OX THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 213 



the principle from which it is deduced ; and that each 

 new induction must in the first place be a new test, by 

 experience, of its own bases. That a conclusion is de- 

 duced by the strictest logical method from an uncertain 

 premiss does not give it a hair's breadth of certainty 

 or of value. 



One characteristic of the schools which built up 

 their system on such hypotheses, which they assumed 

 as dogmas, is the intolerance of expression which I have 

 already partially mentioned. One who works upon a well- 

 ascertained foundation may readily admit an error ; he 

 loses, by so doing, nothing more than that in which he 

 erred. If, however, the starting-point has been placed 

 upon a hypothesis, which either appears guaranteed by 

 authority, or is only chosen because it agrees with that 

 which it is wished to believe true, any crack may then 

 hopelessly destroy the whole fabric of conviction. The 

 convinced disciples must therefore claim for each 

 individual part of such a fabric the same degree of 

 infallibility ; for the anatomy of Hippokrates just as 

 much as for fever crises; every opponent must only 

 appear then as stupid or depraved, and the dispute will 

 thus, according to old precedent, be so much the more 

 passionate and personal, the more uncertain is the basis 

 which is defended. We have frequent opportunities 

 of confirming these general rules in the schools of 

 dogmatic deductive medicine. They turned their in- 



