[Review of works on medical ethics / by Thomas Percival and others. Anon.

  • Brown, John, 1810-1882
Date:
1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Review of works on medical ethics / by Thomas Percival and others. Anon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Were we, for our own and our readers’ satisfaction and entertainment, or for some higher and better end, about to go through a course of reading on the foundation of general morals, in order to deduce from them a code of professional ethics,— to set ourselves to discover the root, and ascend up from it to the timber the leaves, the fruit, and the flowers—we would not con¬ fine ourselves to a stinted browsing in the ample and ancient field —-we would, in right of our construction, be omnivorous, trusting to a stout mastication, a strong digestion, an eclectic and vigorous chylopoetic staff of appropriators and scavengers, to our making something of everything. We would not despise good old Plu¬ tarch’s morals, or anybody else’s, because we know chemistry, and many other things, better than he or they did ; nor would we be ashamed to confess that our best morality, and deepest philosophy of the nature and origin of human duty, of moral good and evil, was summed up in the golden rules of childhood, Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.” Every man is thy neighbour.” “ Love is the fulfilling of the law.” “ Ye owe no man anything, but to love one another.” This is the true birth-place of the word oughtj that which we owe to some one, and of duty^ that which is due by us; and likewise of morale that which should be customary, and ethi¬ cal in the same sense;—the only custom, which it will always be a privilege, as well as a duty to pay—the only debt which mus^ al¬ ways be due. It is worth remembering that names too often become the ghosts of things, and ghosts, with a devil or a fool, instead of the original tenant inside. The w'ord manners means literally nothing else, and ought never to be anything else, than the expression, the embodiment, the pleasant flower, of an inw^ard mos or moral state. We may all remember that the Contes Morales^’’ of Marmontel— which w’ere, many of them, anything but moral—were translated so, instead of Tales illustrative of Manners. To go on with our excursus erraticus. Were we going to take ourselves and our company into the past, and visit the habitats of the great moralists, and see the coun¬ try, and make up our minds as to what in it was what, and how much to us it was worth,—we would not keep to one line—we would expatiate a little and make it a ramble, not a journey, much less an express train, with no stoppages,—we would, moreover, take our own time, choose our own roads, and our own vehicles,-—w^e would stay where, and as long as we found entertainment, good lodging, and good fare, and did not lose our time or ourselves,—and we would come home, we hope, not informed merely, but in better health and spirits, more contented, more active, more enlightened, more ready for our daily work. We would begin at the beginning, and start early. In search of what is man’s normal sense of duty, and how he is to do it, we would take our company to that garden.