t there must be a fitness of
faculty of body and mind for its full, constant, exact pursuit. This
sense and this genius, such a special therapeutic gift, had Hippocrates,
Sydenham, Pott, Pinel, John Hunter, Delpech, Dupuytren, Kellie, Cheyne,
Baillie, and Abercrombie. We might, to pursue the subject, pick out
painters who had much genius and little or no sense, and _vice versa_;
and physicians and surgeons, who had sense without genius, and genius
without sense, and some perhaps who had neither, and yet were
noticeable, and, in their own sideways, useful men.

But our great object will be gained if we have given our young readers
(and these remarks are addressed exclusively to students) any idea of
what we mean, if we have made them think, and look inwards. The noble
and sacred science you have entered on is large, difficult, and deep,
beyond most others; it is every day becoming larger, deeper, and in many
senses more difficult, more complicated and involved. It requires _more
than the average_ intellect, energy, attention, patience, and courage,
and that singular but imperial quality, at once a gift and an
acquirement, _presence of mind_--{anchinoia}, or nearness of the {nous},
as the subtle Greeks called it--than almost any other department of
human thought and action, except perhaps that of ruling men. Therefore
it is, that we hold it to be of paramount importance that the parents,
teachers, and friends of youths intended for medicine, and above all,
that those who examine them on their entering on their studies, should
at least (we might safely go much farther) satisfy themselves as far as
they can, that they are not below _par_ in intelligence; they may be
deficient and unapt, _qua medici_, and yet, if taken in time, may make
excellent men in other useful and honorable callings.

But suppose we have got the requisite amount and specific kind of
capacity, how are we to fill it with its means; how are we to make it
effectual for its end? On this point we say nothing, except that the
fear now-a-days, is rather that the mind gets too much of too many
things, than too little or too few. But this means of turning knowledge
to action, making it what Bacon meant when he said it was power,
invigorating the thinking substance--giving tone, and you may call it
muscle and nerve, blood and bone, to the mind--a firm gripe, and a keen
and sure eye; _that_ we think, is far too little considered or cared for
at present, as if the