BER. They know, brother, what I have told you; and that does not
effect many cures. All the excellency of their art consists in pompous
gibberish, in a specious babbling, which gives you words instead of
reasons, and promises instead Of results.
ARG. Still, brother, there exist men as wise and clever as you, and we
see that in cases of illness every one has recourse to the doctor.
BER. It is a proof of human weakness, and not of the truth of their
art.
ARG. Still, doctors must believe in their art, since they make use of
it for themselves.
BER. It is because some of them share the popular error by which they
themselves profit, while others profit by it without sharing it. Your
Mr. Purgon has no wish to deceive; he is a thorough doctor from head
to foot, a man who believes in his rules more than in all the
demonstrations of mathematics, and who would think it a crime to
question them. He sees nothing obscure in physic, nothing doubtful,
nothing difficult, and through an impetuous prepossession, an
obstinate confidence, a coarse common sense and reason, orders right
and left purgatives and bleedings, and hesitates at nothing. We must
bear him no ill-will for the harm he does us; it is with the best
intentions in the world that he will send you into the next world, and
in killing you he will do no more than he has done to his wife and
children, and than he would do to himself, if need be.
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