PREFACE. WHEN We look at a picture we imagine ourselves standing where the artist stood, so as to look at it from the same point of view. We endeavour to understand the design he had in painting it, and the impressions he wished to produce in the mind of the spectator. In this manner we see the picture as the painter saw it, and receive instruction and pleasure. It is in the same manner that we should read a book, if we would receive instruction and pleasure from it. Little need be said on the contents of the following Essays they speak for themselves. Their main design, it will be seen, is to separate facts from conjectures, and to remind men that our knowledge of individual facts is limited to the teaching of our bodily senses. If occasionally a word is used which seems to have a hypothetical meaning-as the word affinity, for example-it must be understood that it is used only to express a fact, not to explain it. An old word has been employed in preference to the coining of a new one, but not in any speculative sense. With regard to the writings of others it has been the earnest wish of the author to do justice to all; but, living in the country, his own library alone has been within his reach, and it is feared that some books which ought to have been read have been unnoticed. He wishes also to say that the German language, which he once knew, had slipped from him before the study of Hahnemann's system was undertaken. Finding such good translations as those of Dr. Dudgeon and Dr. Hempel; time being very precious; and the subject large and difficult; he did not feel bound to recover the lost language, and was glad to be spared the toil. It is to be hoped that the time and labour have been spent in a manner more useful to medicine; though, doubtless, it would have been more creditable to himself to have re-learned the language and read the originals. The Essays have been preserved in their original condition. If they have any historical value, as containing the successive steps of the investigation, this would have been lost by alterations. On the other hand, having been thus preserved, they are exposed to the charge of containing many repetitions. But repetitions of principles are needful. They must be repeated in order that they may be made more easily intelligible. The subject which has been left most unfinished is the consideration of the question of the dose. All authors have critics, and all have their thoughts about them, though these are not always expressed; those of the present writer may be put into few words—good critics have pleasure in pointing out the favourable parts of a book, while bad ones find or invent faults; the former are to be thanked, the latter may be requested to go and do better. HORTON HOUSE, RUGBY: May 20, 1874. |