divided, but from experiments, according as they had succeeded in the course of their practice. That medicine, even in its infancy, was not deduced from these inquiries, but from experiments: for of the sick, who had no physicians, some from a keen appetite, had immediately taken food in the first days of their illness, while others feeling a nausea, had abstained from it; and that the disorder of those, who had abstained, was more alleviated; also, some in the paroxysm of a fever had taken food, others a little before it came on, and others after its remission; and that it succeeded best with those who had done it after the removal of the fever: in the same manner some used a full diet in the beginning of a disease; others were abstemious; and that those grew worse, who had eaten plentifully. These and the like instances daily occurring, that diligent men observed attentively, what method generally answered best, and afterwards began to prescribe the same to the sick. That this was the rise of the art of medicine, which by the frequent recovery of some, and the death of others, distinguishes what is pernicious from what is salutary; and that when the remedies were found, men began to discourse about the reasons of them: that medicine was not invented in consequence of their reasoning, but the theory was sought for after the discovery of medicine. They ask too, whether reason prescribes the same as experience, or something different; if the same, they infer it to be needless, if different, mischievous. That at first, however, there was a necessity for examining remedies with the greatest accuracy, but now they are sufficiently ascertained; and that we neither meet with any new kind of disease, nor want any new method of cure. That if some unknown distemper should occur, the physician would not therefore be obliged to have recourse to the occult things; but he would presently see to what distemper it is most nearly allied, and make trial of remedies like to those, which have often been successful in a similar malady, and by the resemblance between them would find some proper cure. For they do not affirm, that judgment is not necessary to a physician, and that an irrational animal is capable of practising this art; but that those conjectures, which relate to the occult things, are of no use; because it is no matter what causes, but what removes a distemper: nor is it of any importance in what manner the distribution is performed, but what is most easily distributed; whether concoction fails from this cause or that; or whether it be properly a concoction, or only a distribution: nor are we to inquire how we breathe, but what relieves a difficult and slow breathing; nor what is the cause of motion in the arteries, but what each kind of motion indicates. That these things are known by experience: that in all disputes of this kind, a good deal may be said on both sides; and therefore genius and eloquence obtain the victory in the dispute; but