The unlicensed medical practitioner : a sketch from life.

Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The unlicensed medical practitioner : a sketch from life. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    =3= THE LEISURE HOIJR. from the town, chiefly muleteers, who arrange to trust. Such an apphcat have horses, etc. ready at the quarantine gates at would be morally wr> a given hour on a given day. By half-past eight : And again, it yoi; AM breakfast is over, the breeze lulls, and the parties who were pt heat of the day commences. Most of the inmates ycu might, consider are in their shirt sleeves, fanning themselves with straw bats. By midday the heat is intolerable; and the only temporary relief we can get is by tying wet handkerchiefs round the forehead, and re- 363 irefore, two you, d for a decision in his own flK^ur. And !iow,tfien, you might ask, would it be posStble to apply the rule ? since in deciding/or the one party, you could not but decide against the other. A literal compliance placing them as soon as they dry. It is impos- with the rule, therefore, would be, in such a case, sible to read or think, and appetite is out of the impossible. question As for the natives, they are allasleep , 2 A Ucation 0fthe Golden Rule. in their binns, for they rather like this heat than “ Otherwise Now, if you were to put such cases as these At last the day and hour of release arrive, before any sensible man, he would at once say that Twenty guardians, with twenty incense pans, you are to consider not what. you might wish in swing smoke into your face, till you nearly cough yourself into suffocation ; then the doctor, keeping you at a stick’s length, looks at your tongue, after which he makes another speech hands with you. His exam director and all the twenty your servant to settle hours afterwards you the city of Gaza. INTRODUCTORY LES U LESSON IV.—OFFICE REFERENCE TO MORAl § 1. The Golden Rule. That invaluable rule of our Lord’s, “To do to others as we would have them do to us,” will serve to explain, when rightly understood, the true cha- racter of moral instruction. If you were to under- stand that precept as designed to convey to us the first notions of right and wrong, and to be your sole guide as to what you ought to do and to avoid in your dealings with your neighbour, you would be greatly perplexed. For you would find that a literal compliance with the precept would be some- times absurd, sometimes wrong, and sometimes impossible. And probably it is through making this mistake that men in general apply the rule so much seldomer than they ought. For, the real occasions for its use occur to all of us every day. Supposing any one should regard this golden rule as designed to answer the purpose of a com- plete system of morality, and to teach us the difference of right and wrong : then, if he had let his land to a farmer, he might consider that the former would be glad to be excused paying any rent for it, since he would himself, if he were the former, prefer having the land rent-free ; and that therefore the rule of doing as he would be done by requires him to give up all his property. So also f a shopkeeper might, on the same principle, think j that the rule required him to part with his goods Under prime cost, or to give them away, and thus to ruin himself. Now such a procedure would be absurd. Again, supposing a jailor who was entrusted with the safe custody of a prisoner, should think himself bound to let the man escape, because ho himself, if ho were a prisoner, would bo glnd to obtain freedom, he would be guilty of a breach of each case, but what you would regard. as fair right—-just—reasonable, if you were in another person’s place. If you were a farmer, although you might feel that you would be very glad to have the land rent-free—that is, to become the iwner of it—you would not consider that you had just claim to it, and that you could fairly •ct the landlord to make you a present of his j—jartv. But you would think it reasonable that -kTwou suffered some great and unexpected lose, I'jfSn an inundation or any such calamity, he should 'TOtlJlke an abatement of the rent. And this is . uu . - I, ’.m o/cV£at a good landlord generally thinks it right to in compliance with the golden rule. /' So also, if you had a cause to be tried, though of course you would wish the decision to be in your favour, you would be sensible that all you could reasonably expect of the judge would be, that he should lay aside all prejudice, and attend impartially and carefully to the evidence, and decide according to the best of his ability. And this—which is what each party may fairly claim— ik what an upright judge will do. And the like Me* holds good in all the other cases. § 3. Design of the Golden Rule. You see then that the golden rule was far from being designed to impart to men the first notions of justice. On the contrary, it pre-supposes that knowledge j and if we had no such notions, we could not properly apply the rule. But the real design of it is, to put us on our guard against the danger of being blinded by self-interest. A person who has a good general notion of what is just, may often be tempted to act unfairly or unkindly towards his neighbours when his own interest or gratification is concerned, and to overlook the right claims of others. When David was guilty of an enormous sin in taking his neighbour’s wife, and procuring the death of the husband, he was think- ing only of his own gratification, quite forgetful of duty, till his slumbering conscience was roused by the prophet Nathan. On hearing the tale of “ the poor man’s lamb,” his general abhorrence of injustice and cruelty caused him to feel vehement indignation against the supposed offender; but he did not apply his principles to his own case till the prophet startled him by saying, “ Thou art the man.” And we, if we will make a practice of applying the golden rule, may have a kind of prophet always at hand, to remind us how, and when, to act on our principles of right. We have only to A