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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![[U] there are those whose office it is, to construct bridges, to cut paths along mountains, and to remove various impediments, so Lord Bacon may be said to have cleared the way to knowledge; to have marked out the road to truth; and to have left future travellers little else to do than to follow his instructions : he was the miner and sapper of philosophy, the pioneer of nature; and he eminently promoted the dominion of man over the material world. He was the priest of Nature's mysteries; he taught men in what manner they might discover her profoundest secrets, and interpret those laws which Nature has received from the great Author of all. This philosophy teaches mankind that the only certain meth- od of arriving at truth, in the sciences, is to relinquish all pride, to renounce all preconceived opinions and theories, and to study nature herself, the only source from which correct informa- tion can be obtained. It sets out with this fundamental princi- ple— Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, understands and reduces to practice just so much as he has actunlly expe- rienced of nature's laws; more he can neither know nor a- chieve. It teaches us, that it is only by patiently observing natural phenomena, and by careful experiment which Lord Bacon styles interrogating, or asking questions of nature, that we can proceed safely and surely in our enquiries after truth; that it is from facts, thus laboriously obtained and brought together, we must reason, and not from baseless conjec- tures and vague hypotheses relative to the laws and operations of nature. It is by bringing together all the facts bearing on any subject that can be obtained by observation and experiment, by examining them in every point of view, and carefully com- paring them, that we can arr ive at some general conclusion, or determine some fact or principle, applicable to them all, which general facts or principles, when satisfactorily established, be-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21118358_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
