An Extract from Dr. LETTSOM's Oration, when presenting the Prize Medals Adjudged to Dr. FOTHERGILL of BATH, FOR HIS DISSERTATION ON THE EFFICACY OF VITAL AIR' IN THE RESTORATION OF SUSPENDED ANIMATION. A long feries of years is often required for the admiffion of NEW TRUTHS. It was thought audacity in M. FAGON to defend the Harveian Discovery, near forty years after the first promulgation of it in England. So COLUMBUS, when he first divulged his vaft project of doubling the globe, was infulted by INCREDULITY; and, after he had added a new to the old hemisphere, was perfecuted by ENVY. In like manner, when the northern Luminary, LINNÆUS, created a new system of vegetable nature, he found on every side determined affailants; but, fortified by the energies of his capacious mind, he gave this reply, "POSTERITY WILL DECIDE;" and, pointing to fome academic children at play-" Thefe," added he, "will become our judges." Matter preliminary to the Explanation of the First Law of the Nervous and Fibrous Systems. THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE. "If I had foreseen all the weight of oppofition that has arisen against me, I would have left to others the pursuit of an empty fhadow-but the reflection of being of fervice to my fellow creatures affords a return for the inquietudes ever attendant upon literary exertions." Vide Sir ISAAC NEWTON's Letter to Dr. Bentley. As long as PHILOSOPHY was built, not upon the fubftantial bafis of actual experiment, but imagined properties, which were affumed as data, it was putting on new forms almost every day; for one fanciful opinion had always a right to fupplant another. Hence the best PHILOSOPHER in those days was him who could reafon most ingeniously on occult qualities, either invented by himfelf, or by fome favourite writer. Lord Chancellor BACON was the first who discovered the fallacy of this fort of philofophy. He rejected all that chimerical nonfenfe, which had ufurped the name of philofophy, and wifely exclaimed-"Non fingendum, "aut excogitandum, quid Natura feret et faciat, fed in"veniendum eft." That the operations of nature was not be fancied, but diligently fcrutinized. Hence, in less than the space of a century, the principle of philofophizing being altered, more light was thrown upon every branch of fcience, than it had received for above two thousand years before. The discovery of the circulation of the blood first immortalized the name of HARVEY. It may appear wonderful, and at the fame time not a little mortifying to the vanity of mankind, that a motion in the frame, which conftitutes the bafis of life, and which chance must have made us fenfible of a thousand times, fhould have escaped the eyes of all who imagined themselves to be observers, and fome of whom were actually fuch. When the doctrine of the circulation of the blood could no longer be refifted, various unsuccessful attempts were then made to prove that it was known long before; fo was it with COLUMBUS who difcovered a new world, which occafioned him to make this fimple propofal to his oppofers, namely, " to place an egg upright.” All attempted, but in vain. This illuftrious navigator then himself broke the end, and "the egg stood up.” |
