8]"/> can say or conceive; nor is there any difference in the substance and nature of inert matter: as well might it be maintained that motion is not always mechanical, but sometimes chymical. The true philosophy of chymistry is dynamic, the basis inertia, the laws those of quantity and relative position.

The philosophy of the anatomist and physiologist is semi-natural, semi-spiritual, mechanical and vital. Life, throughout all belonging to the frame, does not suffice; the heart and blood have each an imputed, distinct, living principle; the nerves are sensitive, the muscles irritable; the flesh has its susceptibility, according to the modern physiology. The sainted health-preserver shudders at the irreligious notion of the economy being philosophised on at all; more especially according to the laws of hydrostatics; it being "impious beyond measure" to reason on the work of God's own hand, formed after his own image and likeness, (malformations excepted,) as on human mechanism. Yet, where are any of these vitalities and living principles when respiration is suddenly stopped? Verily, these professionals endow, most gratuitously, the animal frame with as many vitalities and living principles as the lives bestowed on the tailor's—so much the more unfortunate—cat. As every organ of the body is inert; no organ, of itself, performs the function; every function is mechanically performed, and every effect analogous to impulsive pressure, whether consisting in formation, intermixture, or dissolution, all depend on elementary local change. The contrary is not in the power of the anatomist and physiologist to prove of inert, unalterable, atomic substance; nor should more causes be assumed than what are natural, common, sufficient, and analogous to effects. Spiritual principles for mechanical purposes are as little requisite for animal organism as for the steam-engine, or the performances of a watch.

The last on the list of professional philosophies is that of the Therapeutist; the least misleading, from being the most concise. The word action includes the whole. There is no inquiry to which the word action is not the deeply-learned significant reply; being indefinite, it stands for a dead-stop silencer. The doctor knows best—with much room for knowing better. The doctor knows, and assures from his own certain knowledge, that the action of the dose on the stomach upheaves the sac; but rather than be thought positive, allows that the effect may be from the action of the stomach on the dose. The good easy man of M.D. celebrity, or mediocrity, has to learn, that the dose is as inert as when in the tea-cup, and the stomach as inert as when it has arrived at the predicted destiny, the dissecting table. Again, the action of the pain prevents the action of the physic, otherwise the cure would have been immediate. Such philosophy is harmless, if so to the patient; from its insignificance it corrupts neither pathology, osteology, nor dynamics. Not so the learning, published on high surgical authority, to enlighten ward-walking noviciates—that "pain may exist in the flesh and bones without being felt, owing to the insensible sensibility of the part," which amounts to an excruciating, painless toothache, and, the being unconscious of excited consciousness. Pain is not in the diseased or wounded part, being the consequence of cerebral excitement; pain is one of the objects of perception belonging to the scenery of the sensorium, from which it cannot migrate. The disorganised part is but the apparent place of pain; and wisely such, or else all remedial applications would be to the brain. As to the dose and stomach action, it stands corrected by the diagnosis; the stomach is lifted in consequence of the equilibrium of pressure being destroyed by means of the dose, notwithstanding its additional weight, within the stomach. Chymical action of the dose and self-lifting muscles are all of Esculapian surmise. The faculty should cease to identify feeling, pain, sensation, with organic ailments and disorganization of the flesh.