Lectures on the means of promoting and preserving health : delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, Spitalfields / by T. Hodgkin.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the means of promoting and preserving health : delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, Spitalfields / by T. Hodgkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    401/476 (page 383)
    SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS. SS3 would soon be left without any to follow them. Were it possible to restore patriarchal length of life, the earth would nevertheless be left with- out inhabitants, but for the provision of suc- cessive generations, whereby the race of man is rendered as permanent and enduring, as the individuals which compose it are frail and mortal. As lovers of our country, and well-wishers to the human race, we cannot but feel a lively interest in what relates to the well-being and prosperity of those, who are to succeed us. This interest, however, belongs in an especial degree to those who either stand in the im- portant relation of parents, or are likely to do so. It is to such, to whom, through you, I am anxious to direct the principal part of this evening's Lecture. It would ill become me, on an occasion like the present, to attempt to withdraw the veil of mystery which is wrapped about the wondrous fact of the reproduction, not merely of human, but of all animal life: although even with this, there are connected many points of no trifling importance to the well-being of the future race. It may almost suffice for our present purpose, simply to advert to the fact, that it has pleased Providence, in different ways, to increase the happiness of some of the individuals of one generation, by the provision which is made for the existence of their posterity. The Christian code of morality is sufficiently