17 



can be in the present age bestowed is such as I 

 have had to commemorate to-day — one that con- 

 ifers upon the College the power of contributing 

 towards making us, through the acquisition of 

 increased knowledge, more efficient agents in the 

 exercise of our calling. 



The next part of my duty is to exhort the 

 Fellows and Members of this College "to search 

 and study out the secrets of nature by way of 

 experiment." These are the directions I am to 

 follow, and they give me a wide field to select a 

 course of procedure from. The kind of exhorta- 

 tion I shall employ will consist in placing before 

 you a view of the method of work which Harvey 

 himself adopted, and then, as an incentive to follow 

 his example, I will display some of the fruit yielded 

 by recent research conducted upon the lines of his 

 procedure. 



The object to be promoted is the acquirement of 

 additional knowledge. It is an old but true saying 

 that knowledge is power. We accept the doctrine 

 which comes to us in definite shape from no less 

 ancient an authority than Aristotle, that there is 



