It was in vain that his advocates and friends pleaded his learned and
unanswerable confutation of all atheistical opinions, and particularly
of the system of Spinosa, in his discourse of the distinction between
soul and body. Such calumnies are not easily suppressed, when they are
once become general. They are kept alive and supported by the malice
of bad, and, sometimes, by the zeal of good men, who, though they do
not absolutely believe them, think it yet the securest method to keep
not only guilty, but suspected men out of publick employments, upon
this principle, that the safety of many is to be preferred before the
advantage of few.
Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his
pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against
his design of assuming the character of a divine, thought it neither
necessary nor prudent to struggle with the torrent of popular
prejudice, as he was equally qualified for a profession, not, indeed,
of equal dignity or importance, but which must, undoubtedly, claim the
second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind.
He, therefore, applied himself to his medical studies with new ardour
and alacrity, reviewed all his former observations and inquiries, and
was continually employed in making new acquisitions.
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