EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
591 
proud vindication of the value of the natural sciences ; a sub- 
lime conviction that he had added by original observation to 
the sum of human knowledge. John Hunter is the type of 
our class, as he is of every class of men investigating physical 
truth. He called witnesses from nature and took their 
evidence, fresh and undistorted, he traced its links through 
all their complex involutions, shaped stammering utterances 
and fragmentary depositions into fair round speech by com- 
parison with known truth, closed his ears against the wrangle 
out of court, and applied his honest mind without bias, to 
adjudicate on the original testimony. To such a man every- 
thing is new, and nature inexhaustible. The most trivial 
atom has a meaning and evidences a law : it is an essential 
part of a great whole and mirrors truth as clearly as if it were 
a universe. A single beam teaches the qualities of light as 
well as an entire sun. 
Books, however, must not be despised: they have their 
good uses. They correct private judgment, fill up the gaps 
in our personal acquisitions, and indicate new courses of 
observation. If they are suffered to aid, and do not warp the 
judgment, they are of immense utility. A man, through 
them, takes his predecessors into counsel : he sets on equal 
terms with Hunter and Harvey, and Newton, and Galen, and 
Plato, and argues the matter without restraint. He does not 
veil his eyes in shame before the great philosopher ; but 
reading hard and critically, seems to say “Soul for soul, 
mine is as good as thine, what hast thou to say about this 
that I cannot understand?” The modest man becomes 
defiant in his closet, and in silence vindicates the equal 
divinity of his nature. “ Go to, I will wrestle with thee,” is 
the thought working within him ; and he does not quit the 
struggle until he can come off with the gay heart of a 
champion. Books are the granaries of wisdom, into which 
each man throws his sheaf of thoughts ; in due season the 
seed is winnowed and re-sown to produce a fresh crop, which 
is being eternally garnered and renewed. But this storehouse 
is common property, and every man is welcome to as much 
as he can carry away. 
Now, a young man reads a book, either to learn facts or 
