But the followers of Themison, if they assert their maxims to hold universally, are still more rationalists than those, that pass under that name; for though one rationalist does not maintain all that another approves, there is no necessity to invent a new appellation for him; provided, which is the principal thing, he does not proceed upon memory alone, but takes in reason too. But if, which is nearer to the truth, the art of medicine hardly admits of any universal precepts, then they are in the same class with those, who depend upon experiments alone: and the more so, because any unskilful person can discover, whether a distemper has bound up a man, or rendered him lax. Now if what relaxes a constringed body, or restrains a loose, be drawn from reason, such a practitioner is a rational physician: but if from experience, as he must confess, who will not allow himself to be a rationalist, then he is an empirick. And so, according to him, the knowledge of the distemper is foreign to the art, but the remedy lies within the bounds of experience. Nor is any improvement made by them upon the profession of the empiricks, but on the contrary, something is taken from it; the empiricks attending with great circumspection to many circumstances; whereas these regard only the easiest, and no more than the common things. For in like manner those, who are employed in curing cattle, since it is impossible for them to be informed by the dumb animals, what is peculiar in the case of each, regard only what is common to them all: and foreign nations, as they are not acquainted with any subtile theory of medicine, take notice only of the common symptoms: those also, who take under their care a great number of patients, because they are not able to consult the distinct necessities of each with the utmost attention, have respect only to those generals. Nor indeed were the ancient physicians ignorant of this method, but they were not content with it; for even the most ancient writer Hippocrates said, that in practice it is necessary to regard both the general and peculiar circumstances. Nor is it possible even for them to confine themselves within the narrow limits of their own profession; for there are different kinds both of the bound, and lax disorders; which is more easily observed in the lax, for it is one thing to vomit blood, another to vomit bile, and another to vomit the food: and there is also a difference betwixt labouring under a simple purging, and a dysentery; between being weakened by sweats, and wasted by a consumption. A humour also breaks out upon particular parts, as the eyes, for instance, and the ears; and no member of the human body is free from that danger. Now not one of these disorders is cured exactly in the same manner as another; so that in these, medicine descends from the general observation of the lax kind, to the peculiar. And in this again another kind of knowledge of peculiarity is often necessary;