Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 14th of February, 1834 (IA b31879792).pdf/16

12 minds, supplies the want of external stimulus and opportunity. When we see him coming from the north, at the age of twenty, a raw uneducated youth, and entering into competition with the well-trained and superior minds whom the prizes of a great metropolis never fail to attract, we must ascribe his brilliant success, not to his external advantages, which were certainly considerable, but to his superior mental endowments and the extra-ordinary industry with which he employed them; to that indefatigable industry, which would have brought distinction and fame to the possessor of even moderate talents. Consider the state of medical science when JOHN HUNTER appeared on the stage. There were giants on the earth in those days; ALBINUS, HALLER, CAMPER, DR. W. HUNTER, MONRO, CULLEN, POTT, and the mem- bers of the French Academy of Surgery. MR. HUNTER was pre-eminent among such men. He appeared grand even when those around him were great.

Some have lamented MR. HUNTER'S deficient education, his ignorance of languages and books: I think unreasonably. From his brother, who was intimately versed in the literature of his profession, ancient and modern, and from other well-informed men, his cotemporaries and fellow-labourers, he could learn in the easiest way all that had been done and thought in other times and countries. His whole life was spent in dissection, observation,