Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/74

62 we term 'mind' governs the action of the bodily functions, either promoting or disturbing their normal condition. This is a fact of growing importance in practical medicine. Similar inﬂuence is exerted in varying degrees on all living creatures. Destructive or non-natural experimentation on living animals is always subject to the fallacy of morbid condition.

The established law of research stated above exposes the error of pursuing biological investigation (or the study of vital action) by the process of mutilating or diseasing living animals.

In research the radical difference between inorganic and organic Nature cannot be too clearly insisted on. Whilst in the former we can resolve compounds into their elements, and recombine them, such process is impossible in organic Nature. We can take a steam-engine or a watch to pieces, examine their parts, repair them, and put them together again, thus proving our knowledge in this realm of Nature. But a living thing cannot be treated in the same way. Not only the difference of animal type forbids destructive method of investigation, but as the type rises in