Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 14th of February, 1834 (IA b31879792).pdf/17

13 experiment, and reflection: how could he have been better occupied? So precious are the fruits of his inquiries into all the actions and sufferings of organised beings, that we should not be willing to part with the least of them for a whole load of scholastic erudition and book-learning.

It is instructive to observe the course which MR. HUNTER pursued in his early studies, and which he followed throughout life with undeviating constancy. Without wasting time on the opinions of lecturers and writers, he resorted at once to nature; to the source from which the masters of our art have derived their knowledge, from which lecturers and writers must draw their information, unless they should be contented, as too often happens, with copying from others. Having reached London at the beginning of the anatomical season, he immediately entered the dissecting room; and we find him in the following spring at Chelsea Hospital with CHESELDEN. He would not take his knowledge at second-hand, but was determined to see with his own eyes, and to examine every thing for himself. He was incessantly occupied with the great volume of nature; appealing ever to those pure springs of knowledge which she pours out with unsparing hand at the bidding of her industrious worshippers. No one could have said with greater truth, Juvat integros accedere fontes atque haurire. Had he been a learned man, we might suppose