But, strange as this may appear, and although all the facts have been before the eyes of man for ages—nay, though their relations have been _more or less felt_ and acknowledged in cases usually submitted to the physician,—we venture to say that nothing like an attention at all adequate to their importance was obtained for them in the practice of physic, and scarcely any at all in surgery, _until the time of Abernethy_.
At the present time, a great deal has been done to establish, by the most clear and indisputable demonstration, the practical usefulness and necessity of the principles to which Abernethy conducted us, in the cure of diseases, whether medical or surgical. Still, these principles are much neglected, much misunderstood, or so _imperfectly carried out_, as to excite, even in many of the public, expressions of astonishment. It is, indeed, not too much to assert, that, even in those cases in which their successful application has been most incontestibly exemplified, his principles are _fully carried out on comparatively few occasions_.
The causes of all this are, we fear, too easily detected; the removal of them is indeed sufficiently difficult. We may possibly discuss both points in the sequel.
Instead of the exquisite simplicity and clearness of Abernethy's views, so far as he had gone, being carefully studied, and with a view to the _extension_ of them beyond those limits which his time, his opportunities, and his caution had assigned to them; instead of examining into, and testing, the practical value of the deducible, and, in fact, necessary sequences, on views of which he had demonstrated the truth and value; practice appears to have taken a retrograde movement.
He who would advance even as far as Abernethy, is in danger of being regarded as crotchety or peculiar; whilst any who should strive by a more careful examination of his views to render their practical application more definite and analytical, must be prepared to be looked on simply as an enthusiast.
This has, indeed, been the case more or less in all sciences from the earliest times. The _facts_ which conduct us to a true interpretation of the _laws_ in obedience to which they occur, have been always before us; the very same facts on which, as Professor Whewell[29] observes, we have raised the stately structure of modern science. Butler[30] had before made a similar remark. Poets too, as even the motto to our chapter shows, have held the same sentiment; what everybody _knows_, how few _consider_! Neither Copernicus nor Galileo altered or invented _facts_. Those they _observed_! what they _discovered_, were conclusions interpreting the true relations of them. Bodies fell to the earth, and the crystal rain-drop had shown the composite nature of light in the beautiful colours and wonderful illustrations of the rainbow, ages before Newton discovered the true explanation of the one, and the great law exemplified in the other.