Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/156



Egyptian Natural Philosophy and Physick shall be joined together, because there is so great an Affinity between them, that true Notions in either Science assist the other. Their Physick, indeed, was very famous in Homer's Time: And wonderful Things are told of Hermes, the pretended Father of the Chymical Art. But one ought to distinguish between particular Medicines, how noble soever, and general Theories founded upon a due Examination of the Nature of those Bodies from whence such Medicines are drawn, and of the Constitution and Fabrick of the Bodies of the Patients to whom they are to be applied, and of the incidental Circumstances of Time and Place; which are necessary to be taken in by a wise Physician. The Stories of the West-Indian Medicines are many of them very astonishing; and those Salvages knew perfectly how to use them, and yet they were never esteemed able