We know nothing of the principle of health, the positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience.

Besides, unless it involves the additional error of presenting the same word in different senses, it makes one degree swell or diminish an other to itself; whereas, in the very next sentence, this singular agency is forgotten, and a second equally strange takes its place: "The positive becomes the superlative by adding st or est, to the end of it;" i. e., to the end of itself.

It might be a strength of madness, or a lying spirit from Hell; but it was something quite positive and extraordinary; as positive as brandy and as extraordinary as conjuring.