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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![[12] come so important and valuable in science, that the celebrated Locke styles them, the gems of knowledge : but it is obvious that unless the individual facts be true, and include every thing that can affect the result, the general fact or principle must also be false or at least uncertain. This method of conducting the pursuit of knowledge, by forming conclusions from the particu- lar to the general, is termed induction—a logical process which leads the enquirer from particular facts or propositions, collected by experiment, when the subject admits of it, as Chemistry <fcc. or otherwise by attentive observation, as in Astronomy, into some general proposition which may constitute an a::iom or principle in that science: this is the only certain method of investiga- ting and arriving at truth, in the medical sciences;—the mo- ment we leave it, we are bewildered in the mazes of error. But this philosophy, while it inculcates freedom and independ- ence of thought, at the same time requires the most profound humility and modesty—the docility, the teachableness of little children—that, with all their artlessness and simpli- city, we ask questions of nature, as of a mother, and receive instruction at her feet: it admonishes us, as expressed in the beautifully figurative language of its author, that the kingdom of man which is founded in the sciences, cannot be entered oth- erwise than the kingdom of God, that is, in the condition of a little child. There are too many who would enter upon this kingdom proudly, and by violence, as lords or princes, but to such its gates are barred: there are too many who, like Euclid's royal pupil, would seek a kingly road to knowledge, but in vain, the only paths to knowledge—the only avenues to the temple of science, are observation, experiment and careful induction. It was by the effectual aid of the inductive philosophy, that the immortal Newton made his splendid discoveries in natural](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21118358_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
