Excerpt from Studies in Advanced Physiology
There are two extremes open in writing a brief treatise on any natural science. One is to state briefly and explicitly those facts which are seriously questioned by no one. It is to enumerate and tabulate what is definitely known about the subject. In the field of animal physiology there is much which is "settled" information, and which it is believed, will not be materially changed by the developments of the future. Most of the gross anatomy is finished, by no means all, but many points in histology are determined, while in pure physiology there are fewer things that are considered explained. Thus the phenomena of respiration and the dynamics of the blood flow are to a very large extent known in terms of chemical and physical laws. To limit a book to this would be to make it stereotyped, dead, and leave the reader with the impression that physiology like Sanskrit was finished, and like every finished problem had no longer a living interest of its own. Most of the ordinary textbooks err on this side. They state ex cathedra, fact after fact, they seldom give the reasons which have led physiologists to adopt the views in question, and they seldom leave the idea that many things are still being studied with the hope that more study will give new light. Most textbooks leave the mind of the student with the belief that all has been told, that there is nothing more to add, and that therefore there is no need for him to try to improve on the text-book, by making his own observation. The feeling of the authority of the text-book in physiology has robbed many a student of the desire to investigate the subject further. Like the Scholastics of the Middle Ages they turn to the book as to Aristotle, fully convinced that all knowledge is contained in it, and that what is not contained is impossible of access.
The other extreme is to give in detail all the scientific controversies of the past and present. It is to state indiscriminately pros and cons until the conviction settles over one that nothing is definite and all is confusion. Especially true is this when these conflicting views are at once presented to the beginner in the subject.
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