nd help bring its uses front
for the good of man.
Osteopathy has not asked a place in written literature prior to this
date, and does not hope to appear on written pages even to suit the
author of this imperfectly written book.
WITHOUT ACCEPTED THEORIES.
Columbus had to launch and navigate much and long, and meet many storms,
because he had not the written experience of other travelers to guide
him. He had only a few bits of drift-wood not common to his home growth,
to cause him to move as he did. But there was a fact, a bit of wood that
did not grow on his home soil.
He reasoned that it must be from some land amid the sea whose shores had
not before been known to his race. With these facts and his powerful
mind of reason, he met all opposition, and moved alone; just as all men
do who have no use for theories as their compass to guide them through
the storms. This opposition a mental explorer must meet.
I felt that I must anchor my boat to living truths and follow them
wheresoever they might drift. Thus I launched my boat many years ago on
the open seas, fearlessly, and have never found a wave of scorn nor
abuse that truth could not eat, and do well on.
TRUTHS OF NATURE.
We often speak of truth. We say great truths, and use many other
qualifying expressions. But no one truth is greater than any other
truth. Each has a sphere of usefulness peculiar to itself. Thus we
should treat with respect and reverence all truths, great and small. A
truth is the complete work of nature, which can only be demonstrated by
the vital principle belonging to that class of truths. Each truth or
division as we see it, can only be made known to us by the self evident
fact, which this truth is able to demonstrate by its action.
If we take man as our object to base the beginning of our reason, we
find the association of many elements, which differ in kind to suit the
purpose for which they were designed. To us they act, to us they are
wisely formed and located for the purpose for which they were designed.
Through our five senses we deal with the material body. It has action.
That we observe by vision which connects the mind to reason. High above
the five senses on the subject of cause or causes of this, is motion. By
the testimony of the witness the mind is connected in a manner by which
it can reason on solidity and size. By smell, taste and sound, we make
other connections between the chambers of reason and the object we
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