A discussion of prospects suffers from the fact that preduction of the future must be based on current modes of thinking. However, without prospects, i.e., without rational planning, the individual is left to chance. Reasoning governs the careful estimation of prospects and is applied to the following areas of interest: The importance of history in surgery, the necessity of supervised studies, operative training, instructing young surgeons, rotation, assessment of position, anthropologic nosology and surgical consequences, assistance in decisions about surgical work, the kind and function of linguistics in medicine and surgery, and the relationships between surgical colleagues.