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And if for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry. For I forbid in medical practice an industry not pertinent to the art, and laboriously far-fetched,See p. 308. and which therefore has in itself alone an attractive grace. For you will achieve the empty toil of a drone and a drone’s spoils.See p. 308.
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A condition too is desirable free from the late-learner’s faults. For his state accomplishes nothing that is immediate, and its remembrance of what is not before the eyes is but tolerable. So there arises a quarrelsome inefficiency, with headstrong outrage, that has no thought for what is seemly, while definitions, professions, oaths, great as far as the gods invoked are concerned,That is, the oaths frantically appeal to all the great gods. come from the physician in charge of the disease, bewildered laymen being lost in admiration of flowery language spoken in continuous reading and instruction, crowding together even before they are troubled by a disease.The construction and translation are uncertain. I believe that δρισμοῖς and the other datives are a Roman’s efforts at rendering into Greek ablatives of attendant circumstances, but ἐκ μεταφορῆς is puzzling, and can hardly be taken with λόγονς. Perhaps it is a Latinism. Cf. pastor ab Amphryso. Wherever I may be in charge of a case, with no confidence should I call in such men to help as consultants. For in them comprehension of seemly learning is far to seek. Seeing then that they cannot but be unintelligent, I urge that experience is useful, the learning of opinions coming far after. For who is desirous and ambitious of learning truly subtle diversities of opinion, to the neglect of calm and practised skill? Wherefore I advise you to listen to their words but to oppose their acts.
