Biographies of distinguished scientific men. First seriesArago, F. (François)
History
Biographies of distinguished scientific men. First series
Arago, F. (François)
Scientists -- Biography
There then follows a legitimate homage to the non-graduated
academicians, members of the commission: "Before Franklin and Bailly,"
says the author, "every knee must bend. The one has invented much, the
other has discovered much; Franklin belongs to the two worlds, and all
ages seem to belong to Bailly." But arming himself afterwards with more
cleverness than uprightness, with these words of the reporter, "The
commissioners, especially the doctors, made an infinity of experiments,"
he insinuates under every form that the commissioners accepted of a very
passive line of conduct. Thus, putting aside the most positive
declarations, pretending even to forget the name, the titles of the
reporter, Servan no longer sees before him but one class of adversaries,
regent doctors of the Faculty of Paris, and then he gives full scope to
his satirical vein. He holds it even as an honour that they do not
regard him as impartial. "The doctors have killed me; what it has
pleased them to leave me of life is not worth, in truth, my seeking a
milder term.... For these twenty years I have always been worse through
the remedies administered to me than through my maladies.... Even were
animal magnetism a chimera, it should be tolerated; it would still be
useful to mankind, by saving many individuals among them from the
incontestable dangers of vulgar medicine.... I wish that medicine, so
long accustomed to deceive itself, should still deceive itself now, and
that the famous report be nothing but a great error...." Amidst these
singular declarations, there are hundreds of epigrams still more
remarkable by their ingenious and lively turn than by their novelty. If
it were true, Gentlemen, that the medical corps had ever tried,
knowingly, to impose on the vulgar, to hide the uncertainty of their
knowledge, the weakness of their theories, the vagueness of their
conceptions, under an obscure and pedantic jargon, the immortal and
laughable sarcasms of Moliere would not have been more than an act of
strict justice. In all cases every thing has its day; now, towards the
end of the eighteenth century, the most delicate, the most thorny points
of doctrine were discussed with an entire good faith, with perfect
lucidity, and in a style that placed many members of the faculty in the
rank Of our best speakers. Servan, however, goes beyond the limits of a
scientific discussion, when, without any sort of excuse, he accuses his
adversaries of being anti-mesmerists through esprit de corps, and, what
is worse, through cupidity.
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