Fashions of the day in medicine and science : a few more hints / by H. Strickland Constable.

  • Constable, H. Strickland (Henry Strickland), 1821-
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fashions of the day in medicine and science : a few more hints / by H. Strickland Constable. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    is, says Archbishop Whately, the more harm he does, unless he has wisdom to match. Mere cleverness is a weed that in these days runs very thick upon the ground. I, says Montaigne, only desire to become more wise, not more learned or more eloquent. In fact, he did not care for the mere cleverness. Wisdom means a man being all there from bottom to top, that is sensuously, intellectually, morally, and religiously. Clever- ness means some one faculty, such as for instance analysis, word-memory, calculation, or rhetoric, which is developed generally at the expense of the others. Thus if any critic wishes to please me, he may try calling me a wise man. I do not say he will succeed; for it perhaps will be only like the child who stroked the tortoise on the back in order to please it, or, as Sydney Smith put it, like stroking the dome of St. Paul's in order to please the Dean and Chapter. Still he may try ; and I, on my part, will try to be pleased. My medical critic evidently thinks that a writer against the holy rite of vaccination must be so diabolical that for Christianity to be in any way discussed by him, from the Christian point of view, is a sort of blasphemy ; and then he quotes the old story of the drunken, swearing, English soldier, finishing an argument about the French invading England, by shouting out at the top of his voice, Curse it all, sir, what I want to know is this. If the country is to be invaded by an infernal pack of d Papists, what the is to become of our holy religion ? Of course in this story the drunken, swearing soldier is intended to represent me. My critic tells the story, but does it so badly that the point is lost. It is curious how incapable some people are of seeing the point in stories. A facetious man was once using a nutmeg grater. Another person—on Napoleon being