THE SECOND BOOK. 101 



man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite 

 variations : and it cannot be denied but that the body of man of 

 all other things is of the most compounded mass. The soul, 

 on the other side, is the simplest of substances, as is well ex 

 pressed : 



Purumque reliquit 

 JSthereum sensum atque aura ] simplicis ignem.&quot; 



So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, 

 if that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra 

 locum, placidus in loco. But to the purpose. This variable 

 composition of 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 consequent more conjectural; and the art being con 

 jectural hath made so much the more place to be left for im 

 posture. For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by 

 acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the suc 

 cesses and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his 

 pleading, and not by the issue of the cause ; the master in the 

 ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the 

 fortune of the voyage ; but the physician, and perhaps the poli- 

 tique, 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 pre 

 served 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 dis 

 cerning this extreme folly when they made JEsculapius and 

 Circe, brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the 

 verses 



&quot; Ipse repertorem medicinae tails et artis 

 Fulraine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.&quot; 



And again 



&quot; Dives inaccesaos ubi Soils filia lucos,&quot; &c. 



For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and 

 old women and impostors, have had a competition with physi 

 cians. And what followeth ? Even this, that physicians say to 

 themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon a higher occasion, 



