Nothing could be further from the earnest and thinking John Hunter than anything dramatic. Abernethy had that happy variety of countenance and manner that can be conveyed by no other term. Hunter, without being slow, was cautious, circumspect: Abernethy, without being hasty, was rapid, penetrative, and impulsive. Never were two minds so admirably fitted for the heavy-armed pioneering in science, and the comparatively light-trooped intellect which was calculated to render the first clearing easily convertible to those practical necessities with which the science had to deal. Accordingly we find that Abernethy very soon extended Mr. Hunter's views, and applied them so powerfully, as at least to create the dawnings of a science. He showed that all processes in the economy—and of course, therefore, those of disease—are essentially nervous in their origin: that is to say, the nerves being the _instruments_ through which our relations are established with surrounding nature (however much we may, in common language, speak of this or that feeling, this or that _organ_, or this or that part of the body), all impressions must still be made primarily on the sensitive or nervous system of that part; and this, of course, whether they imply _consciousness_, or be altogether independent of it; that disturbed nervous action was, as the case might be, either the forerunner—or the next link in the chain of causation (i. e. the proximate cause)—of the disease; and that therefore the relief of diseased or disordered actions, however attempted, consisted ultimately and essentially in the restoration of healthy nervous power, or adaptation. This, then, is the first proposition. The next thing, and which necessarily follows, is, that in the prevention or cure of disease, the first object is the tranquillizing of nervous disorder.