ase to be a single
fact, and would therefore gain the evidence of analogy. But the latter, as
having less knowledge of nature, and less facility of voluntary exertion,
would more readily believe the assertions of others, or a single fact, as
presented to his own observation. Of this kind are the bulk of mankind;
they continue throughout their lives in a state of childhood, and have thus
been the dupes of priests and politicians in all countries and in all ages
of the world.

In regard to religious matters, there is an intellectual cowardice
instilled into the minds of the people from their infancy; which prevents
their inquiry: credulity is made an indispensable virtue; to inquire or
exert their reason in religious matters is denounced as sinful; and in the
catholic church is punished with more severe penances than moral crimes.
But in respect to our belief of the supposed medical facts, which are
published by variety of authors; many of whom are ignorant, and therefore
credulous; the golden rule of David Hume may be applied with great
advantage. "When two miraculous assertions oppose each other, believe the
less miraculous." Thus if a person is said to have received the small-pox a
second time, and to have gone through all the stages of it, one may thus
reason: twenty thousand people have been exposed to the variolous contagion
a second time without receiving the variolous fever, to every one who has
been said to have thus received it; it appears therefore less miraculous,
that the assertor of this supposed fact has been deceived, or wishes to
deceive, than that it has so happened contrary to the long experienced
order of nature.

M. M. The method of cure is to increase our knowledge of the laws of
nature, and our habit of comparing whatever ideas are presented to us with
those known laws, and thus to counteract the fallacies of our senses, to
emancipate ourselves from the false impressions which we have imbibed in
our infancy, and to set the faculty of reason above that of imagination.

* * * * *

_The Orders and Genera of the Fourth Class of Diseases._

CLASS IV.

DISEASES OF ASSOCIATION.

ORDO I.

_Increased Associate Motions._

GENERA.

1. Catenated with irritative motions.
2. Catenated with sensitive motions.
3. Catenated with voluntary motions.
4. Catenated with external influences.

ORDO II.

_Decreased Associate Motions._

GENERA.

1. Catenated wit