If it is true that we understand ourselves but imperfectly in health, this truth is more signally manifested in disease, where natural actions imperfectly understood, disturbed in an obscure way by half-seen causes, are creeping and winding along in the dark toward their destined issue, sometimes using our remedies as safe stepping-stones, occasionally, it may be, stumbling over them as obstacles.

I propose in this lecture to show you some points of contact between our ignorance and our knowledge in several of the branches upon the study of which you are entering.  I may teach you a very little directly, but I hope much more from the trains of thought I shall suggest.  Do not expect too much ground to be covered in this rapid survey.  Our task is only that of sending out a few pickets under the starry flag of science to the edge of that dark domain where the ensigns of the obstinate rebel, Ignorance, are flying undisputed.  We are not making a reconnoissance in force, still less advancing with the main column.  But here are a few roads along which we have to march together, and we wish to see clearly how far our lines extend, and where the enemy’s outposts begin.

Before touching the branches of knowledge that deal with organization and vital functions, let us glance at that science which meets you at the threshold of your study, and prepares you in some measure to deal with the more complex problems of the living laboratory.

Chemistry. includes the art of separating and combining the elements of matter, and the study of the changes produced by these operations.  We can hardly say too much of what it has contributed to our knowledge of the universe and our power of dealing with its materials.  It has given us a catalogue raisonne of the substances found upon our planet, and shown how everything living and dead is put together from them.  It is accomplishing wonders before us every day, such as Arabian story-tellers used to string together in their fables.  It spreads the, sensitive film on the artificial retina which looks upon us through the optician’s lens for a few seconds, and fixes an image that will outlive its original.  It questions the light of the sun, and detects the vaporized metals floating around the great luminary,—­iron, sodium, lithium, and the rest,—­as if the chemist of our remote planet could fill his bell-glasses from its fiery atmosphere.  It lends the power which flashes our messages in thrills that leave the lazy chariot of day behind them.  It seals up a few dark grains in iron vases, and lo! at the touch of a single spark, rises in smoke and flame a mighty Afrit with a voice like thunder and an arm that shatters like an earthquake.  The dreams of Oriental fancy have become the sober facts of our every-day life, and the chemist is the magician to whom we owe them.