BER. I mean, brother, that I know of no man less sick than you, and that I should be quite satisfied with a constitution no worse than yours. One great proof that you are well, and that you have a body perfectly well made, is that with all the pains you have taken, you have failed as yet in injuring the soundness of your constitution, and that you have not died of all the medicine they have made you swallow. ARG. But are you aware, brother, that it is these medicines which keep me in good health? Mr. Purgon says that I should go off if he were but three days without taking care of me. BER. If you are not careful, he will take such care of you that he will soon send you into the next world. ARG. But let us reason together, brother; don’t you believe at all in medicine? BER. No, brother; and I do not see that it is necessary for our salvation to believe in it. ARG. What! Do you not hold true a thing acknowledged by everybody, and revered throughout all ages? BER. Between ourselves, far from thinking it true, I look upon it as one of the greatest follies which exist among men; and to consider things from a philosophical point of view, I don’t know of a more absurd piece of mummery, of anything more ridiculous, than a man who takes upon himself to cure another man. ARG. Why will you not believe that a man can cure another? BER. For the simple reason, brother, that the springs of our machines are mysteries about which men are as yet completely in the dark, and nature has put too thick a veil before our eyes for us to know anything about it. ARG. Then, according to you, the doctors know nothing at all. BER. Oh yes, brother. Most of them have some knowledge of the best classics, can talk fine Latin, can give a Greek name to every disease, can define and distinguish them; but as to curing these diseases, that’s out of the question. ARG. Still, you must agree to this, that doctors know more than others. BER. They know, brother, what I have told you; and that does not effect many cures. All the excellency of their art consists in pompous gibberish, in a specious babbling, which gives you words instead of reasons, and promises instead of results. ARG. Still, brother, there exist men as wise and clever as you, and we see that in cases of illness every one has recourse to the doctor. BER. It is a proof of human weakness, and not of the truth of their art. ARG. Still, doctors must believe in their art, since they make use of it for themselves.