Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/331

 man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and therefore the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo: because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man's body and to reduce it to harmony. So then the subject being so variable, hath made the art by consequence more conjectural; an art being conjectural hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause. The master of the ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage. But the physician, and perhaps the politician, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event; which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed. Nay, we see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme folly, when they made Æsculapius and Circe brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses, Æn. vii. 772.

And again, Æn. vii. 11.

For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women and impostors have had a competition with physicians. And what followeth? Even this, that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a higher occasion; "If it befall to me as befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise?" And therefore I cannot much blame physicians, that the use commonly to intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their profession. For you shall hare of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than in their profession; and no doubt upon this ground, that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune; for the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects. But, nevertheless, these things which we have spoken of, are courses begotten between a little occasion, and a great deal of sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see in familiar instances what a predominant faculty the subtilty of spirit hath over the variety of matter of form. Nothing more variable than faces and countenances; yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of them; nay, a painter with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him. Nothing more variable than voices; yet men can likewise discern them personally: nay, you shall have a buffoon, or pantomimus, who will express as many as he pleaseth. Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words; yet men have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters. So that it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man's mind, but it is the remote standing or placing thereof, that breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions: for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so is it of the understanding; the remedy whereof is, not to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and therefore there is no doubt but if the physicians will learn and use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the poet saith:

Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve; well shadowed by the poets, in that they made Æsculapius to be the son of the sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the second stream: but infinitely more honoured by the example of our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of his miracles as the soul was the object of his doctrine. For we read not that ever he vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money, except that one for giving tribute to Cæsar; but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing the body of man.

Medicine is a science which hath been, as we have said, more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations. The deficiencies which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate, and not place.

The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by recovery or death. Therefore having an example proper in the father of the art. This continuance of Medicinal History I find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every