Nor is it by any means without the
adornment that a poetic temperament and a keen sense of humour can
supply.
Naturally, the central life in the book is that of Lord Bacon, the man
who brought out of his treasures things both new and old. Up to him the
story gradually leads from the prehistoric times of Aesculapius, the
pathway first becoming plainly visible in the life and labours of
Hippocrates. His fine intellect and powers of acute observation afforded
the material necessary for the making of a true physician. The Greek
mind, partly, perhaps, from its artistic tendencies, seems to have been
peculiarly impatient of incomplete forms, and therefore, to have much
preferred the construction of a theory from the most shadowy material,
to the patient experiment and investigation necessary for the procuring
of the real substance; and Hippocrates, not knowing how to advance to a
theory by rational experiment, and too honest to invent one, assumes the
traditional theories, founded on the vaguest and most obtrusive
generalizations. Those which his experience taught him to reject, were
adopted and maintained by Galen and all who followed him for centuries,
the chief instance of progress being only the substitution by the
Arabians of some of the milder medicines now in use, for the terrible
and often fatal drugs employed by the Greek and Roman physicians.
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