When I consider with myself how many and how great men have formerly ascended this chair, with how general an applause they apply’d to the education of youth, and how every branch of erudition has been cultivated to such advantage by the present set of teachers, into whose learned order I am this day admitted by the great favour and indulgence of our senate; whilst I at the same time reflect how much this new situation differs from my former manner of living, in which as I had willingly pass’d a considerable part of my life, I had determin’d to continue to my old age; when I reflect upon all these circumstances, a tremor seizes my limbs, and my voice falters. But because from the very foundation of this respectable academy, custom, which governs all things, and your expectation requires it of me, embolden’d by your kindness, I will make trial of my abilities.
Being a new member, and ascending a new chair, I propos’d to speak of the connexion between physic and other academical studies, and it was my design to explain what it borrows from them, and what it contributes to them in its turn.
It would be a pleasure to me, reverend pastors of the church, and illustrious professors of divinity, to declare aloud how much physick is indebted to religion; I would gladly vindicate the principles of physicians from the imputations of ancient calumny, and prove that religion is strongly supported by a science, which, being totally conversant in the contemplation of an admirable creature, demonstrates from the wonderful mechanism of a man in health, and the surprising cures of the sick, the existence and great wisdom of the Supreme Artificer, and that even to the most obstinate. Do men forget the Deity? Physicians stand forth, and theology is entirely reviv’d; for who have spoken more truth, or in a sublimer stile concerning God, than they? There would be no end, were I to cite them all; but I must not pass over in silence Hippocrates, the first who ever asserted that fate produc’d nothing, but that all those events, which we call fortuitous, are regulated by the will of God: the next to him is Galen, who diffusively proves, that the existence of God is demonstrated by the position of the thumb alone; and calls his treatise concerning the use of the parts, a monument to the glory of the Deity: to him must be added Polychrestus, to whom the illustrious sir-name of Lover of God was given, on account of his great piety: Boyle, who wrote excellent works himself, and founded an admirable institution for the promotion of religion, which he nobly endow’d; his friend Sydenham; the immortal Lock; Hoffman, who carried his piety so far, that he was not entirely free from superstition; the admirable Tralles; and my dear and worthy friend Haller, who in an excellent treatise has asserted the utility of religion in a manly stile, as usual, and exerts himself to the utmost to promote its cause.
Physicians indeed laugh at the idle tales of old women, at the extravagancies of the vulgar, and thereby incur the censure of weak and superstitious people; they deride the inventions of imagination; and whilst every divine lays down his own opinion as the rule of truth, physicians make a jest of the phantoms which these set up for religion, and refuse to embrace a cloud for a Juno: thence all these clamours, these accusations, these reproaches, and these calumnies. But if some of our society have in fact been led astray by error, which I am sorry to say cannot be denied, the severe censure of their colleagues has soon convinced the public how much they disapprov’d of their principles.
It would be a pleasure to me, most learned professor of morality, whom to address by the tender name of father-in-law is my greatest happiness; it would be a pleasure to me, I say, to treat to the best of my abilities of the connexion between the knowledge of morals and of health; how near the relation is between them, how exact the concatenation in every respect. This is certainly both an agreeable and useful undertaking: nor is it altogether new; for Hippocrates has in his whole treatise concerning diet, done his utmost to prove that souls are the same in all men, and that the various degrees of wisdom and folly proceed from the different temperament of their bodies; and Galen, who has admirably demonstrated the power of the body over the mind and the motions of the will, desired the teachers of philosophy, sixteen ages ago, to send all persons of bad morals to him to be cur’d[1].
Should I be ever so full, most learned professor of jurisprudence, I could not entirely display the connexion between us; for whether a legislator regulates a commonwealth, or whether a judge upon the bench weighs questions of civil law, or criminal and ecclesiastical causes, in the ballance of Themis, there occur cases, and those not a few, in which he cannot do without the assistance of our art.
It would be necessary to lay open the greatest part of natural knowledge, most profound professor of philosophy, were I to treat of all that it has in common with physick; for you well know that both the cure of diseases, and the contemplation of the nature of things, had their beginnings from the same authors. We are therefore inform’d that many of the professors of natural philosophy were well skilled in physick, and that the most illustrious of these were Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Democritus. Hippocrates was the first who separated these studies; but he did not separate them in such a manner as to pull them asunder entirely, but so as to split that comprehensive science into several more minute members, that many might cultivate divided, what one could not learn entire; but that neither should desert what nature made inseparable.
That part of this science, which considers body merely as body, has retain’d the name of natural philosophy: others went by various names, according to the different sorts of bodies of which they treated. The human body is the object of physick, which without natural philosophy is lame; for he is but a dunce in the art of healing, who is not acquainted with the forces of bodies, and the laws of motion: nor do professors of physick care to undertake the education of those, who are ignorant of natural philosophy. But if physick is greatly indebted to this science, it can in some respects return the favour, and physicians have return’d it in many instances: for Gilbert, who first satisfactorily explain’d the phænomena of electricity, was a physician, as was likewise Boyle, who promoted natural knowledge more than any other philosopher; and Boerhaave, whose experiments upon the elements have given a new face to this science; and to pass over many others in silence, the illustrious Muschembroek, who is universally allow’d to surpass all others in this article.
And there is some connexion, though perhaps not so close, between your studies and physick, illustrious professors of history and languages; for what physician would not be asham’d to be ignorant of history and the humanities? Who would not be desirous of consulting the Arabian physicians in the originals, as none of them has hitherto been faithfully translated? Are there not likewise certain parts of history, which physick alone can throw proper lights upon? Is not Celsus a physician, whose works all that are desirous of speaking Latin in perfection, study night and day? Pliny, in whom we meet not merely with helps for acquiring the Latin language, but with the purest Latinity, though he did not practise physic, understood it perfectly, and is entirely taken up in explaining it. Areteus, whom we respect as a master of the healing art, is conspicuous for the elegance of his Greek. Galen has an eloquence peculiar to himself. So has Alexander. And those who cultivate the Arabic language, boast that it is no where to be found in greater purity than in the writings of physicians.