The subject to which I have to beg your attention during the ensuing hour is “The Relation of Physiological Science to other branches of knowledge.”
Had circumstances permitted of the delivery, in their strict logical order, of that series of discourses of which the present lecture is a member, I should have preceded my friend and colleague Mr. Henfrey, who addressed you on Monday last; but while, for the sake of that order, I must beg you to suppose that this discussion of the Educational bearings of Biology in general does precede that of Special Zoology and Botany, I am rejoiced to be able to take advantage of the light thus already thrown upon the tendency and methods of Physiological Science.
Regarding Physiological Science then, in its widest sense—as the equivalent of Biology—the Science of Individual Life—we have to consider in succession:
1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge.
2. Its value as a means of mental discipline.
3. Its worth as practical information.
And lastly,
4. At what period it may best be made a branch of Education.
Our conclusions on the first of these heads must depend, of course, upon the nature of the subject-matter of Biology; and I think a few preliminary considerations will place before you in a clear light the vast difference which exists between the living bodies with which Physiological science is concerned, and the remainder of the universe;—between the phænomena of Number and Space, of Physical and of Chemical force, on the one hand, and those of Life on the other.
The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist contemplate things in a condition of rest; they look upon a state of equilibrium as that to which all bodies normally tend.