Page:Hunterian oration, delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons in London on February 14th 1829 (electronic resource) (IA b2148305x).pdf/23

Rh vanced. This quality is altogether distinct from information: it is not by the attainment of what is known, but by the exercise of the mind upon what is attained, that science must be improved. It is not only necessary to get the ore, but it must also be committed to the furnace, to prove its richness in metal.

A word has found a place in the language of the day, which does not seem to have appropriated to it any defined meaning: it seems rather to refer to the probability of an undefined character, that prominence of position before the public may be supposed to possess, than to any positive excellence of the mental powers. The character of Hunter's mind was of the highest order; and it is not enough to declare him to have been a man of Talent; for this term is as often applied to those who cannot conduct the steps of an ordinary proposition, as, to those of the best arranged and most acute minds, and