man should lay out, not only his time,
sweat, labour, and goods, but also his life itself to obtain it;
forasmuch as, without it, life is wearisome and injurious to us:
pleasure, wisdom, learning, and virtue, without it, wither away and
vanish; and to the most laboured and solid discourses that philosophy
would imprint in us to the contrary, we need no more but oppose the image
of Plato being struck with an epilepsy or apoplexy; and, in this
presupposition, to defy him to call the rich faculties of his soul to his
assistance. All means that conduce to health can neither be too painful
nor too dear to me. But I have some other appearances that make me
strangely suspect all this merchandise. I do not deny but that there may
be some art in it, that there are not amongst so many works of Nature,
things proper for the conservation of health: that is most certain: I
very well know there are some simples that moisten, and others that dry;
I experimentally know that radishes are windy, and senna-leaves purging;
and several other such experiences I have, as that mutton nourishes me,
and wine warms me: and Solon said "that eating was physic against the
malady hunger." I do not disapprove the use we make of things the earth
produces, nor doubt, in the least, of the power and fertility of Nature,
and of its application to our necessities: I very well see that pikes and
swallows live by her laws; but I mistrust the inventions of our mind, our
knowledge and art, to countenance which, we have abandoned Nature and her
rules, and wherein we keep no bounds nor moderation. As we call the
piling up of the first laws that fall into our hands justice, and their
practice and dispensation very often foolish and very unjust; and as
those who scoff at and accuse it, do not, nevertheless, blame that noble
virtue itself, but only condemn the abuse and profanation of that sacred
title; so in physic I very much honour that glorious name, its
propositions, its promises, so useful for the service of mankind; but the
ordinances it foists upon us, betwixt ourselves, I neither honour nor
esteem.
In the first place, experience makes me dread it; for amongst all my
acquaintance, I see no people so soon sick, and so long before they are
well, as those who take much physic; their very health is altered and
corrupted by their frequent prescriptions. Physicians are not content to
deal only with the sick, but they will moreover corrupt health itself,
fo
|