e great Plato, that
I lately learned, that of three sorts of motions which are natural to us,
purging is the worst, and that no man, unless he be a fool, ought to take
anything to that purpose but in the extremest necessity. Men disturb and
irritate the disease by contrary oppositions; it must be the way of
living that must gently dissolve, and bring it to its end. The violent
gripings and contest betwixt the drug and the disease are ever to our
loss, since the combat is fought within ourselves, and that the drug is
an assistant not to be trusted, being in its own nature an enemy to our
health, and by trouble having only access into our condition. Let it
alone a little; the general order of things that takes care of fleas and
moles, also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience that
fleas and moles have, to leave it to itself. 'Tis to much purpose we cry
out "Bihore,"--[A term used by the Languedoc waggoners to hasten their
horses]--'tis a way to make us hoarse, but not to hasten the matter.
'Tis a proud and uncompassionate order: our fears, our despair displease
and stop it from, instead of inviting it to, our relief; it owes its
course to the disease, as well as to health; and will not suffer itself
to be corrupted in favour of the one to the prejudice of the other's
right, for it would then fall into disorder. Let us, in God's name,
follow it; it leads those that follow, and those who will not follow, it
drags along, both their fury and physic together. Order a purge for your
brain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach.

One asking a Lacedaemonian what had made him live so long, he made
answer, "the ignorance of physic"; and the Emperor Adrian continually
exclaimed as he was dying, that the crowd of physicians had killed him.
A bad wrestler turned physician: "Courage," says Diogenes to him; "thou
hast done well, for now thou will throw those who have formerly thrown
thee." But they have this advantage, according to Nicocles, that the sun
gives light to their success and the earth covers their failures. And,
besides, they have a very advantageous way of making use of all sorts of
events: for what fortune, nature, or any other cause (of which the number
is infinite), products of good and healthful in us, it is the privilege
of physic to attribute to itself; all the happy successes that happen to
the patient, must be thence derived; the accidents that have cured me,
and a tho