Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/59

55 nature becomes a moral teacher. Science conducts us through infinite paths; it is a fruitful pursuit for the most poetic imagination. We take the world as we find it, and endeavour to unravel its mysteries; but of the alpha and omega we know not. Enough for us to look at what is lying around us; it is a part we see and not the whole, but we can say with the poet, "we doubt not, through the ages one increasing purpose runs."

I will detain you no longer; what more can I say? What grander image, what more glorious picture, can I set before you than that which we have come to contemplate to-day--the king's physician searching out the secrets of nature?