But to the purpose. This variable composition of
man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper; and,
therefore, the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in
Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious
harp of man's body and to reduce it to harmony. So, then, the
subject being so variable hath made the art by consequent more
conjectural; and the art being conjectural hath made so much the
more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and
sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and
not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue
of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause; this master in
this ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by
the fortune of the voyage; but the physician, and perhaps this
politique, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but
is judged most by the event, which is ever but as it is taken: for
who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be
preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore
many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed.
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