College had desired to support the alleged favorable tendency of Mr. Abernethy's views or the alleged oppo. site bearings of those to which he was opposed, they could hardly have done better than to have allowed of the irrelevant matter in question. But we have done. It is no part of our business to quote passages, or further to renew discussions long since passed away, than is necessary for our proper objects. But when we consider on how many points Abernethy must have been hurt, the very difficult and perplexing position in which he was placed, we can not too much admire the very measured tone he adopted throughout; or the evidently wounded feeling, but still dignified yet simple statement of the published Postscript to his Lectures; and though there had been no subsequent exemplification of his forgiving temper-which was not the case-we should still have felt obliged to regard the whole affair as indicative of great goodness of heart; and when all the circumstances of disappointment and vexation are duly weighed, of almost unexampled moderation.

It is just to Mr. Lawrence to observe that, some few years after this, the Governors of Bethlehem Hospital, on the annual (and usually formal) election of the surgeon, an office held by Mr. Lawrence, threw the appointment open to competition, on which occasion Mr. Lawrence published a letter expressing regret, in general terms, as to certain passages in the Lectures in question, and his determination not to publish any more on similar subjects. The coincidence of this letter with the threatened tenure of office of course gave rise to the usual remarks; but, if a man says he is sorry for a thing, perhaps it is better not to scan motives too closely. Mankind stand too much in need of what Burns sug

gests, and with which we close this not very agreeable

subject:

"Then gently scan your brother man,

Still gentler sister woman;

Though they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human."

CHAPTER XXI.

"And though they prove not, they confirm the cause, When what is taught agrees with Nature's laws." DRYDEN'S RELIG. LAICI.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

IN endeavoring to give some idea of Abernethy's manner in 'more sustained compositions, we have made some selections from the Lectures he delivered at the College of Surgeons. Without any pretensions to a oritically faultless style, there always seemed to us to be a peculiar simplicity combined with a broad and comprehensive range of thought. Sometimes, too, he has almost a 66 curiosa felicitas" in the tone of his expressions, though this was more remarkable, we think, when he felt more free-that is, in his unrivaled teaching at the Hospital, of which we shall endeavor to give a more particular account. As we have before remarked, it is impossible to do full justice to Abernethy unless we were to publish his works with a running commentary, and we fear that in the selections we offer we have incurred a responsibility which we shall not properly fulfill. To convey the full, the suggestive merit of even some of the following passages, it would be necessary to state carefully the relation they bear

to the state of science, both chemical and physiological, at the time they were written, and the present.

The interest of the Lectures is so evenly distributed through the whole, that selection is very difficult; and being obliged to consider our limits, we have, in the absence of a better guide, selected the passages at random, as suggested by our own impressions of them. We therefore can only earnestly recommend the perusal of the Lectures themselves as equally entertaining and instructive to the general as well as the professional reader. The varied expression and manner, and his -fine intellectual countenance, by which he imparted so much interest to his delivery on every subject he touched, will be considered in connection with his success in the art of lecturing, and to which these somewhat formal specimens may, serve as an introduction.

THE APPARENT UNIVERSAL DISTRIBUTION OF SOME POWERFUL FORCE LIKE ELECTRICITY, MAGNETISM, &c.

"When, therefore, we perceive in the universe at large a cause of rapid and powerful motions of masses of inert matter, may we not naturally conclude that the inert molecules of vegetable and animal matter may be made to move in a similar manner by a similar cause?"

REPUDIATION OF AN OFTEN ALLEGED OPINION.

"It is not meant that electricity is life. There are strong analogies between electricity and magnetism, and yet I do not know that any one has been hardy enough to assert their absolute identity.* I only mean

* Oersted's experiments, which by some are regarded as identifying these powers, occurred in 1820, four or five years after the delivery of this Lecture.

to prove that Mr. Hunter's theory is verifiable, by showing that a subtile substance of a quickly, powerfully mobile nature seems to pervade every thing, and appears to be the life of the world, and therefore it is probable that a similar substance pervades organized bodies, and produces similar effects in them.

"The opinions which in former times were a justifiable hypothesis, seem to me now to be converted into a rational theory."*

IN RELATION TO MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATION.

"This general and imperfect sketch of the anatomy of the nervous system relates only to what may be discovered by our unassisted sight. If, by means of the microscope, we endeavor to observe the ultimate nervous fibres, persons in general are as much at a loss as when, by the same means, they attempt to trace the ultimate muscular fibres."t

ILLUSTRATION OF MOTION NOT NECESSARILY IMPLYING SENSATION.

"Assuredly motion does not necessarily imply sensation; it takes place where no one ever yet imagined there could be sensation. If I put on the table a basin containing a saturated solution of salt, and threw into it a single crystal, the act of crystalization would begin from the point touched, and rapidly and regularly pervade the liquor till it assumed a solid form. Yet I know I should incur your ridicule if I suggested the idea that the stimulus of salt had primarily excited the action, or that its extension was the effect of continuous sympathy. If, also, I threw a spark among gunpowder, what would you think were I to represent + Ibid., ii., p. 62.

* Anatom. Lect., i., p. 51.

the explosion as a struggle resentful of injury, or the noise as the clamorous expression of pain?"*

DIFFERENT NERVOUS SYSTEMS VARIOUSLY AFFECTED BY SIMILAR IMPRESSIONS.

"Thus the odor of a cat, or the effluvia of mutton, the one imperceptible, the other grateful to the generality of persons, has caused individuals to fall on the ground as though bereaved of life, or to have their whole frame agitated by convulsions. Substances which induce disease in one person or animal, do not induce disease in others."+

IMPORTANCE OF OPINIONS.

I

"Thinking being inevitable, we ought, as I said, to be solicitous to think correctly. Opinions are equally the natural result of thought and the cause of conduct. If errors of thought terminated in opinions, they would be of less consequence; but a slight deviation from the line of rectitude in thought may lead to a most distant and disastrous aberration from that line in action. own I can not readily believe any one who tells me he has formed no opinion on subjects which must have engaged and interested his attention. Persons both of skeptical and credulous characters form opinions, and we have, in general, some principal opinion, to which we connect the rest, and to which we make them subservient, and this has a great influence on all our conduct. Doubt and uncertainty are so fatiguing to the human mind, by keeping it in continual action, that it will and must rest somewhere; and if so, our inquiry ought to be where it may rest most securely * Anatom. Lect., ii., p. 84. + Ibid., ii., p. 85.