matters of vital interest to the whole nation. We have an instance in what Sidney Herbert accomplished for the health of the British army. Till 1857 the mortality in the infantry serving at home was nearly double that of the civil population of the corresponding ages. Now it is actually less than in civil life. It is less than half of what it was. This represents the saving of the lives of British soldiers in time of peace. The contrast is even more striking in war, if we compare the mortality from sickness in the two wars in China-the one before, the other after, the introduction of the new regulation; -and yet these were little more than well-known sanitary rules, applied intelligently by an able and earnest minister.

Then, if we turn from what has been done to what has not yet been done-to the report of the sanitary state of our army in India, to the facts which it discloses, and the sad reflections it suggestswe may see, in matters in which the highest political interests of the empire are concerned, how much might have been effected by men of station if they had been instructed in sanitary science, or had guided themselves by the advice of others who were.

But it is a general diffusion of such knowledge, or at least of respect for such knowledge, which is needed in a country like England; where the government is so much under the immediate influence of popular opinion, that scarcely a step can be taken for which the general public is not prepared. An autocrat, or his minister, if he be alive to the advances of science, may apply them at once to the exigencies of the state. But with us, there can be little progress without a progress of the whole nation.

After all, it is not to be maintained that the study of natural science has the peculiar merit of making men, in all respects, wiser than the study of any physical science, or of literature, might make them. I fear it must be admitted that the body medical, instructed though all of us have been in natural science, has furnished its share of victims to the quackeries of religious profession, of politics, and of speculative finance. But this only strengthens the argument for the necessity of general education in natural science. Just as scientific men err, when they engage in matters that they have not studied; so do the unscientific, when they essay to judge in scientific questions, without even knowledge enough to choose their guides.

And if some acquaintance with the natural sciences be so needful for men in general, what should be expected of us, the medical profession, who practise daily an art which has its only sound basis in these very sciences.

I am well aware of the difficulty of maintaining a high standard of scientific acquirements for all, without exception, that seek to enter our profession; but surely this is what should be unceasingly aimed at. Without scientific knowledge, the practice of medicine becomes mere empiricism; without scientific and general acquirements, our profession may strive in vain to uphold its social status and its influence.

Every ignorant man admitted into our profession has an injurious influence on the estimation in which the entire body is held. His demerits have a tendency to lower us throughout the circle in which he is known. The want of confidence in him-the want of respect for him--beget distrust and disrespect for the profession in general. Contrast with this, the influence on our social status of such men as Mead, Freind, and Arbuthnot, Thomas Young, Abercrombie, and Brodie, and of the many others, whose acquirements or achievements in literature or science have raised them to eminence in the eyes of the world. Have they not elevated in some degree the whole body medical; nay, are there not some of our own associates, now living-are there not some here present-who have made us all their debtors by the lustre they have thus reflected on our common calling?

And so, likewise, must our scientific character be the measure of our social influence; and especially of our power of maintaining truth against error in questions that are daily exciting the attention of society, and of which we ought to be the accepted exponents.

When we consider that the sciences, with which we are, or ought to be, conversant, include subjects of which people in general are so ignorant, and in which nevertheless they take so lively and curious an interest, and which concern their well-being in almost all they do or suffer; surely it is in our power, as it certainly comes within our duty, to exercise a wide influence for good; surely it is our duty, and may be our privilege, to be in these matters the scientific "salt of the earth."

Our profession has never been backward in such work. The learned and ingenious author of "Inquiries into Vulgar Errors" was a provincial physician. It was a physician also who, in the sixteenth century, strove single-handed with the arms of reason against the barbarous hosts of witch-burners, and bore the glorious reproach of folly and presumption for putting the judgment of an insignificant physician in opposition to the dicta and decrees of emperors and kings, legislators and judges, divines and philosophers of all ages and all countries. And something has been done in our time-and well done-for the direct refutation of error. The most fashionable of modern quackeries has been ably and thoroughly exposed by Dr. Simpson.

Few have the ability for works of this kind; but there are many of us, who might do something to prevent the spread of misIchievous errors. We might do much, if we were to aid in such instruction as would be some safeguard against them. We know what was effected by the late Professor Henslow; how in a few years he brought about a complete revolution, intellectual as well as moral, in a grossly ignorant village community; how even such people as those were instructed in some knowledge of science, and filled with a rational and elevating respect for it. And really the means employed were little more than might be in the power of any medical practitioner who has his home in the country. It was not

the depth of Professor Henslow's knowledge, but the simplicity with which he imparted it, that gave to it so powerful an influence. Our country members are quite capable of giving short, easy lectures, as Professor Henslow did, and many of them are capable of doing it well. I am not unaware of the objections that may be urged against medical men lecturing, and of the fatally easy transition from lectures for the benefit of others, to lectures for the benefit of one's self; but I think such objections are not applicable to the case of a man instructing the poor of his own village, where he is officially charged with the care of them in sickness-in fact, though not in name, the true guardian of the poor,-and where some little instruction in such simple matters as the air they breathe, and the food they eat, may save his poor neighbours from suffering, or even death, and himself from some portion of his ill-requited labours.

I am disposed even to think, that our patients of the upper classes would have more confidence in orthodox medicine, if we were to vouchsafe more frequently to gratify their natural curiosity as to the nature of their diseases and the processes of cure. I am well aware of the opinion of shrewd “practical men," that no doctors acquire a reputation for skill, like those that hold their tongues; and, doubtless, silence is the most prudent for those, that aim to be counted wise, though they be not so; but I think, nevertheless, that an explanation of the case is as much due from the physician to his patient, as it is from the lawyer to his client; and that the confidence of the public in rational medicine would be strengthened by such explanations. I do not mean that the doctor should put on an air of profundity, and look, like Lord Thurlow, more wise than it is possible for any man to be; nor that he should impress on his patient that

"These are diseases he must know the whole on,
For he talks of the peritoneum and the colon;"

but I mean that he should be willing to give a plain explanation in words as free as may be from technicalities.

We do injustice to medicine, if we treat it as a mystery. It is a science, and entitled to rank as such; and we at least should be ready to show that its maxims are founded in truth and reason.

Let us hope that the educational changes now in progress will aid us in maintaining the dignity which is its due ;-that, when people are better instructed as to the sciences on which medicine rests, when they themselves have examined into some parts of its broad and firm foundations, they will have a juster appreciation of medicine itself. Let us hope, that medicine will then receive the respect that is due to it, as the only one of the learned professions which holds its doctrines open to all inquiries, and never condescends to uphold itself on any dogma either of authority or tradition. Let us hope-as we have a right to hope-that medicine will then be honoured as the profession in which all discoveries and inventions are offered freely for the benefit of mankind, and in

which their concealment for selfish purposes, or their appropriation by patent right, is held to be disgraceful.

And till then, if the world deny to our profession the full honour which we feel and know is due to it, we may be well content with the ordinary round of duties, which are at once our lot and our privilege we may be content with the internal satisfaction that our time is spent to the best of our ability in doing good to our fellow-men; that we do not rest supinely satisfied with what is imperfect in our science, but are ever earnestly and laboriously seeking for fresh light; and when God vouchsafes it to our inquiries, we use it gladly in such works as He would have us do in the relief of human sufferings, in healing the sick, in striving to make the lame walk and the blind see-in earnest endeavours to follow our Divine Exemplar, though it be with the limited powers and faltering steps of human infirmity.

ON THE ORDER OF DISCOVERY IN THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.

BY HERBERT SPENCER.

(From "First Principles," p. 128.)

THE growing belief in the universality of Law is so conspicuous to all cultivated minds, as scarcely to need illustration. None who read these pages will ask for proof that this has been the central element of intellectual progress. But though the fact is sufficiently familiar, the philosophy of the fact is not so, and it will be desirable now to consider it. Partly because the development of our conception of Law will so be rendered more comprehensible; but chiefly because our subsequent course will thus be facilitated, I propose here to enumerate the several conditions that determine the order in which the various relations among phenomena are discovered. Seeing, as we shall, the consequent necessity of this order, and enabled, as we shall also be, to estimate the future by inference from the past, we shall perceive how inevitable is an advance towards the ultimatum that has been indicated.

The recognition of Law being the recognition of uniformity of relations among phenomena, it follows that the order in which different groups of phenomena are reduced to law, must depend on the frequency and distinctions with which the uniform relations they severally present are experienced. At any given stage of progress, those uniformities will be most recognised with which men's minds are oftener and most thoroughly impressed. In proportion partly to the number of times a relation has been presented to consciousness (not merely to the senses); and in proportion partly to the vividness with which the terms of the relation have been cognised, will be the degree in which the constancy of connexion is perceived.

The frequency and impressiveness with which different classes of relations are repeated in conscious experience, thus primarily

determining the succession in which they are generalized, there result certain derivative principles to which this succession must more immediately and obviously conform. First in importance comes the directness with which personal welfare is affected. While, among surrounding things, many do not appreciably influence the body in any way, some act detrimentally, and some beneficially, in various degrees; and manifestly, those things whose actions on the organism are most influential, will, cæteris paribus, be those whose laws of action are earliest observed. Second in order is, the consciousness of one or both the phenomena between which a relation is to be perceived. On every side are countless phenomena so concealed as to be detected only by close observation; others not obtrusive enough to attract notice; others which moderately solicit the attention; others so imposing or vivid as to force themselves upon consciousness: and, supposing incidental conditions to be the same, these last will, of course, be among the first to have their relations generalized. In the third place, we have the absolute frequency with which the relations occur. There are co-existences, and sequences of all degrees of commonness, from those which are ever present, to those which are extremely rare; and it is clear that the rare co-existences and sequences, as well as the sequences which are very long in taking place, will not be reduced to law so soon as those which are familiar and rapid. Fourthly, has to be added, the relative frequency of occurrence. Many events and appearances are more or less limited to times and places; and as a relation which does not exist within the environment of an observer, cannot be cognised by him, however common it may be elsewhere; or in another age, we have to take account of the surrounding physical circumstances, as well as the state of society, of the arts, and of the sciences; all of which affect the frequency with which certain groups of facts are exposed to obsertion. The fifth corollary to be noticed is, that the succession in which different classes of phenomena are reduced to law, depends in part on their simplicity. Phenomena presenting great complexity of causes or conditions, have their essential relations so masked, that it requires accumulated experience to impress upon consciousness the true connexion of antecedents and consequents they involve. Hence, other things equal, the progress of generalization will be from the simple to the complex ; and this it is which M. Comte has wrongly asserted to be the sole regulative principle of the progress. Sixth, and last, comes the degree of abstractness. Concrete relations are the earliest acquisitions. The colligation of any group of these into a general relation, which is the first step in abstraction, necessarily comes later than the discovery of the relations colligated. The union of a number of these lowest generalizations into a higher and more abstract generalization, is necessarily subsequent to the formation of such lowest generalizations. And so on continually, until the highest and most abstract generalizations have been reached.