378 HEALTH. 



his method of cure, and thought nothing sacred enough for his at- 

 tention, but the recovery of the body from its ancient pests. If there 

 be such a thing as bodily disease distinct from psychical, then he 

 was right in his devotion, and is rewarded already in contributing to 

 the whole sanity of his kind. 



In a strictly medical point of view the Hahnemannian theory of 

 chronic disease comports with principles which are beginning to 

 be admitted on all hands. The multiplicity of diseases and epidem- 

 ics is suspected to be the mask of a unity of which so-called distinct 

 maladies are but symptoms : just as on a large range, different lan- 

 guages are but dialects of some common stem. Whether Hahne- 

 mann has hit the central forms of malady of which the rest are the 

 procession, it would be presumptuous in us to say; but at least he 

 has put us upon the search, and indicated that the confirmation of 

 what he has deemed, or the suggestion of something truer, will 

 grow, as his own views did, out of the bosom of practical healing. 

 Moreover, his science of medicine has the advantage of springing 

 from both the roots of the past (p. 367), for as we said before, it 

 germinated from the scholastic side ; and as it grew, it took in, and 

 retains, the traditional medicine which is found among the people. 

 In fact, the homoeopathic law gives specific justification of the popu- 

 lar usage of many herbs and simples, which accordingly now reap- 

 pear as parts of a scientific system, affording new evidence of the 

 probability that should be acceded to practices which are immemo- 

 rial and of world-wide acceptation. And in another respect it unites 

 with the instincts of animals, as well as with the pharmacy of the 

 " old wives," in prescribing simples and not compounds, in order 

 that pure operations may ensue, and causation or cure touch the 

 ailment with a finger-end of tact, and not with a rude indiscrimi- 

 nate hand of confusions. The homoeopathic law also accounts for 

 the cures that have taken place under the other practice, and shows 

 that they are owing to a latency of homoeopathy in the common 

 sense of its predecessor. 



We are indeed convinced that the law of treating like with like, 

 is the one intellectual formula to which the healing art has attained. 

 Nevertheless, we do not assert that at a given time any art is pre- 

 pared to stake itself completely upon practice dictated by science. 



