40 Clinton's introductory discourse. 



too often degenerated into vulgar scurrility. His importance was 

 greatly enhanced by the mystery which surrounded his person — the 

 panic which followed his denunciations — and the celebrity which was 

 attached to his literary antagonists. He created a new aera in political 

 writing; his works have become the architype and the text book of 

 political authors; and every juvenile writer, who enters the political lists, 

 endeavours to bend the bow of Ulysses, and in striving to make up in 

 venom what he wants in vigour, mistakes scurrility for satire, ribaldry 

 for wit, and confounds the natron of Egypt with the salt of Attica. 



Secondly; after expressing my profound regret that those exalted and 

 highly cultivated minds which have been engaged in polemic controver- 

 sies, had not bent more of their attention to literary investigations, I con- 

 sider it my duty to remark, with every sentiment of respect and regard, 

 that the medical profession, instead of making one harmonious and 

 undivided effort in favour of enlarging the dominion of knowledge, have 

 hitherto been called away from this opus basilicum, this sublime opera- 

 tion, by the prevalence of intestine feuds and animosities. It is unne- 

 cessary to explore the cause ; perhaps it is inherent in the profession. 

 The sources of most diseases are concealed from observation, and can 

 only be the subject of conjecture. Add to this, that the same prescrip- 

 tion which has succeeded in one case, may fail in another, owing to dif- 

 ferent constitutions, different seasons, and the action of other causes. 

 " The matter is evident," says the profound Buffier, " from the different 

 arguments of physicians, and from their various opinions in the daily 

 consultations. Nothing is more uncommon than to find physicians 

 united in the same sentiments."* This constant and habitual tendency 

 to collision has been seriously felt in this city. Instead of erecting one 



Treatise on First Truths, p. 60. 



