special purpose, he may pull very hard and do all the work, or he may not pull at all; but in neither case will he be quite satisfied, and in neither case will the work have the breadth and touch, and colour of one skilful hand. Indeed, so formed are we by nature to differ, that the evolution of a single harmonious thought by two minds is a physical accident. The early Mythology, which gave to many gods the construction of the universe, was not intrinsically weaker, nor falser, nor more mischievous to the conception of order than are we at this moment. Let us, then, learn to respect in the fullest degree the absolute independency of mind. Let every man be a law unto himself. Let us seize, as truths, that all great progress is the result of individual labour, that genius has no double, and bears no double yoking; but that, fastened in their independency by the social ties of friendship, and sharpened by the criticism of other minds, the units of the profession of medicine may each become so strong that their very individuality shall be their safest bond, and their independent strength the best surety of their united endurance.

Unity of Practice.

To secure a sound method of research in medicine, unity of practice, and of observation over the whole field of disease, is another essential. I am quite free to admit that men have certain differences of capacity and feeling which education cannot at all equalise; and I also see that, in our great work, there are practically a few grand parts which, though, not altogether, nor, indeed, at all disconnected, do, nevertheless, allow scope for certain differences of capacity and power. The governance of the hand and the eye for precise co-operation is natural in some men, and when this gift is combined with a firm heart, the man, owning all, stands forward, pre-eminently qualified for the handicraft of Physic. He is, by nature, a Surgeon, and although he may likewise be a good

In this sense, it is of first importance to forbid at once and for good the centrifugal mania of instituting a separate society for every artificially divided branch of medicine, and to prevent the molecular disintegration of the grand old Republic which our fathers left us to foster, to strengthen, to hold, to beautify, but never to dissever. It is not too late to amend this error. Let there be as many societies as there are tens to form them, if they all meet in the unity of physic; but the crash into sects, can no one stop that? Is there in medicine, and in this country, no central body that will attract the fragments and save anarchy? What should we say if the astronomers divided themselves into the telescopical society, the air-pump society, the solar society, the lunar society, the planetary society, the Saturn's ring society, the asteroid society, the fixed star society, the comet and meteor society, the star spectrum analysis society, the worlds-on-fire society; to say nothing of the Keplerian, the Newtonian, the Halleyan or the zodiacal, ecliptic, or orbital societies? What should we say? Why that the astronomers were on their last wings -a mad crew, splitting up, as best they could, the blessed universe and the universal harmonies, for gross imaginings, with as little compunction as a printer who distributes the type of a great book, and making themselves as loose as sand.

The object of all societies, in short, should be simple union of men together for a common purpose, with independence of individual action and entire freedom from all that shall tend to specialise either men or things. When a man enters an arena, knowing that he will be allowed only to stand on one leg, he may, by the rehearsing he has been guilty of, and by the advantage of the trained and prepared tastes of the audience, make a very creditable display. But what belongs to the display or what comes of it? When a man, bound to a special society, is teamed with another man for a sub

special purpose, he may pull very hard and do all the work, or he may not pull at all; but in neither case will he be quite satisfied, and in neither case will the work have the breadth and touch, and colour of one skilful hand. Indeed, so formed are we by nature to differ, that the evolution of a single harmonious thought by two minds is a physical accident. The early Mythology, which gave to many gods the construction of the universe, was not intrinsically weaker, nor falser, nor more mischievous to the conception of order than are we at this moment. Let us, then, learn to respect in the fullest degree the absolute independency of mind. Let every man be a law unto himself. Let us seize, as truths, that all great progress is the result of individual labour, that genius. has no double, and bears no double yoking; but that, fastened in their independency by the social ties of friendship, and sharpened by the criticism of other minds, the units of the profession of medicine may each become so strong that their very individuality shall be their safest bond, and their independent strength the best surety of their united endurance.

Unity of Practice.

To secure a sound method of research in medicine, unity of practice, and of observation over the whole field of disease, is another essential. I am quite free to admit that men have certain differences of capacity and feeling which education cannot at all equalise; and I also see that, in our great work, there are practically a few grand parts which, though, not altogether, nor, indeed, at all disconnected, do, nevertheless, allow scope for certain differences of capacity and power. The governance of the hand and the eye for precise co-operation is natural in some men, and when this gift is combined with a firm heart, the man, owning all, stands forward, pre-eminently qualified for the handicraft of Physic. He is, by nature, a Surgeon, and although he may likewise be a good

Physician, he will soon be detected as having the mechanical art at his fingers' ends. There are other men who are naturally endowed with perceptive knowledge of habits, tastes, and feelings, mental or physical. These men are, by nature, Physicians, and though they may likewise become good Surgeons, they are soon read off and placed by their compeers in their true positions.

Corresponding with these natural qualities of professors of our art, there are tracks in the art itself for peculiar skill, and the general division of medicine into the medical and the surgical, is probably a sound practice, resting on necessity and on natural law. A plea also may be put in with fairness, founded exclusively, however, on artificial necessity, peculiar to the age and civilisation, for the separation of the Physicians into those who treat physical, and those who treat mental disease. But beyond these general divisions, there can be no rending for anything but evil. Separate an

organ from an organism, and the organ no longer belongs to the organism. Make diseases isolations, and you make them entities, to be treated as such. What child's play! If the theory, hapless, were true, what hope were there for advance in knowledge of disease or its management? Entities, how many are you? Physicians, on what is your particular knowledge of your particular entity based? Can you separate one of your entities, or find an exclusive seat for it in the vile body? Well, if you can, then has your labour not commenced, for entities never die, and although you may live long to study yours, and to make the description of it sensational, and to talk to it and get many fees for the talking, which fees shall be, after all, the best of the intercourse, yet shall the entity remain unexorcised, and lively as ever, when you are very quiet indeed.

The entity doctrine in physic, having its origin in the dreams of Van Helmont and Stahl, dreams grossly perverted

by their followers, and carried down to this day in reality, although disguised in some of the stolen clothes of science, is the curse of our profession. When the public comes to form so low an estimate of an individual who should rank with the philosopher, as to believe that his knowledge is confined to one so-called disease, or to one organ, the beauty and the nobility of medicine, as a system, are for the moment gone, and the great philosophy which the ancient poets compared to the sun, and consigned symbolically to Apollo, is eclipsed. And when he, who should be the philosopher, is willing to bow to so mean an estimate, and to say, "Your servant, sir," to the stupid who comes to him because he is considered the fountain head of knowledge on the kidney, the liver, the toe nail, or the muscles and sinews as distinguished from the bones and the joints, then is the eclipse dense of dense. The darkness may be felt.

Nothing but a sense of an imperative duty could warrant these sayings. Nothing, except the deepest love for medicine, could embolden me to say them. But I am tired of seing physic sneered at as the least exact of all human knowledge. I am wearied with the everlasting sound of the earth bells tolling our frailties; and I am saddened to recognise that the profession, blind to its interests, allows an universal specialism to nourish and force an almost universal scepticism.

Unity of Education.

To sustain the principle of unity of research in medicine, a reform of the most sweeping character is required in the matter of medical education. The young mind, brought for the first time into connection with its older life, takes up at once the impressions by which it shall afterwards be mostly guided and ruled. What then sees the student as he enters