30 J. HOPKINSOIf — AIOflVEESAET ADDRESS : 



to benefit mankind, while many of his projects failed merely 

 because he could only impart knowledge, not wisdom, to those 

 upon whom their acceptance and execution depended. Had 

 Elizabeth and her successors, and the bishops they appointed, 

 allowed the freedom to the Church which he advised ; — had James 

 the Fii'st and his successors freely abandoned their rights of pre- 

 rogative which gave rise to abuses and grievances, and thrown 

 themselves on the generosity of the House of Commons for supplies, 

 in accordance with his wise counsel ; — no Cromwell would have 

 arisen, for none would have been needed, Charles the Pirst would 

 not have been beheaded, many an old castle and moated grange 

 now in ruins or totally destroyed might still have been standing, 

 the ruthless hand of the religious fanatic would not have been laid 

 upon the beautiful carved statues and delicate traceiy in wood 

 and stone which once adorned the interior of our Cathedrals, and 

 better still, we might now have had, in the Church of England, 

 a truly national Church, allowing the utmost freedom of belief and 

 divergence of ceremony not at variance with the teaching of Christ, 

 and consequently admitting of almost the whole of the Protestant 

 community being embraced within its folds. 



In the law his influence is still felt and his judgments still have 

 weight. Lord Campbell says that his "Orders" (100 in number) 

 " remain a monument of his fame as a judge . . . ; are the founda- 

 tion of the practice of the Court of Chancery, and are still cited 

 as authority ; " and that in his celebrated argument in the 

 Exchequer Chamber, in "The Case of Perpetuities," he placed 

 the law of real property "on the satisfactory footing on which it 

 has remained in England ever since, — striking the happy medium 

 between mere life interests and perpetuities, and providing at once 

 for the stability of families, necessary in a mixed monarchy, and 

 for freedom of commerce in land, necessary for wealth under every 

 form of government whatever." He also says that in the preface 

 to his treatise ' Upon the Elements and Use of the Common Law ' 

 (1596) "he inculcated the doctrine which he often repeated, and 

 which he acted upon notwithstanding his preference of other pur- 

 suits, — that there is a debt of obligation on every member of a 

 profession to assist in improving the science in which he has suc- 

 cessfully practised." There is no profession to which this doctrine 

 more pre-eminently applies than the medical, for the science of 

 medicine is essentially empirical and experimental, and can therefore 

 best be advanced by the publication of methods of treatment which 

 have proved successful, and yet how many of our most successful 

 physicians never give to the world the results of their experience. 



