The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c5.15

c5.15

On the other hand, the study of special doctrines of sciences is called for, even outside the sphere of comparative researches, even inside each civilisation, because these doctrines are not limited to the savants. They are all known to all the thinkers, at least in their main lines. They determine a part of their ideas and often they constitute a fund of notions on which they agree with one another more easily than on all the problems of Metaphysics or of Religion. This fund is more closely common than any other and to all those belonging to the same culture. The historians of occidental thought are devoting themselves more and more to a consideration of the influence of scientific ideas on the Occidental philosophers. Here we must note, however, that in India speculation concerning nature and physiology has, in parallel, commanded many concepts of the thinkers and of men of all types. We have, therefore, while undertaking this study, to try to call attention at least to the interesting doctrines and which by their large diffusion, characterise, on certain points, Indianism in its entirety, while at the same time they are important for the history of sciences and of the ancient currents of thought, no matter how modest elements they may be in themselves.