X. 2.] THE SECOND BOOK. 135 



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 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 politique, 

 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 ^Esculapius and Circe bro 

 ther and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses, 



Ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis 



Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas: 



And again, 



Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos, &c. 



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 Salomon expresseth it 

 upon an higher occasion, If it befal to me as befalkth to 

 the fools, why should I labour to be more wise ? And there 

 fore I cannot much blame physicians, that they use 

 commonly to intend some other art or practice, which 

 they fancy, more than their profession. For you shall 

 have of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, 



