Minutes of Proceedings. 23 



"bear its full frait, not merely on account of the various contacts now 

 established between medicine and the whole range of the sciences, but 

 because, for the true physician, what is above all things needed is' the 

 philosophic habit of mind which a large and liberal education is 

 best fitted to produce. "Medicine," he said, "is not a handicraft, 

 governed by a fixed rule, or any set of rules that you can learn by rote. 

 It is not a study of fijsed, but of varying conditions." Hence, he in- 

 ferred, that to deal with it the mind must have the suppleness and 

 resource which will enable it to adapt itself to complex phenomena, 

 exhibiting from time to time new characters and varied combina- 

 tions. And though no system of education will give the mens medica, 

 which seems to be a gift of nature, it is evident that a general cultiva- 

 tion of the powers of the mind, and rational habits of observation and 

 induction, must be the best preparation for so difficult a task, 



Further, believing it to be important for mankind that the 

 medical profession should occupy a high place in public opioion and in 

 society, he dwelt on the necessity of a good general education with a 

 view to this result also. He urged, that without such an education the 

 profession would tend to degenerate into a trade, and the worst of 

 trades ; and that men whose general powers of mind had not been cul- 

 tivated, whose tastes were unrefined, and who were strangers to wide 

 and important fields of knowledge, could not maintain the dignity 

 of the profession, or assert for it the position which it is entitled to 

 claim. 



In a similar spirit he preached the necessity of moral training, 

 and he aimed at elevating the moral tone of the students who came 

 under his influence; and, remarkable as he always is for the fresh- 

 ness and force of his style, he sometimes rises into a strain of genuine 

 eloquence when he paiuts the ideal physician, and enlarges on the 

 duties and responsibilities of a profession whose labours are a perpe- 

 tual exercise of humanity, and in which, to use his own words, 

 "honour is so indispensable and so precious that he who wants it, or 

 who has soiled it, has no business there." 



Hor was he less zealous for the material interests of his medical 

 brethren, especially of those who were least able to vindicate their 

 own claims. He made an effort to procui'e for such of them as were 

 connected with the Poor-law service some fitting recognition of their 

 labours, and of the dangers to which they were exposed. He and 



