meteorology, which deals with the atmosphere; to geography and geology, which deal with the surface of the earth. The subjects of these sciences are so vast, that our feeble physical powers cannot grasp them; and in the case of the two former, they are likewise so distant and inaccessible, as to be only within the scope of our sight.

On the other hand, in mechanics, where bodies of a manageable size can be balanced or set in movement; in chemistry, where gases and small specimens of earths, minerals, salts, &c., can be disposed of by the manipulator at his discretion; in optics, where the effect of light can be tried upon refracting and reflecting substances of moderate size; in acoustics, where the phenomena of sound can be observed within a limited area; in electricity, magnetism, and thermology, where a similar mastery over the substances under investigation is possible, scientific experiment can be employed. ("1)

In the field of physics, therefore, scientific experiment is only applicable to those subjects which man can, as it were, reduce to servitude-of which, in legal phraseology, he can have seisin. Where great spaces and magnitudes are in question, which the human arms cannot enclose, and which we can only measure by a repetition of successive manual operations, or by methods of indirect calculation, there scientific experiment is powerless.

§ 4 Scientific experiment, again, is not only inapplicable to those physical sciences which deal with remote and vast objects, but it is also inapplicable to man. (2) It is inapplicable to man as a sentient, and also as an intellectual and moral being; to man, as the subject of physiological and medical, as well as of metaphysical, ethical, and political science. It is, however, inapplicable to man, not because he lies beyond the

(11) See Comte, Phil. Pos. tom. ii. p. 405, who remarks that experiment is peculiarly applicable to those sciences which the French writers comprehend under the specific name of physique.

(12) As to the inapplicability of experiment to the moral sciences, see Mr. Mill's Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Pol. Economy, essay v. p. 146.

reach of our powers, but because we abstain voluntarily from exercising them upon him for this purpose; not because he is inaccessible to our experiments, but because they could not be applied to him without destroying his life, or wounding his sensibility, or at least subjecting him to annoyance and restraint. In some cases, indeed, a man may voluntarily submit himself to scientific experiments: thus, he may expose himself to great heat or great cold, in order to determine what extremes of temperature the human body can bear; (13) he may take drugs, or particular kinds of food, in order to try their effect on his body, and the like.(1) Physiological experiments may likewise be tried, within certain limits, upon the living human body, when some of its members or organs have been peculiarly affected by disease or wound. These experiments, however, must be subject to the condition, that they do not inflict serious pain on the patient, or retard his cure.(15)

Scientific experiments of this kind may be tried without limit upon the vegetable kingdom; inasmuch as plants, though organized, are insentient. Many scientific experiments can likewise be tried upon animals, without intentionally subjecting them to pain, or abridging their life. Thus, we can fix the temperature in which they live; we can regulate their food and habitation; we can select the individuals for the reproduction of the species; and we can thus ascertain the conditions which are favourable or unfavourable to the life or vigour of the animal. Sometimes, however, scientific experimentation upon animals is carried beyond these bounds. Of late years, in particular, vivisection, or anatomical investigation of the living subject, has often been practised upon some of the smaller mammalia, as well as

(13) See Carpenter's Comp. and Gen. Phys. § 174.

(14) See the remarks in Mr. Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 539.

(15) See an example of experiments of this sort in Dr. Carpenter's Human Physiology, § 366. Speaking of the investigation of the birth of animals, Bacon says:- Circa animalia perfecta et terrestria, per exsectiones fœtuum ex utero, minus humanum esset ista inquirere; nisi forte per occasiones abortuum, et venationum, et similium.'-Nov. Org. ii. aph. 41.

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other animals of an inferior class; (1) and important physiological facts have been established by these means. And, indeed, some of the ancient physicians of the Dogmatic sect were permitted by the kings to open the living bodies of convicted criminals: a practice which was defended against the objections of the Empiric sect, upon the ground that it is reasonable for a few criminals to suffer for the benefit of many innocent men.(") In modern

(16) On the vivisection of swine and dogs by the anatomists of the sixteenth century, see Sprengel, Gesch. der Arzneikunde, vol. iii. p. 59. On experiments with tadpoles, see Carpenter's Human Physiology, 32; with birds, ib. § 35; and by the removal of the cerebellum in animals, § 459. The colouring of the bones of animals by feeding them on madder is also a species of experiment, ib. § 202. He remarks (Principles of Gen. and Comp. Physiology, § 5), that experiments on the lower classes of animals often suffice for physiological purposes.

M. Comte (ib. tom. ii. p. 405; tom. iii. p. 325) disapproves of vivisection, partly on account of its barrenness of results, and partly on account of its moral tendency.

In Cymbeline, the Queen asks Cornelius for some poisonous drugs which she had commanded; and in reply to his question as to the use which she intends to make of them, she says

'I wonder, doctor,

Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
To make perfumes ? distil? preserve? yea, so,
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,
(Unless thou think'st me devilish,) is't not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in

Other conclusions? I will try the forces

Of these thy compounds on such creatures as

We count not worth the hanging (but none human),

To try the vigour of them, and apply

Allayments to their act; and by them gather

Their several virtues, and effects.

'Cor.

Your highness

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart:
Besides, the seeing these effects will be

Both noisome and infectious.'-Act i. sc. 6.

To try conclusions,' in the language of Shakspeare, is to try experiments

Like the famous ape,

To try conclusions, in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.'—Hamlet, act iii. sc. 4.

(17) See Celsus de Med. præf. p. 7; and see the objections in p. 11. Corpora nostra non novimus: qui sint situs partium, quam vim quæque pars habeat, ignoramus. Itaque medici ipsi, quorum intererat ea nosse, aperuerunt, ut viderentur. Nec eo tamen aiunt empirici notiora esse illa:

times, likewise, the practice of inoculating criminals with the matter of the plague, for the purpose of throwing light upon contagion, has been recommended, if not practised; and it appears that the French government used, in the sixteenth century, to furnish annually to the physicians of Montpellier a living criminal for dissection. (18)

Vivisection, however, even if it could be practised without scruple upon man and the higher mammalia, counteracts its own object, inasmuch as it rapidly destroys life. That which is vivisection in the beginning, soon becomes the dissection of a dead subject: Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect.(19)

This is the case in proportion as the animal is of a higher organization. Even while life remains, the action of the organs, lacerated, divided, or laid bare by the scalpel, is not in a natural or normal state, and therefore throws little light upon the vital processes. Accordingly, as Cuvier has remarked, natural history is almost exclusively a science of mere observation. (20)

A story told by Herodotus, though manifestly fabulous, may serve to show that the notion of scientific experiments practised upon the human race is of great antiquity.

He relates

quia possit fieri, ut patefacta et detecta mutentur. Sed ecquid nos eodem modo rerum naturas persecare, aperire, dividere possumus, ut videamus, terra penitusne defixa sit, et quasi radicibus suis hæreat, an media pendeat P-Cic. Acad. ii. 39.

The dissection alluded to by Cicero in the preceding passage appears to be vivisection. The objection of the Empiric school is the same as that reported in Celsus. In the latter part of the extract, Cicero points out that astronomy is not an experimental science.

(18) See Southey's Doctor, c. 122, vol. iv. p. 210, who states this fact on the authority of a French writer named Bouchet. If the writer referred to is Guillaume Bouchet, I have not been able to verify the fact mentioned by Southey. His Serées contain two stories relating to vivisection (one of an experimental operation for the stone, cited from Monstrelet, in which the criminal recovered), but nothing is there said as to the practice of furnishing criminals to the physicians of Montpellier.-Serée 14, tom. ii. p. 63-5: ed. Rouen, 1634-5.

(19) Pope, Moral Essays, ess. i. v. 29.

(20) See, on this subject, the remarks of Cuvier (Règne Animal, tom. i. 4), which are well expanded by Dr. Carpenter, Comp. and Gen. Phys. 4; and compare § 222.

that Psammitichus, king of Egypt (who reigned in the seventh century, B.C.), being desirous of ascertaining which was the most ancient race of men, employed the following contrivance. He took two infants, and gave them to a shepherd to bring up on goat's milk, in a solitary hut; charging him never to allow them to hear any word spoken. At the end of two years, these children, on receiving the customary visit of the shepherd, ran to him, stretching out their hands, and uttering the word bekos. This was reported to Psammitichus, who, upon inquiry, ascertained that bekos was the Phrygian name for bread; whence he inferred that the Phrygians were more ancient than the Egyptians. (2) Cicero likewise, in depreciating the character of the nations of Asia Minor, adverts to a proverbial saying, that if any experiment dangerous to life is to be tried on any man, a Carian is to be selected for the purpose.(*)

The method of scientific experiment, though it can be applied, in certain cases, to man considered physiologically, cannot be applied to political society. (23) We cannot treat the body politic

(21) ii. c. 2. Herodotus adds that the Greeks corrupted this story, by representing Psammitichus to have placed the children under the care of women whose tongues he had cut out. This was a circumstance of cruelty not necessary for the experiment, which the native version of the story did not recognise, but which the Greek residents added, in order to make it more complete.

(22) Pro Flacco, c. 27. Nonne hoc vestrâ voce vulgatum est, si quid cum periculo experiri velis, in Care id potissimum esse faciendum ?' The proverb, referred to by early Greek writers, is ev Kapì tòv kívdvvov (see Zenob. Prov. iii. 59, with Schneidewin's note). It is to be observed that many of the Athenian slaves were Carians. Carion is the name of the slave in the Plutus of Aristophanes.

The maxim, Fiat experimentum in corpore vili,' appears to mean, that articles of value are not to be sacrificed for purposes of mere experimentalizing, but should be turned to some profitable account.

Celsus states that novel forms of disease had appeared from time to time, for which the physicians had devised no remedy: Quos ideo (he continues) nihil tentasse judico, quia nemo in splendidâ personâ periclitari conjecturâ suâ voluerit; ne occidisse, nisi servasset, videretur. Veri tamen simile est, potuisse aliquod excogitare, detractâ tali verecundiâ, et fortasse responsurum fuisse id, quod aliquis esset expertus.'-De Med. præf. p. 13. Alexander the Great was severely wounded with a barbed arrow in an attack on the city of the Oxydracæ. Critobulus, inter medicos artis eximiæ, sed in tanto periculo territus, manus admovere metuebat, ne in ipsius caput parum prosperæ curationis recideret eventus.'-Curt. ix. 6.

(23) C. Comte (Traité de Législation, liv. i. c. 1) observes, that in the sciences of legislation and morality there are not the same facilities of