THE SECOND BOOK 125 



to the traditions of experience, or being empirics incline 

 to the methods of learning. 



9. In preparation of medicines I do find strange, 

 specially considering how mineral medi- . . 

 cines have been extolled, and that they natural in 

 are safer for the outward than inward baineu, a 

 parts, that no man hath sought to make '^^^lUms^' 

 an imitation by art of natural baths and 

 medicinable fountains : which nevertheless are confessed 

 to receive their virtues from minerals : and not so only, 

 but discerned and distinguished from what particular 

 mineral they receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, 

 or the like : which nature, if it may be reduced to com- 

 positions of art, both the variety of them will be 

 increased, and the temper of them will be more com- 

 manded. 



10. But lest I grow to be more particular than is 

 agreeable either to my intention or to 

 proportion, I will conclude this part with ditiZu'live 

 the note of one deficience more, which de vidhui 

 seemeth to me of greatest consequence ; »»«<^«cjna- 

 which is, that the prescripts in use are too 

 compendious to attain their end : for, to my imder- 

 standing, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think 

 any medicine can be so sovereign or so happy, as that 

 the receipt or use of it can work any great effect upon 

 the body of man. It were a strange speech which 

 spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from 

 a vice to which he were by nature subject. It is 

 order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of applica- 

 tion, which is mighty in nature ; which although it 

 require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more 

 precise obedience in observing, yet is recompensed with 

 the magnitude of effects. And although a man would 

 think, by the daily visitations of the physicians, that 

 there were a pursuance in the cure : yet let a man 

 look into their prescripts and ministrations, and he 

 shall find them but inconstancies and every day's 

 devices, without any settled providence or project. 

 Not that every scrupulous or superstitious prescript is 



