Disputationes chymico-medicae

THE PHILOSOPHER, OR THE PHYSICIAN CONSULTED BY NATURE.

Just as in ancient times, those who desired access to the most famous Roman families—the Scipios, the Laelii, the Luculli, or the Catos—because of their celebrated names and immense wealth, which equaled the riches and magnificence of our own Kings and Princes, were accustomed to first approach the servos Atrienses hall-servants or doorkeepers. From these servants, they learned not only the family lineage, the images of brave ancestors, and their great deeds, but every detail of the entire family's way of life. In the same way, those who aspire to the majesty of nature must first approach the doorkeepers of wisdom, the instruments of doctrine, the hands of prudence, and the keys to a more civilized life. These are the ARTES ingenuas liberal arts. One must become familiar with them so that they may be introduced more quickly and easily into the sacred temple of Nature and Apollo. Indeed, using reason and speech, wisdom and eloquence, and number and measure correctly contributes no small momentum to unearthing the most hidden secrets of nature.

We therefore wish for the future Naturæ-consultum Medicum Physician who consults Nature to be someone who, from his earliest years of youth, has been well-educated in the schools of Grammarians, Logicians, Rhetoricians, and Mathematicians. He must lay a very sturdy foundation for that building which is later to be raised with great effort from the ruins of nature. For every perfect knowledge of any subject enjoys some preceding knowledge. Therefore, all those Faculties which are deprived of the arts of speaking and other disciplines—which serve as a leading and splendid torch—are forever unpleasant, full of obscurity and childishness, and they shrink from the Sun like sensitive ointments. It is a matter of great sorrow that in this present age, through some destructive corruption of disciplines and morals, almost all followers and students of all Faculties rush into the citadel of those very Faculties with rash force as soon as they have barely left their youth. They skip the proper steps and neglect the first foundations that should be sought from the arts of speech, dreaming of rich fruits for themselves if they more quickly attack the matter to which they have applied their minds.

Oh, what madness! Oh, what a thing worthy of just rebuke, if not the whip! Truly, those serious and detestable desertions of the primary disciplines, with individuals flying to higher subjects without judgment, produce those insolent errors in the Commonwealth. They are deprived of those well-founded supports in every kind of discipline. They lack a refined way of acting. Since very few progress from the smallest things to the greatest, from the easier to the more difficult, and from the extremes to the middle, what more can be hoped for regarding the safety and preservation of those things which sit at the very peak? There is indeed a great harshness in the first rudiments of the arts, but they must not be abandoned for that reason. They provide the greatest help to those who will climb to the summit of the other Faculties. If they are neglected or at least not faithfully applied, they cause even those striving for the heights to fall headlong. To tell the truth, it seems to me that the same thing happens to humans as to serpents: they become either the best or the worst of all living things. Just as serpents nourished on earthly Balsamo healing resin or balm are not entirely free of poison, yet they can be turned into a great and most immediate Antidoton antidote against all poisons when used correctly in medicine; so men who are first educated from childhood in the "balsam" of the arts and the dust of the schools cannot help but be useful to human society once they have grown old in the sanctuary of a higher Faculty. Therefore, the sum of all human life is most correctly compared to a very noble temple. Its base and foundation should not be built like the temple of Diana at Ephesus with great mounds of brick, but should begin to be directed and built by the best institutions following one another in order. It is of great importance that the worker of great and wonderful things, the Physician who consults Nature, be equipped with excellent gifts of intellect. He must obtain those aids by whose help he may never afterwards be a stranger in his own art, so that there is no doubt that he will lead Medicine home, escorted by so many companions of discipline.