Medical women : two essays / by Sophia Jex-Blake.

  • Jex-Blake, Sophia, 1840-1912.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical women : two essays / by Sophia Jex-Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/174 (page 6)
    opinions rest, and how far they are the result of habit, custom, and prejudice, or the real outgrowth of deep convictions and beliefs inherent in the most sacred recesses of human nature. While the latter command ever our deepest reverence, as the true “ vox populi, vox Dei,” nothing can he more superficial, frivolous, and fallacious than the former. In a country where precedent has so much weight as in England, it doubly behoves us to make the distinction, and, while gratefully ac- cepting the safeguard offered against inconsiderate and precipitate change, to beware that old custom is not suffered permanently to hide from our eyes any truth which may be struggling into the light. I suppose that no thinking man will pretend that the world has now reached the zenith of truth and knowledge, and that no further upward progress is possible ; on the contrary, we must surely be- lieve that each year will bring with it its new lesson ; fresh lights will constantly be dawning above the horizon, and perhaps still oftener dis- coveries will be re-discovered, truths once acknow- ledged but gradually obscured or forgotten will emerge again into day, and a constantly recurring duty will he before every one who believes in fife as a responsible time of action, and not as a period of mere vegetative existence, to <e prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”