To array a man’s will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.

Beecher frames healing as more than a technical or pharmacological task: the physician’s highest skill is to enlist the patient’s own resolve in the fight against illness. “Array” suggests organizing and mobilizing inner resources—courage, hope, discipline, and cooperation with treatment—so that the will becomes an ally rather than a casualty of disease. The remark reflects a 19th‑century moral-psychological view of health in which mindset and character were thought to influence bodily outcomes, anticipating later interest in placebo effects, adherence, and the therapeutic value of encouragement. It also implies a relational model of care: medicine succeeds best when it strengthens agency rather than treating the patient as passive.