f
Empiricism had been opposed to each other for several centuries, and the
Eclectics, Pneumatists, and Episynthetics had arisen shortly before his
time. Galen wrote against slavish attachment to any sect, but "in his
general principles he may be considered as belonging to the Dogmatic
sect, for his method was to reduce all his knowledge, as acquired by the
observation of facts, to general theoretical principles. These
principles he, indeed, professed to deduce from experience and
observation, and we have abundant proofs of his diligence in collecting
experience, and his accuracy in making observations; but still in a
certain sense at least, he regards individual facts and the details of
experience as of little value, unconnected with the principles which he
had laid down as the basis of all medical reasoning. In this fundamental
point, therefore, the method pursued by Galen appears to have been
directly the reverse of that which we now consider as the correct method
of scientific investigation; and yet, such is the force of natural
genius, that in most instances he attained the ultimate object in view,
although by an indirect path. He was an admirer of Hippocrates, and
always speaks of him with the most profound respect, professing to act
upon his principles, and to do little more than expound his doctrines,
and support them by new facts and observations. Yet, in reality, we have
few writers whose works, both as to substance and manner, are more
different from each other than those of Hippocrates and Galen, the
simplicity of the former being strongly contrasted with the abstruseness
and refinement of the latter."[23]

A list of the various editions of Galen's works is given in Dr. Smith's
"Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology" (1890 edition,
vol. ii, pp. 210-12), and also the titles of the treatises classified
according to the branch of medical science with which they deal, and it
is convenient to follow this classification.

I.--WORKS ON ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

Galen insisted upon the study of anatomy as essential, and in this
respect was in conflict with the view held by the Methodists and the
Empirics who believed that a physician could understand diseases without
any knowledge of the exact structure of the body. His books on anatomy
were originally fifteen in number. The last six of these are now extant
only in an Arabic translation, two copies of which are preserved in the
Bodleian Library at