118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



was preposterous must not be allowed to obscure the significance of its 

 being made; for at any time, past, present, or future, such assurance 

 must be essentially subjective, based upon the sense of inner congruity 

 or harmony of the world of thought organized and interpreted by the 

 system. It was just this feeling of independence to which we attributed 

 the growing sense of the autonomy of Nature that made it possible for 

 philosophers to dispense with the intervention of the gods. The scien- 

 tific movement in philosophy and medicine runs parallel courses with 

 constant interaction. How constant and important this reaction of one 

 upon the other really was we can never know. In the present state of 

 our knowledge it would be foolish even to attempt to say ; but that it is 

 a fact, and a fact of large significance, none will deny. The physicians 

 could not overlook the relation of the individual human organism to 

 the world. They devoted themselves with keen intelligence to the study 

 of atmospheric and climatic conditions 154 affecting the health t)f man, 

 and in so doing could not avoid trenching on the domain of the physi- 

 cal philosopher. In countless other ways subjects of prime importance 

 to the philosopher came within the purview of the writer on medicine. 

 For all these questions the works of Hippocrates are for us an inex- 

 haustible source of information, though they rarely enable us to refer 

 an opinion to its responsible author. It is therefore a matter of interest 

 to see the intimacy of the relation between these kindred disciplines 

 recognized by the physicians. 



The Hippocratean treatise On Decorum 165 sketches in ideal por- 

 traiture the man of science (especially the physician) and the philoso- 

 pher and contrasts with them the charlatan, who appears in the colors 

 familiar to all in the Platonic portraits of the Sophists. There the 

 physician is called a god-like philosopher, 156 since he combines theory 

 and practice of all that is true and beautiful. Philosopher and physi- 

 cian have the same virtues ; their differences are slight. 167 Elsewhere, 

 however, a distinction is drawn between the physician and the physical 

 philosopher in respect to method. "There are those," we are told, 158 

 " who have essayed to speak or write concerning medicine, basing their 

 argument on the hot or the cold, on the moist or the dry or any thing 



154 Cp. especially the treatise. II. dipuv, vSdrwv, tottuu (2, 12 foil. Littre' ; i, 33 

 foil. Kiihlewein). 



15 5 IT. evffxvf"xrtvr)s (9, 226 foil. Littre'). 



156 Ibid. c. 5 (9, 232 Littre') did 5e? . . . /xerdyeiv rqv ao<plr]v is rrp> lr>Tpucriv Kal 

 tt)v lt]TpiKr\v es TTjV aocpirjv. lijrpbs yap <pi\6<xo<pos la60eos. 



157 Ibid, ov ttoW'ii yap dia<f>opr) iwl ra 'irepa ' Kal yap hi to. irpbs aotplrjv iv irjrpiK^ 

 irdvra, a<pi\apyvpl-q, etc. 



158 II. apxaiTjs lr)TpiKT)s, 1 (1, 570 foil. Littre' ; 1, 1 foil. Kiihlewein). 



