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172 In France, the old man soon found himself surrounded by a set of flatterers, who, like the fox in the fable, commended the singing, in the hope of being benefited by it. Hahnemann was never a genius, or endowed with strong reasoning powers. The axiom upon which he built his Homœopathy did not originate with him, but the proverbs that "like cures like," and that "part strengthens part," were ancient by-words, brought down from the dark ages, and which science had long exploded. Nor did the use of sugar placeboes originate with him; but this also is a part of the scheme of Asclepiades, a most arrant quack, who lived before the Christian era. Hahnemann wrote much, and, like a superannuated fanatic, repeated for the thousandth time his illusory phantoms. The labors of his whole life form a mass of chaff, in which no grains can be found worth preserving. The disciples of Hahnemann adopted the Organon for their guide, just as the followers of Joe Smith adopt the Mormon Bible. Having at length attained to an extreme old age, and surrounded by a few mendacious fawning disciples, he died in Paris, in 1843, being eighty-eight years of age.