[p. 313]
PRECEPTS
PART 1
I. TIME is that wherein there is opportunity, and
opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.
Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes
also a matter of opportunity. However, knowing
this, one must attend in medical practice not
primarily to plausible theories, | The definition shows that in this
passage λογισμόσ2 is a
generalisation, like the πρόληψις2 of Epicurus, whose language
is borrowed. But whereas πρόληψις2 corresponds to a general
term (e. g. " man "), λογισμόσ2 here seems to mean a
general
proposition (e. g. " man is mortal "). Later on it means the
use of λογισμοί in making συλλογισμοί, that is,
deduction.
" Theory " and "theorising " are the nearest equivalents I
can think of. |
but to experience
combined with reason. For a theory is a
composite memory of things apprehended with
sense-perception. For the sense-perception, coming
first in experience and conveying to the intellect
the things subjected to it, is clearly imaged, and
the intellect, receiving these things many times,
noting the occasion, the time and the manner, stores
them up in itself and remembers. Now I approve
of theorising also if it lays its foundation in incident,
and deduces its conclusions in accordance with phenomena.
For if theorising lays its foundation in
clear fact, it is found to exist in the domain of intellect,
which itself receives from other sources each
of its impressions. So we must conceive of our nature
as being stirred and instructed under compulsion
by the great variety of things ; and the intellect, as
I have said, taking over from nature the impressions,
leads us afterwards into truth. But if it
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