22
Secondly, the lecturer can keep himself abreast of all things “Nova vel Noviter inventa,” whereas the book even if at first up to date, as it seldom is, soon falls back in the race and becomes ancient. There are, indeed, books like the Metaphysics of Aristotle, the Republic of Plato, and the Aphorisms of Hippocrates; more lately the Principia of Newton, the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne, and the work De Sedibus et Causis Morborum, by Morgagni, which will never grow old; but when we come to the new philosophy, and wrest daily fresh secrets from Nature, the case is different. Here also the lecture far transcends the book; especially if the lecturer, standing on the brink of the precipice which separates the known from the unknown, can detail facts or deductions which he can vouch for and prove “ on his own credit and authority,” as saith our teacher. It is a severe labour indeed, but a labour of love in these days of scientific progress, to keep oneself informed of all fresh truths as they arise, so as to impart them “brefly and playnly” to younger and still thirsty minds. If
