The Philosopher's Mite to the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Date:: [1851?]

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Philosopher's Mite to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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or their opponents ever had the honour to introduce. The prophetic hint of that great humanist, that the time might come when the popularity of his measures should enable the men who carried them, if not care¬ fully selected, to advance the cause of corruption and prodigality through channels heretofore unknown, stands recorded in his introductory chapter to his unfinished history of the reign of James II., and sufficiently shows how profound a knowledge of mankind his historic reading had imparted to him. To use his own words, “ What a field for meditation does this short observa¬ tion from such a man furnish! IVhat reflections does it not suggest to a thinking mind upon the inefficiency of human laws, and the imperfection of human consti¬ tutions ! How vain, then, how idle, how presump¬ tuous is the opinion, that laws can do everything! and how weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, not men, are to be attended to !” How much more glorious had it been for the pupils of this truly great man, had they themselves originated, and with hand and heart carried out, upon a less nig¬ gardly scale, this long-desiderated boon to the public, instead of having it forced upon them ! The public admonitor is seldom welcome in any department, but least of all in that of health. A nation lulled into a dangerous security, like a man stupified with a poisonous dose of a narcotic drug, is irritated at any attempt to arouse him, and uses the transient moments of returning consciousness only to manifest fitful anger towards the impertinent intruder. Thus we find “ security is mortals’ chiefest enemy.”