682 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
yourselves to it, then you will experience no failure, far less 
discomfiture. Difficulties and trials may, nay will, from 
time to time arise, but the mind having been rightly in- 
structed, and the resolution firmly made, these will soon be 
surmounted. Be sedulous to have the memory well stored 
with useful facts. A fact a day is 365 facts a year, and these 
multiplied by the number of years you may live will, in the 
end, make you a wise man indeed, if by any possibility you 
could retain them : this we know is not the case, and 
hence the necessity of replenishing the mind with them 
from time to time. With speculations, these mere corus- 
cations of the imagination oftentimes, you have little or 
nothing to do. They frequently prove only like ignes fatui , 
which lead the mind astray. You are studying the sciences, 
and these are the developments of truth. Physiology may 
perhaps allow a few of these conjectures to be entertained ; 
but this only because as yet the real causes in operation to 
bring about certain results are not known. 
Anatomy and chemistry may be said to rank among the exact 
sciences, or as being founded on facts, and these are the true 
foundations, or should be, both of physiology and pathology. 
I know I am withdrawing you from a pleasing field. Our 
imagination often leads us into delightful reveries that seem 
to expand the mental vision and to enlarge the boundaries 
of thought; but they are too often deceptive. In early life 
we are fond of myths and mysteries, and not unfrequently is 
it the case that the more abstruse and recondite the subject, 
the better we are pleased, and labour hard to beco.me ac- 
quainted with it, even though it be one of questionable 
utility. An index of the strength of the human intellect 
has been considered to be its capability of grasping and 
separating the unseen and mysterious, yet true, from that 
which is mere fiction or false. 
Nor must you think that with your period of probation 
here your studies are to cease. No : if you are true to your 
profession, you will be contented to be a student throughout 
life ; for, however long you may have been engaged in the 
active duties of your calling, or to whatever position you may 
have attained, of this you may be sure, there is something yet 
to learn. To be idle, and indulge in luxurious ease, is unbe- 
coming a man of science : it is his to be ever on the alert, 
looking out for that which is new, and rendering it available, 
if not for his own profit, for that of others ; and it is to him 
the highest gratification to be enabled to do so. 
It has been a question which is the most useful — a disco- 
very of principles or their application ? It is clear, in the 
