A. B. recommended the spirit-theory as an hypothesis on which to ground inquiry; that is, as the means of suggestion for the direction of inquiry. Every person who knows anything of the progress of physics understands what is meant; but not the reviewers I speak of. Many of them consider A. B. as _adopting_ the spirit-hypothesis. The whole book was written, as both the authors point out, to suggest inquiry to those who are curious; C. D. firmly believing, A. B. as above. Neither C. D. nor A. B. make any other pretence. Both dwell upon the absence of authentications and the suppression of names as utterly preventive of anything like proof. And A. B. says that his reader "will give him credit, if not himself a goose, for seeing that the tender of an anonymous cheque would be of equal effect, whether drawn on the Bank of England or on Aldgate Pump." By this test a number of the reviewers are found to be geese: for they take the authors as offering proof, and insist, against the authors, on the very point on which the authors had themselves insisted beforehand.
Leaving aside imperceptions of this kind, I proceed to notice a clerical and medical review. I have lived much in the middle ages, especially since the invention of printing; and from thence I have brought away a high respect for and grateful recollection of--the priest in everything but theology, and the physician in everything but medicine. The professional harness was unfavorable to all progress, except on a beaten road; the professional blinkers prevented all but the beaten road from being seen: the professional reins were pulled at the slightest attempt to quicken pace, even on the permitted path; and the { 199} professional whip was heavily laid on at the slightest attempt to diverge. But when the intelligent man of either class turned his attention out of his ordinary work, he had, in most cases, the freshness and vigor of a boy at play, and like the boy, he felt his freedom all the more from the contrast of school-restraint.
In the case of medicine, and physics generally, the learned were, in some essential points, more rational than many of their present impugners. They pass for having put _a priori_ obstacles in the way of progress: they might rather be reproved for too much belief in progress obtained by _a priori_ means. They would have shouted with laughter at a dunce who--in a review I read, but without making a note--declared that he would not believe his senses except when what they showed him was capable of explanation upon some known principle. I have seen such stuff as this attributed to the schoolmen; but only by those who knew nothing about them. The following, which I wrote some years ago, will give a notion of a distinction worth remembering. It is addressed to the authorities of the College of Physicians.