frameivorh of the Art. 
 The framework of Medicine simply considered 
 as an Art now depends on accurate data, on 
 experiment, on observation, and direct induc- 
 tion therefrom. But though this be true, yet 
 Medicine as an Art cannot always go hand in 
 hand with Medicine as a Science. The phy- 
 sician, with emergencies constantly before him, 
 cannot wait to act till Science has established 
 her conclusions with absolute certainty. In 
 so far as Medicine is purely scientific it is not 
 in harmony with the average mind of man- 
 kind ; in so far as it is empirical it is at -variance 
 with pure Science. Science being organised 
 knowledge, and admitting no uncertain element, 
 objects to the probabilities which guide the 
 master of the Art to his conclusions, and lead 
 him to act with a promptitude incomprehensible 
 and appalling to the uninitiated. Just as the 
 scientific navigator, who is furnished (as every 
 navigator ought to be) with the instincts of 
 the empirical seaman, trusts those instincts in 
 a gale as readily as his accurate observations 
 in clear weather ; so the true clinical physician 
 decides first, and afterwards puts together in 
 logical arrangement the reasons for his decision.
 
 14 MEDICAL SCEPTICISM. 
 
 In SO far as he does this he abandons the order 
 observed in pure Science. Still he must do so in 
 many cases if he is to act at all. If he cannot 
 do so, he is apt to become first sceptical, then 
 indifferent. 
 
 That such scepticism and such indifference 
 may be a real danger in the practice of Medicine, 
 and is some counterpoise to the many advan- 
 tages which Modern Medicine may derive from 
 her scientific character, is hardly to be doubted. 
 
 This subject of Medical Scepticism is too 
 grave to be here passed over without some 
 consideration. Healthy criticism of existing be- 
 Hef is one thing. Mere destructive criticism 
 with no honest purpose of getting at the truth 
 is another. The former is a necessary quahty in 
 a man of full power. The latter is the frequent 
 sign of idleness in youth, and of carelessness in 
 advanced years. What is certain in respect of 
 Medicine critically considered as a Science and 
 as an Art may be thus stated. There is a true 
 Medicine and a false Medicine. Like the wheat 
 and the tares, they now stand together. The 
 true is that which is based on unalterable laws 
 of Nature ; the false that which is the result 
 of ignorance, unconscious misinterpretation, or 
 wilful error, — ignorance of Nature, unintentional
 
 DESTRUCTION OF DOGMA. 15 
 
 misunderstanding of her laws, wilful falsification 
 of facts to subserve some temporary purpose. 
 From these two, the true and the false, come 
 all the traditions of our Art. To wmnow the 
 one from the other, to extrude the uncertain 
 from the proved, to add to what is known, 
 regardless of the effect on previous beliefs, is 
 the special duty of the time in which we are 
 now placed. If this duty were completely done 
 we should possess the real history of an Art 
 three thousand years old. It is a history not 
 without parallel in other departments of human 
 thought. There was a time when the priest 
 and the physician were one, and when the 
 art of healing was looked on as a supernatural 
 gift. It is so esteemed even now among 
 savages. Cures wrought by a higher intelli- 
 gence, being above the conception of the ' rude 
 untutored mind,' seem emanations from the 
 attributes *of the Unknown God.' The im- 
 postor priest could be also impostor physician. 
 Trading on the weaknesses of his fellow-men, he 
 would dogmatise on the ailments of the body 
 and their cure, as well as on the diseases of the 
 mind and their remedies. 
 
 The destruction of such dogmas, groundless 
 though they may be, is a slow and dangerous
 
 16 TRADITIONAL WISDOM. 
 
 process, as all students of history can tell. But 
 the time is come when every opinion and con- 
 clusion has to be sifted ; and another danger has 
 come rapidly upon us — that of reckless negation 
 of the accumulated experience of our race. 
 What are our fathers to us ? Are we not better 
 than they ? This is with some the modern 
 version of the well-known lamentation : — 
 
 '^tas parentum pejor avis tulit 
 Nos nequiores, mox daturos 
 Progeniem vitiosiorem.' 
 
 But still in the traditions of the past there is 
 a mass of practical wisdom. Nothing is more 
 admirable than the caution and care — the gener- 
 ally scientific spirit, and often the truly scientific 
 method, with which the best men, such as Mor- 
 gagni, Sydenham, and Hunter, observed and 
 reasoned. It is conceivable that this caution was 
 due in great measure to the uncertainty of the 
 ground they trod, and the want of precision 
 in the means they possessed. We are superior 
 to our fathers in the means at our disposal, 
 and in the positiveness with which we can up 
 to certain points enunciate our results. But we 
 ought not to overlook the fact, that with these 
 positive gains we are subject to contingent losses, 
 and that in an epoch of details and comparatively
 
 THE SEARCH FOR A CAUSE. 17 
 
 facUe methods of enquiry the great qualities of 
 patience and reserve may be lost to those who 
 are not themselves original investigators. 
 
 With the exception implied by the above re- 
 marks, the temper of Modern Science indirectly 
 rules the progress of the Healing Art. It is of 
 consequence to appreciate what that temper is. 
 
 It would be difficult more aptly to describe 
 it than by the words of Newton :~< The main 
 business of natural philosophy is to argue from 
 phenomena without feigning hypotheses, and to 
 deduce causes from effects, till we come to the 
 very First Cause, which certainly is not me- 
 chanical.^ To discuss this simple phrase, and to 
 expand it into its fuU significance, would be to 
 recapitulate the history of a great portion of 
 Modern Science. There probably is no part of it 
 to which some modern thinkers would not take 
 exception. But it cannot fail to raise in every 
 mind a splendid and affecting image of the 
 boundless field of Physical Philosophy. It will 
 suggest to one a countless host of loving wor- 
 shippers ; to another it reveals a crowd of stern 
 enquirers ardently groping in dim cold twilight. 
 Each in his own sphere, each tinged with the 
 special hue of his own nature, in Physics and 
 Biology, all aHke are searching for a True Cause.
 
 18 THE LAST GENERALISATION. 
 
 From the causes of twining in the delicate tendril 
 to the causes of variation in the human species, 
 from the causes and local conditions of atmo- 
 spheric changes to the causes and physical con- 
 sequences of the combustion of a fixed star, 
 the biologists and physicists of the day are 
 seeking a True Cause : and, each in his way 
 appreciated by hundreds of fellow- workers and 
 ten thousands of more or less intelligent fol- 
 lowers, is making a step towards the First Cause 
 which, Newton says, ' is certainly not mechanical/ 
 And what have they reached 1 First, the con- 
 viction, clearly expressed many years ago, of the 
 exquisite interdependence between our entire 
 Fauna and Flora in the chemical circulation of 
 matter on our globe ; and next, the generalisa- 
 tion at once so simple, so overwhelming, that all 
 action of which we are immediately cognisant is 
 but the result of the operation of solar heat upon 
 and through interdependent and correlative 
 existences ; that all things in this system are 
 capable only of interchange ; that there is no 
 destruction of what exists ; no creation of new 
 energy. 
 
 The theorem of the Conservation of Energy 
 has not, as may be supposed, brought direct
 
 WILL UNEXPLAINED. 19 
 
 fruit to Medicine, but indirectly it has already 
 told in more ways than one. 
 
 It makes more and more doubtful the exist- 
 ence of a ' Vital Principle/ controlHng the ordi- 
 nary laws and affinities of matter. 
 
 It tends to bring the pbsenomena of living 
 bodies more and more within the domain of 
 pure physical necessity. 
 
 It helps to lessen the improbability of the 
 hypothesis of Darwin, by showing how deeply 
 mutual correlations run into the very structure 
 of the universe ; and it increases the probability 
 that living beings placed in similar conditions 
 wiU move in similar lines, and conversely. 
 
 But it explains nothing whatever of the 
 origin of things : nothing of the nature of 
 Will. However true it may be that the solar 
 energy was stored up myriads of ages ago in 
 the coal-fields, however true it may be that, 
 in the processes of vegetable life and decay, the 
 suns energy is constantly being first captured 
 and then Hberated for further use in other 
 organisms, yet nothing of this emits the smallest 
 spark of information on the true cause of 
 organisation or of the working of a single 
 organic cell. 
 
 It is clear (however careful we may be not to 
 
 C 2
 
 20 INDIRECT AID OF SCIENCE. 
 
 idolise new words) that the idea of Conservation 
 of Energy must now find an entrance into every 
 conception of organic change. Even in Medicine 
 we are thus more and more drawn to the convic- 
 tion that the same result follows the same cause 
 in similar organic conditions ; and that while 
 health consists in the regular performance of an 
 elaborate series of physical changes, diseases 
 properly called chemical (as opposed to me- 
 chanical or surgical diseases) follow a definite 
 course, which we should be able to estimate if 
 we could know all the conditions ; a supposition 
 (it may be added) which is impossible because of 
 the factor of Will which has to be taken into 
 account. 
 
 These fundamental ideas seem at first sight 
 to belong so little to the work of every-day life 
 or to the practice of an Art, as hardly to have 
 any relation to them. Yet very little reflection 
 shows how the profession which has always 
 assiduously pursued, indeed has been the chief 
 promoter of, natural knowledge, cannot separate 
 itself from the indirect, any more than from the 
 direct influence of Science ; and so has to follow 
 these apparently remote speculations. Who 
 would suppose that the question of spontaneous 
 generation so keenly debated from a very early
 
 EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 21 
 
 period to our own year and day, need have any 
 immediate bearing on practice '? Yet see how 
 the observations of Pasteur are connected with 
 the questions of infection, nay more, of suppura- 
 tion, and (as shown to be probable by Professor 
 Lister) of surgical treatment. It would indeed 
 be a great point if we could prove that no germs, 
 carriers of disease, spontaneously originate, but 
 must always immediately come from a progenitor 
 cell. If so, there would be just a hope that 
 some diseases might be effectually and finally 
 stamped out. What we do know of zymotic 
 diseases does not favour this expectation. At 
 the same time it has to be borne in mind that 
 both the success and the failure of vaccination 
 disclose the existence of properties which it 
 would have been fantastic to expect, but which 
 experiments proved to exist. 
 
 What the powers of * Nature' are in producing 
 and regulating morbid products, and what the 
 powers of man may be, is becoming every day 
 more apparent in such enquiries as those on the 
 relations of vaccination to syphilis, which are 
 now being discussed by Ballard and Seaton. 
 If we take them into consideration together 
 with the researches into the origin of tubercle 
 by Villemin, Sanderson, and Wilson Fox, the
 
 22 COMPLICATIONS OF MEDICINE. 
 
 enquiries into the origin of the Cattle Plague 
 and the whole state of our knowledge of the 
 nature of what is called infection, we have pre- 
 sented to us certainly one of the most remark- 
 able series of biological and pathological investi- 
 gations that has been ever recorded, and to 
 an intelligent and cultivated person unac- 
 quainted with the state of human knowledge 
 in respect of biology, one which must, at first, 
 seem almost incredible. 
 
 Yet any one, however little informed upon 
 such subjects, reflecting on these few general 
 illustrations, cannot fail to see the vastness of the 
 subjects now comprised under the head of 
 Modern Medicine ; the firmness of the Scientific 
 basis on which it is placed ; and the peculiar 
 difficulty which it encomiters as being a Science 
 compHcated by an Art, and that Art one which is 
 not only entangled with all the disturbing ele- 
 ments of progressive human society, but also 
 an Art operating on the most complicated of 
 chemical processes, namely, the so-called vital 
 actions. 
 
 Further, he would probably say, ' There are 
 here intricate processes affecting human health, 
 depending on actions partly physical and 
 involuntary, partly mental and voluntary —
 
 FULL KNOWLEDGE IMPOSSIBLE. 23 
 
 what really are the powers by which Medicine 
 can influence them ? ' If such a question were 
 proposed, the answer would be, * There are two 
 methods by which the art must work ; first, the 
 method of Pure Science, with no other object 
 but the attainment of knowledge and truth, the 
 method which works by observation and experi- 
 ment, in physics, chemistry, anatomy, and phy- 
 siology, by the study of agents and, where neces- 
 sary, by vivisections ; and secondly, the Em- 
 pirical method, or the method which attempts 
 to cure by rules derived from tradition, pro- 
 bability, and tentative experiment/ 
 
 Now, by the first of these methods we are 
 able to ascertain the law or course of action of 
 the most complicated vital processes, as appears 
 from the researches into tubercle and syphilis to 
 which I but now alluded. But this method is 
 unable to explain all the relations of phsenomena 
 in any, even the simplest organism, for it cannot 
 be said that we at present understand the simplest 
 vital process. This is put with much force by 
 a great French chemist : * Car nous n en con- 
 naissons aucun dWe maniere complete, puisque 
 la connaissance parfaite de chacun d'eux exige- 
 rait celle de toutes les lois, de toutes les forces 
 qui concourent a ie produire, c'est-a-dire la con*
 
 24 KNOWLEDGE STEADILY ADVANCES. 
 
 naissance parfaite de Tun i vers.' — Berthelot, 
 Chimie Organique, ii. 810. 
 
 Still it is a great thing to see the laws or 
 course of action of living bodies being gradually- 
 developed and laid down. We know, for in- 
 stance, that a certain disease will run a certain 
 course in a certain family. What is this but 
 the law that living matter acts in a definite 
 manner under definite conditions, and that when 
 we can predicate the conditions we can predict 
 some at least of the results 1 This law is of 
 course the scientific basis of all curative medi- 
 cine in individual instances, and of all preven- 
 tive or state medicine in communities. 
 
 The application of this law to vital as well 
 as to inorganic phsenomena strikes a blow at 
 many ancient prejudices which assumed and 
 sometimes fostered the notion of exceptional 
 and erratic procedures, that is to say, of pro- 
 cedures for which no reason could be given. 
 Viewed calmly, it is the ground for all hope of 
 future progress in Therapeutics ; and for the 
 following reason among others. In the present 
 state of knowledge we are always on the verge 
 of the most amazing results, and we do not 
 know when or where the outcome will be. As 
 in a siege, we advance by a series of zigzags
 
 SYNTHETICAL CHEMISTRY. 25 
 
 and parallels ; and these must be begun at a 
 great distance from the fortress. While we are 
 ignorant of the nature of some of the commonest 
 chemical changes that we know to be going on 
 every second of our lives in our own bodies, 
 some enquirers are quietly but minutely discus- 
 sing the chemical actions by which acid and 
 alkaline magmas modified the constitution of 
 the earths crust, and gradually produced the 
 chemical conditions which made the evolution 
 of organisms, as at present constituted, pos- 
 sible in our planet. And slowly but surely 
 the siege of the fortress of knowledge advances. 
 Latterly it has shown sign of progress in 
 a new and unexpected direction. Chemistry 
 which used to be chiefly analytical has now 
 become enthusiastically synthetical. There are 
 virtually no limits to the substances which can 
 be made. Berthelot makes a calculation of 
 the number of combinations with acids of cer- 
 tain alcohols. He says if you gave each a 
 name, allowing a line for the name, then printed 
 100 lines in a page, and made volumes of i,ooo 
 pages, and placed a million volumes in a library, 
 you would need 14,000 libraries for your cata- 
 logue. He therefore properly calls such bodies 
 infinite, instancing the synthetical construction
 
 26 THERAPEUTICAL ENQUIRIES. 
 
 of the alcohol and aldehyde series, of the organic 
 acids, of the amides, of urea, and the millions of 
 possible bodies which loom in the future, — 
 certain to be made, waiting to be made, the pos- 
 sessors of qualities suspected but unknown. 
 
 I almost hesitate to observe that bodies of 
 this kind have important relations to the pro- 
 perties of the nervous system in man. Chloro- 
 form and the various amides employed by 
 Richardson have made this familiar to all. The 
 beautiful experiments by Bernard upon amyg- 
 dalin show the question to be still more intricate 
 and vast than Berthelot puts it in the passage 
 already cited. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that the possible 
 agents for affecting the human body are infinite, 
 and the instances which I have partially touched 
 on of the mutual relations of glanders, tubercle, 
 and irritation, of syphilis and vaccination, show 
 what might antecedently have been expected — 
 the equally infinite problems which may be ex- 
 perimentally discussed and solved in the higher 
 animal organism, problems equally affecting the 
 classifications of Pathology and Therapeutics. 
 Science is indebted to this Association for the 
 example it sets in the appreciation of this vast 
 question ; and especially to Professor Bennett
 
 MEDICINE AND HUMANITY. 27 
 
 for the able and patient manner in which he 
 is now conducting for it difficult researches 
 on the action of an important remedy, the first, 
 I hope, of a long series of such detailed and 
 rigorous enquiries. A more useful expenditure 
 of money can hardly be conceived. 
 
 Of the second, or the Empirical method, to 
 which I but now alluded, it is not to the present 
 purpose to speak. 
 
 Having said thus much on the relations of 
 Modern Medicine and Modern Science, in the 
 hope of vindicating our profession from one- 
 sided attacks founded on the notion that it is 
 wanting in scientific precision, I leave this slight 
 sketch of a vast subject, in order to consider 
 the present relations of Modern Medicine to 
 Humanity ; in other words, its relations to the 
 wants of Man in the complex state of modern 
 society. 
 
 If the philosophic basis of Medicine has been 
 changed during this century by its relations to 
 Science, its object or aim has been as much 
 modified by its relations to Man as he is, and 
 as he is becoming, under the exigencies of 
 fast-growing population and the agency of a 
 fast -improving social organisation.
 
 28 PUBLIC MEDICINE 
 
 It would not be true to say that till modern 
 times no great crowds of men have been densely 
 congregated into unhealthy masses, nor to say 
 that attention had never been given to their 
 sanitary state. There were great armies before 
 the Christian era ; there must have been great 
 crowding in ancient Eome ; a careful and de- 
 tailed sanitary code was imposed on the Jewish 
 people at the time of the Exodus ; Rome paid 
 no small attention to sanitary works. But 
 neither permanent populous cities nor sanitary 
 codes were the rule. In our times, on the con- 
 trary, one of the peculiarities of modern life is 
 shown from statistics to be the tendency to in- 
 crease of population in great towns : so that in 
 England between 1841 and 1851''^ there was 
 an increase in the population of towns of over 
 100,000 inhabitants, of 23 per cent. ; and in the 
 following decennial period, 1851 to 1861, there 
 was, in France, in towns of similar magnitude, 
 taken collectively, an increase of 50 per cent. 
 
 In our day Preventive and Public Medicine 
 has become a great branch of Medical Science. 
 Imperfectly as yet carried out in this country, 
 it is more fully developed in several Conti- 
 
 * Quetelet, Bulletin cle Comm. centrale cle Statistique. 
 torn. X. 1866.
 
 A BRANCH OF CIVIL SERVICE. 29 
 
 nental countries, and, of late, in a noble manner 
 in the United States. It is here and there car- 
 ried to great perfection, as in various departments 
 of armies; it has made great progress also in 
 navies, and in almost every part of civil life. 
 Still we cannot say that the evils incident to 
 modern civilisation have been as yet met by 
 that clear-sighted and systematic superinten- 
 dence by which alone they can be subdued. 
 
 It would far exceed the limits which are 
 necessarily imposed upon me to attempt even 
 the slightest sketch of the exact position of 
 Sanitary Science in this kingdom. Its lite- 
 rature has become voluminous. Its -general 
 principles are recognised. Its need is felt. Nay, 
 its value is by some injuriously exaggerated. 
 What it requires now is proper administrative 
 organisation. The admirable paper of Dr. 
 Rumsey read last year in Dublin has been fol- 
 lowed by not unimportant results, which will 
 be the subject of a special Report by Dr. Stewart, 
 and therefore need not be here discussed. It 
 will suffice to say that we have reason to hope 
 that we may shortly see the relations which ought 
 to subsist between this department of the Science 
 of Medicine, and the community at large, investi- 
 gated systematically by a Eoyal Commission.
 
 30 OFFICERS OF STATE MEDICINE. 
 
 To anticipate the conclusions of such a Com- 
 mission would be no becoming occupation. But 
 this may be confidently expected, that one result 
 would be the elevation of the duties of an Officer 
 in State Medicine to that of a recognised pro- 
 fession, as in several special instances it has al- 
 ready become. At present it is not uncommon 
 for a young man to be charged with wasting 
 his powers if he devotes himself to improve the 
 public health. Hereafter, charge of the public 
 health must be made as much a matter of 
 honourable ambition in the body politic, and 
 must become as much an object of special educa- 
 tion and training, as the business of any other 
 recognised branch of the civil service. The 
 Government will have to define the duties to 
 be discharged by Public Health Officers or 
 other Officers of Public Medicine, and the 
 General Council of Medical Education will be 
 able to direct the education of those who aspire 
 to the performance of the duties so defined. 
 
 What those duties and what that education 
 shall be, it is not our province to-day to con- 
 sider. It is enough to say, that without a 
 sound general education and without intelli- 
 gent interest in the great problems that wait 
 on dense population, viz. a fluctuating labour-
 
 PROBLEMS OF GREAT TOWNS. 31 
 
 market, the rights of capital and of labour, the 
 duties of property, the principles of morality, 
 and the nature and aims of physical, moral 
 and intellectual education, in other words, 
 for what purposes the bodies of the people are 
 to be trained, no man can discuss with safety 
 the large questions which must be answered 
 by State or Preventive Medicine. If he be not 
 so prepared, he will be liable to take part un- 
 wittingly with dogmas dictated by ignorant 
 selfishness, or unintentionally to support op- 
 pressive enactments suggested by imaginative 
 philanthropy, in ignorance of the amount of the 
 burdens which can in the long run be borne by 
 the toil of a people, for the purpose of civil 
 administration. 
 
 I have not here touched on the problems 
 arising from the condition of great towns. 
 They are become part of the literature — I had 
 almost said the sensational literature — of the 
 day. The admirable Reports of Mr. Simon, 
 under the sanction of the Privy Council, the 
 graphic sketches by Dr. Farr in the Registrar- 
 General's Returns, the papers by the Metro- 
 politan Officers of Health, the Returns from Ire- 
 land by Dr. Burke, from Scotland by Dr. Stark, 
 Professor Gairdner, and others, and the paper by
 
 32 INTRICACY OF PROBLEMS. 
 
 Dr. Morgan, have filled the public mind first 
 with amazement, then with alarm. Long fami- 
 liar with poverty, and the sorrows and penalties 
 and crimes which hang about it, as well as the 
 brightness and patience which called forth the 
 words * Blessed be ye poor,' I had not learnt the 
 intricacy of these problems till in the work of 
 the Cubic Space Committee (wherein I joined 
 the able President of your Council) I found 
 myself set face to face with them, and had to con- 
 sider what was the significance to the State of 
 a child born in a workhouse of a prostitute, 
 brought up during childhood in the workhouse, 
 cast forth into the purlieus of the city, becoming 
 pregnant and returning poisoned with syphilitic 
 sores, at an immature age to bear a syphilitic 
 infant : nor did I see the magnitude of the 
 problems till I found that, not in one instance 
 but in thousands, not in one district but in 
 many, is this process being carried on. Where 
 and how these frightful evils can be stopped is 
 known only to Him who can tell the causes 
 which laid desolate whole kingdoms of Asia, 
 and left us to wonder at the ruins of cities 
 whose very names are unknown. But it rests 
 upon us, more perhaps than on any other class 
 in the community, to see to it that no remedy
 
 FASHIONABLE LIFE. 33 
 
 which can be apphed, however partially, is 
 neglected, and that no means by which the 
 comfortable and indifferent public can be roused 
 to appreciate the task before them shall be left 
 unused. 
 
 Still less do I presume to handle now the 
 relation of Physiological and Medical know- 
 ledge to the habits of some among the higher 
 classes — to the conditions of modern society 
 which over-stimulate nervous action, the late 
 hours, the exhausting effort, the wholly un- 
 healthy existence. This is a subject which 
 needs much tenderness and skill, and longer 
 time than you can spare. But it is a subject 
 on which the advancing knowledge and culture 
 of Modern Medicine will have not a httle to 
 say ; and which, it may be hoped, will be so 
 said as to be heard. 
 
 There is one other relation of Modern Medi- 
 cine which it would be improper to pass by, 
 although it is one which an over-prudent man 
 would instinctively avoid — its relation to spiri- 
 tual beliefs. 
 
 The reason why an over-prudent man would 
 avoid all allusion to such beliefs, is that he 
 dreads to entangle himself in the maze of angry 
 
 D
 
 34 MEDICINE AND BELIEF. 
 
 controversy which not only surrounds but almost 
 fills the ecclesiastical world ; controversy, not 
 between creeds permanently opposed, as the 
 creeds of Buddhism, of Islam, and of Christen- 
 dom, but feuds in the bosom of each separate 
 religious system. 
 
 The reason why we cannot, if we would, avoid 
 considering our own relation to spiritual beliefs, 
 lies in the two fundamental facts, that we are 
 ourselves men like other men, and that we stand 
 in a closer and more real relation to man, as man, 
 than does any other class of the commonwealth. 
 
 It has indeed been said, * Ubi tres medici, 
 ibi duo Athei.' The recent attacks by the Car- 
 dinals in the French Senate on the Faculty 
 of Medicine show that the charge conveyed 
 in this aphorism is not forgotten in France. 
 Signs of the same notion are not wanting in 
 this country. What is the fact 1 The fact 
 seems to be that the members of the Medical 
 Profession are in their lives not less religious 
 than the average of the society in which they 
 live. As a body they are calm, earnest men, 
 who mingle little, perhaps too Httle, in the 
 questions of the day, and seldom with vio- 
 lence. Eeligious enthusiasm is rare with them ; 
 fanaticism is generally absent ; and on the whole
 
 THE BODILY FRAME. 35 
 
 it may be said that as a Profession they stand 
 aloof from religious discussion. Self-interest 
 operates in some degree ; usage operates to 
 some extent ; but there is a deeper reason for 
 their standing aloof, which religious teachers 
 would do well to lay to heart. There are none 
 who know so much of the reality of mans 
 nature, its phsenomena, its conditions, its pains, 
 its privileges. To the Physician the bodily nature 
 is bared in its beauty and in its hideousness, 
 in its formation and growth, and in its decay 
 and dissolution. Man's relation to other living 
 forms, his hkeness or his unlikeness to irrespon- 
 sible, unreasoning, or half-reasoning brutes, are 
 vital questions to those whose minds are filled 
 with ideas of anatomical homologies, of the re- 
 lations of functions to organs, of the laws of 
 hereditary transmission, and of the evolution 
 of mental attributes as well as of corporeal or- 
 ganisation in the animal series. The Physician 
 sees in the body of man the material structure 
 by which alone the known operations of the 
 mind of man are possible in this world, the 
 organs by which alone he can work his earthly 
 work, whether it be the work which he shares 
 in common with the beasts of the field, or the 
 work through which he can enter into conscious 
 
 D 2
 
 36 MEDICINE AND GENERAL CULTURE. 
 
 relation to his unapproachable Creator : the 
 frame by which, while bound down in an earthly 
 charnel-house, he lifts his eyes and strains his 
 heart with yearning ineffable towards a higher 
 nature, and obeys the upward-tending impulses 
 of affections strong unto death, affections so 
 pure and so divine, as to lose in the love of 
 others even the consciousness of self. 
 
 All this, and much more, our profession sees 
 as phaenomena. It knows that * the child is the 
 father of the man;' that *the sins of the 
 fathers are visited upon the children to the third 
 and fourth generation \ that man, though in 
 one sense ' lower than the beasts which perish,' 
 is yet * the paragon of animals, in apprehen- 
 sion how like a God, in action how like an 
 angel.' These, and all the contrasts which poets 
 and preachers paint, are present to us under 
 all phases, in every circumstance of race and 
 creed, of temptation caused either by want or 
 by luxury and power, or temperament engen- 
 dered by any of these conditions, modifying, as 
 you all know, both disease and the remedies 
 it requires. 
 
 I forbear from enlarging on this difficult and 
 perilous topic here. But I shall have to recur 
 to it briefly under the last head of my address.
 
 DISCIPLINE OF FACULTIES. 37 
 
 It need only now be said that the connexion 
 which Medical Men must have with the future 
 culture of the country, is becoming more and 
 more intimate. The general public, heretofore 
 indifferent to Physical Science, are becoming 
 daily more alive to its importance, inasmuch as 
 they are in many instances themselves scientific, 
 and judges of those who are so. 
 
 If these then be the relations of Medicine to 
 Science, and to the bodily wants and the mental 
 condition of man, and such the character of the 
 Physician, what is to be the preparation for his 
 duties ■? There is no better answer than this of 
 
 Strabo : 'H <^e [ajoer??] 7roii]TOv awe^evKTai Trj tou 
 avOpcowov' Koi ov^ olov re ayaQov yevia-Oai Troirjrrjv 
 fXYj TTporepov yevriQevra avSpa ayaOov. * The value of 
 a poet is bound up with that of the man. He 
 cannot be a good poet who is not a good man/ 
 On which Joseph Henry Green, who quotes the 
 passage, says : ' I anticipate no objection when I 
 state that the process for attaining or approxi- 
 mating to this great moral result constitutes in 
 its scope or end a liberal education! What that 
 is, and how to be attained, is held by all thinking 
 men to be one of the problems which our age 
 has to solve, in and for the interests of our
 
 38 DISCIPLINE OF FACULTIES. 
 
 country. May not grave mistake arise herein *? 
 At all events, in the present transitional con- 
 dition of this and other questions of social 
 economy, it were a waste of time for an 
 association such as ours to undertake the 
 investigation of this difficult subject. But so 
 far may be said, that the object of academical 
 education for our profession is from early life 
 to discipline all the faculties. It is obvious that 
 the Physician should be many-sided — he should 
 be capable of sympathy with every form of 
 good ; he should have all his senses, eye, touch, 
 hearing, disciplined to nice precision and exact- 
 ness, both in perception and thought. 
 
 When a man says there is in the present 
 age of the world only one education worth 
 possessing, the education provided by ' the 
 Scientific Method,' he seems to have forgotten 
 the more genial parts of our nature, the re- 
 lations of man to man ; and the more tender 
 parts of our nature, sympathy with goodness, 
 imagination, generosity, devotion. Are not these 
 essential to the highest success in our pro- 
 fession, quite as much as the intellectual efforts 
 of the more specially scientific observer'? We 
 may take one instance : the bearing of the so- 
 called Fine Arts on the development of certain
 
 DISCIPLINE OF FACULTIES. 39 
 
 qualities of mind. It is not on account of 
 the accuracy which is required for their suc- 
 cessful cultivation, for that belongs more or 
 less to all scientific work. No youth can be 
 a draughtsman or a musician to any good 
 purpose without this ; but music and drawing 
 not only discipline the sense of sight, touch, 
 and ear in an eminent degree, but have a 
 peculiar effect on the imagination and intellect. 
 There is a refinement of observation and a tact 
 acquired by the study of masters of music, 
 architecture, painting, and sculpture, which add 
 a charm to the life and character of a man, 
 whatever be his profession, such as is hardly 
 attainable in any other way. Not, of course, 
 that I would wish all men to be so educated as 
 if they were to be artists or musicians. Mathe- 
 matics are valuable to train the mind to habits 
 of accurate thought. The mathematics may be 
 forgotten, may vanish in all their details, but the 
 accuracy and precision given by their study may 
 remain, So the practical dexterity of the eye 
 and hand and ear in drawing and in music may 
 be lost, but the delicate perception of form and 
 colour and the relations of colour, of sound and 
 the relations of sound, and the effect produced 
 upon the mind by the study and cultivation
 
 40 DISCIPLINE OF FACULTIES. 
 
 of the Arts therewith connected, may remain 
 and tinge with a higher character the whole 
 nature of the man. The development in excess 
 of one part of our nature distorts the har- 
 mony of that nature. Many properties, which 
 in excess are noxious, are, when held in sub- 
 ordination, ennobling. It would be out of place, 
 I repeat, to attempt a full analysis of this educa- 
 tional question. It is indeed here entered upon 
 simply by way of protest against tlie view that 
 accurate Science can do all that is needed for 
 training the Medical Student. Of aU men, allow 
 me to repeat, he most needs the harmonious de- 
 velopment of all the good qualities of his nature, 
 with ' scientific accuracy ' and method at the root. 
 In the present period of our history, I might say 
 in the history of the human family, the prin- 
 cij3les which should regulate the training of our 
 children have to be discussed with largeness of 
 view, and carried out with extreme caution. 
 There is no part of a statesman's duty just now 
 for which he is more gravely responsible than 
 that of preparing the children of the nation for 
 the struggle, intellectual, religious, and material, 
 which is certainly in store for them ; there is no 
 greater political treachery than that a statesman 
 should pander to popular clamour by joining
 
 STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY. 41 
 
 any temporary educational cry which he does 
 not believe to be founded on permanent truths 
 of morality. 
 
 It would be trespassing too much on your 
 good-nature to ask you to listen to the proofs 
 that an acquaintance with the mental constitution 
 of man , with the ways of ennobling its impulses, 
 and with that mixed knowledge and discipline 
 which are called rehgion, is more especially 
 necessary for our profession. I, therefore, as- 
 sume that you generally consider every scheme 
 of preliminary education faulty which does not 
 admit this, and will only state briefly what 
 present circumstances seem to require of Caution 
 under that admission. Granted that for the 
 intellectual training of a medical man, religious 
 discipline and psychological knowledge are re- 
 quired, how are they to be imparted 1 and of 
 what kind should they be ? 
 
 If those who have investigated the subject 
 were agreed as to the nature and origin of 
 human families ; if the unity of our race were 
 conceded ; if there were no variations in cha- 
 racter dependent on family and inheritance ; 
 if there were no questions as to the future 
 state, nor disputes concerning our relation to 
 the Infinite ; if no questions had arisen within
 
 42 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 the pale of Christendom as to the scheme of 
 redemption, nor outside that pale as to the 
 evidence of that Christian Faith ; then indeed 
 the student preparing for Medicine would find 
 some definite course of mental philosophy and 
 religious instruction established in all colleges 
 from San Francisco to Calcutta. Till that day of 
 united conviction arrive we must be content to 
 take some general position that all can accept. 
 Nor is this difficult. All will agree that we must, 
 1st, Study the phsenomena of human nature as 
 now known to us without regard to the origin 
 of man ; and 2ndly, Study the principles of 
 laws which ought to regulate the will and 
 affections of man for the good of himself and 
 society — in other words, the principles of uni- 
 versal morality. 
 
 Nothing less than this is necessary for the 
 youth who are to follow our profession, nothing 
 more can we now enforce. We have in England 
 to educate for the empire, that is to say, for 
 persons of every creed. Our education as Phy- 
 sicians cannot in this respect be limited by any 
 one form of religious behef ; and however much 
 I may deplore, in the pathetic words of Faraday, 
 * The people will go astray when they have this 
 blessed book to guide them,' we cannot deny
 
 MIND AND ORGANISATION. 43 
 
 that under existing circumstances the results 
 of mental science, deduced from every source, 
 must be to some extent made part of the 
 higher education of our profession without 
 any regard to the bearing they are supposed 
 to have upon generally accepted religious 
 opinion. 
 
 The reason is a practical one and plain. 
 It is our business to deal with the characters 
 of men, to observe the action and reaction re- 
 spectively of body and mind, to trace out how 
 character is affected by physical alterations 
 in the brain ; how this may be modified by 
 physical means, by discipline, by food," by the 
 physiological agents called drugs. And our 
 youth must and will follow the researches 
 which are made in these several directions. It 
 will be useless to denounce the enquiries which 
 tend to explain the relations between thought 
 and material organisation. That bundle (as it 
 were) of qualities, good and evil, which we caU 
 Mind, does, as far as we know, require for its 
 manifestation the continuity and integrity of a 
 complex organisation. That organisation varies 
 with the qualities which are exhibited. The 
 mental organisation of animals inferior to man 
 is as various as their bodily structure. In truth.
 
 44 FUNCTION OF UNIVERSITY 
 
 we have as good right to call the bodily organi- 
 sation the material part made for the action of 
 mind, as the mind the consequence of the bodily 
 organisation. The distinctive properties of the 
 mind of man furnish the most notable illustration 
 of the origin of Force. The absence of any one 
 of these powers, and especially of the Will, 
 shows the greatness of their presence. There 
 are phaenomena such as those of aphasia, such 
 as the innumerable facts of pathological analysis 
 observed in the insane, such as the remarkable 
 results obtained by the researches of Claude 
 Bernard, which become part of the common stock 
 of knowledge, and must find their place in any 
 theory of humanity which is to claim an acknow- 
 ledgment from the inteUigent physiologist of the 
 future. 
 
 This deep, this profoundly interesting subject 
 might be pursued to great length ; it is com- 
 mended to your serious attention with these 
 words of Bacon : — 
 
 ' All depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the 
 facts of nature, and so seeing their images simply as they are. 
 For God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own 
 imagination for a pattern of the world. 
 
 ' Rather may He graciously grant us a true vision of the 
 footsteps of the Creator imprinted on His creatures.' — N^ov. 
 Org. pr. i.
 
 CLASSICAL TRAINING. 45 
 
 ' Very meet it is, therefore, that we be sober-minded, and 
 give to faith that only which is faith's. — Nov. Org. 65. 
 
 It is not to be desired that we should part 
 to-night without some interchange of thought 
 on the relation of this University as a place of 
 national education to the topics we have been 
 considering. 
 
 The functions of an University have lately 
 been clearly stated by Mr. Mill in his Address 
 at St. Andrews. His statements coincide with 
 those repeatedly expressed in this place by the 
 best thinkers on the subject. His opinion is 
 of special value, as no one will suspect him 
 of too great leaning towards ancient 'studies, 
 or the gentler parts of human culture. He 
 says : — 
 
 ' The proper function of an University in national education 
 is tolerably well understood. At least there is a tolerably 
 general agreement about what an University is not. It is 
 not a place of professional education. Universities are not 
 intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some 
 special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not 
 to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but 
 capable and cultivated human beings. . . . What professional 
 men should carry away with them from an University, is not 
 professional knowledge, but that which would direct the use 
 of their professional knowledge, and bring the light of general 
 culture to illuminate the technicalities of a special pursuit.'
 
 46 SOURCE OF NATIONAL STRENGTH. 
 
 He reviews the several parts of human know- 
 ledge by which this function is to be performed. 
 For my own part, I know nothing apparently so 
 damaging to the reputation of the study of 
 classics as a means of forming completeness of 
 character, as its active antipathy in former years 
 to the cultivation of Science, and its passive in- 
 difference to the promotion of Art. 
 
 As long as this temper existed it implied an 
 ignorance of both, and as respects Art a narrow 
 appreciation of the true domain of Literature. 
 
 The causes of this temper need not be dis- 
 cussed by us : we are not the persons to do it in 
 this place. The causes do not He entirely in the 
 effect of classical training, but in the narrowing 
 tendency of exclusive devotion to one class of 
 pursuits in a limited society. It was addition 
 to the old studies, not substitution, that was 
 needed. The addition is in the course of being 
 made. May the substitution be averted. Your 
 assembly in this Hall is a proof of the fact 
 of the addition. This meeting is a testimony, 
 if any were needed, that these ancient founda- 
 tions are opened to the Professions, opened on 
 conviction and with hearty good-will : the union 
 of the ancient thought with modern method will 
 be effected in this place.
 
 FUTURE UNIVERSITY LIFE. 47 
 
 Yet we may ask, why the Professions should be 
 welcomed by the University ? why this union 
 should be desired by them '? The answer is 
 plain. Not through the guidance of the people 
 by a few superior minds, not through the lay- 
 ing down rules of fashion by concurrence, not 
 through the dogmas of authority by compulsion, 
 but by the culture of practical life, by the 
 moral elevation of the working people of every 
 class, are the great traditions of this country to 
 be maintained. 
 
 Not by Peers, nor Commons, not by Employers, 
 nor Artisans as such, nor by all combined, — but 
 by love of knowledge, of truth, and of upright- 
 ness ; by a wide view of the needs of man, 
 religious, moral, material ; by a small estimate 
 of our own powers, but a large one of our 
 duties ; by a just sense of the narrow field to 
 which our own vision is limited, and of the 
 shortness of the time during which to each of us 
 that vision shall last ; — by all these qualities 
 uniformly diJBfused according to the capacity 
 each may have, are Peers, Commons, Employers, 
 Artisans, to keep alive the force of their common 
 country. 
 
 And if these thoughts seem to belong to the 
 arena of the political world, and not to the
 
 48 trNIVERSlTY LIFE. 
 
 quiet recesses of a Scientific Assembly, re- 
 member that if your young men who are to 
 be engaged in professional life, if the sons of 
 your commercial men come hither, you will find 
 their characters tempered through life by the 
 processes to which they have been submitted. If 
 they find here the traditions and the practice 
 of general culture, of love of good, of pursuit 
 of all knowledge, pure or applied ; if they 
 learn precision when precision is needed, method 
 when method ; if they are taught to indulge 
 imagination where only imagination avails, 
 fancy where only fancy ; if they see us here 
 resisting authority when there should be en- 
 quiry, but bowing humbly before that which 
 is not for man to know, not ashamed of rever- 
 ence and hope, nor afraid of faith ; if here 
 they may learn to be industrious and contented, 
 of manly yet of tender heart, — then the Pro- 
 fessions may send their youth to a place the 
 country has reason warmly to cherish, if not 
 wholly to approve. 
 
 I know nothing more hopeful than the 
 prospect before us. Those who control the 
 fate of this city of a thousand years can still say 
 that the religious basis of the place is not yet 
 undermined by levity, por suffering from the
 
 RIVALRY OF CULTURE. 49 
 
 dry-rot of unfounded assertions ; that Science 
 is daily enlarging its borders by the addition 
 of new institutions and new men, and that 
 Art is asserting its just claims : so that those 
 who desire to see the youth of England pos- 
 sessed of great opportunities may yet find 
 them here. 
 
 One word more and I have done. The picture 
 I have drawn is not intended to describe what 
 is to be sought, or what is to be had in this 
 or the other place of education, but what is to 
 be sought in all. What we may aim at here 
 we wish others to attain. If they -be first, 
 then we will follow ; if they be last, we hope 
 that our speed may quicken with their ad- 
 vancing tread. 
 
 You will perceive, I doubt not, that I address 
 you not as an Oxford man, but as President of 
 your Association when it visits Oxford. While 
 you are here I hardly have the functions of 
 host. As your representative I have asked 
 freely for the aid you seemed to desire, and in 
 your name I thank all who have granted it. 
 In the name also of your Oxford friends, and 
 as ofiicial head of the ancient and honourable 
 Faculty of Medicine in her University, I heartily
 
 50 THE USE OF THE ASSOCIATION^ 
 
 welcome you to whatever in the iotus-growing 
 stagnant depth of the Long Vacation you may 
 find still living here. You bring your own life ; 
 from England, Scotland, Ireland, from the 
 United States of America, from France and 
 Germany. Live it among us. And in ex- 
 change for our welcome to the banks of Isis 
 give us your thoughts and your counsels, to 
 the end that we may all return refreshed and 
 strengthened to our common and happy toil. 
 
 ^0M^^^ 
 
 OXFORD: 
 
 BY T. COMBE, M.A., E. B. aARDNEE, E. P. HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A., 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
 
 "^"^m