158 Al)VAliCEMMT Ot' LEABNli^G. [uOOl? It. 



principally censured by the event, which is very unjust : fof 

 who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or a state fall intd 

 decay, whether the evil is brought about by art or by acci- 

 dent 1 Whence imposture is frequently extolled, and virtue 

 decried. Nay, the weakness and credulity of men is such, 

 that they often prefer a mountebank, or a cunning woman, 

 to a learned physician. The poets were clear-sighted in 

 discerning this folly, when they made ^sculapius and Circe 

 brother and sister, and both children of Apollo, as in the 

 verses : — 



" Ille repertorem medicinas talis et artis, 

 Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas:" 



and similarly of Circe, daughter of the sun : — 



" Dives inaccessis ubi Solis filia lucis 

 Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cednim."** 



For in all times, witches, old women, and impostors, have, in 

 the vulgar opinion, stood competitors with physicians. And 

 hence physicians say to themselves, in the words of Solomon, 

 " If it befall to me, as befalleth to the fools, why should I 

 labour to be more wise?"^ And, therefore, one cannot 

 greatly blame them, that they commonly study seme other 

 art, or science, more than their profession. Hence, we find 

 among them poets, antiquaries, critics, politicians, divines, 

 and in each more knowing than in medicine. Nor does this 

 fall out, because as a certain declamour against physicians 

 suggests,^ being so often in contact with loathsome spectacles, 

 that they seize the first hour of leisure to draw their minds 

 from such contemplations. For as they are men — " Nihil 

 humani a se alienum putent" — no doubt, because they find 

 that mediocrity and excellency in their own art makes no 

 difference in profit or reputation : for men's impatience of 

 diseases, the solicitations of friends, the sweetness of life, and 

 the inducement of hope, make them depend upon physicians 

 with all their defects. But when this is seriously considered, 

 it turns rather to the reproach than the excuse of physicians, 

 who ought not hence to despair, but to use greater diligence. 

 For we see what a power the subtilty of the understanding 

 has over the variety both of the matter and form of things, 



* iEneid, vii. 772, 11. « Eccles. ii. 15. 



* Agrippa, Scientia Yana, 



