Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/202

 at all upon the functions and disorders of the parts, and the effects of medicines upon the body, so important an organ as the brain must not be left out entirely.

It may not be amiss to add here, that as all the natural functions tend to the welfare of the body, so there is a remarkable tendency in all the disorders of the body to rectify themselves. These two tendencies, taken together, make what is called nature by physicians; and the several instances of them, with their limits, dangers, ill consequences, and deviations in particular cases, deserve the highest attention from physicians, that so they may neither interrupt a favourable crisis, nor concur with a fatal one. Stahl and his followers suppose, that these tendencies arise from a rational agent presiding over the fabric of the body, and producing effects that are not subject to the laws of mechanism. But this is gratis dictum; and the plain traces of mechanism, which appear in so many instances, natural and morbid, are highly unfavourable to it. And all the evidences for the mechanical nature of the body or mind are so many encouragements to study them faithfully and diligently, since what is mechanical may both be understood and remedied.