Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/52

beauty. Moreover, these studies in no way inter- fered with the genius which could create a Wilhelm Meister or a Faust. And further, should the scien- tific man not display to the world any faculties of mind dissociated from those employed in his more immediate pursuit, it wore a scandal, it were false, it were ridiculous to suppose that his researches did not warm his heart to a full appreciation of the wonders of the subject which engages him. It has been my privilege to have heard since my student days lectures by several professors of zoology and comparative anatomy at the College of Surgeons up to the very present year, and I have observed with what tenderness, with what love they have spoken of the different animals whose structure and whose habits they have been describing. And it was the same with their great predecessor John Hunter; for, as Sir James Paget truly said in his oration, the expression of the great anatomist in the well-known portrait displays a smile akin to rapture "I cannot doubt," says Sir James, "that he attained that highest achieve- ment and satisfaction of the intellect when it can rest in a loving contemplation of the truth; loving it not only because it is right, but because it is