Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 24, 1870 (IA b22307643).pdf/52

 the conscience, approving or disapproving, are for him facts due to the operation of laws into which he must inquire. Looked. at from the point of view which the Student. of Medicine occupies, these higher facts of man's nature are as essentially parts of one law, and control and modify human exis- tence equally with those lower conditions with which physics alone is concerned. This constitutes the unspeakable difficulty which every student of medicine must feel in the present imperfect state of knowledge. To hold the mind in an equal balance as it passes from the contemplation of the lower facts of our existence to those which characterize the highest claims of our hu- manity, so as neither to degrade the one nor neglect the other, is one of the highest attainments. What eye is single enough to survey the range of life from the material atoms which build our structures, to those "mighty hopes which make us men," without faltering in the vision, or without confusion of the objects?