278 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



man's body and to reduce it to harmony. So then the 

 subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent 

 more conjectural ; 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 suc- 

 cesses 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 is 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 or 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 tails et artls 

 Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas. 



And again, 



Dives inaccessos ubi Soils fill a 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 followeth? Even this, that 

 physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon 

 an higher occasion ; ' If it befal to me as befalleth to the 

 fools, why should I labour to be more wise ? ' And there- 

 fore I cannot much blame physicians, that they use 

 commonly to intend some other art or practice, which 

 they fancy, more than their profession. For you shall 

 have of them antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, 

 merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than 



