ON THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 227 



did not know, and he at any rate had the advantage 

 of not pretending to know what he did not know.' 

 And again, he was surprised at its not being clear to 

 them that it is not possible for men to discover such 

 things ; since even those who most prided themselves 

 on the speeches made on the matter, did not agree 

 among themselves, but behaved to each other like 

 madmen (roy {jLaivo^svois oyno/ws 1 ). 1 Socrates calls 

 them rovs {JU^ICTTOV fypovovvras. Schopenhauer 2 calls 

 himself a Mont Blanc, by the side of a mole-heap, 

 when he compares himself with a natural philosopher. 

 The pupils admire these big words and try to imitate 

 the master. 



In speaking against the empty manufacture of hy- 

 potheses, do not by any means suppose that I wish to 

 diminish the real value of original thoughts. The first 

 discovery of a new law, is the discovery of a similarity 

 which has hitherto been concealed in the course of 

 natural processes. It is a manifestation of that which 

 our forefathers in a serious sense described as 'wit'; 

 it is of the same quality as the highest performances 

 of artistic perception in the discovery of new types of 

 expression. It is something which cannot be forced, 

 and which cannot be acquired by any known method. 



1 Xenophon, Nemorabil. I. i. 11. 



2 Arthur Schopenhauer, Von ihm. uber ihn von Fraiicnstadt und 

 Lindner* Berlin, 1863, p. 653. 



02 



