Page:The Harveian oration 1866.djvu/24

 practice of medicine, and gave his name to an epoch. The chief source of his power was in a mind singularly independent and candid, but little biassed by the theoretical notions with which physicians of his time were so pre-occupied. He could see things as they were, not as they were supposed or expected to be. He, thus, not only improved the treatment of certain diseases; he did more—he showed by his example how such improvements might be effected, through a constant and candid appeal to facts, and a distrust of mere doctrines or opinions. Subtle disputations, he says, "are as usefd to physicians in driving away diseases, as music is to architects in building houses "(l). Mere opinions without facts are, he says, "only the shadows of the shade of reason"(m). He proved that practical medicine could stand on its own strength, and could not be trusted when based on a crude and imperfect physiology. He proved that, in his time at least, the practical study of disease was the readiest way of advancing medicine.

But induction from the results of a large experience is not the only process by which