Sect. I.] Anatomy, 261 



improvement, which all must admit aud deplore, will 

 excite no surprise in such as consider the mystery 

 which still envelopes the principle of life, the labour 

 of watching the operations of natnre, the number- 

 less fallacies which attend the endeavour to discri- 

 minate truth from falsehood, and the smallness of 

 the stock of genuine and undisputed facts which all 

 the observation and wisdom of ages have been able 

 -hitherto to collect. 



There is no species of knowledge, relating to affairs 

 merely human, which more indispensably recpiires 

 steadiness of principles and harmony of opinion 

 than that now under consideration. There is none 

 in which speculation and action are more intimate- 

 ly related, where errour is of more immediate and 

 fatal consequence, or where a fluctuation of the mind 

 between opposite decisions is attended with more 

 embarrassment and distress. Yet medicine abounds 

 with schisms and controversies; and, in the present 

 imperfect state of knowledge, to hold doctrines and 

 adopt practices beset with the fewest errours, consti- 

 tutes the highest attainment within the reach of the 

 human mind. % 



SECTION I. 



ANATOMY. 



This subject was pursued with so mucii diligence 

 soon after the restoration of learning in the fifteenth 

 and through the two succeeding centuries, as to leave 

 less than might be expected for the investigation of 

 modern anatomists. Leonardo da \'\\\c\ made great 

 progress in anatomical studies towards the close of 



