4-22 INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. 



from a dogmatic system, and, either with a view to the one or to 

 the other system, he has given us a very imperfect work. It has 

 only been within these forty years, that M. de Sauvages has re- 

 newed the attempt, and carried it somewhat farther ; but even 

 in a fourth edition his work is very imperfect and incomplete; 

 and what others have attempted in the same way, neither cor- 

 rects his errors nor supplies his defects. Whoever shall apply 

 to the same work, will, I presume, find it very difficult ; and 

 though, with Dr. Gaubius, we might suppose that by repeated 

 attempts it may at length be brought to perfection, we must, at 

 the same time, think, that many repeated attempts will be re- 

 quired, and that the perfection desired cannot be hoped for but 

 in a great length of time. 



I know it may be alleged here by the Empirics, that, though 

 the facts they are possessed of are not displayed with all the 

 pedantry of method, nor can yet be united into a whole, that 

 is, a tolerably perfect system, yet they have truly so many 

 facts as may be an ample foundation for an Empirical practice. 

 That this is in part true, I shall admit, and of what applications 

 it is capable I shall afterwards say ; but, in the mean time, that 

 it is to any extent accurate and useful any ways answer- 

 able to the demands of practice, I must absolutely refuse ; and 

 I do it on this single ground, that these facts are not yet capa- 

 ble of method and system, as this to me is a certain proof that 

 the particulars are neither accurately determined nor their 

 number sufficient. For, not to insist on the abstract and gen- 

 eral argument, that nothing is accurately defined that is not 

 defined by its genus and species, the matter may be well illustrat- 

 ed by what has happened with regard to natural history, which 

 has now for some time been treated by method. When the first 

 attempts were made in this subject, they came out very imper- 

 fect ; and plainly because the particulars of which the system 

 was to be formed, were either not observed or not accurately 

 enough defined. They had remained so from the beginning of 

 time till within these hundred years past; and it was then only 

 an attempt towards system, that discovered the imperfection, or 

 directed the supplying of it. In short, in natural history it is 

 the attempts towards system that have produced the knowledge 

 of particulars ; and although these, in their turn, are necessary 



