HIS ANATOMICAL LECTURES. 201 



moulders hand ; but which, if fashioned, might have 

 constituted walls of building to the Goodsir fabric, 

 not only displaying his character as a worker, but con- 

 tributing its part to the general architecture of science 

 that he laboured so earnestly to extend and beautify. 



If disposed to the golden silence that marks the 

 man of deep thought, his conversation, when elicited, 

 was characteristic of sagacious observation and know- 

 ledge. To his pupils it was particularly instructive ; 

 it reflected his large acquaintance with his own subject, 

 and extensive readings of the collateral sciences ; there 

 was no waste of words, no high composite ; occasionally 

 the argument might assume an elaborate or parenthe 1 

 tical form, but more frequently his ideas were conveyed 

 in a pointed and precise way — Scottish, if not dog- 

 matic, and essentially Goodsirian. 



His anatomical lectures constituted a great fact in 

 his history both as a man and a teacher. No one in 

 Britain seems to have taken so wide a field for survey, 

 or mars! Killed so many facts for anatomical tabulation 

 and synthesis. Goodsir's place on the historical tablet 

 should be measured not only by his published writings, 

 but by his museum creation and work, and his profes- 

 sional teachings of thousands of men, and through them 

 the germinating ideas he has scattered broadcast over 

 the world of medicine. He not only taught in his own 

 w;iv, but inspired others by his teachings. He not only 

 ";ivo the anatomical data or the facts, but illuminated 

 these facta by various Lights and interpretations, as if 

 revealing fresh facets on the crystal, and therefrom 

 educing a fresh polarisation 



