Introductory address, delivered at the opening of the session of the Medical College of Georgia : on the second Monday of November, 1838 / by Joseph A. Eve.
- Eve, Joseph A. (Joseph Adams), 1805-1886.
- Date:
- 1838
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Introductory address, delivered at the opening of the session of the Medical College of Georgia : on the second Monday of November, 1838 / by Joseph A. Eve. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![[10] ments, in the arts and sciences, which have go eminently distin- guished the last two centuries from all that have preceded. This great philosopher rose like a sun upon the dark days of mental thraldom and delusion, and with superior light scattered the dense shades that had for ages obscured the human mind : this masterspirit, this oracle of nature, exposed the absurdities of the scholastic philosophy—with the irresistible power of truth, wrested the sceptre from the hand of Aristottle who had, more than two thousand years, held the minds of men in abject bondage —proclaimed independence of thought—intellectual liberty— emancipation from the tyranny of false philosophy ;—he taught mankind to assert the high prerogative of reason—the noble privilege to think for themselves—the natural and inalienable right to employ their own senses and mental faculties, in the pursuit of truth. Lord Bacon, (says an elegant writer,) was the first who taught the proper method of studying the sciences, that is, he pointed out the way in which we should begin, and carry on our pursuit of knowledge in order to arrive at truth. He gave a set of rules by which mankind might deliver themselves from slavery to names, and from wandering among fanciful systems, and return once more as little children to the school of Nature. The task he chose was far more ussfel to the world, and honour- able to himself, than that of being, like Plato or Aristottle, the author of a new sect: he undertook to expose the errors of those who had gone before him, and to shew the best way of avoiding them for the future: he had the principal share in pulling down the old building of a false philosophy, and, with the skill of a superior architect, he laid the foundation, and sketched the plan of another fabric, and gave masterly directions to those who should come after him—how, upon the ruins of the first, the temple of science must be erected anew. As in a great army,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21118358_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
