Page:The Hunterian Oration for 1850.djvu/20

4 In the great temple of knowledge, there are no contentions for place, or for personal distinctions, no strivings for pre-eminence. Among its true votaries, a spirit of genuine fraternity prevails, that harmonises the soul. He who would become its occupant must throw aside all sinister and indirect motive, every degrading thought, every selfish passion, as alike derogatory to himself, and injurious to his cause. Between two students of Nature, their common object, their identity of thought and pursuit, maintain an harmonious interchange of kindly intercourse. They have no motives for rivalship or ill-will. They are directed by one common, and by the same high motive; they have neither time nor tendency to step out of the direct path of inquiry, to indulge in angry passions, to deal in personalities, to question motives. On one distant object their eyes are fixed; to reach this goal is their common end; and applying to their journey onward the principle of a mathematical truth, they pursue their course in a straight direction, as the shortest given line between the two points.

The excellence of Mr. Hunter is to be sought in his unwearied efforts to advance the cause of physiological science; in his untiring industry; in his unselfish indifference to riches, which he coveted solely for the purpose of advancing his favourite studies; in the benevolence of his nature, which identified itself with moral and physical suffering; in his earnest desire to communicate knowledge; and in his possession of those homely qualities of the heart, that inspired love in the breasts of his pupils and of his friends.

I hold in my hand an autograph letter of Mr. Hunter’s, written in the year 1786, to the Master, Wardens, and Court