9G INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



ledge of things, they did corrupt the severer investigation 

 of truth. Among these were Marcus Cicero, and Annceus 

 Seneca, and Plutarch of Chaeronea, and many others 

 nowise equal to these. Let us now proceed to physicians. 

 I see Galen, a man of the narrowest mind, a forsaker of 

 experience, and a most vain pretender. Art not thou he, 

 Galen, who took away even the infamy of ignorance and 

 indolence in physicians, and put them in safety, the most 

 sluggish definer of their art and duty ? who, by declaring 

 so many disorders to be incurable, proscribest so many of 

 the sick, cutting off their hope and the industry of physi 

 cians. O, dogstar ! O, pestilence ! Eagerly seizing and 

 displaying thy fiction of mixture, the prerogative of nature, 

 and thy sedition between the heat of stars and of fire, de 

 ceitfully reducest human power to order, and seekest to 

 defend for ever thy ignorance by despair. Thou art un 

 worthy to be longer detained. Thou mayest also take 

 away with thee thy fellows and confederates the Arabians, 

 the framers of dispensatories, who, in theories as madly as 

 the rest, did, more copiously indeed, from the supinest 

 conjectures, compound the promises rather than the aids 

 of vulgar medicines. Take also thy companions the care 

 less crowd of moderns. Ho ! Nomenclator, call them. But 

 he replies, they are unworthy of having their names pre 

 served by him. As, however, I recognise certain grades 

 among triflers of this kind, the worst and most absurd sort 

 are those who in method and accurate discussion compre 

 hend universal art, and are usually applauded for their 

 elocution and arrangement ; such is Fernelius. Those do 

 less harm, who display a greater variety and propriety of 

 observations, though diluted with and immersed in the 

 most foolish pretences; as Arnold us de Villa Nova, and 

 others the like sort. I perceive, on the other side, the 

 cohort of chymists, among whom Paracelsus boasts himself 

 above the rest; who by his audacity merits separate cor 

 rection. What oracles of Bacchus dost thou pour out in 

 thy new meteorics, thou rival of Epicurus ? Yet he, as if 

 asleep, or doing something else, did in this matter as it 

 were commit his opinions to fate. Thou, more foolish than 

 any fate art ready to swear to the words of the absurdest 

 falsehood. But let us see thy other works. What mutual 

 imitations of the fruits of thy elements ? what correspon 

 dencies; what parallels dreamest thou, O fanatical joiner 

 of idols ! for thou hast made man indeed a pantomime. 

 Yet how notable are those interpunctions, thy species 



