of mental torpor upon the great point of individual and social advancement. It is not literati doctors or savans we so much want as men-true-thoughted, original-thoughted men.

We work and traffic in departments of thought. We toil for the masters of thought, and remain slaves. Let us scorn to be slaves, and dare to be original, independent thinkers. No man may serve another in this but at the peril of his own soul. But we can hardly lay the blame of this want of thinkers at the door of the diffusion of knowledge. The curse lies in our fashion of thought-in practically treating the mind as a passive recipient, whereas in its very nature it is an active energy. We erroneously conduct it along in modes generated extraneously, and, ten to one, artificially, whereas it has its own modes within itself, and its own governor heavenderived.

Free trade, then, in all that affects humanity, the chief of which is thought! and may the greatest thoughts be brought home to the simply-thinking man! And why not? Shall we lock them up in learned jargon, and so restrict them to a few elect of science by fortune? Is it just to throw learned dust in the eyes of our fellowmen when they would gaze upon these great truths of God? Shall we constitute ourselves the conservators of his vineyard, and divide the fruit amongst ourselves? Let us uncase them, then, from their crusty terminological husks in which we have hitherto grown them, and make them palatable to simple-minded men. Knowledge may be fully true and popular at the same time. A republic and not an aristocracy of letters is what we ought to have.

But let us not forget that this extended field of knowledge increases our responsibilities as thinkers. The ideas of a more extended vision should correct the idols of a more limited one.

We might regard knowledge as a study useful in its practical bearing upon the purposes of life; for although knowledge is not exactly power, it begets it. We might also regard it as a study pleasant in the mere pursuit, apart from all benefit to be gained by its application; for it is a positive delight to know and to advance in knowledge. But we prefer to limit our view of it to the purpose it serves in training the thinking principle.

For this purpose we may divide the matter into the subjective and the objective. The subjective contains all that is in the mind of man, and the objective all that is without. We need not here enter into an analysis of the mind of man. Let us view it in the form of an active spiritual power whose primary useful effect is thought, but whose ultimate end is the knowledge and glorification of God. This subjective power acts upon the objective world, and that objective world re-acts upon it. The mind, however, rather finds analogies and illustrations than positive proofs in objective things. In this there is a beautiful reaction, amounting to a persuasion; but the solid logic of things is lodged in the soul. The fundamental truths of the intellect and the fundamental truths of the heart are graven on the soul and upon the conscience. The objective, no doubt, educes them, but the peculiar germs, and the

peculiar character of those germs, were planted by the Creator. The subjective knows or is fitted to know God. The objective knows him not, and could not reveal him. But man found him in the depths of his soul, and then found him everywhere. And thus it is that souls inspired of God revealed to us his wonderful attributes, and our glorious relations with him, and his wonderful relations with us-all which the objective world could not discover to us one jot, although in the light of this revelation all things teem with the truth, the goodness, and the beauty of God.

All that we know of objective things has been more or less systematised into what we formally call science. But, we must not be content with the acquisition of them-we must through them pass on to original work of our own. It is not knowledge but power we should aim at. It is thus we fulfil the conditions of our existence, and give God glory. Let us take care also that the spirit of work be there, which equally ennobles all departments of labour, and which findeth good in everything apart from modes and fashions.

LINES

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S SCRAP-BOOK.

MUSIC and Flowers, and Poetry and Love,
In the heart's temple sweetly dwell together;
Smiles but the one, like kindred stars above,
Serenely glows the aspect of the other.
Has not fair Flora, in her summer hue,

A charm which moves the lovely Sisters Three?
Melodious as the swan, on waters blue,

In dying strains that weeps her soul away.
Let but the voice of Music fill the heart-
Lo, the fair Trio circle her around,
And in her seraph-raptures take a part,
Hailing in unison each heavenly sound.
And when fond Love her pensive spirit pours,
Music instinctive tunes her sweet-toned lyre;
Impearled in dew her garlands Flora showers;
Lists Poesy with lambent soul on fire.

To heavenly heights does Poesy aspire?

On radiant wings outspread abreast they soar
Nearer to heaven-in concert to adore.

Bloom not for Flora all these skiey flowers,

Rejoicing in the light of Dian's smile,

And feels not Love, her favourite's beaming showers (Never to fail) melt on her heart the while?

Does not Terpsichore in their motions hear,

O'er the Empyrean vast as planets wheel,

New strains more sweet than ever touch'd her ear,

Plying her angel-art on earth's sad vale?
Lifts not fair Poesy her sanguine eye—
Aspiring loftier still, sublime to trace
Creation's GOD around, below, on high,

Emblazed throughout the boundless realms of space!

THE VOCATION OF THE PHYSICIAN.

The

"Medicina non est ingenii humani partus, sed temporis filia." “Medicine is not the birth of human Genius, but the daughter of Time.” THERE are few thoughtful minds but have studied Fichte. nobility of his aspirations, the firmness of his purpose, his patriotism, and his social virtues, command a merited respect; and however erroneous the principles of his philosophy may be deemed, the results of his teaching are so noble, so harmonious with the purest Christian morality, that it can never fail to deserve the attention of reflecting

men.

His work, entitled "The Vocation of the Scholar," is perhaps his best, as it is his simplest. There is nothing in its pages so abstruse as not to be clear to the most ordinary mind. Let us glance for a moment at the preliminary lectures, as a common ground on which must be built our ideas of the vocation of every human profession.

"That a man be at one with himself" means much the same in college and in cottage. It is the highest good of the Kantian philosophy, and its continued universality implies the attainment of perfection. First, then, taking man as an individual, he must bring all that is not himself-subdue all the external world and all his knowledge derived from sense-into harmony with his inward spirit. God alone does this entirely, and he alone can; but we may become liker to God by learning to do it better than before. There are no contradictions in nature, and so, as our knowledge widens, seeming contradictions harmonise. It is our vocation ever to endeavour after this unattainable perfection.

constant company What, then, can be receive in turn the

But we live not for ourselves only, but in with other souls, all pursuing the same vocation. our duty to these but to help them on, and to assistance they can communicate? Human knowledge, and the endeavour that is based on it, are objects too wide for a single mind to comprehend and act upon. But with co-operation the difficulties are removed, and the human race, as a whole, makes progress. There is a definite amount of knowledge that every individual, and the whole race as made up of individuals, possess. Some know best how to legislate, some how to cure diseases. Some investigate the phenomena of matter, others analyse the mind. The benefit of what we may know it is our duty to confer upon others, and we expect to be remunerated in turn by being helped by them. So that, while individual man has a vocation constantly to strive after perfection, he has a vocation as a part of society-to co-operate with its members. And this involves the double duty of imparting knowledge and receiving it; for none are so low in the scale of mind that they cannot teach the wisest something.

The scholar may belong to all professions, and plays an important part in each. He kindles the torch of the past, that light may be gained from it to pierce the future. Knowledge comes to us fact by fact. It is wrought out, with sweat of the brow, by earnest minds

struggling in the front of time. The gain of to-day, apparently worthless, a century hence may be invaluable, when the links are discovered that rightly determine its position in the system of nature. Facts, therefore, even when isolated, must be remembered, and be kept ready when called for to fit their places like the several pieces of a dissected puzzle. To treasure them is the scholar's duty, for himself or others to adapt to whatever they may bring to light by their labours. Had Newton been ignorant of Kepler's laws, he might have failed to demonstrate gravitation. John Hunter's most famous operation hangs on the discoveries of Harvey. The investigator of the future must thus know the past, both to help him on, and to assure him that the new fact he has observed to-day was not recorded in his grandfather's text-book. A long lifetime is demanded for acquiring what the world already knows even of a limited subject. And the demand must be satisfied, else the world stands still, and man has abandoned his vocation. But whose vocation shall this be? The scholar's. He shall write the Encyclopædia of Science for the use of the future world. And now the inquirer into the unknown presses forward with the scholar's assistance. He may be a scholar as well, no doubt, or he may only know what the scholar has taught. But thus should he come equipped for the task, and work out, in the plenitude of thoughtfully digested knowledge, his vocation, in all the fulness of his soul's integrity.

Should an unreflecting person be asked what he considers the physician's vocation, he might return an answer widely differing from that which a more exact philosophy demands. The common idea that his vocation is to secure a competency, is very simply analysed. That necessity clings to this as well as to every other profession; and is only worthy of notice here because it often exercises so large an influence. The idea of any return for conferring favours on others unconnected with constant approximation to the summum bonum, is one only engendered by the rude wants of existence. We accept the means of doing good to others when we happen not to possess them in what is esteemed a necessary degree, only that we may be able to do good, and that it may continue in our power to receive it. But it may be said, The physician has to combat disease, to cure it when it arises, or still better, to prevent its development. No doubt he has to do this, but this is not his vocation: the nature of his information gives him power; it is his duty as a member of society to exercise it. What he knows, he freely communicates; for such is his vocation in society.

Were he simply a medical scholar, he might rest on the strength of others' experience. But his fathers have toiled manfully for him as a member of the human family. Is he to be content with knowing their labours, or must he repay them for the boons they have conferred by emulating their noble example? Are the old men alone to toil for the species, while the young are content with admiring their exertions? Are the scholar's labours to be of no avail, beyond the wisdom they impart to himself, and the power

they give him to act on it? Far from this, all should labour. Ours is a life of toil, not of brutish inaction. Above us shines the ideal perfection, the complete unity of nature and thought with the soul, centering in God, that all should strive to attain to. To near this glorious goal is the vocation of individual man-to co-operate with others for the same end, to help them, and get their assistance, is his vocation in society. But there is an ideal perfection of the race, as well as of the man alone. To this also we must strive to contribute, else we cheat at once the world and the God who charged us with the task. We may not succeed, but it must be attempted; the desire absolves us if we fail. Now, the physician's ultimate aim is to harmonise external nature with the vigour of the vital principle. This he never can entirely do, else all nature would be subject to him; he would have reached that perfect unity before described as unattainable. But by investigating the causes of disease, by reading rightly its multifarious phenomena, he may approach that harmony when disease, through all its causes being counteracted, shall have disappeared. And herein lies the true vocation of a physician.

Surely, then, it is a noble calling that of the physician. Let us, in conclusion, sketch our true ideal of such a man.

Taking for granted that he is duly informed-the one essential is intense love. Clearly apprehending the aim of his vocation, he must follow it out, not as a task imposed on him to discharge, but as a necessity of his very existence. As he eats, sleeps, and feels, so must he follow it to the grave. It is the end God gave him to attain. He never meant him to be idle, never meant him to be useless to the race-which, in His supreme will, He placed upon the earth to unfold itself. Such a physician is deeply indebted to Hippocrates, Harvey, and Laennec, nor will he simply borrow allthat they have left him; he will try to return it with interest. Pursuing this end, and ever mindful that he does nothing for himself alone, all good men will respect and love him. Others may hate him, but he hates no one. Though he knows when

If

to speak and when to be silent, what he says is what he believes; he never speaks for an unfair purpose. Follow him to the sick-room, and in spite of every difficulty he must understand his case. he prescribes, he does so in the hope to save a fellow-being from pain, unhappiness, or death; not, as far too many do, to extend by curious and unheard-of manoeuvres a miserable reputation. He is moderate in everything, for everything is secondary and trivial to that for which he exists.

Let him not hope to pass life unscathed, but, if possible, let him never be annoyed, and take all with temper. None has greater occasion for this, as we well know, than the physician. Should he be crossed or insulted, he needs but think of his vocation; and what are all petty troubles to the man who has imposed upon himself the noble end of attaining, in all things, the truth? With what pleasure he watches the success of his rational art! With what true, yet