Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 24, 1870 (IA b22307643).pdf/23

 direction, since the infinity of nature may well include facts which at first seem to be antagonistic.

But here, as in all search after truth, we pass between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, we may not incline to those casy systems which satisfy the intellect by ex- planations which the imagination supposes; neither may we, on the other, give ourselves over to systems of immature science, which, whilst they seem to be carrying us forward, are but revolving us in the narrowest circles. of knowledge, for mind is not mechanical, life is not chemistry, anatomy is not physiology; and I think, as the poet says, that we are not altogether magnetic mockeries. Still, as it has been stated elsewhere, the student of medicine would gladly yield up the de- partment of knowledge in which he labours, to be partitioned amongst the claimants of the collateral sciences, of physics and che- mistry, if their claim was fairly made out; but, however much we may congratulate our fellow-labourers on the work they have C