The Hunterian Oration : delivered February 14, 1861 / by William Coulson.

  • William Coulson
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian Oration : delivered February 14, 1861 / by William Coulson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    An examination of Hunter s Museum will show at once that such an inquisition of the experiments made for us by Nature was his guiding principle. Here he has stored up, in one vast laboratory, the results of those experiments which lead to, if they do not actually establish, so many of Nature's laws. Here he has arranged that matchless series of pre- parations, through which life is pursued, in an unbroken sequence, from the most perfectand com- plex to the most simple of animals ; and by means of which, each non-essential element being gradu- ally eliminated, we are enabled to lift from life all but its last material veil. The most notable general character which is to be remarked of force is that it is derived from an antecedent force of the same kind. A knowledge of this character at once relieves us from the sup- posed necessity of tracing life to a point or time at which it begins. Life is not to be noted in any particular point, but is universally diffused through- out every particle of animated matter; it does not begin at any particular time, but has existed from all time Life contains life within itself for its propagation and continuance. Thenewbeingisnot made up of elements taken from complex bodies, but from a particle of life detached from the pax'ent body and endowed with the same creative and for-
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