th with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself
of madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man
like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible
and the incredible from the false.'

"The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom he
has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and the
seasons, in these impressive words:

"Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by
innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make
thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The
memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee
to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain
to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.'

"Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in which
the delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the pomp
of the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young person
about to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? Listen to
me while I show you the parallel of the story of the astronomer in the
history of medicine.

"This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with benevolence,
but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to struggle with the
ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which waste and destroy
the race of mankind are vast and resistless as the elemental forces of
nature; nay, they are themselves elemental forces. They may be to some
extent avoided, to some extent diverted from their aim, to some extent
resisted. So may the changes of the seasons, from cold that freezes
to heats that strike with sudden death, be guarded against. So may the
tides be in some small measure restrained in their inroads. So may the
storms be breasted by walls they cannot shake from their foundations.
But the seasons and the tides and the tempests work their will on the
great scale upon whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve the
tillers of the soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they
waft the seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows.

"The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from deadly
and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest the effects
of these influences. But look at the records of the life-insurance
offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's destroying
age