Page:The Harveian oration for 1874.djvu/69

 plausible conjecture, or by reasoning, what is most likely or most fitting. But there never was a time when this exhortation was less necessary than at present; so busy is every one, with the aid of all imaginable scientific helps, in investigating the structure and functions of the body, and in unravelling the problems presented by its diseases. It is to the former rather than to the latter of these two classes of enquiries that the objection must attach, if attach it does, that its conclusions sometimes seem opposed to the doctrines of religion, and that its pursuit is unfavourable to the humility and the teachableness on higher subjects which we are all bound to cultivate. I apprehend that any such objection applies even more forcibly to metaphysical study than to scientific research; and we cannot forget that the poet represents the highest of the fallen spirits as seeking distraction in their uneasy rest, by discourse

and leaving the secrets of this material world, ‘which things the angels desire to look into,’ unscanned.