Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/47

 rialistic, and this expression in certain circles has become a term of ill odour savouring of de- gradation, of impiety and even immorality. What shall we say to our great writer on art, the author of the Stones of Venice," one for whom I personally feel the greatest regard, and whose works I peruse with admiration, when, in one of his last lectures at Oxford, after descanting in the most eloquent and rapturous terms on the beauty of the wings of the dove as it sails through the air, chooses to depart from his theme in order to pour his wrath on the anatomist who dares to explain its flight by a mechanism of joints, of bones, and of feathers. That this tone of thought is very prevalent we had an oppor- tunity of perceiving at the time of the con- trovorsy on vivisection, the opposition to which was based virtually on the inutility of that parti- cular picce of cruelty to animals practised by physiologists, since it led only to useless knowledge and fostered idle curiosity. I have just now quoted the words of one of the most eminent of the oppo- nents of vivisection, that to pry into the insides of animals and discover the secrets of nature was no business of ours, and this, alas! the expression of