7 C.
   PROF. ST. JOHN'S LECTURE
           TO THE
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT,
OP THE
WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE,
    SESSION—1845-'46. 
X 
 J           AN


INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

        DELIVERED BEFORE THE


  MEDICAL DEPARTMENT

           OF THE


WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE,

            BT

    SAMUEL ST. JOHN, M. D.,
PROF. OP CHEMISTRY AND MEDICALJURI8PRUDENCE.
YOUNGLOVE'S STEAM POWER PRESS.
        1846. 
 
ADDRESS OF  PROF.  ST. JOHN.
   It is impossible to contemplate the p rogress of Society without per-
 ceiving, in some degree, how much the human race is indebted,  for
 its advancement, to the cultivation of Natural Science.   If we com-
 pare Man's first rude and puny essays, with the elaborate and almost
 incredible  energies  which he now wields ; if we contrast the help-
 lessness and degradation of the savage with the comfort, security and
 refinement  of civilized  life, we  perceive what Science has done for
 man, and can form some conjecture of what it may yet be destined to
 accomplish.  The difference between men in an  uncultivated state,
 and in a state of advanced science, is so great, that we hardly recog-
 nise in both the characteristics of the  same order of beings.   In  the
 one case the visible world is full of prodigies, and the invisible is peo-
 pled  with  imaginary beings  of  capricious will and vengeful power.
 Objects and events which a child in civilized society views with com-
 placency, fill the mind of the  savage with amazement and dread; he
 stands amidst daily recurring mysterious events alarmed and confound-
 ed ;  the lightning rives the sturdy oak, or strikes his companions dead
 by a power which he dares not investigate ; the blazing volcano and
 the rumbling earthquake are objects of superstitious terror ; the sun
 and  moon rise and set to him, by capricious appointment;  an  eclipse
 comes to him unexpected, and while  it sheds
                           " Disastrous twilight
              O'er half the nations, and with fear of change
              Perplexes monarchs,"
 the laboring sun or moon betides  impending evil.   Disease invades his
 frame and prostrates his energies,  by  an inscrutable  influence, to be re-
 moved by a power equally inscrutable.  His processes and devices for
 supplying his daily wants are clumsy and puerile ; no mechanical pow-
 ers, or transformations of chemistry relieve his toils ; and if in  his
 timid voyages he is driven from sight of land, his wished-for port lies
 in a direction which he cannot determine.  His religion, how sense-
 less and degrading ! The loathsome reptile, the deadly Upas, or hide-
ous images, are his Gods.
  But when science bus illumined the mind of man, the material world 
6
 in which he lives is full of meaning.   It is written all over within and
 without with characters of benevolence, wisdom and beauty.   In the
 former oojects of his dread he discerns adaptation to promote his wel-
 fare and secure his happiness. He boldly scrutinizes the causes of the
 changes which transpire about him.  The scathing lightning he tames
 with a point, and regulating its energies, tasks its chemical powers, or
 sends it, with telegraphic speed, the messenger of his will.  The raging
 volcano brings to him rare products which he makes subservient to his
 physical wants, while he views its stupendous phenomena, as manifesta-
 tions of those laws of instability by which the stability of the universe is
 secured.  The sun, moon and planets have for him their appointed times.
 The once so much dreaded eclipse he now views with intense interest, pre-
 dicts its recurrence, and by his observations determines the grand truths
 of astronomy, or calculates tables for the navigator. No longer confining
 his timid voyages to friendly bays, he pushes boldly out upon the broad
 ocean, and with his eye fixed upon a little piece of steel which points
 unerringly to the pole, through thickest darkness he holds his steadfast
 course ;  penetrating unknown seas, braving  the  tempest, he directs
 his way with confident precision, and with chart in hand, tho' leagues
 remote, descries his home-port. He searches through all nature, scan-
 ning the heavens and earth, investigating animal, vegetable, and min-
 eral bodies,  to satisfy his physical wants or adorn his  mind.  The ele-
 ments he presses into his service, plying their untiring energies in the
 accomplishment of  his designs.  If disease attack  his frame,  by the
 aid of science he follows into its lurking places, dislodges it, and forti
 fies his system against subsequent invasion.
   No longer bowing in senseless reverence before loathsome objects,
 or with forbidden and untold rites worshipping the creatures of his own
 imagination, in that elder Scripture writ by  God's own hand, as well
 as in the Book of Grace, he discerns the only object  of true spiritual
 worship.
   In order to a just  appreciation of the  superior comfort and  power
with which science invests man, we should compare the civilized  and
savage states, under the same circumstances of time and place.  For
this purpose we will  not select the case of the Hottentot so brutalized
as scarcely to exhibit a trace of humanity, to contrast with his neigh-
 bor colonist of Cape Town; nor that of the enervated,  sensual Asiat-
 ic, with his European invader; but that of the imbecile though mag- 
7
 nanimous and sagacious North American Indian, with the Anglo-Sax-
 on who came to the shores of the new world, possessed of all the re-
 sources which science had bestowed. Two hundred years ago the first
 European settlers found this vast territory in the undisputed possession
 of powerful  tribes of Indians.  The  smoke of their wigwams and
 council-fires rose from every valley between the Ocean and the Rocky
 Mountains from Hudson's Bay to Florida.   They kindled their watch-
 fires, where now our proudest cities rise.   They then owned the ma-
 jestic rivers,  far-stretching lakes and fertile  valleys,  and unchecked,
 roamed the forests in quest of game. But where are they now ? Whole
 tribes have perished, and the arrow head and tomahawk with the bones
 of sachems and warriors turned up by the plow of their successful in-
 vaders, are the only mementos of their existence.  Neither the wast-
 ing pestilence, nor  famine, nor war alone has effected their destruc-
 tion.   A more subtle power has been at work.   Every where at the
 approach of the foot of the white man, they fade away.  The Atlantic
 breezes fan not now a  single region which they may call their own.
 A nobler race of wild men never existed  in  any age  or country  : but
 they  were uncivilized.  They  possessed  not the simplest  elements of
 science. A wilderness was essential to their habits and pursuits.  They
 subsisted by war or hunting.  They applied no scientific principles to
 the culture of the soil, the pursuits of commerce,  or manufactures, or
 the cure of diseases.  They had no mariner's compass, water-wheel, or
 steam engine.  Chemistry shed no light upon the mysterious processes
 of their "medicine man."  Their melancholy fate awakens our sym-
 pathy : and Charity suggests, the powerful race  should have adopted
 the waning into its  bosom,  and freely  imparted  the  stores of know-
 ledge, the source of its power.  But how few were the sympathies be-
 tween the white race and the red :  the latter by their very nature seem
almost incapable of such  an assimilation.  Their ferocious passions,
 their wandering life, disdain the restraints  of  society,  and  while  they
 tremble at the power of their invader, they affect not his science or art.
 A few feeble  remnants of the race still linger on the borders of civili-
 zation, illustrations of that hard necessity which  seems  slowly but
surely accomplishing their  extinction.  Religion  mourning over a
destiny almost without hope, sends her  ministers  of mercy, not  only
 to impart her  peculiar consolations, but also to win to  the reviving and
 invigorating arts of  civilized life.   But how sorely are their faith and 
8
patience tasked.   For ages  science  was accumulating and impart-
ing its power to the Saxon race ; and enlightened christian faith even
will  not  expect  a  single  age will  suffice to invest  the Indian
with the same.  No—though within reach of the hum of the spinning
jenny  and power loom,  with full  knowledge of the benefits of the
steam engine, the printing press, and the improved implements of hus-
bandry, rarely does one aspiring thought swell their  torpid spirits—
they build no steamboat, lay no railway, urge no iron horse.  Their
curiosity never rises to the contemplation of those sublime laws which
combine a universe, and spell it to harmony.  Despising the arts and
science of civilized life, they recede before the swelling tide of enlight-
ened enterprise  towards the setting sun, till the echo of their last feeble
footsteps dies amid the  murmursof  the Pacific.
   The history of  science has never  yet been fully written out.  The
recorded history of our race is but the development of angry, proud,
and lustful passions—a long  tortuous  line drawn with  blood.  The
clangor of rmrtial prowess and the  glitter of military renown have
withdrawn the attention of historians from the progress of those pure
and elevating tendencies, which have advanced  man from a state of
savage barbarity to civilization and refinement; and which, though of
gentle and unobtrusive  mien, have a permanent and controlling influ-
ence in his destiny.  It would  be  pleasant and instructive to survey
the progress of science from its feeble dawnings to its present splendor
—rehearse its achievements and from the vantage ground thus gained,
form some conjecture of its  future triumphs.  But such  a survey of
i ven one branch of science would far transcend the limits of the pre-
sent occasion.   The history of some branches may hereafter be  at-
tempted, as opportunity may permit.   It shall be  my object at  this
time, to adduce some conclusions and inferences respecting the advance-
ment of the great interests of mankind by science, which may serve
to impress upon the mind of the student a proper sense of his privile-
ges and responsibilities.   The growth  of science has been gradual—
sometimes slow; its principles, discoveries and inventions have often-
times been obliged to engage in sharp  conflicts, and struggle hard be-
fore they acquired the ascendancy, and exerted their  appropriate  in-
fluence- upon the welfare and destiny of mankind.  We fail to realize
this,  because at our birth we are introduced  to  all the beneficial  re-
sults of the successful establishment of those principles.  In order dul y 
9
to appreciate the changes which science induces upon the  face of so-
ciety, we should place ourselves in the condition of Rip Van Winkle,
or of the fabled " Seven Sleepers" of whom Gibbon speaks in his De-
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire, who slept while ages rolled on,
and then awoke to find the use of their limbs and senses,  an enigma
amid the strange circumstances in which nature and art stood ready
to minister to their wants.   " When the Emperor Decius  persecuted
the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in
a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain ; where they
were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance
should be firmly secured with a pile of huge stones.   They immedi-
ately fell into  a deep slumber, which was  miraculously  prolonged,
without injuring the powers of life, during a period  of one hundred
and eighty-seven years.   At the end of that time, the slaves of Ado-
lius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, re-
moved the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice; the light
of the sun darted into the cavern,  and the  seven sleepers were per-
mitted to awake.   After a slumber, as they  thought, of a  few hours,
they were pressed by the  calls of hunger ; and resolved that Jambli-
chus, one of their number, should secretly return to the city, to pur-
chase bread  for the use of his companions.  The youth (if we may
still employ that appellation) could no longer recognise the once fa-
miliar aspect of his native country ; and his surprise was increased by
the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over  the princi-
pal gate of Ephesus.   His singular dress,  and obsolete language, con-
founded the  baker to whom he offered an ancient medal of  Decius as
the current coin of the Empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of
a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge.   Their mutual enqui-
ries produced the amazing discovery, that  two centuries were almost
elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of
a Pagan tyrant.   The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates,
the people, and as it is said, the Emperor Theodosius himself, hastened
to   visit  the cavern of  the  " Seven Sleepers;"   who   bestowed
(heir benediction, related their story, and at the same instant peaceably
expired.   The easy and universal belief in this marvellous fable, so
expressive of the sense of mankind," says  Gibbon, "may be ascribed
to the genuine merit of  the  fable itself.   We imperceptibly advance
from  youth  to  age,  without observing the gradual  but  incessant 
LO
changes in human affairs, and even in our larger experience of history,
the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of causes and ef-
fects, to  unite  the most distant revolutions.  But if the interval be-
tween the two memorable periods could be instantly annihilated ; if it
were possible after  a momentary slumber of two hundred years,  to
display the new world to the eyes of a spectator who retained a lively
and recent impression of the old, his surprise and his reflections would
furnish the pleasing subject of a philosophical romance." *
   A survey  of the progress of science presents a pleasing view of the
successful labors of the  human mind.  It brings us into direct and ac-
tive sympathy with men of genius of every age.  We behold the toil
and disappointment of one—the slow and tedious steps by which an-
other has reached eminence.   We witness the result of patient inves-
tigation and  cautious induction.   We trace the progress  of discovery
and invention, from the  first rude experiment or accidental conjecture
to the final glorious result.   We perceive  the intelligent observation
of the slightest incident  leading to the establishment of the most sub-
lime truth.   We see human  ingenuity overcoming apparently insur-
mountable obstacles, and enterprise gathering courage from  its  very
defeats. The establishment of almost every great truth has been se-
cured by the enthusiasm of some gifted man upon whom its discovery
has conferred immortality.   For the  highest success in the pursuit of
any object there must be a love of the object itself.  The philosopher,
the student who is true to his vocation, loves the  truth which he would
develope  and embody.   The astronomer from his lonely turret on the
plains of  Chaldea watching the silent revolution of the heavenly bo-
dies; Plato musing in the groves of the Academy; Pliny dying amidst
the terrific splendors of  Vesuvius ; Linnaeus  penetrating the Arctic
Circle, that he might study its Flora, in situ ; Cuvier, a " lordlier Adam
than he of  Eden," restoring form and giving names to races of an-
imals extinct ages before he lived—and from these scanty relics de-
ducing the world's history at that remote epoch ; Galileo in the  dun-
geon and on the rack in  vindication of his astronomical views ; New-
ton, Franklin, and Liebig, demonstrating nature's sublimest laws, and
revealing the secrets of  her  most subtle transformations; and Audu-
bon, that hale old man, who even-paced with our boldest hunters, star-
tles the clefts of the Rocky Mountains with his rifle, that he may catch
  •Gibbon's Decline and Fail of the Roman Empire, Chapter XXXIII. 
11
and transfer to canvas, the lustrous tints of beauty in each rare bird,
ere they fade in death ; — all, all bespeak enthusiasm, a burning love
of truth for the truth's own sake.   It is in the contemplation of such
minds, and their products, that abandoning all grovelling thoughts and
vulgar desires, we feel a new sense of the dignity of intellectual pur-
suits,  and of the power of human genius.
   In  the history of science we sometimes discern a single  truth disco-
vered and developed by some powerful mind,  which long stands isola-
ted— like a  lone  star  in the overcast heavens.  After the lapse of
years, sometimes of centuries, other kindred truths appear,  or some
splendid genius, with magic wand scatters the clouds and reveals the
former lone star a member of a brilliant constellation.   The expan-
sive power of steam was announced to the world by  the  Marquis of
Worcester,  in 1655; and a mode of propelling vessels by steam was
patented in  London in 1737; but three quarters of a  century elapsed
before our own Fulton presented to the world the "steamboat," which,
regarding its effects upon commerce and navigation, the increased fa-
cilities of travelling and trade,  the rapid circulation of products and
intelligence, is justly ranked among the noblest benefactions to the hu-
man  race.  The Alchemists too, though absurd in their pretensions,
and base in  their deceptions, elicited many valuable truths,  which were
obscured in  the long night of subsequent ages, to be again revived by
Priestley and Davy, and associated with other truths, pour their min-
gled light on the pathway of man.
   It is one of the most interesting facts in the progress of science, that
whether the advance of any particular discovery to a general recep-
tion be prompt or tardy—or even if its march be arrested, it is never
ultimately lost.   It is one of the laws of intellectual influence, that
whatsoever be the fortune of inventors and discoverers, the invention
and discovery are immortal.   Persecution may consume their frames,
but the truths they taught are immortal.  Partial  and erroneous views
may even retard their own minds in the pursuit of truth ;  but the er-
rors of one  age are the  beacons of the next, and the failure of one
great mind but serves to  put his successor on  the  right track.  When
a great truth, of value to mankind,  is once discovered, it incorporates
itself  with the very elements of society.   When first struck out by
some distinguished and fortunate  genius, it may address itself only to
a few minds of  kindred taste or  power.  It exists then in the abstract 
12
forms of science, and serves perhaps only as a test of the validity of
theories.  But it is one of the happiest laws of intellectual progress,
that the profound reasonings, sublime discoveries, and generous senti-
ments of great  intellects, rapidly  work their way into  the common
channel  of public opinion,  visit the bedside of the sick and dying,
encircle the altar and fireside, ascend the bench and tread the halls of
legislation, raising the universal standard of attainment, correcting
popular errors, and promoting the general welfare by an increase of
intelligence, skill, comfort,  and virtue.  Historians  affirm that the
celebrated Grecian sculptor Phidias, in executing the statue of Miner-
va at Athens, so wrought his own image upon her shield, that it could
never be effaced without  destroying the statue.  Thus the great truths
of science are so completely woven into the texture of society, that
their destruction would involve its disorganization.  How entire is the
revolution in political and social affairs, which has  resulted from the
use of the magnetic needle,  the  telescope, moveable metallic types,
and the safety lamp !   When will the effects of the invention of gun-
powder ; or the consequences that have  resulted from the application
of the vapor of water to the manufacturing arts, navigation, and trans-
portation by bnd ; or the results which have flowed from the adoption
of that great master-principle of the philosophy  of Bacon — the in-
duction of Truth from the observation of Fact, — when will these, or
any of them cease to be discernible, in the very intimate structure of
society ?
  It has been said with great classical beauty and truth, that " every
vista in the  ample domain of science should lead to a temple dedicated
to the benefit of man." The slightest glance at the history of science
reveals its tendency to apply all its principles to some direct practical
purpose.  There was a period when speculation constituted the prin-
cipal delight of scholars and philosophers; and endless were the con-
troversies and subtleties  about which they distracted themselves.
Through all the ages of philosophy to the time of Bacon, the true ob-
ject of science was unknown: and the profound sentiment with which
he commences his Novum Organum, was as new as it was beautiful to
the philosophic world.  Man, the minister and interpreter of Nature,
can do and  understand only so much about the order of nature as he
has observed; neither does he know more, nor can  he.   "The ulti-
mate object  of the sciences," says Bacon, " has by no one heretofore 
13
been well defined :  It is to labor for the comfort of mankind; to work
effectively for the purpose of lightening the  annoyances of life;  to
enrich the human race with new discoveries and possessions."  Since
the adoption of this maxim, the dreaming and speculative have passed
away.  On the discovery  of a new principle now, the question  at
once arises, in what way can it  be made serviceable to the happiness
of man ]   Society  is now full of the applications  of scientific prin-
ciples, from the mighty steam ship that buffets the ocean tempests, to
the humblest piece of mechanism.   Our ears are filled perhaps to sa-
tiety, with the triumphs of steam, electricity, chemistry, and mechan-
ics.   Nor has medicine been overlooked in this beneficial change.  In
this branch  of science,  inductive philosophy  has won some  of her
fairest trophies.   In anatomy, physiology, pharmacy, therapeutics, in-
structed skill, patient observation, and accurate deduction, have been
substituted for vague conjecture and bold pretension.   Instead of mys-
tical compounds, nostrums, and panaceas, science has introduced  its
powerful elements,  and given energy and certainty to practice.  Phy-
sicians no longer dream over the favorite theories of the art, succeed-
ing each other in endless progression.   They strive to adopt a truer
course ; to read nature in her operations, and minister to clearly dis-
cerned symptoms.  Chemistry, formerly an  occult science full of mys-
teries, and unmeaning processes, abounding in theories scarcely fur-
nishing a single rational principle, has become, in the highest sense a
science.  The laws of chemical action have  been examined and as
certained with great accuracy, and can now be demonstrated with  as
much clearness and facility as any of the laws of mechanical philoso-
phy.   It has become eminently  a practical science, and its beneficial
effects are felt in every department of life.  The apothecary's shop
no  longer abounds with nauseous compounds, the  disgrace of the art.
Chemistry has largely administered to the convenience, as well as the
efficacy of medicines, by ascertaining their qualities, and component
parts, by removing  hurtful substances,  simplifying processes, and  pu-
rifying the crude material.  It has saved the  lives of thousands by its
safety lamps, preventing explosions from the  invisible, mephitic fire-
damps of the mines.  It is a spirit of  all work, lighting our streets, fix-
ing and discharging colors, disclosing the  nature  and properties of
light and heat, of air and water, of the products of the vegetable and
animal kingdoms, of earths and  alkalies, acids, salts, and metals. 
14
   There is a large  and comprehensive sense in which utility is in-
 scribed on every swelling dome of science.   The improvement effect-
 ed in the  condition of mankind by the advancement of science as ap-
 plied to the useful purposes of life, is far from being limited to their
 direct consequences in the more  abundant  supply of our  physical
 wants and the increase of our comforts.   The successful  results of ex-
 periments and reasonings tend necessarily to impress somethingof the
 progressive character of science on the more complicated conduct of
 our social and moral relations.   To the study of nature  we owe ma-
 ny of the triumphs of Reason.  It is the power of science, in awaken-
 ing the dormant energy of genius; in pointing out to it the true means
 of arriving at greet ends; in preventing its waste in visionary schemes;
 in suggesting the  first hint, directing the aim, and removing  obstacles
 to the successful working of mind that constitute a portion of its true
 value, perhaps its noblest excellence.
   Unless  as students you have  been singularly  ill-taught, or  worse
 misled by  your own vanity, you know and feel that  the learning you
 have thus  far acquired is but an imperfect fragment  of the science al-
 ready attained by man, and still more imperfect when compared with
 the knowledge which lies within the grasp of the human intellect.  How
 varied and magnificent does the wealth of the intellectual treasury here
 opened to  you appear.  But how does that  magnificence  grow before
 you when you reflect that the science of the present generation is the
 accumulated fruit of  the patience, observations,  and experiments of
 thousands  of minds, all guided to one end—the improvement of the
 human race.   From  the period when the Chaldean  shepherd solaced
 the long hours of  his nightly watch by noting the silent and grand re-
 gularity of the heavenly bodies  in their real or apparent motions, to
 that when  La Grange could ascertain mathematically  the law of the
inequalities of the planetary motions, and show that these apparent ir-
regularities  are, in fact,  regular and  periodical;  from  that period
 when the Alchemist brooded over his mystic rites, in indefatigable but
 vain search after the  brilliant phantoms of his dreams, to that in
which Davy and Dalton have demonstrated not merely the quality but
the definite proportions of the elements of the most complex substance
— the long interval has been filled  up, and the wonderful conclusions
of science  attained by the incessant mental toil of numerous, acute, pa-
tient, and  daring intellects, through  days of thought and  nights of 
15
watching.  I have adduced this fact that great men during a long train
of ages have accumulated and transmitted to you this princely inheri-
tance, through a line far more illustrious than any ancestry ever bla-
zoned by heraldry, not to inflate your vanity with pompous and empty
words, but to incite you to noble deeds, to the labors of benevolence,
the bloodless victories of reason and virtue.  If you feel yourselves to
be debtors to the past in an incalculable amount, shall not that reflec-
tion stimulate you to the desire of paying some part of thit debt, by
service to the present and future 1   Others have  lived and toiled for
us; it is for us to live and labor for others.  You start on your  way
with all the benefits of the labors, travels,  and  profound study of all
past times.   Every happy discovery and useful invention have  con-
tributed to the  refinement  and intelligence  of the age in which you
live ;  you find the implements of science, experimental and demonstra-
tive, ready fitted to your hands.  For you, Hunter and Bell have scru-
tinized the human frame, in its minutest construction; Priestley, Davy,
and Berzelius, have interrogated nature in  the laboratory to learn her
laws of aggregation ;  for you Harvey has demonstrated the circula-
tion of the blood; for you Jenner has vindicated  the validity of  vac-
cination ; for you, in  short, if you will but have it so, all men of sci-
ence have lived and labored.  Be not  disheartened as if nothing re-
mained to be done. In every  field of scientific research, there remains
enough to fill the highest measure of ambition, or gratify the most ar-
dent love of investigation. Say not,  you lack genius for such exploits.
These achievements have been  wrought by minds like  your own. In
those periods in which science has advanced with the greatest rapidity,
the same discovery has frequently been made by several individuals at
the same time.   This teaches us that the laws then discovered pointed
out the next step  in discovery, and thus talent  common to many was
able to accomplish what the highest  endowments in intellect  had pre-
viously found to be impossible. Listen to the declaration — made with
characteristic modesty — of one of the most gifted minds.  Sir Isaac
Newton, at the close of a long life, spent in  most successful study, says
— " I do not know what I may appear to the world ; but to myself  I
seem  to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and divert-
ing myself in now and  then finding a  smoother pebble or prettier
shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of Truth  lay all undiscov-
ered before me."  What an animating prospect does this view afford, 
16
what noble ends does it  propose !   If every new acquisition operates
as a moving spirit upon the still depths of our minds, to  awaken new
enterprise and activity, to warm our hearts to new affection and kind-
ness to our race, and to enable us to add something to the capital stock
of human enjoyment, we shall not have lived in vain.   Much less of
success in life is in reality dependent on accident, or what is  called
luck than is commonly supposed.  Far more depends upon the objects
which a man proposes  to  himself; what  attainments  he aspires to ;
what he choses to educate himself for ; whether he looks to the end
and aim of the whole of life, or only to the present hour ; whether he
listens to the  voice of indolence or ignoble pleasure, or to the stirring
voice within him, urging his ambition on to the highest objects.  The
truths which  you are here invited to contemplate have not only adap-
tation to prepare  you  to exercise the duties of a responsible profes-
sion, but have also the power to lift the soul  above base desires, and a
sordid ambition.
   The laws  that  govern the [material  world are fixed and  inva-
riable.   When they  have once been  ascertained  they  may  be
safely taken as premises in all your processes  of  reasoning.   Your
calculations will possess a kind of mathematical certainty.   These
laws constitute  the various branches of science.   I  hope to  have the
pleasure in our future meetings of enunciating, enforcing, and  illus-
trating some of these laws. 
 
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