Page:The Hunterian Oration for 1850.djvu/37

 profession of medicine is at the present day a degenerate pursuit. Even its indispensability to the wants of society, has failed to wrest it from the influence of neglect, if not of obloquy. The rank of individuals, the rank of a select few may yet remain; but as a profession, it has ceased to be sustained to the level of its intrinsic value by the applause of the public voice; and there must exist, in the very nature of things, some deteriorating influence in operation, which overbalances that esteem which the conviction of our utility to the world would naturally engender.

It is not, I presume, a subject of consideration inappropriate to this annual address, to inquire into the cause of the low elevation of that profession which, considered in the abstract, appears to possess such high claims on the respect and esteem of society; for I know not in what manner I can more efficiently do honour to the memory of Mr. Hunter than by commenting on the present condition of that profession, of which he was so bright an ornament. These causes are, I conceive, various; but by far the greatest of all the difficulties under which the profession of medicine labours, may be referred to the want of education. The object of education is two-fold:—First, to develope the powers of the mind,—to teach it to think, to reason, and to remember; and secondly, to apply the powers thus obtained to the acquisition of knowledge. The unfolding and developing mental power, in the endeavour to comprehend the resources of the great world around us, and ally those powers with the highest purposes, this is to realise the great end of life itself. “It is mind that does the work of the world.” Mind is the great