90 INFALLIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
much to be regretted that so many clever and intelligent men 
should be misled, equally with the ignorant and uninformed, in 
judging medical evidence. But such has been, and always will 
be, the case, so long as the morbid taste for novelty endures ; 
and educated and clever men in other subjects will not remem- 
ber what, it will be thought, the simplest reflection ought to 
shew, namely, that we can only know what we are taught by 
the invaluable lessons of our excelling masters, or by that wis- 
dom and that experience which are the admirable offspring of 
all time and of all nations. 
Nor can any of us hope to discharge the part of faithful 
shepherds to the immense flock committed to our charge, unless 
we carefully fit ourselves for the assigned task, or, in other 
words, “ Acertis potius et exploratis petendum esse, id est, iis, 
quse experientia in ipsis curationibus docuerit, sicut in cseteris 
omnibus artibus.” In every case the proper remedy for the 
mischief of heretical error is to endeavour to prove, even to the 
most incredulous, that the great facts to which the world have 
done homage by their very simplicity and endurance shew the 
truth, and are incomparably superior to the specious subtleties 
of the most plausible heresy. 
And to prove ourselves worthy of our noble mission, to do 
that homage to truth, the neglect of which would be a sin, we 
must labour incessantly, day after day, to clear from her august 
face the clouds and mists with which error dares to veil it, and 
insist upon the recognition of the incontrovertible, daily-recur- 
ring fact, that, with a treatment founded on philosophical 
therapeutics, on a natural system, inveterate disorders may be 
successfully checked and often cured in a few hours or days ; 
whilst the fanatical homoeopaths, armed with their wonderful 
globules, their terrible nothings, their infinitesimal inanities, 
would combat vainly during months or years. Verily, 1 can 
say (for the close observation of four months gave me unusual 
opportunity) the mania Hahnemannia is the most profound 
folly ever developed by mystery-loving Germans or any others; 
and, if a system were dangerous only in proportion to its power, 
that of homoeopathy might be considered almost innocent from 
its inanity and insignificance ; nor need we to elevate it even to 
the importance of requiring a single critical remark, were it 
not, unfortunately, impossible to remain indifferent to any error 
so indirectly mischievous, by the deception it imposes on the 
patient, and the loss it occasions of precious time ( occasio prce - 
ceps), too frequently irreparable. 
I hasten, however, to the Hippocratic or natural facts the 
more eagerly, because, the more frequently we can draw com- 
parisons between them and the inferences of erroneous systems, 
