University of Virginia Library

Metaphysics challenges physics

The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case ac- cording to his physical diagnosis, would natu- rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure, even if it were not already determined by mor- tal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees with his "adversary quickly," but upon different terms

than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees only with health and challenges disease.