ties that have become so grateful, the same nameless thrill as they have looked forward, each in their turn, over the vast field of untried responsibilities, lighted only by the illusive flickering of lofty anticipation or ambition, where each was henceforward to stand alone, unsustained by the guiding hands which here had borne them up, and each according to his several fortunes or the degree of confidence reposed in his ability by his fellow-man, to stand face to face with the momentous issues of health and of sickness, of life and of death.

Scores of abler men than myself have stood where I now stand, charged with the duty of speaking the parting words to teacher and pupil, and, like myself, doubtless overwhelmed with the sense of personal unfitness to be so charged.

I have asked myself "What is it possible for you to say which can at all claim to be new or worth any man's hearing under circumstances which have taxed the best thoughts of so many who have preceded you?" And I have not failed to answer my own questioning in a hopeless way—“Nothing,” absolutely "Nothing"-and yet I cannot but feel that in the best sense this is not entirely true.

No two men can be said, in a strict sense, to see the same rainbow, for the simple reason that no two observers can at one and the same moment occupy one and the same point of observation. So it may chance that some of the infinite refractions of the light of knowledge from the unending showers of truth that fill the universe, which have escaped the notice of other eyes, may infringe upon even my limited vision; or, if that be too bold a hope, surely it may be given to even the humblest among us to drop some hint whereby some other may be enabled to see great truths in the light of hitherto unwonted relations each to the other, and so while strengthening, UNQUESTIONED truths contribute to light the way to new and more SIGNIFICANT truth. But, in a broader and profounder sense, we do not stand to-day where any one or more of all the thousands who have gone before us have ever stood before.

In popular, or what may be termed phenomenal language, "the earth upon which we live and move and have our being "

which she occupied at a corresponding moment twelve months. ago; but, in strictness, we know that this language does not express the truth. The sun of our system, upon whose view. less fingers this earth and all her sister planets are swung in their mighty circles, is himself swinging "without haste and without rest," along a yet vaster and mightier circle around a grander center yet unknown to man. And so it follows that the point which our earth occupies at this moment is countless leagues away from the point she occupied twelve months ago, a point which this fleeting moment once past shall probably know her presence no more forever.

Like unto this vast and unresting progress of the material universe is the yet grander and more subtle progress in the domain of scientific and philosophic thought and knowledge. The light which shone upon these a year ago has deepened and intensified.

We occupy, potentially, the vantage ground of possible knowledge of all the accomplished achievement of all who have gone before us, and if we are not wiser and intellectually more powerful than they, it is our own fault.

Standing upon the knowledge of what they have known and done, we only shall be to blame if we do not reach higher and look farther than they, as it will be the fault of those who may follow us if they, mounting upon what we shall know and do, shall not penetrate yet farther into the measureless arcana of the knowledge of truth.

To say this is but to formulate one of the immutable laws of

nature.

To the narrow vision it sometimes seems to fail, because it cannot be sure to be in operation at all points at once. Like an ocean which encroaches upon the shore, sometimes it will seem to actually run backward, but it will be found to be only the ebbing of the tide, to be followed by the force of the advancing flood.

Or, perchance, some bold headland rears its rocky frown over the tumbling waves and seems to defy them, shattering their rolling masses into drifting foam. But the patient

ties that have become so grateful, the same nameless thrill as they have looked forward, each in their turn, over the vast field of untried responsibilities, lighted only by the illusive flickering of lofty anticipation or ambition, where each was henceforward to stand alone, unsustained by the guiding hands which here had borne them up, and each according to his several fortunes or the degree of confidence reposed in his ability by his fellow-man, to stand face to face with the momentous issues of health and of sickness, of life and of death.

Scores of abler men than myself have stood where I now stand, charged with the duty of speaking the parting words to teacher and pupil, and, like myself, doubtless overwhelmed with the sense of personal unfitness to be so charged.

I have asked myself "What is it possible for you to say which can at all claim to be new or worth any man's hearing under circumstances which have taxed the best thoughts of so many who have preceded you?" And I have not failed to answer my own questioning in a hopeless way-"Nothing," absolutely "Nothing"-and yet I cannot but feel that in the best sense this is not entirely true.

No two men can be said, in a strict sense, to see the same rainbow, for the simple reason that no two observers can at one and the same moment occupy one and the same point of observation. So it may chance that some of the infinite refractions of the light of knowledge from the unending showers of truth that fill the universe, which have escaped the notice of other eyes, may infringe upon even my limited vision; or, if that be too bold a hope, surely it may be given to even the humblest among us to drop some hint whereby some other may be enabled to see great truths in the light of hitherto unwonted relations each to the other, and so while strengthening, UNQUESTIONED truths contribute to light the way to new and more SIGNIFICANT truth. But, in a broader and profounder sense, we do not stand to-day where any one or more of all the thousands who have gone before us have ever stood before.

In popular, or what may be termed phenomenal language, "the earth upon which we live and move and have our being

which she occupied at a corresponding moment twelve months ago; but, in strictness, we know that this language does not express the truth. The sun of our system, upon whose view. less fingers this earth and all her sister planets are swung in their mighty circles, is himself swinging "without haste and without rest," along a yet vaster and mightier circle around a grander center yet unknown to man. And so it follows that the point which our earth occupies at this moment is countless leagues away from the point she occupied twelve months ago, a point which this fleeting moment once past shall probably know her presence no more forever.

Like unto this vast and unresting progress of the material universe is the yet grander and more subtle progress in the domain of scientific and philosophic thought and knowledge. The light which shone upon these a year ago has deepened and intensified.

We occupy, potentially, the vantage ground of possible knowledge of all the accomplished achievement of all who have gone before us, and if we are not wiser and intellectually more powerful than they, it is our own fault.

Standing upon the knowledge of what they have known and done, we only shall be to blame if we do not reach higher and look farther than they, as it will be the fault of those who may follow us if they, mounting upon what we shall know and do, shall not penetrate yet farther into the measureless arcana of the knowledge of truth.

To say this is but to formulate one of the immutable laws of

nature.

To the narrow vision it sometimes seems to fail, because it cannot be sure to be in operation at all points at once. Like an ocean which encroaches upon the shore, sometimes it will seem to actually run backward, but it will be found to be only the ebbing of the tide, to be followed by the force of the advancing flood.

Or, perchance, some bold headland rears its rocky frown over the tumbling waves and seems to defy them, shattering their rolling masses into drifting foam. But the patient

that they have sedulously eaten their way around the rocky foe, until often, when least expected, its foundations are worn away, and the bold cliff, toppling to its fall, is whelmed forever under the leaping and shouting waves.

So, oftentimes, some bold headland of error or prejudice stands defiantly till its neighboring shores are eaten away by the advancing tides of knowledge, and, in its turn, it plunges forever out of the sight of man.

It is one of the imperious conditions of life. There is no such thing as permanent standing still. The "great globe itself" maintains its equilibrium only by slowly oscilating its poles till, in the flight of ages, they describe their colossal circle round the actual center. We cannot stand still even if we wish. We must move forward or backward, and it is a factor of the same grand necessity that the children must be wiser than the fathers, else would the world of men be continually going backward. It may not be, nay, it is not true of each individual, but it must be, and is, true of the race, and it could not be true of the race, as a whole, unless it were true of the majority of the individuals.

What is, then, true of the race and of its accumulating fund of knowledge, must of necessity be true of the several departments of knowledge and achievements since it is of these several departments that the grand aggregate is made up.

Prominent among these several departments of human endeavor and knowledge is, and always has been, the science and practice of medicine, and signally prominent in that department is the great eclectic movement of which we here are the avowed representatives.

This is not the time nor the place to enter upon the history or technical exposition of eclecticism. All the world knows what it is. It, however, may be briefly stated thus:

The sole end in the science of medicine is the alleviation or cure, through assisting nature, of the thousand ills "that flesh is heir to."

All systems of medicine proceed solely upon this basis.

Eclecticism consists of the choice or selection and use of all