The strong masculine independence of his character is noted in the manner in which he has attacked all oppressions, be they from science or the Princes of the Church. He refused to blindly submit to the authority of the so-called masters in physics, and reserved the right to freely discuss their doctrines. “Hippocrates, Galen and Aristotle,” he remarks, “great as they are, never knew all. Science is the work of many successions of generations, and that which makes its grandeur so mysterious is that the more we know the more new problems are presented us for solution. Science, like, Nature, is infinite.” This lofty language deeply astounded thinkers, and roused against its author that same servile Pontifical party that prowled and plotted in the gilded antechamber of the aristocratic chateaux-owners of the day; the same variety of creatures we see to-day circulating, Indian file, through the corridors of our academies, faculties and courts. For the new as for the ancient, it is always the same word of the past, _Magister dixit_. That never changes. While acting as professor at Lyons, Rabelais gave “a course of anatomical lectures, given with so much eloquence,” writes Eugene Noel, “as to astonish all listeners; and he showed his audience how man was constructed, like a magnificent and precious piece of architecture, a thing of grace and beauty, so that the people crowded to the lecture-room to hear him. Dolet followed these lectures. One day Rabelais lectured on the cadaver of a man who had been hanged, and he discoursed on his subject with so much grace and warmth, showing so clearly the miracle of our nature, that Dolet, leaving the hall, exclaimed: “Would I were hanged and I should be so could I be the occasion of so divine a discourse!” Some passages of this celebrated lecture may be found embodied in “Pantagruel;” for we see that he taught, outside the grandeur of creation, respect for life and _what a sacred thing blood is_. Says Rabelais: “A single labor pain of this world is to manufacture blood continually. In this work each member has its proper office. Nutrition is furnished by the whole of nature; it is the bread, it is wine—these are the aliments of all species. In order to find and prepare this material, the hands of mankind work, the feet climb and bear the machinery, the eyes lead us, the tongue tastes for us, the teeth masticate our food, while the stomach receives and digests.” Here our anatomist dwells somewhat at length on the formation of the blood and the part played in digestion by our organs, adding: