Page:Introductory lecture delivered at the Middlesex Hospital, October 1st, 1877 (IA b22447258).pdf/19

19 of the optician gained for us a new realm, outside the range of unaided vision, when he constructed the microscope, yet to see aright the eye must have a special training.

The murmurs of respiration, or the rush and reflux of the blood, as it flows through the great centre of the circulation, are heard to no better purpose by the use of the stethoscope if the ear be untutored.

Whilst we extend the sweep of our knowledge by means of the microscope, the ophthalmoscope, and the thermometer, let us watch, lest our own organs of perception, best instruments of all, created by an Eternal Will, and step by step evolved, through lower forms to near perfection, be unequal to the requirements of these higher duties.

Every side of the intellect must be trained, every right capacity of the body must be developed, if we would work to good purpose. Those higher faculties and nobler aspirations, which express the moral side of our nature, can never flag if the object and the end be so good.

Remembering the history of the past, it requires, I think, no prophet to predict in what direction we may hopefully look for advance in the future.

We should ever remind ourselves that cause and effect work out their end with untiring round for good as well as for evil; and a wiser generation, more in harmony, because more fully understanding the laws which govern men and the world on which they exist, will better escape those ills which surround us to-day.