Edward Jenner — "I have always endeavoured to act upon the principle, that what is right to be do…"
I have always endeavoured to act upon the principle, that what is right to be done, should be done with all our might.
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More from Edward Jenner
"The human mind is capable of great things; but it is also capable of great errors."
"It is a pity that the practice of inoculation has not been more generally adopted; for if it had, many lives might have been saved."
"The greatest reward for my labours is the satisfaction of having done good to my fellow creatures."
"The most pleasing part of my life has been spent in the pursuit of knowledge."
"It is not, that I am an enemy to the practice of inoculation; on the contrary, I am a warm friend to it, and have been so for many years. But I am convinced, that the present mode of conducting it is …"
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Once you've identified the right course of action, pursue it with complete commitment and full effort—not half-heartedly. Moral conviction alone accomplishes nothing; it must be matched with total determination. Hesitation or timidity, even when your cause is just, wastes the opportunity to do real good. If something is genuinely worth doing, it deserves your maximum energy and focus, not a cautious approach driven by fear of failure or criticism.
Relevance to Edward Jenner
Jenner spent decades championing vaccination against fierce opposition from the medical establishment and public skepticism. When he inoculated young James Phipps with cowpox in 1796 then deliberately exposed him to smallpox, that act demanded complete moral conviction. He sacrificed a lucrative London practice for rural research, endured sustained ridicule, and continued advocating vaccination globally at personal cost—embodying his own principle that righteous action demands total, unstinting commitment rather than tentative half-measures.
The era
Smallpox killed roughly 400,000 Europeans annually in the late 1700s, and existing variolation carried real mortality risk. The Enlightenment championed empirical medicine and rational duty but also saw fierce institutional resistance to unorthodox ideas. The Church and established physicians actively opposed vaccination. Jenner's era created enormous moral urgency—millions suffering preventable deaths—yet conservatism and fear blocked progress, making his principle of identifying the right action and pursuing it with maximum force both radical and essential.
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