ten times Harley’s capacity for the driest parts of business, was represented by detractors as a superficial, prating pretender.”  Indeed, that peculiar vital energy which is the characteristic of genius carries the man of genius cheerfully through masses of drudgery which would dismay and paralyze the vigor of industrious mediocrity.  The present volume, bright as it is in expression, is full of evidences that the author has submitted to the austerest requirements of his laborious profession; and if his opinions generally coincide with those which have been somewhat reluctantly adopted by the most eminent physicians of the age, it is certain that he has not jumped to his conclusions, but has reached them by patient and independent thought, study, and observation.

The courage which Dr. Holmes displays throughout this volume is of a refreshing kind.  His frank, bold utterance of his convictions not only subjects him to the adverse criticism of a numerous and powerful body of able men in his own profession, but brings him into direct hostility with many persons who, outside of his profession, are among the warmest lovers of his literary genius.  Some of the most intelligent admirers and appreciators of “The Autocrat” and “The Professor” are adherents of Homoeopathy; and of Homoeopathy Dr. Holmes is not only a scientific, but a sarcastic opponent.  He both acknowledges and satirizes the fact, that intellectual men, eminent in all professions but that of medicine, are champions of the system he derides; but he does not the less spare one bitter word or cutting fleer against the system itself.  By thus daring, provoking, and defying opposition both to his professional and literary reputation, he seems to us to indicate a real, if somewhat impatient love of truth.  He valorously invites and courts the malicious sharpness of the most unfriendly criticism.  Some people may call by the name of conceit this honest and unwithholding devotion of his whole powers to what he deems the cause of truth; but, we must be allowed to object, conceit is commonly anxious for the safety of the individual, while Dr. Holmes intrepidly exposes his individuality to the fire of hostile cannon, which are prevented from being discharged against each other only by the lucky thought that they can do more execution by being converged upon him.  Had he appeared as an intelligent, knowing, and efficient controversialist on the side of the traditions of his profession, his wholesale denunciation of quackery, vulgar or genteel, might be referred to conceit; had he turned state’s evidence against the accredited deceptions of his own profession, and gone over entirely to the enthusiasts who think that medicine is not an experimental science, but a series of hap-hazard hits at the occult laws of disease, he might be accused of conceit; but we think the charge is ridiculously false as directed against a man who boldly puts his professional and literary fame at risk in order to advance the cause of reason, learning, and common sense.  Nobody can justly appreciate Holmes who does not perceive an impersonal earnestness and insight beneath the play of his provoking personal wit.  We admit that he makes enemies needlessly; but all fair minds must still concede that even his petulances of sarcasm are but eccentric utterances of a love of truth which has its source in the deepest and gravest sentiments of his nature.