^5 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 



incumbent on me to labour in the acquisition of that knowledge of 

 the science of Animal Organisation, and of its varied and daily 

 extending applications, which may enable me so to discharge my 

 present duties that the valuable time, which you are not unwilling to 

 spare for attendance on these Lectures, may be not unprofitably 

 bestowed. 



And, first, permit me to dwell a little on the inestimable privilege 

 which we enjoy, in entering upon our Professional studies by the 

 portal of Anatomy. 



How vast and diversified a field of knowledge opens out before us 

 as we gaze from that portal ! Consider what it is that forms the 

 subject of our essential introductory study ; nothing less than the 

 organic mechanism of the last and highest created product which has 

 been introduced into this planet. Contrast this, which both Sage and 

 Poet have called the " noblest study of mankind," with the dry and 

 unattractive preliminary exercises of the Lawyer or the Divine. 



Every new term which the Anatomical student has to commit to 

 memory is associated with a recognisable object, with some part 

 which may be vibrating, contracting, or pulsating, in his own frame. 



First, we enter upon the study of Human Anatomy that we may 

 know with what we have to deal as Operative Surgeons ; and, as Phy- 

 sicians, may recognise the seat of disease. Then, that we may learn, 

 by the structure and connections of the parts of the Human body, 

 their office in the vital economy. We next test the physiological ideas, 

 so acquired, by experiments on the lower animals, which we are thus 

 led to dissect in order to find the amount of resemblance with the 

 Human structure which must guide the operation, influence the 

 judgment as to the result, and indicate the conditions for new expe- 

 riments. 



We cannot advance far into the lower region of Anatomy without 

 appreciating the same admirable adjustment of means to ends which 

 pervades the Human frame : thus the field of Physiology expands 

 before us, and we are enabled to bear a part with a Ray or a 

 Paley in illustrating the doctrine of final causes, and demonstrating 

 the " Wisdom of God in the Creation." 



In extending our Anatomical comparisons, we cannot fail to be 

 struck with the close general resemblance of the structure of the 

 lower animals with that of Man : almost every part of the Human 

 frame has its homologue in some inferior animal ; and we at length 

 begin to perceive that Man's organisation is a special modification 

 of a more general type. From analysis, the philosophic mind 

 is irresistibly led on to comparison and syntlietic combination 

 of the multitude of particulars observed. In grasping the abstract idea 

 of the gt.-ncral ty^x', we appreciate the precise nature of the charac- 



