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106, and inform myself in the history of diseases and their cures, than espousing the principles of the dogmatists, methodists, or chemists, to engage in all the disputes concerning either of those systems, and suppose it to be true, till I have tried what they can say to beat me out of it? Or, supposing that Hippocrates, or any other book, infallibly contains the whole art of physic; would not the direct way be to study, read, and consider that book, weigh and compare the parts of it to find the truth, rather than espouse the doctrines of any party? who, though they acknowledge his authority, have already interpreted and wiredrawn all his text to their own sense; the tincture whereof when I have imbibed, I am more in danger to misunderstand his true meaning, than if I had come to him with a mind unprepossessed by doctors and commentators of my sect, whose reasonings, interpretation, and language which I have been used to, will of course make all chime that way, and make another, and perhaps the genuine, meaning of the author seem harsh, strained, and uncouth to me. For words having naturally none of their own, carry that signification to the hearer that he is used to put upon them, whatever be the sense of him that uses them.