Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	air_n	cold_a	moist_a	2,451	5	10.2857	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44061	Vindiciæ medicinæ & medicorum: or An apology for the profession and professors of physick In answer to the several pleas of illegal practitioners; wherein their positions are examined, their cheats discovered, and their danger to the nation asserted. As also an account of the present pest, in answer to a letter. By Nath. Hodges, M.D. Coll. Lond.	Hodges, Nathaniel, 1629-1688.	1666 (1666)	Wing H2308; ESTC R215271	98,257	251

this pretended Crime stuffs most of the late Writers books but I must answer that most of our Innovators may be well suspected to condem what they either never read or understood for Hippocrates enjoyns us to make Truth the Standard of all the Notions we entertain Galen also and the rest are so far from this kind of usurpation that they not only by example but by particular direction exhort their Readers to examine well all Traditions before they give their assent to them But suppose that the Ancients had been so severe as to seek the inslavement of their Posterity yet what restraint could they lay on any Physician to conform to their Precepts if any person who is at liberty will subject himself voluntarily to the government of another he makes his own condition servile and the brand of Pedantism may possibly reach these who of their own accord swear allegiance to their Masters choosing rather to err with them then to think right with the Neotericks But I cannot be informed what effectual obligation the Ancients can lay on them who follow Reason only and are Sons of Truth indeed Antiquity commands a just veneration when it still triumphs in its mature and aged conclusions only capable of successive confirmations but whensoever true Physicians cannot be fully satisfied that some old doctrines are true they as freely and chearfully leave them as any Traveller that path though pleasant and easie which may misguide him in his Journey However when these recede from the Positions of the Ancients after due reading and well pondering the Arguments on both sides they adhere to that which affords clear manifestations of its certainty contrary to the practice of our Innovators who are zealous to demolish the ancient structure of Medicinal truths under the pretence of a Reformation before they have taken an exact survey of its faults or laid a new and more rational platform acting thus not for want of ignorance the Palace must be turned into Cottages suitable to such Inhabitants the works of these incomparable Physicians because they surpass their capacity deserve their severest censure and envy prompts them on to poyson these Fountains that the reputation at least of all may be destroyed who come thither in order to the satisfaction of their thirst after knowledg but true Physicians take another course and first inform themselves what progress the Ancients have made in their Medicinal discoveries and then note their defects which they supply with new choice observations and since that by reason of the restless endeavors of Physicians in their continuall search after the hidden treasures of Nature no Science hath been so considerably advanced as Medicine they candidly and gratefully receive the new Doctrines and expunge the old but do not imitate him who foolishly commanded that his house should be pulled down because the rain pashed in through three or four faults in the Covering or Roof so these do not think fit to cast off the whole Science of Physick which they received from the Ancients for no other reason then because some defects are detected therein Physicians also are not so unworthy as to calumniate the Ancients being ascertain'd that they did not write with design to deceive and abuse their Readers or Disciples to conclude these are so prudent as neither to dote on old errors or admire new phrensical Hypotheses Did I not avoid prolixity as also suppose that all sober men are satisfied that the lawful Physicians in this Kingdom have sufficiently asserted their liberty by forsaking the Ancients when they forsook Truth I should here produce all those new Opinions which are received as irrefragable conclusions though not consonant to the Dictates of Hippocrates or Galen That Physicians do still savor the old I mean the Galenical way of Medicine no other account can be given then that it is most agreeable to their reason and experience and transmitted to them from such skilful Practitioners that deserve more to be credited then their Antagonists who profess Medicine without any rational Method slighting those Rules of Art which they can't observe by reason of ignorance I should exceed the intended bounds of this discourse did I undertake to run over the Body of Galenical Physick and subject each part distinctly to examination it may suffice therefore that I trace our Pseudochymists in their opposition of those Tenents which seem to them most questionable relating either to the Theory or Practice 't is well known that every Scribler thinks himself highly concerned to bawl against the three Aristotelian Principles Matter Form and Privation the four Elements Fire Air Water and Earth the four first Qualities Hot Moist Cold and Dry the four Humors Choler Blood Phlegm and Melancholy the Temperaments and other Opinions of Galen and his followers not unlike these but when Physicians do rightly understand that these terms of Art are the Products of fancy and by no means the Fundamentals of Medicine as I hinted before these spend their time in beating the Air and fighting with shadows which elude their strokes when other more apposite terms are found out not alike fantastical we shall soon exchange the old for new because Physicians are obliged in the Universities to read Aristotle Hippocrates and Galen must they needs approve all their Notions did these apprehend that the Mind doth change as much or more then the Body and as this alters by new accessions of Aliment so the other is progressive in its Conceptions by further illumination and discoveries they would not so peremptorily conclude the Physicians knowledg by the Books which they are engaged to turn over if the Ancients have not been happy in their expressions so that their Writings are dark and uncertain yet ought we to esteem them for their noble attempts to reason out and discover the first inclinations of Nature should I insist longer on these Notions or plead for the necessity of retaining them both in our Philosophy and Medicine or repeat the Arguments against them I might deserve as sharp a censure as he who was solicitous to determine whether a Crow or Goose-quill might be most serviceable in writing Because these terms are by so many accounted prejudicial to right conceptions of Natures Operations and thought worthy of no better an Appellation then Figments I shall enquire whether the case is much altered by a substitution of other Notions more agreeable as our Innovators would perswade the World to the Phaenomena of Nature and in the first place the term Specifick occurs and although most late Writers endeavor to reduce the whole of Pharmacy to this notion yet none have been so kind as to interpret what was intended by it if they explain themselves by the internal and seminal vertues that is ignotum per ignotius I shall guess at what they mean and I suppose that hereby they would express A peculiar vertue flowing from the essence of any Simple whereby in operation and effect it is distinguished from