Page:Introductory lecture delivered in the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin, at the commencement of the clinical course, October 31, 1864 (IA b21916433).pdf/8

8 between entering upon it as a mere matter of business, and cultivating it as a profession. In the one case all your efforts will be directed to the sordid object of earning a livelihood; in the other you will be animated by the desire of securing a suitable scope for the exercise of your higher faculties, and of fulfilling the duties devolving upon you as a member of the social circle.

The points in Dr. Mayne's character to which I have alluded, have especial reference to such an audience as I now address; but there were others which rendered him a fitting model to men of all professions. He was singularly destitute of affectation; his manner was plain in the extreme; there was nothing put on or assumed about him; you saw him as he was; he took no pains to set himself off to better advantage than was his usual character; he shrunk from everything that had the least shadow of falsehood or dishonesty. "While he wished never to appear worse than he really was, he seemed scrupulously to avoid everything that would represent himself to be better. Then, again, he was remarkably humble; he never gave you the idea of a man who thought of himself more highly than he ought to think; he was ever ready to recognise merit wherever discovered, and he was always more anxious to give to others the meed of praise for any professional discoveries to which they were entitled than to secure his own. When I add to this, that, without being particularly demonstrative in his manner, he was a warm and steady friend, conscientious in the discharge of duty, inflexible in his principles, and animated by a delicate sense of honour in all the relations of life, I think I have said enough to convince all who now hear me, that the loss which we have sustained is no ordinary one, and that the best use we can make of his example is to follow it as closely as we can.

I presume I may take it for granted that all of you who purpose attending this hospital, intend to make the healing art, in some one of its departments, the great business of your lives. There are no amateur students among you. The time has not yet arrived in the history of the world