THE SECOND BOOK 119 



So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed en joy- 

 no rest, if that principle be true, that ' Motus rerum 

 est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco.' But to the 

 purpose : this variable composition of man's body 

 hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper ; and 

 therefore the poets did well to conjoin music and 

 medicine in Apollo, because the office of medicine is 

 but to tune this curious harp of man's body and to 

 reduce it to harmony. So then the subject being so 

 variable, hath made the art by consequent more con- 

 jectural ; and the art being conjectural hath made so 

 much the more place to be left for imposture. For 

 almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts 

 or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the 

 successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the 

 virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause. 

 The master in the ship is judged by the directing his 

 course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage. 

 But the physician, and perhaps the politique, hath no 

 particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but ir. 

 judged most by the event ; which is ever but as it is 

 taken : for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or 

 if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art oi' 

 accident ? And therefore many times the impostor is 

 prized, and the man of virtue taxed. Nay, we see [the] 

 weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will 

 often prefer a mountebank or witch before a learned 

 physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted 

 in discerning this extreme folly, when they made 

 Aesculapius and Circe brother and sister, both children 

 of the sun, as in the verses. 



Ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis 

 Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas: 



And again. 



Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos, &c. 



For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches 

 and old women and impostors have had a competition 

 with physicians. And what foUoweth ? Even this. 



