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The explanation of the cause of evil by a particular principle, per principium maleficum, is of the same nature. Evil needs no such explanation, any more than do cold and darkness: there is neither primum frigidum nor principle of darkness. Evil itself comes only from privation; the positive enters therein only by concomitance, as the active enters by concomitance into cold.
Now Roland, in his edition of Roger's "Chirurgia," criticises both of these statements of his master, as follows: Nota quod quamvis Rogerius dicat quod apponatur albumen ovi, non approbo, quia frigidum est naturaliter, et vena et nervus et arteria frigida sunt naturaliter, et propter frigiditatem utrorumque non potest perfecte fieri consolidatio.
The treatment is, of course, entirely symptomatic. Abscess of the stomach sometimes manifests a circumscribed tumor, and accordingly, probably includes cancer of that organ. Approved remedies are the Al'mirabile, the stomatichon frigidum, calidum or laxativumvum, etc., stereotyped formulae, of which the composition is carefully recorded.
'I surpass you', he said, 'in the explanation of phenomena, which is the principal mark of a good system. But, in my opinion, it is not a very good explanation of a phenomenon to assign to it an ad hoc principle: to evil, a principium maleficum, to cold, a primum frigidum; there is nothing so easy and nothing so dull.