In his Organon, Par. 6, Hahnemann says :
The unprejudiced observer, well aware of the futility of transcendental speculation which can receive no confirmation from experience be his power of penetration never so great takes note of nothing in every individual disease, except the changes in the health of the body and the mind (morbid phenomena, accidents, symptoms) which can be perceived externally by means of the senses; that is to say, he notices only the deviations from a former healthy state of the diseased individual, which are felt by the patient himself, remarked by those around him and observed by the physician. All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its whole extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable portrait of the disease.
Disease itself is impossible of observation; we only see and record the effects of disease; we can only record the symptoms. Disease is as elusive as thought; we are utterly unable to discern thoughts, save such as are transformed into acts; so we only recognize disease as it is made manifest in symptoms. The inner expressions are dynamic in nature, their outward expression is functional. While all this is true, yet we are dealing with the most positive of facts for symptoms are a record of facts fact’s registered in symptoms are the most exact record of the expression of the vital energy to the morbific agent.
