HISTORY OF MEDICINE. 405 



body as are suited to obviate the hurtful or pernicious conse- 

 quences which might otherwise take place. Many of my read- 

 ers may think it was hardly necessary for me to take notice of a 

 system founded upon so fanciful an hypothesis ; but there is 

 often so much seeming appearance of intelligence and design in 

 the operations of the animal economy, that many eminent per- 

 sons, as Perrault in France, Nichols and Mead in England, 

 Porterfield and Simpson in Scotland, and Gaubius in Holland, 

 have very much countenanced the same opinion ; and it is there- 

 fore certainly entitled to some regard. It is not, however, ne- 

 cessary for me here to enter into any refutation of it. Dr. Hoff- 

 mann has done this fully in his Comment arius de differentia in- 

 ter Hoffmanni doctrinam medico-mechanicam et G. E. Stahlii 

 medico-organicam ; and both Boerhaave and Haller, though 

 no favourers of materialism, have maintained a doctrine very op- 

 posite to that of Stahl. 



In my Physiology, (XXXI., CXXII.) I have offered some 

 arguments against the same ; and I shall only add now, that who- 

 ever considers what has been said by Dr. Nichols in his Oratio de 

 Anima Medica, and by Dr. Gaubius in some parts of his Pathol- 

 ogy, must perceive that the admitting of such a capricious govern- 

 ment of the animal economy, as these authors in some instances 

 suppose, would at once lead us to reject all the physical and me- 

 chanical reasoning we might employ concerning the human body. 

 Dr. Stahl himself seems to have been aware of this ; and there- 

 fore, in his Preface to Juncker's Conspectus Therapeiae Specia- 

 lis, has acknowledged, that his general principle was not at all ne- 

 cessary ; which is in effect saying, that it is not compatible with 

 any system of principles that ought to govern our practice. Up- 

 on this footing, I might have at once rejected the Stahlian prin- 

 ciple : but it is even dangerous to bring any such principle into 

 view ; for, after all Dr. Stahl had said in the passage just now 

 referred to, I find, that, in the whole of their practice, both he 

 and his followers have been very much governed by their gen- 

 eral principle. Trusting much to the constant attention and 

 wisdom of nature, they have proposed the Art of curing by ex- 

 pectation ; have therefore, for the most part, proposed only 

 very inert and frivolous remedies ; have zealously opposed the 



