Page:Hunterian oration, delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons in London on February 14th 1829 (electronic resource) (IA b2148305x).pdf/29

Rh of gravitation. He finds sufficient to gratify his desire for acquiring truths, in contemplating the vast range of the mind, that has evolved, with the perfection of absolute certainty, the laws that regulate the solar system.

Hunter by employing the term vital principle, could not philosophically intend to designate an agent, of which he had a distinct knowledge; but he might adopt it scientifically, to express a system of laws, by which phenomena are governed; and which laws the mind is capable of developing, although the agent be unknown.

One of the most splendid possessions of the mathematics, is the doctrine of Ratios It has the power of exercising its sway over every region of science. The faculty of comparing, the most luminous endowment of the intellect, if not the ultimate element of all the others, is the greatest light that