Physiologia Medica

MEDICAL PROSCENIA

petulance, he becomes worthy of the fact that, especially when he is sick, he should have no one whose medical help he might experience.

BUT for those actions of which there are certain examples (to hoti the fact that they are), it is necessary that their causes also be given, whether they are uncertain and fortuitous, or certain. We leave the uncertain causes to the Epicureans, and let us establish it as certain that Fortune is nothing, and is only a monster of the human intellect born from a specific ignorance among those of Sophistical causes. Such people dare to assert that the Nature of things errs and is carried by an uncertain motion, rather than being willing to admit that they themselves err, that is, that they are ignorant of something. Certain and necessary causes depend on wise and shrewd Nature, yet in such a way that they can be both inhibited and promoted at will by God, who is the author of Nature. When the atheoi those without God OCR reads "athroi", likely "atheoi" are either ignorant of this or unwilling to admit it, they dare to devise a mockery of blind Fortune rather than acknowledge the judgment of a wise God. But God, a Being most free and equally powerful, wise, and benevolent, does everything not because it is necessary, but because He wills it. St. Augustine, in the divine books On the City of God, testifies that the miracles of nature appear to this end: so that the freedom of the author of nature in acting may be equally evident. Thus, it would have been as easy for Him to create water that inflames as water that extinguishes: equally fire that cools as fire that heats: the earth higher than the water (which is evident in the Ocean) or fire lower than the earth. We understand certain causes, therefore, to be matter, form, efficient, and end.

CERTAIN causes, furthermore, as they depend on nature with respect to their essence and are called Natural, so with respect to

the knowledge of another (for since all things are for the sake of man, as they are in themselves, so they ought to be communicated to man with respect to their use: but they cannot be communicated unless they are known by him) they are either Occult and unknown, then to the Sense, kata to hoti according to the fact that they are. In this case there is neither observation nor reasoning. Or they are unknown to Reason, kata to dioti according to the wherefore they are. In this case at least no reasoning exists. Or they are Manifest and recognized: partly by the Sense, and it is called Observation, such as that exercise benefits bodies: partly by Reason, and it is called Reasoning, as to why exercise benefits.

MANIFEST causes, observed by the Sense, can be comprehended by the intellect of man and as if perfected by reasoning: when they are recalled and doubled to a certain universality, by which they agree or differ among themselves and with others: then kata to hoti that they are. This itself is enough for Action. For example: if it is established that a man is made happy by virtue, it is enough, even if it is unknown through what causes this happens. Then kata to dioti on account of what they are. Which is furthermore required for knowledge. Thus, the philosopher also ought to know why a man is made happy through virtue.

But the causes of medical action comprehended by the human intellect take on the name of the Medical Skill original: "habitus medici". Since both causes and effects are connected among themselves, and causes are established from effects, and effects are deduced from causes, until finally, from the mutual relationship of the Theorems, considered according to the more and less universal, and the prior and posterior, a systēma system of the universal art is forged.