Historical study of medicine : concluding portion of an address to The Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society, March 15, 1878 / by Professor Ferguson.

  • John Ferguson
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical study of medicine : concluding portion of an address to The Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society, March 15, 1878 / by Professor Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    reckoned now, but only hereafter, when the truth which possibly it does contain, is sifted from those imperfections which are inherent in the work of the very best men, and from which it is a gratuitous assumption that Mr. Darwin’s can be altogether free. When I said that one of the ways of freeing ourselves from the shackles of present commonplace was the study of history, I meant, of course, not a study merely of curiosity to know what were the facts of previous times, for that is of small advantage, but the philoso¬ phical study of events to enable us to acquire the right way of judging our own time, and above all that passionless spirit which will make the judgment we form worth anything. You will find those who dis¬ cuss with great personal animus events which may have happened two, or five, or ten centuries ago, as if their display of feeling could alter in the smallest degree the nature of the byegone events. In fact, the discussions between antiquarians have provoked quite as much ran¬ cour as between the most opposite schools of naturalists at the present moment. No class of students seem exempt from infirmity of temper when their favourite doctrines or views are impugned. It requires very long discipline to reach that halcyon calm of judgment when one can say of such an attack: If the doctrine be a true one, this obscuration of it will be but temporary—but if the doctrine be essentially wrong, and this assault be directed to the extinction of the error, then not only will the assault finally succeed, but whatever delays its
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