which are subsequently arranged into volumes, forms no trifling CHAP. IV. compilation; and the repertory alone of his letters, containing

the names of his correspondents and the dates of their missives, enormous volume, in folio, which is kept under the superintendance of Miss Hahnemann."

is an

That such was the regular course of his proceedings, the two following facts are worthy of record :

A gentleman from Mexico had come to England on purpose to consult the author for a partial blindness, which had been caused by the excessive use or abuse of mercurial and other medicines. His case was one so peculiar that the author deemed it his duty, for the patient's sake, to recommend him to see Hahnemann at Paris. He went; saw Hahnemann, who told him he thought he could cure him in about a year, but that he must reside in Paris and see him weekly. The gentleman, not wishing to stay in Paris, wanted to be guided by Hahnemann otherwise. Hahnemann declined, and gave up the case rather than deviate from the course which he deemed necessary for the patient's benefit.

The second fact relates to a patient, who, being about to go to Paris, wished to consult Hahnemann. He did consult him, and the following letter, besides showing the excellent French of the venerable man, shows his adherence to his own rules respecting minuteness of dose, and manifests at the same time the energy of his mind. The letter follows in lithograph, as exhibiting the beauty and the firmness of the hand-writing of the aged philosopher.

To conclude this notice of Hahnemann.

Hahnemann had all the characteristics of a philosopher.

He felt, as all great discoverers and inventors have felt, the dignity both of the truth he discovered, and of himself as the discoverer of a great truth.

In writing to one of his medical friends he thus presents his perceptions:

"I present to you a truth long sought for a divine revelation of a principle of eternal nature. I appeal to existing facts alone to convince you; and when a conscientious and complete course of study shall crown your researches with success, then, as I have done, bless Providence for the immense benefaction he has allowed to descend upon the earth through my humble agency,

CHAP. IV. for I have been but a feeble instrument of that Omnipotence before which we all bow in humility."

Holding the dignity of the truth he discovered, he despised all extrinsic aid to foster it.

"Our art requires no political levers, no worldly decorations. At present it grows with slow progress amid the abundance of weeds which luxuriate about it; it grows unobserved, from an unlikely acorn into a little plant; soon may its head be seen overtopping the rank weedy herbage. Only wait;—it is striking deep its roots in the earth; it is strengthening itself unperceived, but all the more certainly; and in its own time it will increase, till it becomes an oak of God, whose arms, unmoved by the wildest storm, stretch in all directions, that the suffering children of men may be revived under its beneficent shadow."

Feeling as he did his dignity to be not in himself as a man of talent, but in him, as a discoverer of a truth, he thus writes to a correspondent who flattered him.

"One word more; no more encomiums of me, I altogether dislike them; for I feel myself to be nothing more than an upright man who merely does his duty. Let us express our regard for one another only in simple words, and conduct indicating mutual respect.

"What we perform in this department is a religious work for the good of humanity."

He felt that the promulgation of the truth must excite opposition, but this he disregarded: he remarks:

"If the path, which I discovered, while setting at defiance all prevalent prejudices, and simply contemplating Nature, be as directly at variance with all the dogmata of the schools, as were the bold sentences, which Luther nailed to the Schloss-kirche of Wittenberg, opposed to the spirit of a crippling hierarchy, the fault lies neither with Luther's truth nor mine."

Hahnemann thus showed his greatness by standing manfully by his truth, disregarding all opposition by his fellow-men.

While self-content in relation to his fellow-men, he felt like all great men do, intense humility in the sight of his Creator. Referring to the anxiety experienced during the confinement of his wife and the fear lest he should lose her, he thus writes, contemplating the last thirty years :

"Whither are they gone? Do you not believe that the remain- CHAP. IV. ing thirty will hasten as quickly? Then you will be as near your departure from this preliminary school of earth as he who now writes, and who cannot reckon upon having more than a few brief years to spend among men, until the time comes for him to uncloak himself of his present garment of corruption, and in calm joy, to enter into the kingdom of the All-loving One.

In such an hour I have made an inviolable vow to cherish within me simplicity, honesty and truth; and partly in selfculture as becomes a denizen of eternity, partly in the benefaction of my neighbours, to find contentment and happiness beneath the eye of the Father of all living-the God of truthwhose universal presence always surrounds us; from whom we cannot conceal the inmost thoughts of our souls, and before whose holiness the holiest of us stands condemned. So have I striven in that heart-quailing hour to fashion an inner life, such as is required for our eternal existence, and our passage into the land of perfection. Vainly do we attempt to conceal from ourselves in our younger years, that to this end alone we exist ; irresistibly we are borne on toward this exalted goal. How fast have the thirty years of our life vanished."

His intense humility in the sight of the Author of truth is thus expressed by him :

"It is perhaps time that I quit this earth, but I leave it all, and always, in the hands of my God."

He also said on the same occasion

66

My head is full of truth for the good of mankind, and I have no wish to live but in so far as I can serve my fellow-men."

When his dying moment arrived, and his devoted wife remarked to him—

6

6

"Providence owes you a mitigation of your sufferings, since, in your life, you have alleviated the sufferings of so many, and yourself endured so much! Me,' replied the dying sage, Why then me? Each man here below works as God gives him strength, and meets with a greater or less reward at the judgmentseat of man; but he can claim no reward at the judgment-seat of God. God owes me nothing, but I owe God much—yea, all.'' The progress of Hahnemann from childhood presents all the elements of true greatness.

СНАР. IV.

When all these facts, when this portraiture of the man are borne in mind, will not every ingenuous person feel indignation at the base vulgarity of those of the professed leaders of medical literature, who are powerful only in the strength of their vulgarity, who have dared to denounce this noble-minded, this hightoned moral philosopher, this bower-down of his selfhood at the shrine of duty, as an "impostor," as a "knave."

Such was Hahnemann's progress: its results may be reviewed. He discovered that the fact, established in reference to Peruvian bark, namely, that bark, being a specific for ague, depends upon its power of producing a disease similar to ague: that the principle, embodied in this fact, applies to all other specifics for diseases, these owing their specific properties to the power of producing symptoms exactly similar to those diseases, in the cure of which they are specific. He found further, that this principle applies not only to the medicines, commonly called specifics, but that all medecines are specifics, and that each medicine is a specifie, a certain cure for the disease, to the symptoms of which it is able to excite corresponding symptoms in a healthy person: and, at length, so universal was the principle found to be, that Hahnemann stated it in the paraphrastic

statement

But to impress it still more, it Hahnemann found, that every particular group of symptoms,

"Similia similibus curantur”- "Likes by likes are cured." Such then is the principle. may be stated in another form. individual medicine produces a which may be regarded, being deviations from the usual manifestations of life, as a disease; and this group of symptoms, being produced by a medicinal agent, the disease thus produced being different from that, produced from other causes, he designates a medicinal disease: This was step first: Hahnemann further knew that certain natural diseases, that is, diseases, produced by causes not medicinal, present certain groups of symptoms: Step second: He then established, that there is such a relation established between the groups of symptoms, produced by a medicine, and the group of symptoms, produced in a disease, that, if the medicine, producing this group, is given to a patient, labouring under the corresponding group, the patient must be cured in fact, that the remedy is the specific to the disease.

:

CHAPTER V.

Illustrations of the Homeopathic law presented in Nature.--Curious fact in regard to Sanctus.-Dr. Kentish's burn liniment. Difference between like and identical.-Peculiar effect of ipecacuanha.—Illustrations of the Homœopathic principle in relation to the mind.—The Scripture rule.— Shakspeare.-Hippocrates.-John Hunter's views corroborative of the Homeopathic law.-Vaccination.-The similarity between small pox and cow pock.-Experiments of Dr. Bazil Thiele and of Mr. Ceeley.

The law put forth by Homœopathists being one which is in CHAP. V. opposition to those hitherto deemed regulatory in medicine, and having, from its character of novelty, a position in which it is likely to be scanned with exactness, and to be met with doubt, it seems meet to consider whether the probabilities, derived from the observation of the facts in nature, will afford any evidence favouring the law itself. In fact, as this is a new principle, a newly discovered law, leading to quite a new practice, it may be advantageous to seek to justify it more fully from nature by noticing facts illustrative.

Before enumerating these illustrations, let it be remembered, that the homœopathic mode of cure is founded upon this, that the inducing a medicinal disease, in symptoms similar to those presented in natural disease, will cure the natural disease.

You knock yourself.

You are palsied.

You rub the part knocked-that is, you
use a succession of gentle but rapid
knockings.

You use strychnine, which produces
palsy.