Page:Hunterian oration, delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons in London on February 14th 1829 (electronic resource) (IA b2148305x).pdf/9

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
HUNTERIAN ORATION.
5

alone be effected by the unerring oracles that are dehvered in that noble structure It is from these that the divine inspiration is imparted to man, which diffuses sublimity into his every action. The quality of truth is to advance to perfection every intellectual endowment. If its voice were not lost in the din of other strains, it would show its influence upon every energy of man. The real lover of truth displays a desire to enquire into it, and a solicitude to obtain it, in every exercise of his powers of reasoning whether it be in morals, in the philosophy of the mind, or in the economy of the material world. The sophistry of modern times would distinguish two orders of truths, and separate the moral from the scientific man,— a fallacy which the political man readily adopts, to degrade others to the level of his own designs.

Truth is the principle of every moral good. It is the measure and dispenser of