Page:Hunterian oration, delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons in London on February 14th 1829 (electronic resource) (IA b2148305x).pdf/10

6 every virtue. It is the spirit that gives firmness, singleness, and vivacity, to every social feeling.

The economy of nature, one great field of science, is the formation and adjustment of things in the order and stability of eternal truth —the state in which they rest unchanged in reference to their habitudes, and the conditions by which they are limited.

ll that is created is formed in immutable truth. Immutable truths are discovered in the relations of things to one another. And as demonstration can only proceed upon necessary truths, so these are the proper objects of science. And the adaptation of the powers competent to investigate and to discover the conditions and limitations under which things exist, is that combination of means which is calculated to advance science. He who possesses in the greatest de-