,
that they have to a very large extent, if not entirely, cut him off from
the general operation of that process of Natural Selection and survival
of the fittest which up to their appearance had been the law of the
living world. They justify the view that Man forms a new departure in
the gradual unfolding of Nature's predestined scheme. Knowledge, reason,
self-consciousness, will, are the attributes of Man."(1) It has been
a slow and gradual growth, and not until within the past century has
science organized knowledge--so searched out the secrets of Nature, as
to control her powers, limit her scope and transform her energies. The
victory is so recent that the mental attitude of the race is not yet
adapted to the change. A large proportion of our fellow creatures still
regard nature as a playground for demons and spirits to be exorcised or
invoked.

(1) Sir E. Ray Lankester: Romanes Lecture, "Nature and Man,"
Oxford Univ. Press, 1905, p. 21.

Side by side, as substance and shadow--"in the dark backward and abysm
of time," in the dawn of the great civilizations of Egypt and Babylon,
in the bright morning of Greece, and in the full noontide of modern
life, together have grown up these two diametrically opposite views of
man's relation to nature, and more particularly of his personal relation
to the agencies of disease.

The purpose of this course of lectures is to sketch the main features of
the growth of these two dominant ideas, to show how they have influenced
man at the different periods of his evolution, how the lamp of reason,
so early lighted in his soul, burning now bright, now dim, has never,
even in his darkest period, been wholly extinguished, but retrimmed
and refurnished by his indomitable energies, now shines more and more
towards the perfect day. It is a glorious chapter in history, in which
those who have eyes to see may read the fulfilment of the promise of
Eden, that one day man should not only possess the earth, but that he
should have dominion over it! I propose to take an aeroplane flight
through the centuries, touching only on the tall peaks from which may be
had a panoramic view of the epochs through which we pass.

ORIGIN OF MEDICINE

MEDICINE arose out of the primal sympathy of man with man; out of the
desire to help those in sorrow, need and sickness.

In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of hu