CLAUDIUS GALENUS

DHe began the instruction, from which all arts are constituted, by way of method and reason. But we have treated that in another work; in this place, however, we undertake that which is done by the dissolution of definition. The more this is inferior to that which is done by resolution in terms of dignity, method, and reason, the more it is recognized to contribute to the compendium of the whole. Indeed, all things can easily be committed to memory through the dissolution of definition, for the reason that the best definition contains the chapters of the whole art within itself: which some call substantial, distinct from those which the Greeks call noëmaticae notional/conceptual. For these consist of the accidents that inhere in the things being defined, whereas that one consists of the substance. Individually, however, we have diligently written the entire commentary on medicine in many other works, which one may use for three doctrines. But we shall now approach that which is done by the dissolution of definition, if we add only this: that we shall deliver only the chapters, and as it were the conclusions of those things that have been demonstrated at length.