60 UmYERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 



its waves wash the shores of the two worlds of matter 

 and of mind ; its tributary streams flow from both ; 

 through its waters, as yet unfurrowed by the keel of any 

 Columbus, lies the road, if such there be, from the one 

 to the other ; far away from that North-west Passage of 

 mere speculation, in which so many brave souls have 

 been hopelessly frozen up. 



But whether I am right or wrong about all this, the 

 patent fact of the limitation of time remains. As the 

 song runs : 



" If a man could be sure 



That his life would endure 

 For the space of a thousand long years " 



he might do a number of things not practicable under 

 present conditions. Methuselah might, with much pro- 

 priety, have taken half a century to get his doctor's 

 degree; and might, very fairly, have been required to 

 pass a practical examination upon the contents of the 

 British Museum, before commencing practice as a prom- 

 ising young fellow of two hundred, or thereabouts. But 

 you have four years to do your work in, and are turned 

 loose, to save or slay, at two or three and twenty. 



Now, I put it to you, whether you think that, when 

 you come down to the realities of life when you stand 

 by the sick-bed, racking your brains for the principles 

 which shall furnish you with the means of interpreting 

 symptoms, and forming a rational theory of the condi- 

 tion of your patient, it will be satisfactory for you to 

 find that those principles are not there although, to use 



