Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 (IA b22315263).pdf/7

 the original design. It may be, moreover, that we shall be able to strike out applications that could not have been anticipated in a bygone age. Let us do this with no presumptuous satisfaction in our modern superiority, but with due reverence to the past.

By the terms of the endowment, we are charged to deliver a solemn oration in honour of all those who have approved themselves benefactors of the College; we are to exhort others to imitate their liberality; and, in the quaint and admirable words of Harvey, "for the honour of the profession to continue mutually in love." A little band they were who first met to comply with this injunction—in number not exceeding twenty; but those were days when even the great royal foundation of St. Bartholomew's had but one physician—that physician being Harvey. How great has been the expansion of the profession is apparent from the fact that, instead of twenty, some two hundred and fifty Fellows, besides an immense body of members, might now take part in this commemoration.