9 



was projected and undertaken in consequence of his listening 

 in rapt attention, with feelings excited unto tears, to the 

 great father of history, before the elite of Greece, assem- 

 bled at Olympia, reciting his immortal historical researches. 

 Before those assemblies of the savans of Greece, we know 

 that many of the ancient poets and philosophers recited 

 their compositions, or unfolded their deep and novel specu- 

 lations. There the painter and the statuary displayed the 

 choicest results of their art, the happiest efforts of their 

 genius. They wholly mistake the scope and objects of such 

 meetings, whether conducted on a small scale or on a great, 

 who imagine that the members meet together to conduct 

 scientific investigation or literary research. We assemble 

 here, we meet in social converse together, for the friendly 

 interchange of thought ; and it may be that haply some notion 

 suggested, some hint thrown out, some chord struck in that 

 wonderful microcosm the soul, may, by the laws of association, 

 revive some long- forgotten idea, and thus perchance lead to a 

 train of thought, which may be only the brightening of the 

 horizon before the full burst of some great discovery may break 

 upon the view. In another respect are such associations as ours 

 eminently useful. There is, to men engaged in the dull routine 

 of stated daily employment, whose course of life is clearly 

 chalked out before them, of sufficient competence, so as to 

 render the future not an object of anxious solicitude, — there 

 is, I say, to such, no small danger that their intellects, espe- 

 cially the finer faculties of the mind, may become dull and 

 blunted, and finally obliterated, by long disuse. To the 

 medical portion of my hearers, it is, I believe, a familiar 

 fact, that if an arm, or any other member of the body, be by 

 artificial means wholly deprived of the usual exercise of its 

 functions, the limb will gradually shrivel up or wither away. 

 Following, then, the guidance of that close analogy which 

 prevails between the physical and mental constitution of man, 



B 



