Too hasty generalization a hindrance to the progress of medicine as a science : an introductory address delivered before the North London Medical Society, at the commencement of the session 1855-6 / by Charles J. Hare.

  • Hare, Charles John.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Too hasty generalization a hindrance to the progress of medicine as a science : an introductory address delivered before the North London Medical Society, at the commencement of the session 1855-6 / by Charles J. Hare. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    perly solved, it is necessary that its full import should be perfectly apprehended: before a propo- sition can be rightly reasoned upon, its terms and true signification must be. perfectly understood, and it must not be supposed to affirm either more or less than it actually does affirm; while, on the other hand, the arguments brought in favour of or against a statement should have reference to what it asserts or denies, and to that alone. Without this clearness of view and precision of idea as to what is the object to be aimed at, argument is profitless, and instead of advancing science and real knowledge, tends only to mystify and confuse the mind. Again, a fertile source of disagreement in opinion rests in this, that the cases brought in support of or against the point in debate, or from which the so-called experience is derived, are often not strictly comparable ones; the illustrations adduced in support of or in opposition to a particular view may be derived from instances of the same disease, but the circumstances under which it has occurred, the difference in the age, sex, or condition of the patient may be such, as to render the two or more cases brought forwards, though alike in some points, so dissimilar m others, that, strictly speaking, they are of little or no use in settling the question under consideration. It requires either that the cases adduced should be similar ones, as to all their con-
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