href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@44744@[email protected]#V" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">V. of this work), as well as ancient medicine, obtained their scientific views exclusively by deduction—i.e., they deduced individual results from general presumptions, or, rather, they construed, by reason of some general presumption, the physico-medical consequences which were to follow from such a general supposition. If this attempt to obtain an insight into physical processes is extremely hazardous, it becomes still more precarious when the manner and means in which these general presumptions were arrived at were primarily of an entirely hypothetical nature. It is true, no fundamental objection can be raised to this method, as even modern natural science and medicine, despite the fact that their methods of investigation in a diagnostico-theoretical respect scarcely admit of material objections, can not do without hypothesis. But hypothesis is not always mere hypothesis. It is well known that there are hypotheses which, even in the minds of the most conscientious investigators, are not inferior to that knowledge which is obtained by experiment and observation, whereas other hypotheses again present the distinct stamp of insufficiency and makeshift. The trustworthiness and the heuristic value of an hypothesis depend upon the quality of the diagnostico-theoretical process by means of which it was obtained. If this process has been such as physical investigation is bound to insist upon, the hypothesis thus arrived at is fully justified to supply the still absent data with regard to the phenomena in question. This, however, can be accomplished by hypothesis only when the latter is not set forth until it plainly appears that, in spite of a conscientious and orderly arrangement of observation after observation, of experiment upon experiment, without the admission of logical loopholes, full data in regard to the nature of the phenomena is not forthcoming. In such a case we may consider as actually proven by hypothesis what observation and systematic experiment, continuous and logical, were intended to prove, and failed. However, this inductive hypothesis is alone entitled to be considered in medicine. Naturally, such an inductive hypothesis was not thought of by the ancients, as the inductive method of investigation was generally quite unknown to them. The process by which ancient medicine usually attempted to find its hypothesis was by an argument from analogy. Each and every point of resemblance, however superficial, between two phenomena was considered sufficient by the ancient naturalists to warrant the assumption that analogous phenomena in the most various domains were most certainly proven to possess similar points of resemblance. And upon the basis of such an insecure method of deduction—which, moreover, was selected entirely at the option of the observer—the ancient investigator erected the boldest hypotheses. Thus, for instance, the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus is an hypothesis which rests upon the basis of a conclusion from analogy. The motes which appear in the rays of the sun led these two ancient investigators to the conception that, like the particles of dust sporting in the air, the primary component parts of everything that exists in the entire universe consisted of similar particles.[2]

It appears that Epicurus arrived at his theory of light (according to which, as is well known, images of things were brought to the senses by delicate but absolutely objective small pictures which were detached from the surface of things in a continuous current) by the fact that many animals—for instance, snakes—shed their skins. The theory of humoral pathology, one of the most important advances in medical science, was based on a conclusion from analogy and arrived at by the deductive method.

The diagnostico-theoretical lines in which antique medicine moved were bound—and this is the point of importance in this case—to exert a determining influence upon medical criticism. For medico-physical criticism can only appear in closest connection with the prevailing condition of the respective sciences, being really nothing else but a precipitate from them. Thus the ancient physicians were compelled to take an entirely different position toward magical medicine than we moderns, educated in the school of inductive methods, have always taken. The probable and similar, the supposable and possible, in which deductive medicine found its data, working on the lines of argument from analogy, were necessarily bound to find expression also in the character of medical critique, and it was impossible, therefore, for the ancient physician to detect anything absurd or contrary to experience in hypotheses which the practitioner of to-day at once brands as nonsensical and superstitious.

We are not in the least justified, therefore, in speaking disparagingly of Galen and Alexander of Tralles because they believed in magical medicine and applied it in their practise. As no human being can jump out of his skin, so is he unable to get beyond the intellectual advancement of his time. As the ancient physicians were also unable to do this, accordingly they were believers in the magical medicine.

But there is still a second point which explains the remarkable position taken by ancient physicians in relation to magical medicine—namely, the fact that the conception of miracle and magic were essentially different in the ancient world from what they are at present. The belief in the interference of spirits and supernatural beings in terrestrial matters, and the manifestations of their influence exerted in manifold ways—sometimes for good, sometimes for evil—had been widely disseminated from the earliest times, and we encounter them in all periods of classic antiquity. This belief in demons had become incorporated in the systems of many leading philosophers of antiquity. Now if the world were filled with demons the natural consequence was that their activity would manifest itself in various ways. It was necessary, therefore, that man should always be prepared to experience manifestations which more or less violated the customary order of terrestrial happenings, and for this reason nothing that could be styled a miracle really existed for him. A miracle could not be conceived in its full modern sense until it was realized that the course of all natural phenomena was nothing but the expression of eternal and changeless laws. However, it was not until comparatively late that this conception became generally disseminated; thus, for instance, it was considered as self-evident, even in the latest periods of the middle ages and during the first beginnings of modern times, that divine influence could always, and actually did always, cause an alteration in the course of the functions of the body. In fact, there is an amazingly large number of people even in our time who believe this, and for whom, therefore, the conception of miracles, especially of miraculous healing, is to-day on about the same level as that on which it stood in the time of Galen and Alexander of Tralles.

Thus we must admit that the ancient physicians were by no means below the standard of civilization and culture attained during their period if they believed in the possibility of extraordinary cures effected by means extraneous and unscientific in their treatment of the sick, and, accordingly, they supported such methods. However, this