But when you test the truth of
what he has promised to you, you find that it all ends in nothing; it
is like those beautiful dreams which only leave you in the morning the
regret of having believed in them.
ARG. Which means that all the knowledge of the world is contained in
your brain, and that you think you know more than all the great
doctors of our age put together.
BER. When you weigh words and actions, your great doctors are two
different kinds of people. Listen to their talk, they are the
cleverest people in the world; see them at work, and they are the most
ignorant.
ARG. Heyday! You are a great doctor, I see, and I wish that some one
of those gentlemen were here to take up your arguments and to check
your babble.
BER. I do not take upon myself, brother, to fight against physic; and
every one at their own risk and peril may believe what he likes. What
I say is only between ourselves; and I should have liked, in order to
deliver you from the error into which you have fallen, and in order to
amuse you, to take you to see some of Moliere's comedies on this
subject.
ARG. Your Moliere is a fine impertinent fellow with his comedies! I
think it mightily pleasant of him to go and take off honest people
like the doctors.
BER. It is not the doctors themselves that he takes off, but the
absurdity of medicine.
ARG. It becomes him well, truly, to control the faculty! He's a nice
simpleton, and a nice impertinent fellow to laugh at consultations and
prescriptions, to attack the body of physicians, and to bring on his
stage such venerable people as those gentlemen.
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