then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”
“What of it?”
“My question is, of what did that breath consist?”
“You have been too much in the company of Mr. Shelley.” He began another perambulation of the room and, on his return to his chair, swallowed a large portion of brandy and water. “You are beginning to doubt Holy Scripture.”
“I am simply curious.”
“Never be curious. It is the path to perdition. Now, shall we turn to the subject at hand?” He began to examine my translation into Greek of an editorial from The Times , on the prospects for Dalmatian independence, and I left his chambers soon after.
SO THERE WAS TO BE NO ENLIGHTENMENT for me at Oxford. I had already determined to study enough to attain my degree, principally for the sake of my father, but like a pilgrim I prepared myself for another journey. The mind that is ambitious makes itself. I found a small barn outside Oxford, in the little village ofHeadington; I rented this from a farmer for an inconsiderable sum, on the understanding that I was a student of medicine who was mixing noxious chemicals and combinations that needed to be prepared away from the haunts of men. The barn was surrounded by open fields, but had the advantage of a small track leading towards it. It was, as I told him, ideal for my purposes. And so it proved.
I began my experiments on the animal kingdom without, I hope, inflicting unnecessary or excessive pain. I had learned, from my studies of Priestley and Davy, the effectiveness of nitrous oxide as a means of anaesthesia; and I already knew the sedative effect of henbane when administered in large quantities. Yet I began with the smallest creatures. Even the humble worm, and the water-beetle, are objects of wonder to the student of Nature. Under the microscope the fly became a chamber of delights: the vessels of the eye were lustrous and brimming with life, crystals with manifold gleamings. How complex, and yet how vulnerable! All was held in such delicate poise and balance that the breadth of a hair separated life and brightness from darkness and nonentity.
I purchased turtle doves and other birds in the market off Corn Street and, when I felt the quick breathing warmth beneath my fingers, I sensed the elusive pulse of life. Was it the same warmth that suffused the mechanism of the voltaic batteries? Warmth meant motion and excitation, and movement visible or invisible was the condition of life itself. I believed that I was on the edge of a great discovery. If I could create movement, would it not then reproduce itself in sequence just as the waves beating against the shore rise up in harmonious array? The world followed one dance.
I was suffused with such hope and enthusiasm, in those Oxford days, that I would often run through the fields beside the barn in sheer overabundance of energy. I could look up at the clouds rolling above me and see within them the patterns I discerned in the pearly iridescence of a fly’s wing or the shifting colours in the eye of an expiring dove. I considered myself to be a liberator of mankind, freeing the world from the mechanical philosophy of Newton and of Locke. If I could find one single principle from the observation of all types of organism, if in the study of cells and tissues I could detect one presiding element, then I might be able to formulate the general physiology of all living things. There is one life, one way to live, one energetic spirit.
Yet there were periods of my existence when, in the last reaches of the night, I awoke with horror. The first hours of the day provoked in me alarm, and I would rise from my bed and pace through the dark streets as if they were my prison. On the first faint appearance of dawn, however, I became calm. The low and even light, across the water meadows, filled me with a sensation akin to courage. I needed it more than ever. I had begun my anatomy of dogs and cats, purchased at small expense from the poorer people of
“What of it?”
“My question is, of what did that breath consist?”
“You have been too much in the company of Mr. Shelley.” He began another perambulation of the room and, on his return to his chair, swallowed a large portion of brandy and water. “You are beginning to doubt Holy Scripture.”
“I am simply curious.”
“Never be curious. It is the path to perdition. Now, shall we turn to the subject at hand?” He began to examine my translation into Greek of an editorial from The Times , on the prospects for Dalmatian independence, and I left his chambers soon after.
SO THERE WAS TO BE NO ENLIGHTENMENT for me at Oxford. I had already determined to study enough to attain my degree, principally for the sake of my father, but like a pilgrim I prepared myself for another journey. The mind that is ambitious makes itself. I found a small barn outside Oxford, in the little village ofHeadington; I rented this from a farmer for an inconsiderable sum, on the understanding that I was a student of medicine who was mixing noxious chemicals and combinations that needed to be prepared away from the haunts of men. The barn was surrounded by open fields, but had the advantage of a small track leading towards it. It was, as I told him, ideal for my purposes. And so it proved.
I began my experiments on the animal kingdom without, I hope, inflicting unnecessary or excessive pain. I had learned, from my studies of Priestley and Davy, the effectiveness of nitrous oxide as a means of anaesthesia; and I already knew the sedative effect of henbane when administered in large quantities. Yet I began with the smallest creatures. Even the humble worm, and the water-beetle, are objects of wonder to the student of Nature. Under the microscope the fly became a chamber of delights: the vessels of the eye were lustrous and brimming with life, crystals with manifold gleamings. How complex, and yet how vulnerable! All was held in such delicate poise and balance that the breadth of a hair separated life and brightness from darkness and nonentity.
I purchased turtle doves and other birds in the market off Corn Street and, when I felt the quick breathing warmth beneath my fingers, I sensed the elusive pulse of life. Was it the same warmth that suffused the mechanism of the voltaic batteries? Warmth meant motion and excitation, and movement visible or invisible was the condition of life itself. I believed that I was on the edge of a great discovery. If I could create movement, would it not then reproduce itself in sequence just as the waves beating against the shore rise up in harmonious array? The world followed one dance.
I was suffused with such hope and enthusiasm, in those Oxford days, that I would often run through the fields beside the barn in sheer overabundance of energy. I could look up at the clouds rolling above me and see within them the patterns I discerned in the pearly iridescence of a fly’s wing or the shifting colours in the eye of an expiring dove. I considered myself to be a liberator of mankind, freeing the world from the mechanical philosophy of Newton and of Locke. If I could find one single principle from the observation of all types of organism, if in the study of cells and tissues I could detect one presiding element, then I might be able to formulate the general physiology of all living things. There is one life, one way to live, one energetic spirit.
Yet there were periods of my existence when, in the last reaches of the night, I awoke with horror. The first hours of the day provoked in me alarm, and I would rise from my bed and pace through the dark streets as if they were my prison. On the first faint appearance of dawn, however, I became calm. The low and even light, across the water meadows, filled me with a sensation akin to courage. I needed it more than ever. I had begun my anatomy of dogs and cats, purchased at small expense from the poorer people of
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