Page:Hunterian oration, delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons in London on February 14th 1829 (electronic resource) (IA b2148305x).pdf/22

18 quires the cultivation and the exercise of the highest order of faculties, for the purpose of Invention; such as we find in Hunter.

Nothing should have the force and sanction of a principle, but that which true science has actually proved. As authority gives the tone and currency of a principle to mere opinion, it is calculated to keep back the progress of science. Authority gives stability to error; it blinds little minds, and weakens the inclination for inquiry in all; it inflates the vain, and prevents their seeing, that the region of real wisdom lies beyond their own attainments.

The diffusion of information has been regarded in almost the same light, as the advancement of science. It is not in supplying the memory, but in the exercise of that combination of intellectual powers, which is best calculated by their operation to discover principles, that science can alone be ad-