Page:The Hunterian Oration1843.djvu/30

 difference in the time of freezing was 74 minutes, the second one taking so much longer to freeze.”

This experiment, and those which follow, may serve to show John Hunter’s mode of advancing in knowledge. By a scrupulous observation of facts, he gradually ascended from the particular to the general, instead of assuming a principle @ priori, and bending facts to square with theory. I cannot, in short, praise his method more highly or more justly than by saying that it was the one pursued by all who have obtained a lasting reputation as natural historians in ancient or in recent times. It was this which enabled Aristotle to carry off laurels in the field of zoology, as immortal as those which he earned in metaphysics and dialectics. He was one of the greatest observers that ever existed, says Cuvier, and had the most extraordinary genius for classification that nature has hitherto produced. Some of his aphorisms, adds the same great autho- rity, from their generality presuppose an immense number of observations.

It was upon this that Galen’s great reputation was primarily founded. He was one of the most successful prosecutors of anatomy of his time, al- though obliged by its prejudices to content himself with the examination of animals, and consequently falling into error when the structure of man differs from theirs. He made many discoveries in anatomy — and physiology. He was the first to prove by experiment that the arteries did not during life con- tain air, but blood; and the first to show by their section the influence of the recurrent nerves on the