when the viscera happen to be exposed by a wound, if one is ignorant of the natural colour of each part, he cannot know what is sound and what corrupted; and for that reason is not qualified to cure the corrupted parts; besides they maintain, that external remedies are applied with much more judgment, when we are acquainted with the situation, figure, and size of the internal parts; and that the same reasoning holds in all the other instances above mentioned. And that it is by no means cruel, as most people represent it, by the tortures of a few guilty, to search after remedies for the whole innocent race of mankind in all ages. [AB] Φλεγμονὴ. On the other hand, those, who from experience, stile themselves empiricks, admit indeed the evident causes as necessary; but affirm the inquiry after the occult causes and natural actions to be fruitless, because nature is incomprehensible. And that these things cannot be comprehended, appears from the controversies among those, who have treated concerning them, there being no agreement found here either amongst the philosophers or the physicians themselves: for, why should one believe Hippocrates rather than Herophilus? or, why him more than Asclepiades? that if a man inclines to determine his judgment by reasons assigned, the reasons of each of them seem not improbable; if by cures, all of them have restored the diseased to health; and therefore we should not deny credit either to the arguments or authority of any of them. That even the philosophers must be allowed to be the greatest physicians, if reasoning could make them so; whereas it appears, that they have abundance of words, and very little skill in the art of healing. _They say also_ that the methods of practice differ according to the nature of places; thus one method is necessary at Rome, another in Egypt, and another in Gaul. That if the causes of distempers were the same in all places, the same remedies ought also to be used every where. That often too the causes are evident; as for instance in a lippitude(7), or a wound, and nevertheless the method of cure does not appear from them: that if the evident cause does not suggest this knowledge, much less can the other, which is itself obscure. Seeing then this last is uncertain and incomprehensible, it is much better to seek relief from things certain and tried; that is, from such remedies as experience in the method of curing has taught us, as is done in all other arts; for that neither a husbandman nor a pilot is qualified for his business by reasoning, but by practice: and that these disquisitions have no connection with medicine, may be inferred from this plain fact, that physicians, whose opinions in those matters have been directly opposite to one another, have notwithstanding equally restored their patients to health: that their success was to be ascribed to their having derived their methods of cure, not from the occult causes, or the natural actions, about which they were