ant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or
any other source of them. We should fear being banished for our neglect
to that limbo, where the great Florentine tells us are those who, during
this life, "wept when they might be joyful."

But I shall be trespassing unwarrantably on your kindness, if I do not
proceed at once to my last point--the time at which Physiological
Science should first form a part of the Curriculum of Education.

The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science as
instruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, has
already been placed before you in a previous lecture: and it appears to
me, that, as with other sciences, the _common facts_ of Biology--the
uses of parts of the body--the names and habits of the living creatures
which surround us--may be taught with advantage to the youngest child.
Indeed, the avidity of children for this kind of knowledge, and the
comparative ease with which they retain it, is something quite
marvellous. I doubt whether any toy would be so acceptable to young
children as a vivarium, of the same kind as, but of course on a smaller
scale than, those admirable devices in the Zoological Gardens.

On the other hand, systematic teaching in Biology cannot be attempted
with success until the student has attained to a certain knowledge of
physics and chemistry: for though the phaenomena of life are dependent
neither on physical nor on chemical, but on vital forces, yet they
result in all sorts of physical and chemical changes, which can only be
judged by their own laws.

And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to which I hope you see
reason to follow me.

Biology needs no apologist when she demands a place--and a prominent
place--in any scheme of education worthy of the name. Leave out the
Physiological sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the student
into the world, undisciplined in that science whose subject-matter
would best develop his powers of observation; ignorant of facts of the
deepest importance for his own and others' welfare; blind to the richest
sources of beauty in God's creation; and unprovided with that belief in
a living law, and an order manifesting itself in and through endless
change and variety, which might serve to check and moderate that phase
of despair through which, if he take an earnest interest in social
problems, he will assuredly sooner or later pass.

Finally, one word for myself. I ha