914 THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM AND THE 



occasion to note that men who are individually ' upright ' are yet 

 sluggish and negligent, and even cowardly in the work of con- 

 tributing their factor to the formation of a healthy atmosphere or 

 medium of public opinion. Yet, if it was true in former times that 

 contemptu famae^ contemnuntur virtuteSy it is undoubtedly the fact 

 that the progress of thought in more modern times has made the 

 moral to be drawn from those words of more pressing urgency than 

 many persons as yet feel it to be. A man, for example, is guilty of 

 some dereliction of duty ; he sells himself, let us suppose, or what- 

 ever rights of property he may still retain in the commodity he 

 calls himself, for the vote or votes of one or more beer-sellers, and 

 for the seat on one or other side of one or other House of Parliament 

 which that vote or votes may directly or indirectly gain or keep for 

 him. A man^s own conscience is supposed to punish him enough 

 for an action or actions such as this, but it is most wrongly sup- 

 posed so to do. It is the duty, and a duty too often pretermitted, 

 of everybody who recognises a bad action as being a bad action, 

 to speak of it as being such, and as meriting general reprobation. 

 Without such speaking out, morality grows faint, and may be 

 asphyxiated for want of what is the 'vital air' — to use the language 

 of the older physiological chemists — of the atmosphere in which 

 it lives. Those who, like medical men, see and know much of the 

 natural history and habits of their fellows have many opportunities 

 of helping towards creating a healthy tone of social feeling ; and 

 it is possible enough to do one's duty in this way without entering 

 upon a course of extravagant aggression or crusading. 



A few words to point out what I have come to think should be 

 the main guiding principles necessary for him who would secure 

 real success in the practice of a really noble profession. I say real 

 success ; and I will say that what the world calls success is, perhaps, 

 not so often dissociated from this real success as a few glaring 

 instances might make one think previous to counting them up. 

 And I believe that the rule, *Put yourself in his place,' based 

 on what modern philosophers call the principle of ^altruism,' but 

 what is found expressed plainly enough in much older language 

 than theirs, is the rule which, if I were confined to the choice of 

 one single guiding maxim to be given to a young doctor just enter- 

 ing upon the responsibilities of practice, I should choose for that 

 maxim. Sympathy is truly called a divine gift, and it does assuredly 



