TRACTS ON HOMEOPATHY.

No. 1.

WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY?

Third Edition.

No. 2.

THE DEFENCE OF HOMOEOPATHY.

Third Edition.

No. 3.

THE TRUTH OF HOMOEOPATHY.

Fourth Edition.

No. 4.

THE SMALL DOSE OF HOMEOPATHY.

PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION.

No. 5.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF HOMOEOPATHY.

Price Twopence each.

Tracts on Homœopathy.-No. 4.

THE SMALL DOSE

OF

Η ΟΜΟΟΡΑΤΗΥ.

BY WILLIAM SHARP, F. R. S.

Fifth Thousand.

LONDON:

AYLOTT AND CO., 8, PATERNOSTER ROW; MANCHESTER: H. TURNER, 41, PICCADILLY.

"Effects misimputed, cases wrong told, circumstances overlooked, perhaps tos, prejudices and partialities against truth, may for a time prevail, and keep her at the bottom of her well, from whence nevertheless she emergeth sooner or later, and strikes the eyes of all who do not keep them shut."

BISHOP BERKELEY.

THE SMALL DOSE OF HOMOEOPATHY.

'Knowledge is more beautiful than any apparel of words which can be put upon it."

LORD BACON.

"GOD is my witness, and all good men know that I have now laboured fifty years with all care and pains in the illustration and amplification of my art; and that I have so certainly touched the mark whereat I aimed, that antiquity may seem to have nothing wherein it may exceed us beside the glory of invention, nor posterity any thing left but a certain small hope to add some things, as it is easy to add to former inventions."

So thought, about three centuries ago, the celebrated surgeon AMBROSE PARE; and so think many in the present day. But it is in vain. Knowledge, notwithstanding, has increased, and is still increasing. At the very moment when PARE was expressing his self-complacent satisfaction, the veil which had covered the eyes of Europe for so many ages was being torn away; and at the present time the limits of our intellectual vision are being extended more rapidly than at any previous period of the history of the world.

If any one would see and participate in this progress of human knowledge, he must make an effort to free himself from the prejudices of education, from the power of pre-conceived opinion, and from the influence of habits of thought, and resolve to admit every conclusion which appears to be adequately supported by careful observation.

The subject I have now undertaken is one of acknowledged difficulty. I think no one can have felt this difficulty more than myself. I shall be happy if I succeed in reducing it within its proper dimensions. For this purpose I propose, after a few remarks on the general character and extent of our knowledge of natural things, to state the case and its difficulty, and then proceed to answer the three following questions:

I. Are we acquainted with any facts which render it probable that infinitesimal quantities of ponderable matter may act upon

the living animal body? In other words, what does analogy teach us?

II. Are there any facts which shew the action of infinitesimal quantities of ponderable matter on the healthy body?

III. What are the actual proofs in support of the assertion that such minute quantities of ponderable matter act remedially on the diseased body?

Our knowledge of nature is obtained by observing facts or events, and their succession, by our bodily senses. Our ideas of external objects are produced by the impression which those objects are capable of making upon our minds, through the instrumentality of our senses. We can observe and experiment upon these facts or events, and the manner in which they succeed each other, to the extent which our senses permit us, but no further. The limit of the powers of our corporeal senses is the limit of our knowledge. This limitation is absolute. For example:

Sound is produced by vibrations of the air striking upon the organs of hearing. The various musical notes, from the lowest to the highest, are produced by the varying rapidity of these vibrations. The gravest sound is produced by about thirty vibrations in a second, the most acute by about a thousand. Each series of vibrations of the particles of the air is a fact or natural event, and when it strikes our ear we become acquainted with its existence by the sound perceived, provided the number of vibrations is not below thirty nor above a thousand in a second. These are the limits of our powers of observation of vibrations of the air. That there are vibrations slower than thirty and more rapid than a thousand in a second, cannot be doubted; and that there are living beings capable of perceiving them, is probable-the hare for example-but to us they are as though they did not exist.

The same is true of the eye and the observation of colours. The vibrations of the ether, (according to the undulatory theory of light,) produce impressions upon the organ of seeing, and the varying rapidity of these vibrations enables us to perceive the diferent colours. The limits are still narrower than those of sound. The whole scale of colour, from violet to crimson, lies between vibrations which number 458 millions of millions (or billions) and 727 millions of millions in a second. That there are vibrations of the luminiferous ether, varying in frequency beyond these two extremes, must be almost certain, and that there are eyes which can feel their impression is probable,-the owl and the bat, for example,--but to us they are as though they were not. We shall never, in this life, hear new sounds, nor see new colours.

The senses of smell and touch are similarly limited. can smell and the insect can touch what we cannot.

The hound