Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/232

 then mistaken, yet he does not write like a Pedant, affirming a thing to be true or false upon the Credit of Hippocrates, or Herophilus, but builds his Argument upon Nature as far as he knew her. He had an excellent Understanding, and a very piercing Genius, so that the false uses which he very frequently assigns to several Parts, do certainly shew that he did not understand the true Texture of those Parts, because where his Anatomy did not fail him, his Ratiocinations are, generally speaking, exact. Wherefore in this particular his Mistakes instruct us as effectually in the Ancients Ignorance, as his true Notions do in their Knowledge. This will appear at large hereafter, where it will be of mighty use to prove, That the Ancients cannot be supposed to have known many of the most eminent Modern Discoveries, since if they had known them, they would not have assigned such Uses to those Parts, as are not reconcilable to those Discoveries. If Galen had known that the Pancreas had been a Heap of small Glands, which all emit into one common Canal, a particular Juice carried afterwards through that Canal into the Guts; which there meeting with the Bile goes forwards, and assists it in the making of the Chyle, he