Page:The Harveian oration 1896.djvu/8

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HARVEY AND GALEN The objects to which Harvey himself desired the lecturer on the foundation to direct his discourse, namely, to commemorate the benefactors of the College, to exhort our Fellows and Members to search out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, and to continue in mutual love and affection among ourselves, will never grow old. Let us never allow them to be forgotten.

The list of benefactors of our College has been enlarged during the past year by one name, of which I must now speak. Captain Edward Wilmot Williams, as the representative of our late venerable Fellow, Dr. Bisset Hawkins, has generously made over to our College the sum of one thousand pounds for the purpose of perpetuating the memory of Dr. Bisset Hawkins in connexion with the College. Nor must I omit to add that it was through the good offices and wise counsel of our friend Dr. Theodore Williams that this valuable benefaction accrued to the College. To him therefore, as well as to the generous donor, our best thanks are and will be always due, and have indeed already received formal expression in a vote of the College. The precise method in which the intentions of the donor are to be carried out is still under consideration.

The second Harveian injunction, to study Nature by way of experiment, is, I hope, not forgotten at the present day, and I feel that the breath of a Harveian orator can add little to the great forces which sustain the restless energy of modern science. But I have hoped that by bringing before you the strictly experimental researches of a great man of past times, whose services to science are not always duly acknowledged, I may by his brilliant example add some new force to the noble exhortation of Harvey.

The third injunction, to live in harmony among ourselves, needs, I hope, few words. For the harmony of our College is, and promises to continue, so unbroken that we need not emphasize, while we take to heart, the lesson which Harvey’s gentle nature desired to teach us.