A LECTURE ON TRUTH. 259 



principles, undismayed by the rantings of homeopathic immaterial ism, or 

 the boastings of humoral hydropathy, not forgetting that the efficacy of 

 the judicious use of cold water has been insisted upon, by the lights of 

 the profession, from the earliest dawning of, our beloved science. 

 Gettyshurgf Pa. C. A. C. 



EXTRACTS FROM A LECTURE ON TRUTH. 



A CONTRIBDTXON IN AID OF EPISTLES TO STUt)ENTS. 



Truth requires no definition. We need not say that it is conformity 

 to the nature of things, or employ any other phraseology to designate 

 its characteristics. Such is the human constitution — so has God made 

 us, that we do violence to our nature, if we do not seek after, acquire 

 and apply it. The history of philosophy is a history of our race, seek- 

 ing after truth, and the greatest philosophers in ancient times, such as 

 Socrates and Cicero, were those who were most ardent, sincere in the 

 search, and most honest in the application of it. What is it that has ren- 

 dered illustrious men of ancient and modern times, given them not an 

 ephemeral but everlasting renown ? Is it not their love of truth and the 

 toils that they endured to obtain it ? Do not the volumes, which record 

 it, triumph over all changes, and command an abiding and elevated posi- 

 tion in the estimation of those, who occupy the chief places in the de- 

 partments of human life ? An unparalleled teacher, on a great occa- 

 sion, when he witnessed a good confession, declared that his mission 

 vvas sacred to the interests of truth, and with an extraordinary sagacity 

 he resolves whatever of moral excellence is developed by man, un- 

 der the tuition of insipid communications, to the love of truth, and what- 

 ever of impurity and crime may gather upon the rejection of the ac- 

 credited messages of heaven, to a hatred of it. Fortified, in our estimate 

 of its value, by authority so unquestionable, we proceed to remark that 

 truth is accessible to us. We have faculties to acquire it, facilities for 

 the use of them, and it is poured with a most munificent hand, all a- 

 round us, and opened to the perception of all, who dwell on the earth. 

 We can approach matter and mind, we can examine and learn what 

 are their properties; we can penetrate into their interior and expose 

 their recondite history; we can trace their relations and mark the phe- 

 nomena which they exhibit, whether occupying their primitive position 

 or assuming new ones under our direction. We can trace effects tf> 

 their causes, and announce the results of agents with which we have fa- 

 miliarized ourselves. Even mind itself, tho'ugh so different from that 



