532 THE MOUNTAIN. 



the rational principles of the old school of medicine, in 

 savage rebuke, in bitter contrast with the foolish systems 

 which assail them, and with noise and clamor fill the ears of 

 a gullible world, insulting the science of the moment with 

 the pretensions of a host of infamous and preposterous 

 empiricisms. 



In the light of a benignant and blessed hope, the regu- 

 lar profession stands the only rock of safety for humanity, 

 full of promises of health and well-being ; the dragon-serpent 

 under the hand of ^Esculapius being the veritable serpent of 

 brass, "the symbol of prudence and renovation," upon which 

 the disease-stricken tribes of the earth have but to look in 

 order to be saved. Sublime in its exalted heights, pure 

 and benevolent, but stern and solemn in the possession of an 

 irreproachable purity and strength, it looks with complacency 

 and pity upon the sweltering sea of foamy charlatanries and 

 empty bubbles that float around it, feeble and impotent. 

 The shining path of its progress, from the first dawnings of 

 the intellect of man to its present exalted position as an in- 

 ductive science, has been rendered illustrious by the labors 

 of a lofty brotherhood of the genius of the race, an order 

 of men in whom great powers of thought were revealed, and 

 the enthusiasm and sympathy of man for man consecrated 

 and embalmed for all time. The literature of the profession 

 stands the indestructible monument of the best endeavors of 

 the most gifted souls of the world, made aromatic and im- 

 mortal by a spirit of love and angelic self-sacrificing de- 

 votedness ; for, through ages, with a quiet, heavenly self- 

 reliance in its labors after the good and the true, it has 

 kept its eye on the possibly perfect and absolute while beset 

 by legions of intrusive follies at each moment of its radiant 

 progress. 



Slow induction, through irresistible growth and progressive 

 perfection, has been the law of development, with occasional 

 disposition to postponement and arrestation or fossilization, 

 as in every department of knowledge it would seem, by the 

 ultimation of some fatal law of the mind. Still its march has 



