Reply to Dr. McGilchrist's "Remarks" on Professor Bennett's introductory lecture, "The present state of the theory and practice of medicine" / by John Glen.

Glen, John, M.A.

Date:: 1856

Credit: Reply to Dr. McGilchrist's "Remarks" on Professor Bennett's introductory lecture, "The present state of the theory and practice of medicine" / by John Glen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$ires and medicine teaches, just as we say, the art of logic iid the science of logic, the musical art and the theory of music, iiit we are all wrong, and the critic will prove it' by two ..yllogisms, and certainly there is need of both. In the first, i.ijiere is a major premise, viz., the definition [medicine is an I lexact science] is too general a definition. The minor premise '-i wanting, and cannot by me be supplied, but the conclusion ollows, nevertheless, that to define medicine as an inexact ifccience, and, in the next breath to speak of it as a healing art, ifi eems [from this argument utterly inconsistent. But syllogism second may prove this point; in it there is a iiajor premise, viz., the definition [medicine is a healing art] is irly correct. But again there is a hiatus—no minor premise iccurs—and we are not necessarily driven to any conclusion. Thus, the argument, as it stands in Dr M'Gilchrist's pamphlet, i;is no logical force, from the absence of some important minor (rm, and that minor proposition is just the question at issue. May we not use the same word to indicate, now the science, and anon the art ? The second accusation is, that Dr Bennett has not proved his definition :— Dr Bennett's first definition of medicine—that of ' inexact science '—will not bear analysis; for it would be necessary to show, of the separate branches of inquiry that imake up the compound whole of medicine—that each of them ^separately is an inexact science, or that they all agree together iin constituting such a science.—{Dr Al'Gilchrist, p. 4.) Now, in the first place, it is not necessary to show anything < of the kind, for a definition is not a demonstration : Euclid him- ' To define medicine as an ' inexact science,' and, in the next breath, to : speak of it as a ' healing art,' seems utterly inconsistent. For the first is : much too general a definition, and will not bear analysis; tbe second is per- haps nearly correct; but if so, the scientific pretensions of medicine are at once disposed of.—(/>r M'Gilchrist, p. 4.)$