Zoonomia, Vol. I | Page 2

kiss the Paphian shrine, And
learns erelong, the perfect form confess'd, 35 Ideal Beauty from its
mother's breast. Now in strong lines, with bolder tints design'd, You
sketch ideas, and portray the mind; Teach how fine atoms of impinging
light To ceaseless change the visual sense excite; 40 While the bright
lens collects the rays, that swerve, And bends their focus on the moving
nerve. How thoughts to thoughts are link'd with viewless chains, Tribes
leading tribes, and trains pursuing trains; With shadowy trident how
Volition guides, 45 Surge after surge, his intellectual tides; Or, Queen
of Sleep, Imagination roves With frantic Sorrows, or delirious Loves.
Go on, O FRIEND! explore with eagle-eye; Where wrapp'd in night
retiring Causes lie: 50 Trace their slight bands, their secret haunts
betray, And give new wonders to the beam of day; Till, link by link
with step aspiring trod, You climb from NATURE to the throne of
GOD. --So saw the Patriarch with admiring eyes 55 From earth to
heaven a golden ladder rise; Involv'd in clouds the mystic scale ascends,
And brutes and angels crowd the distant ends.
TRIN. COL. CAMBRIDGE, _Jan._ 1, 1794.
* * * * *
REFERENCES TO THE WORK.
_Botanic Garden._
Part I.
Line 1. Canto I. l. 105. ---- 3. ---- IV. l. 402. ---- 4. ---- I. l. 140. ---- 5.
---- III. l. 401. ---- 8. ---- IV. l. 452. ---- 9. ---- I. l. 14.
_Zoonomia._
---- 12. Sect. XIII. ---- 13. ---- XXXIX. 4. 1. ---- 18. ---- XVI. 2. and
XXXVIII. ---- 26. ---- XVI. 4. ---- 30. ---- XVI. 4. ---- 36. ---- XVI. 6.
---- 38. ---- III. and VII. ---- 43. ---- X. ---- 44. ---- XVIII. 17. ---- 45.
---- XVII. 3. 7. ---- 47. ---- XVIII. 8. ---- 50. ---- XXXIX. 4. 8. ---- 51.
---- XXXIX the Motto. ---- 54. ---- XXXIX. 8.
* * * * *
PREFACE.

* * * * *
The purport of the following pages is an endeavour to reduce the facts
belonging to ANIMAL LIFE into classes, orders, genera, and species;
and, by comparing them with each other, to unravel the theory of
diseases. It happened, perhaps unfortunately for the inquirers into the
knowledge of diseases, that other sciences had received improvement
previous to their own; whence, instead of comparing the properties
belonging to animated nature with each other, they, idly ingenious,
busied themselves in attempting to explain the laws of life by those of
mechanism and chemistry; they considered the body as an hydraulic
machine, and the fluids as passing through a series of chemical changes,
forgetting that animation was its essential characteristic.
The great CREATOR of all things has infinitely diversified the works
of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on
the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that the whole is one
family of one parent. On this similitude is founded all rational analogy;
which, so long as it is concerned in comparing the essential properties
of bodies, leads us to many and important discoveries; but when with
licentious activity it links together objects, otherwise discordant, by
some fanciful similitude; it may indeed collect ornaments for wit and
poetry, but philosophy and truth recoil from its combinations.
The want of a theory, deduced from such strict analogy, to conduct the
practice of medicine is lamented by its professors; for, as a great
number of unconnected facts are difficult to be acquired, and to be
reasoned from, the art of medicine is in many instances less efficacious
under the direction of its wisest practitioners; and by that busy crowd,
who either boldly wade in darkness, or are led into endless error by the
glare of false theory, it is daily practised to the destruction of thousands;
add to this the unceasing injury which accrues to the public by the
perpetual advertisements of pretended nostrums; the minds of the
indolent become superstitiously fearful of diseases, which they do not
labour under; and thus become the daily prey of some crafty empyric.
A theory founded upon nature, that should bind together the scattered
facts of medical knowledge, and converge into one point of view the

laws of organic life, would thus on many accounts contribute to the
interest of society. It would capacitate men of moderate abilities to
practise the art of healing with real advantage to the public; it would
enable every one of literary acquirements to distinguish the genuine
disciples of medicine from those of boastful effrontery, or of wily
address; and would teach mankind in some important situations the
knowledge of themselves.
There are some modern practitioners, who declaim against medical
theory in general, not considering that to think is to theorize; and that
no one can direct a method of cure