Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/12

8 of one or other of these elements. They might suppose, that diseases were of an acid or of an alkaline nature; they might say, that there were powers, capable of performing functions, nay even poetically imagine essences endowed with such powers, and speak of animae presiding over the different functions, and of an archaeus or master-workman superintending the whole. You know, Gentlemen, that all this and more of the same kind has been thought and said by reputed sages of the medical profession.

Since, then, reasoning from false, insufficient, or irrelevant premises is productive of error, we cannot wonder, that when medical men in general first began to reason on the causes and nature of diseases, and the effects of remedies, if their speculations were wild, and the conduct which such opinions gave rise to, highly injurious. We can feel no surprise, therefore, that a large party of the medical profession should segregate themselves, and resolutely interdict the use of reasoning in medical practice, steadfastly resolving, in their conduct to be guided solely by the dictates of experience.