7 50 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
lias an honour and a dignity which the more they are respected 
by the student the more profoundly will his best powers be 
attached to its study. Guard well, then, the diligence and 
the decencies of the dissecting-room, and you will find that 
all your other collegiate pursuits will be advantaged from the 
correct bearings of this foundation. 
Anatomy, in the state in which it is now presented to us, 
embodies the accumulated industry and explorations of many 
centuries. In fact, it has been slowly growing ever since the 
ages of science first dawned upon the world. How long ago 
that may be I am afraid to speculate upon, for as the high 
antiquity of man is substantiated the ancient existence of all 
the great sciences of observation may also be presupposed. 
At any rate, since the time of the Egyptians and the Greeks 
anatomy has flourished. Perhaps the frequent sacrifices of 
animals in the temples of the gods led, in the first instance, 
to observations of their organism, and lighted up that first 
torch of curiosity which is the earliest guide to the vast sub¬ 
terranean vaults where are buried the treasures of science. 
Be this as it may, it is instructive to notice that the science 
of anatomy has, I repeat, taken hundreds of years to attain 
its present accuracy and completeness. And why has it 
taken this time? I answer, because the same laws guide, 
the same success attends, the same conditions accompany 
the work and will of man as a whole, as those which exist 
in and control the career of a single individual. And what 
is this law ? Evidently this—that intensity of curiosity, in¬ 
tensity of pursuit, and intensity of work are only gained by 
time, just as it requires time, according to the weight of the 
train, for the locomotive to get up her speed; and it has re¬ 
quired all these centuries to waken and to fire us up into the 
intensity wherewith anatomy has been cultivated during the 
last fifty years. If you look to the works of the great 
Aristotle, you will find that he has written on anatomy, but 
his remarks are often poor and casual as compared to those 
which we meet with in the works of modern authors. He 
and all the people of the age in which he lived were evidently 
only just awakening to the light of science; yawning and 
stretching to the light, but not walking in it. They were 
satisfied with a little knowledge, and began to theorise from 
that little at once, which is a sure sign of being tired of 
searching after facts ; yet they bequeathed the results of their 
curiosity, their facts and their rate of progress, to the next 
ages, and all these have gone on gradually increasing; but it 
is only in modern times that we are beginning to taste the 
fuller pleasure, and to appreciate the immensity and velocity 
