I had espoused a school of medical philosophy severely rigid in its inductive logic.

My creed was that of stern materialism.

I had a contempt for the understanding of men who accepted with credulity what they could not explain by reason.

My favourite phrase was "common-sense." At the same time I had no prejudice against bold discovery, and discovery necessitates conjecture, but I dismissed as idle all conjecture that could not be brought to a practical test.
As in medicine I had been the pupil of Broussais, so in metaphysics I was the disciple of Condillac.

I believed with that philosopher that "all our knowledge we owe to Nature; that in the beginning we can only instruct ourselves through her lessons; and that the whole art of reasoning consists in continuing as she has compelled us to commence." Keeping natural philosophy apart from the doctrines of revelation, I never assailed the last; but I contended that by the first no accurate reasoner could arrive at the existence of the soul as a third principle of being equally distinct from mind and body.