All these different compromises are really different forms of the Kantian dualism, but they supply convenient cities of refuge for those who are unwilling to admit that faith is but implicit reason, and that it is always possible to translate its intuitions of truth into explicit logic. There is much excuse, indeed, in many cases for such unwillingness when we consider how often reason has presented itself as purely a critical or dissolving power, and how often abstract theories which grasp only one aspect of things have been set forth as complete explanations of religion or morality or some other of the higher interests of life. It has always to be kept in view that it is in something like immediate perception that truth is given in the first instance, and that philosophy, therefore, must always be in a sense toiling after the intuitions of faith. Yet, on the other hand, to hold that there is anywhere an abstract division between the two is to hold that faith is essentially irrational; it is to exalt it above reason in a way that inevitably leads in the end to its being depressed below reason. If, however, this view can be maintained it must lead in the long run to the rejection of all dualistic compromises. And there are already many who hold that after the unstable equilibrium of the Kantian theory has been shaken there is no secure standing-ground for philosophy short of a thorough-going idealism. Yet even they have learned by experience how dangerous it is to snatch prematurely at the readiest idealistic interpretation of facts; and they are aware how easy it is to fall into a simple optimistic theory, which slurs over difficulties instead of solving them. They know that if Hegel or any one ever pretended, or could reasonably be interpreted as pretending, to construe the universe a priori, the pretence was futile, and that a true and valuable idealism can be reached only through the interpretation of the data of experience by the special sciences, and the reinterpretation of the results of these sciences by philosophy. They hold, in short, that if the well-known saying of Hegel is to be taken for truth, both of its clauses must be equally emphasized, and that no philosophy can safely maintain that “what is rational is actual” which has not gone through all the effort that is necessary to prove that “what is actual is rational.”
Edward Caird.
MEDICINE
INTRODUCTION
For countless generations the prophets and kings of humanity have desired to see the things which men have seen, and to hear the things which men have heard in the course of the wonderful nineteenth century. To the call of the watchers on the towers of progress there had been the one sad answer—the people sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Politically, socially, and morally the race had improved, but for the unit, for the individual, there was little hope. Cold philosophy shed a glimmer of light on his path, religion in its various guises illumined his sad heart, but neither availed to lift the curse of suffering from the sin-begotten son of Adam. In the fulness of time, long expected, long delayed, at last Science emptied upon him from the horn of Amalthea blessings which cannot be enumerated, blessings which have made the century forever memorable; and which have followed each other with a rapidity so bewildering that we know not what next to expect. To us in the medical profession, who deal with this unit, and measure progress by the law of the greatest happiness to the greatest number, to us whose work is with the sick and suffering, the great boon of this wonderful century, with which no other can be compared, is the fact that the leaves of the tree of Science have been for the healing of the nations. Measure as we may the progress of the world—materially, in the advantages of steam, electricity, and other mechanical appliances; sociologically, in the great improvement in the conditions of life; intellectually, in the diffusion of education; morally, in a possibly higher standard of ethics—there is no one measure which can compare with the decrease of physical suffering in man, woman, and child when stricken by disease or accident. This is the one fact of supreme personal import to every one of us. This is the Promethean gift of the century to man.
THE GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE
The century opened auspiciously, and those who were awake saw signs of the dawn. The spirit of Science was brooding on the waters. In England the influence of John Hunter stimulated the younger men to the study of the problems of anatomy and pathology. On the Continent the great Boorhaave—the Batavian Hippocrates—had taught correct ways in the study of the clinical aspects of disease, and the work of Haller had given a great impetus to physiology. The researches of Morgagni had, as Virchow had remarked, introduced anatomical thinking into medicine. But theories still controlled practice. Under the teaching of Cullen, the old idea that humors were the seat of disease had given place to a neuro-pathology which recognized the paramount influence of the nervous system in disease. His colleague at Edinburgh, Brown, brought forward the attractive theory that all diseases could be divided into two groups, the one caused by excess of excitement—the sthenic—the other by a deficiency—the asthenic—each having its appropriate treatment, the one by depletion, the other by stimulation. In a certain measure Hahnemann’s theory of homœopathy was a reaction against the prevalent theories of the day, and has survived through the century, though in a much modified form. Some of his views were as follows:
“The only vocation of the physician is to heal; theoretical knowledge is of no use. In a case of sickness he should only know what is curable and the remedies. Of the diseases he cannot know anything except the symptoms. There are internal changes, but it is impossible to learn what they are; symptoms alone are accessible; with their removal by remedies the disease is removed. Their effects can be studied in the healthy only. They act on the sick by causing a disease similar to that which is to be combated, and which dissolves itself into this similar affection. The full doses required to cause symptoms in the well are too large to be employed as remedies for the sick. The healing power of a drug grows in an inverse proportion to its substance. He says, literally: ‘Only potencies are homœopathic medicines.’ ‘I recognize nobody as my follower but him who gives medicine in so small doses as to preclude the perception of anything medicinal in them by means either of the senses or of chemistry.’ ‘The pellets may be held near the young infant when asleep.’ ‘Gliding the hand over the patient will cure him, provided the manipulation is done with firm intention to render as much good with it as possible, for its power is in the benevolent will of the manipulator.’ Such is the homœopathy of Hahnemann, which is no longer recognized in what they call homœopathy to-day.”—(A. Jacobi.)