An oration, delivered before the Hunterian Society, February 13th, 1856 / by Thomas Callaway.

  • Callaway, Thomas L.
Date:
[1856?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An oration, delivered before the Hunterian Society, February 13th, 1856 / by Thomas Callaway. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    such records as worthless falsities, we should rather endea¬ vour, by rendering them scrupulously exact, to make them valuable bases of knowledge. Against many of the publications of our own school oi Philosophy the charge that they are positively . fallacious and obstructive, may be fairly brought. Nor is it difficult to indicate the sources of this evil. Much originally de- pends upon the youthful age at which students are com¬ pelled to enter our Profession, the consequent absence of sufficient preliminary mental training, and the complete want of all provision in our medical schools (as at present consti¬ tuted) in supply of so important a defect. No problem in rea¬ soning of greater difficulty can be presented to the mind than the dealing with uncertain data upon strictly logical grounds. There exists no science in which the observation of facts is surrounded with so many deceptive concomitants as our own. The disturbing media are in no-science so numerous; and yet the solution of problems which would severely tax the energies of the most practised and vigorous reasoners is the task pro¬ posed to all who enter our Profession. To achieve. this, they bring minds unprepared by any preliminary training w at- evei\ To use the language of (Esterlen, the student has to a become acquainted with philosophy without learning to phi losophiseor, as Herder complains, “ youths on leaving the University are for the most part perverted growths.^ They have been taught to create their senses and reason a priori, rather than to employ those created for them.” Can it, then, be a wonder, considering these circumstances, that the evil which I have ventured to indicate, exists ? Is it not rather a legitimate conclusion to be verified from premisses, patent to all ? There are other causes of this evil—causes common to the whole body social, but which tell with peculiar force upon our own section of society—causes common to humanity feel¬ ings which, springing from our very nature’s essence, will