The principles and methods of medical observation and research : for the use of advanced students and junior practitioners / by Thomas Laycock.
- Thomas Laycock
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The principles and methods of medical observation and research : for the use of advanced students and junior practitioners / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
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![LECT. I.] NATURE AND USE OF THEORY. 1 i ever could be ; all, therefore, of tlie greatest thinkers will be found to be theoretical or hypothetical. What is common to them all and really distinguished them all, as it distinguished Sydenham, is tliis—the com- bination of accurate, sedulous, minute observation with theories and hypotheses. THE COMBINATION OF THEORY WITH EXPE- RIENCE AND OBSERVATION. Natuee and Uses of Theories and Hypothe- ses.—^What, then, you will ask, is the nature of hypo- thesis or theory in medicine, and what the use ? I will endeavour to explain to you. Experience shews that in medicine, as in every other branch of hiunan knowledge, thought itself is impossible without hypo- thesis or theory. We instinctively desu-e to under- stand all that we observe to occur. No man can be content with mere perceptions, for these are only the stimuli to thought. After observation comes compa- rison with what we already know, and conclusion or inference from the comparison. This conclusion is a theory, which would be perfectly true if the data were complete and correct; but they are not. Our observa- tions are imperfect, our knowledge is imperfect—our conclusion, therefore, reflects the imperfection of our](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21508902_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
