Our faculties are inadequate to the conception of ultimate perfection. We live and have our being in progress, and our imagination delights to contemplate "the valley of the shadow of death” as the avenue to higher capacities and purer sources of enjoyment.
"So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.”[1]
For the analysis and philosophical illustration of Hunter’s labours in comparative anatomy and physiology, it is most gratifying to me, as a member of Council of this College, to be enabled to refer you to the interesting lectures delivered annually in this Theatre by our accomplished and zealous Hunterian Professor, Mr. Owen.
But, Gentlemen, the proofs of Hunter’s ardent zeal and indefatigable industry in the several kingdoms of nature are open and obvious to all: they are treasured within these walls, and invite your examination. To the single-minded and sincere student of nature they speak the animating exhortation, "Go thou, and do likewise!” for they were accumulated by a spirit as singly devoted to truth, and as free from the taint of a less ingenuous motive to exertion, as is
- ↑ Milton’s Lycidas.
