In his reasonings he was reckoned solid and close, in every argument confounding his adversaries, and coming off triumphant. The most unbecoming quality betrayed in his writings, is a disposition to boast of his own ability, and to treat other writers with contempt.
He wrote several treatises which have not reached our day, 'among which are his books on philosophy and gram mar. Five hundred treatises on medicine are ascribed to him, and half that number on other subjects.
Galen, though possessed of a mind too independent to submit implicitly to any of his predecessors, unconsciously forged chains which enthralled the medical opinions of many succeeding ages. The contending errors of ancient systems, produced a very powerful effect on his inquiring mind. He entertained the plausible opinion, which was so universal among the ancients, that all particular truths in philosophy are to be deduced from general or first pt inci ples. The specimens of philosophical truth, however, which he found thus substantiated in the various schools, were so unsatisfactory, and so often at variance with the phenomena of nature, that at one time he was strongly dis posed to embrace that philosophy, which declares the uni versal uncertainty of human knowledge, a system which, tinder the name of Pyrrhonism. was at that time very pre valent. From this he was preserved, by contemplating the satisfactory results which mathematical science afforded in the problems of geometry and astronomy, and, in a parti cular manner, the calculation of eclipses, and the undoubt ed utility of dials and other mathematical instruments. On comparing the proofs of the certainty of science, with the numerous specimens of its errors, he was not induced to abate his exclusive confidence in synthetic reasoning, but drew the inference, that the true data or first principles, which were the foundations of natural science, had not yet been discovered. He conceived that he himself was des
tined to lead the way in the investigation of medical truth. To this object accordingly all his efforts were powerfully directed. If he had not laboured under the error now mentioned, which was derived from Aristotle, an error common to him with other men of learning in that age, and which never indeed lost its dominion over science till the appearance of the Novum Organon of Bacon, Galen would have produced a work as conspicuous for solidity and minute information, as for genius and comprehensiveness of thought. Future ages would then have approved while they wondered. His system, though defective, and often rendered illusory by the intermixture of the subtile doc trines of Aristotle, was ingenious and well connected. His talents enabled him to stop the spirit of improvement for fifteen centuries; •at now, when emancipated from his illegitimate dominion, we are enabled to profit by his labours, and to cemtemplate in his writings a mg hty mo nument of genius at,d industry, fitted at once to animate exertion, and to repress presumption. For an account of his opinions, sec the history fl ANATOMY, and the History of NiF,DiciNK.
Galen wrote with elegance. in the ordinary dialect of the Greek language, inclining to the Attic.
The Greek editions of his works arc those of Aldus and Aud. Asulanus, printed at Venice in 1525, in live folio volumes ; and that of Hieron Gemusxus at Basle in 1538, in the same form.
The editions of Latin translations of his works are more numerous, and were published at Paris, Venice, and Basle. Rene Chartrier published his works in Greek and Latin, along with those of I I ippocrates, at Paris. See Elov's Diet. Hist. ; Le Clerc's Hmt. de Medicine ; and the pi clatory dissertations to the different editions of Galen's works. (D. vi.)