[7] Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about
the Baconian method. I beg them therefore to
lay to heart these two weighty sayings of the herald
of Modern Science:—
“Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones
ex verbis, verba notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque
si notiones ipsae (id quod basis rei est) confusae
sint et temere a rebus abstractae, nihil in iis quae
superstruuntur est firmitudinis.”—Novum
Organon, ii. 14.
“Huic autem vanitati nonnulli ex modernis summa
levitate ita indulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Geneseos
et in libro Job et aliis scripturis sacris, philosophiam
naturalem fundare conati sint; inter vivos quaerentes
mortua.”—Ibid. 65.
ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY
[1877]
The chief ground upon which I venture to recommend
that the teaching of elementary physiology should
form an essential part of any organised course of
instruction in matters pertaining to domestic economy,
is, that a knowledge of even the elements of this
subject supplies those conceptions of the constitution
and mode of action of the living body, and of the
nature of health and disease, which prepare the mind
to receive instruction from sanitary science.
It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygienist
and the physician should find something in the public
mind to which they can appeal; some little stock of
universally acknowledged truths, which may serve as
a foundation for their warnings, and predispose towards
an intelligent obedience to their recommendations.
Listening to ordinary talk about health, disease,
and death, one is often led to entertain a doubt whether
the speakers believe that the course of natural causation
runs as smoothly in the human body as elsewhere.
Indications are too often obvious of a strong, though
perhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, under-current
of opinion that the phenomena of life are not only
widely different, in their superficial characters
and in their practical importance, from other natural
events, but that they do not follow in that definite
order which characterises the succession of all other
occurrences, and the statement of which we call a
law of nature.
Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of belief
in the value of knowledge respecting the laws of health
and disease, and of the foresight and care to which
knowledge is the essential preliminary, which is so
often noticeable; and a corresponding laxity and carelessness
in practice, the results of which are too frequently
lamentable.
It is said that among the many religious sects of
Russia, there is one which holds that all disease
is brought about by the direct and special interference
of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks with repugnance
upon both preventive and curative measures as alike
blasphemous interferences with the will of God.
Among ourselves, the “Peculiar People”
are, I believe, the only persons who hold the like
doctrine in its integrity, and carry it out with logical
rigour. But many of us are old enough to recollect
that the administration of chloroform in assuagement
of the pangs of child-birth was, at its introduction,
strenuously resisted upon similar grounds.
