1 42 TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 



promising physicians, will be superseded, it may 

 be, in a very few years ; but if you have learned 

 the scientific method, you will help, by patient 

 and accurate observation and thought, progress 

 which shall endure when much crude innovation 

 known by the name shall have been abandoned 

 and forgotten. 



How hard it is to be accurate ! Nay, rather how 

 impossible ! Accuracy is approached as if by a 

 process of dividing the distance. Constant effort 

 produces constant progress ; but a fraction of the 

 distance continually remains. At least, so it is in 

 matters of observation and construction. We begin 

 them with a preconceived notion as to the degree 

 of exactness required ; as we proceed we find we 

 have to amend our notions; and when we have 

 done this several times we find it exceedingly 

 difficult or even impossible to recall the state of mind 

 from which we started. Turn back your minds 

 to the first few days of your studentship, and try to 

 realise your first impressions of, for example, a verte- 

 bral column. Probably you thought that nothing 

 could be easier to understand, but wondered at the 

 tiresomeness of detail in the descriptions given by 

 authorities. You will probably also recollect that 

 your teachers took a great deal of trouble to con- 

 vince you of the importance of much which you 



