ying the evidence of
nature.

First, there is the natural incapacity for sound observation, which is
like a faulty ear in music. We see this in many persons who know a good
deal about books, but who are not sharp-sighted enough to buy a horse or
deal with human diseases.

Secondly, there is in some persons a singular inability to weigh the
value of testimony; of which, I think, from a pretty careful examination
of his books, Hahnemann affords the best specimen outside the walls of
Bedlam.

The inveterate logical errors to which physicians have always been
subject are chiefly these:

The mode of inference per enumerationem simplicem, in scholastic phrase;
that is, counting only their favorable cases. This is the old trick
illustrated in Lord Bacon's story of the gifts of the shipwrecked people,
hung up in the temple.--Behold! they vowed these gifts to the altar, and
the gods saved them. Ay, said a doubting bystander, but how many made
vows of gifts and were shipwrecked notwithstanding? The numerical system
is the best corrective of this and similar errors. The arguments
commonly brought against its application to all matters of medical
observation, treatment included, seem to apply rather to the tabulation
of facts ill observed, or improperly classified, than to the method
itself.

The post hoc ergo propter hoc error: he got well after taking my
medicine; therefore in consequence of taking it.

The false induction from genuine facts of observation, leading to the
construction of theories which are then deductively applied in the face
of the results of direct observation. The school of Broussais has
furnished us with a good example of this error.

And lastly, the error which Sir Thomas Browne calls giving "a reason of
the golden tooth;" that is, assuming a falsehood as a fact, and giving
reasons for it, commonly fanciful ones, as is constantly done by that
class of incompetent observers who find their "golden tooth" in the
fabulous effects of the homoeopathie materia medica,--which consists of
sugar of milk and a nomenclature.

Another portion of the blame rests with the public itself, which insists
on being poisoned. Somebody buys all the quack medicines that build
palaces for the mushroom, say rather, the toadstool millionaires. Who is
it? These people have a constituency of millions. The popular belief is
all but universal that sick persons should feed on noxious substances.
One of our members was called not