Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 (IA b22315263).pdf/6

4 is but one of those thousand changes which are daily going on around us, and which we remark chiefly when they affect our own occupations.

And when we note in how many instances

we need not shrink from Horace's conclusion,

But I may be permitted to hope that those whom I have the honour of addressing will continue to welcome change only when it is synonymous with progress, and will not be the less zealous for ancient lore, because they have wisely discarded its use on public occasions like this.

But, if we thus depart from the literal terms of the endowment, it is all the more our duty to revert to the intention of the founder—to seize his spirit; and, by reflecting that spirit on the new and varying circumstances of the present day, thus to perpetuate