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This has always been the means of opposing the progress of reason—the advancement of natural truths—and the prosecution of new discoveries; whilst, with effects no less baneful, has it perpetuated many of the stupendous errors which have been already enumerated, as well as others no less weighty, and which are reserved for future discussion.

To give general currency to an hypothetical opinion, or medicinal reputation to an inert substance, requires only the talismanic aid of a few great names; when once established upon such a basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their ineffectual batteries. The laconic sentiment of the Roman Satirist is ever opposed to our remonstrance—“Marcus dixit?—ita est.”

“Did Marcus say ’twas fact? then fact it is,

No proof so valid as a word of his.”

A physician cannot err, in the opinion of the public, if he implicitly obeys the dogmas of authority; in the most barbarous ages of ancient Egypt, he was punished or rewarded according to the extent of his success, but to escape the former, it was only necessary to shew that an orthodox plan of cure had been followed, such as was prescribed in the acknowledged writings of Hermes. It is an instinct in our nature to follow the track pointed out by a few leaders; we are gregarious animals, in a moral as well as a physical sense, and we are addicted to routine, because it is always easier to follow the opinions of others than to reason and judge for ourselves. “The mass of mankind,” as Dr. Paley observes, “act more from habit than reflection.” What, but such a temper could have upheld the preposterous system of Galen for more than thirteen centuries; and have enabled it to give universal laws in medicine to Europe—Africa—and part of Asia?^[53] What, but authority, could have inspired a general belief, that the sooty washings of rosin^[54] would act as an universal remedy? What, but a blind devotion to authority, or an insuperable attachment to established custom and routine, could have so long preserved from oblivion the absurd medicines which abound in our earlier dispensatories? for example, the “Decoctum ad Ictericos,” of the Edinburgh College, which never had any other foundation than the doctrine of signatures, in favour of the Curcuma and Chelidonium Majus;^[55] and it is only within a few years, that the Theriaca Andromachi, in its ancient absurd form, has been dismissed from the British Pharmocopœia.^[56] The Codex-Medicamentarius of Paris, recently edited, still cherishes this many-headed^[57] monster of pharmacy, in all its pristine deformity, under the appropriate title of “Electuarium Opiatum Polupharmacum.”