The Hunterian oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, February 14, 1842 / by G.G. Babington.

Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, February 14, 1842 / by G.G. Babington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    practice of life: that the other ascertains first by careful observation the axiomata media, and then ascends by gradual and regular induction to the more general laws of the universe. The former method, though easy and compendious, is attended with this grievous evil, that an error in the original principle affects all the conclusions which are deduced from it: the latter, though longer and more laborious, corrects in its progress any error which may have been admitted, and thus esta- blishes its conclusions on a certain and irrefragable basis. His words are remarkable : Ordo demon- strandi plane invertitur. Adhuc enim res itd geri consnevit, ut a sensu et particularibus primo loco ad maxime generalia advoletur, tanquam ad polos jixos circa qaos disputationes versantur; ab UUs ccetera per media deriventur, via certe com- pendiarid, sed prcecipiti; et ad naturam impervid, ad disputationes verd proclivi et accommodatd. At secundum nos, axiomata continenter et gra- datim incitantur, ut non nisi postremo loco ad generalissima veniatur.* Then as to the proofs to which they severally appeal. The one assumes that the notions of the human mind are necessarily correct, and appeals therefore to each man's consciousness for the justi- fication of its doctrines: the other rejects all con- fidence in the notions of the intellect, unless their truth is demonstrated at every step by observation
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