Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/45

 It were, indeed, impossible to think of man or any other living creature as preserving his individuality apart from the world which he inhabits. I need not enlarge upon the trito examples of the useless. ness of the eye without light or of the meaningless- ness of the ear without the vibration of air, but ask you to consider the relation of the atmospheric air to the lungs. For if the bronchial tubes be regarded as analogous to the secreting tubes of other organs, and the contained air in them to the respective secretions, then there is really a portion of our body outside ourselves; the air around is not only a necessity of life, but it is as much a part of us as is the bile in the ducts of the liver.

An examination, therefore, of the material world implies a study of man who forms a part of it, and in studying man as we do other animals we include all his attributes, his appetites, his passions, his instincts, and his higher intellectual functions ; and I myself can scarcely see what grander, what nobler pursuit can be followed. It might be thought that in a learned society like this I ought to apologise for attempting to vindicate the claims of science, and yet sometimes there are found those in our profession who, deficient in the true