INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 673 
a sound practitioner he must have received a good scientific 
education.” 
I am quite contented to leave to others 44 abler than 
myself,” the further inculcation of the value and importance 
of these divisions of your studies. You know that each has 
its separate instructor ; and each I believe to be actuated 
by a desire to do his duty, and ever ready to answer all in- 
quiries. Nor are they untried men in their several depart- 
ments, which is no small advantage. 
And now, be not displeased with me while for a short 
time I dwell on the influence of habit. Of this be assured, 
there is much in it which attaches itself to us, for good or 
for evil, throughout life. The moralist has told us — 
“ If good we plant not, vice will fill the mind, 
And weeds despoil the place for flowers designed.” 
And certainly in early life the acquirement of consistent 
habits has to do both with our position and happiness after- 
wards, if they do not determine them. Jeremy Bentham, 
referring to habits, thus expresses himself: 44 Like flakes of 
snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the seemingly 
unimportant events of life succeed one another. As the 
snow gathers together, so our habits are formed. No single 
flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change in 
it ; so no single action creates, however it may exhibit, a 
man’s character; but as the tempest hurls the avalanche 
down the mountain and overwhelms the inhabitant and his 
habitation, so passion, acting upon the elements of mischief 
which pernicious habits have brought together by imper- 
ceptible accumulation, may overthrow the edifice of truth 
and virtue.” It is often the case that events seemingly of 
but trivial importance at the beginning, and of which, per- 
haps, we took little or no notice at the time of their occur- 
ring, result in matters of the greatest moment. It was a 
very little that sufficed to cause the stream to turn aside 
after it had issued from its source. The foot of the passing 
traveller did it, or a stone accidentally thrown there ; yet it 
never afterwards regained a straight line, although it was 
always endeavouring to do so : hence the reason why it con- 
tinued a tortuous course, until it became mingled with its 
parent ocean. 
The habits I refer to — and I do it with very considerable 
reluctance, and only after a strong conflict in my mind be- 
tween policy and duty — are the indulgence in alcoholic fluids 
and the use of tobacco. Sad evils have I known to result 
frcip. both of these ; and therefore I denounce them to the 
