Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons ... February 14, 1817 (IA b22009358).pdf/58

50 apparatus by which the torpedo and the electrical eel give the shock—the variety of structure and disposition of parts which animals living in different media are pro- vided with, to produce the same end, &c. &c. Every fact thus discovered was treasured up by him, and the different structures of the same organs in different animals were com- pared. Every step in this inquiry furnished to his sagacious and comprehensive mind, a spark which conducted him to some dis- covery, and that to another; and thus he was led on to the establishment of physiolo- gical truths which time cannot destroy.

How dark and unsatisfactory must that physiology be that did not contemplate the existence of the absorbent system ! and how impossible to account for those operations of �