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Third dialogue<br />
should not fault that other method, which is not without fruit, though it<br />
does not belong to the same tree.<br />
DICSONO. You approve, then, of the study of different philosophies?<br />
TEOFILO. For those who possess an abundance of time and wit, I<br />
recommend it. For others, I approve the study of the best way, provided the<br />
gods allow them to guess which it is.<br />
DICSONO. I am sure, however, that you do not approve of all philosophies,<br />
but only of the good or best.<br />
TEOFILO. That is true. Likewise, among the different medical methods,<br />
I do not condemn the one that proceeds magically, applying roots, wearing<br />
stones or murmuring incantations, if the severity of the theologians will<br />
permit me to speak purely as a natural philosopher. I approve of what is<br />
done physically, carried out by means of apothecaries’ prescriptions to flux<br />
or cause to run bile, blood, phlegm and melancholia. I accept that other<br />
method which proceeds alchemically, extracting the quintessences, and<br />
using fire to volatilize mercury, deposit salt, make sulphur grow luminous<br />
or extract oil from composites. But I do not wish to determine what method<br />
is the best among so many medical procedures. If the epileptic, to whom<br />
the physician and the alchemist have dedicated so much time in vain,<br />
chances to be cured by the magician, he will rightly endorse that medicine<br />
over the two other types. Keep to the same reasoning for other methods:<br />
none serves less well than another, if it attains the end it has set itself. In my<br />
case, I consider the doctor who cures me to be worth more than the others<br />
who hurt me or murder me.<br />
GERVASIO. What is the reason for the great enmity between these<br />
schools of medicine?<br />
TEOFILO. Greed, envy, ambition and ignorance. In the main, they<br />
hardly understand their own method of treatment, much less those of the<br />
other schools. Most of them try to get ahead by casting the others down and<br />
showing contempt for whatever they cannot acquire, being unable to elevate<br />
themselves to honour and profit thanks to their own merits. The best<br />
and truest among them is he who is not only physician, but also alchemist<br />
and astrologer. But, to return to our point, the best philosophy is that<br />
which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and<br />
eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature. The best<br />
one renders us, as far as possible, co-operators with nature, whether by divination<br />
(I mean according to the natural order and the principles of change,<br />
not by animal instinct in the manner of beasts and those who resemble<br />
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