which he considers a far more important purpose of the study, -namely, the culture and discipline of the Mind itself. Having been satisfied, by no inconsiderable experience of different modes of Education, that Natural Science, if judiciously taught, is second in value to no other subject as an educational means, and that it may be made to call forth a more varied and wholesome exercise of the mental powers than almost any other taken singly, he has kept this purpose constantly in view; and he trusts that the experience of intelligent Instructors will be found so far to concur with his own, that the study of Physiology may be still more generally introduced into Popular Education. It can only be by the general diffusion of sound information on this subject, that the Public Mind can be led to understand the difference between Rational Medicine, and that Empiricism which now presents itself under so many different forms; that it can appreciate the true value of measures of Sanitary Reform, the efficiency of which must depend upon the amount of support they receive from an intelligent public opinion; and that it can be preserved from those Epidemic Delusions, whose prevalence, from time to time, is not less injurious to the minds of which they lay hold, than is that of Epidemic Diseases to the bodies of those who suffer from them. He has only further to add that, whilst keeping in view the most important practical applications of the Science of Physiology, he has not thought it desirable to pursue these too far; since they constitute the details of the Art of preserving Health, which is founded upon it, and which may be much better studied in a distinct form, when this outline of the Science has been mastered. And, for the same reason, he has adverted but slightly to those inferences respecting the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, of the Great First Cause, which are more obvious, although, perhaps, not really more clear and valid, in this Science, than in any other. Believing, as he does, that such inferences are more satisfactorily based upon the general manifestations of Law and Order, than upon individual instances of Design, he has thought it the legitimate object of this treatise to lay the foundation for them, by developing, so far as might be, the Principles of Physiology,-leaving it to special treatises on Natural Theology, to build-up the applications. UNIVERSITY HALL, LONDON, Jan. 1859. |