Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/28

 appreciate the labours of those who have sought out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment.

There can be no doubt that the rational and methodical observation of disease, assisted by ex- periment, has had an enormous influence for good on manners and morals. It is to the leaders of medicine that we owe the recognition of the fact that much conduct which we once regarded as sin, calling for cruel and engeful punishments, is in reality disease, which must indeed be controlled with firmness, but firmness tempered with mercy rather than vengeance. It is probable that one of the causes which has led to the decrease of our prison population and the increase of our asylum population has been the gradual appreciation by the educated public that much disorderly conduct is, in reality, disease. We are more ready now than heretofore to "forgive those that trespass against There can be no doubt that our increased power of recognising the carly stages of brain disease, a power which we largely owe to those who have sought out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, has made for mercy. 18,"

The average man regards medicine as merely the art of curing disease, and judges of its progress by the degree to which it enables him to enjoy life, often in defiance of common sense and morality. The higher aim of medicine, however, is to point out man's true relationship to his surroundings in this world. Our relationship to our fellow men,