ON THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 209 



as long as he can remember. We need not refer even 

 to the possibility of inheritance by procreation. 



The conceptions which he has formed, which his 

 mother tongue has transmitted, assert themselves as 

 regulative powers, even in the objective world of fact, 

 and as he does not know that he or his forefathers have 

 developed these conceptions from the things them- 

 selves, the world of facts seems to him, like his con- 

 ceptions, to be governed by intellectual forces. We 

 recognise this psychological anthropomorphism, from 

 the Ideas of Plato, to the immanent dialectic of the 

 cosmical process of Hegel, and to the unconscious will 

 of Schopenhauer. 



Natural science, which in former times was virtually 

 identical with medicine, followed the path of philoso- 

 phy ; the deductive method seemed to be capable of 

 doing everything. Socrates, it is true, had developed 

 the inductive conception in the most instructive 

 manner. But the best which he accomplished remained 

 virtually misunderstood. 



I will not lead you through the motley confusion of 

 pathological theories which, according to the varying 

 inclination of their authors, sprouted up in consequence 

 of this or the other increase of natural knowledge, and 

 were mostly put forth by physicians, who obtained 

 fame and renown as great observers and empirics, inde- 

 pendently of their theories. Then came the less gifted 



II. P 



