tributes in their perfection of man. They have their source in the cerebrum, the dome of thought, the highest bud and blossom of the organic kingdom. They constitute the highest grade of mind of which we know, namely, conscious mind, which a few of the higher vertebrates possess in some degree in common with man. They are distinctively human attributes, and constitute man the lord and sovereign of the planet, in the sociological sphere. We use the phrase, "Unconscious Mind," therefore, as synonymous with the theosophical word "God," to set forth and explain that unconscious stream of tendency which animates all things, from the molecule to the planet, and from the planet to the universe. And we maintain with a courage of profound conviction that the God whom so many ignorantly worship is this unconscious mental Force; that He is accordingly without intellection and reason, form or substance; that He is Impersonal. When the author of these pages, therefore, uses the term divine objectively, he does not necessarily refer to the supreme Intelligence of the Kosmos, but to an excellence and a supremacy above that of the average man, such, for example, as the divine Nazarene, the divine Plato, the divine Plutarch, etc. The Art of Medicine was originally regarded as of divine origin because it was the inspiration and expression of a curative and healing instinct of Nature, independent of reason. In the human, it showed itself in the expression of a humane impulse, the exhibition of love and tenderness; the desire to relieve ills and sufferings; and he who aspired to do these things without thought of self or hope of reward was looked upon as divine. He was an expression of the divine principle of healing in Nature. The Science of Medicine is, on the other hand, of human creation, the natural offspring of philosophy, or love of wisdom, founded upon experience and observation. Accordingly, we must look to ancient Egypt, the first nursery of science, for its beginning, since the first semblance of medicine and philosophy began there and was cultivated there. The development of ancient Egypt antedates that of ancient Greece by many centuries. Chiron, the son of Saturn, is reputed to have taken the art of medicine from Egypt into Greece; but all know how impossible a fact that was. Art is not luggage, subject to transportation; nor is science both are rather a growth, an evolution of knowledge. But little is known of that celebrated personage, Chiron. He is supposed to have been a prince of Thessaly, and, like others of his position, to have been more or less proficient in the art of medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds. Chiron, however, is somewhat of a myth. He was said to be the son of Saturn and Philyra, and to have been born about the time of Hermes and Abraham. He is pictured in Greek mythology as half man and half horse, and called Centaur. The upper half of his figure-including the chest, head, and arms—is man; the lower half being the body and legs of a horse. And a legend goes, among other legends, that Chiron took this form to symbolize that he was a physician of horses as well as of human beings.1 The Egyptian character, however, being set against innovations, precludes the idea of enterprise and progress. Her fossilized condition was well represented in her priestly institutions, pyramids, and mummies, and her rigid adherence to her sacred writings,-not unlike the Hebrews, Christians, and other religious sects of to-day. The physician, usually the priest, was paid a salary by the State which, while it removed him from the incentives of cupidity, removed him also from the necessity of study and discovery, which is indispensable to activity and enterprise in any department of human endeavor. The learned Le Clerc, in his "Histoire de la Médecine," has pointed out the high position that the ancient physicians occupied among the Egyptians in public regard, and refers especially to an essay on the "History of Medicine" by the celebrated Juris-Consulte Tiraquean, who asks the question, "Si l'Art de la Médecine déroge à la Noblesse?" And he answers the question in the negative, showing that "persons of conditions the most Le Clerc's Histoire de la Médecine. |