Hindu Medicine c5.s3.110

c5.s3.110

If one looks back now with somewhat mixed and contradictory feelings at the main characteristics of Hindu medicine, one comes to realize how many misunderstandings, if not actual harm, have been caused by the attempt to weave its various features into a logical and systematic pattern. The faulty result of such a procedure implies a warning that that which pleases human reason may be worlds apart from the course that nature takes in weaving its strangely intricate web of devices by which it produces a living organism or brings about the collaboration of the various organs necessary for the continuation of the living process or for its defense against harmful influences. The human mind due to its very faculty of reasoning is apt to fall short of its goal: to grasp what might be called the reality of things, an objective that seems forever to be receding from its grip, even despite the fact that reason at the same time has acquired an ever-increasing hold over nature. The persistent advance into the region of the unknown, into the no-man's land of scientific research, finds its own limitation in the power of reason that is apt to overreach itself by trying to systematize and to simplify the intricate ways of nature.