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and different experiments, and, as is were, force nature to yield herself up to our inquiries."
To accomplish this demands the brightest talents, a liberal education and great experience. We cannot suppose then that a Student of ordinary parts can, by any means of himself, acquire sufficient skill in medicine to take charge properly of the lives of mankind.
The almost infinite number of objects, to which he ought to be no stranger, pass before him so very slowly, that the longest life would offer to his contemplation but a very inconsiderable share of those, with which he may be made acquainted, in the several branches of his profession, by the instruction of able matters. Shall a novice then hope, merely by his own abilities, to raise a superstructure comparable to that already built up to his hands, which has exhausted the ingenuity and invention, and employed the industry of some thousand years? Where will the most extensive practice be sufficient; and how comparitively little will the most enlarged faculties contribute, to furnish him with a ten thousandth part of the materials?
Should we for a moment turn our eyes upon the man, who dares to enter upon the practice of Physic, without being properly initiated in the science, or instructed in the important duties of the profession, he would soon present us with a melancholy prospect. If not past all feelings of humanity, what compunctions of conscience, what remorse would not fill his
