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mysteries upon the animal kingdom. The Scientists have experimented with the happiest results upon a dog, noble thoroughbred, of great sagacity and intelligence." The first experiment consisted in conveying commands to him entirely through mind. Not a word, we are told, was spoken, but his mistress would say to him mentally, "Carlo, come here," or "Carlo, lie down," and although the thought sometimes had to be repeated mentally a number of times, yet it would reach him ultimately, and occasionally he would respond "almost immediately." This experiment would perhaps be more convincing had we any precise knowledge as to the length of its duration, for there is no positive proof that Carlo's lying down was not as much due to physical exhaustion on the patient's part as to mental compulsion on the operator's. The most hardened sceptic, however, can scarcely fail to be convinced by the following tests:

One day his master discovered an appearance to which he gave the name mange. All the dogs around were having it. It was catching. Dr. So-and-so had pronounced it mange, and prescribed a mixture of sulphur and castor oil, &c., which was to be applied externally in such a way that Carlo, in attempting to remove the preparation with his tongue, would get a dose into his system. But here the mistress interposed, and insisted that Carlo should be subjected wholly to mental treatment. The result was

entirely satisfactory. The appearance vanished as it came. Again, the experiment of placing Carlo entirely under the intelligence of his master's mind and thoughts for a certain period was tried, and compared with the effects of leaving him wholly under his mistress's mind. In the former case he soon exhibited

every symptom of dyspepsia and indiges. tion in every form to which the master was subject, and in a very marked degree. But under the thought of the mistress, every symptom and appearance vanished at once. He soon attained a perfection of physical condition which constantly attracted the notice of every one.

This speedy restoration to health was obviously dictated by courtesy and common prudence, since, after the susceptibility to mental influence which this remarkable animal had previously shown, any other line of conduct would have been a serious reflection on his mistress's personal condition and appearance. Although, of course, perfectly immaterial, I will add that the writer of the above passage is a lady,-possibly the mistress of the canine dyspeptic. Let us return, however, to the remedial qualities of medicine.

The common idea, we are told, that drugs possess inherent curative virtues involves an error. Arnica, quinine, and opium could not produce the effects ascribed to them were it not for imputed virtue. It is, in short, purely a matter of fancy; men think that these drugs will act in a particular way on the system, and consequently they do. The property of alcohol is, it is courageously asserted, to intoxicate; "but if the common thought had endowed it simply with a nourishing quality like milk, it would produce a similar effect." The author of this statement was possibly unaware of the fact that until the middle of the seventeenth century whisky was used solely for medicinal purposes, which renders it probable that the intoxicating effects of the liquor were discovered long before there was any intention to profit by them. Again, not one in ten of the persons who become tipsy by the use of alcohol to-day drink with that express intention; the last thing that a man anticipates, in drinking as in war, is the probability of himself becoming a victim, although he is fully prepared to see everyone about him succumb. Nor, on the hypothesis that alcohol has no inherent power, would it be easy to explain why one man should

another, or why it should require more than a single glass to render any man unconscious. Such a theory, in fact, scarcely needs refutation, for it is notorious and beyond the possibility of contradiction that animals are affected by drugs when they have no knowledge that they are taking them, and that large doses will act upon their systems when small doses have not the slightest effect.

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But, proved beyond dispute as these facts are, they fail to disturb the equanimity of the Christian Scientist. His ambition soars to still higher flights of fancy. quote Mrs. Eddy again: "If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, the patient dies while physician and patient are expecting favourable results. Did the belief cause death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken. The few who think a drug harmless, where a mistake has been made in the prescription, are unequal to the many who have named it poison, and so the majority opinion governs the result." That is certainly not a little curious; for if the drug be harmless in itself, and the faith of the patient or physician be all that is required to obtain a result beneficial or harmful, the very existence of a belief in an advantageous effect should have been sufficient to produce the result expected. It is difficult to see why a general belief in the destructive qualities of a perfectly neutral substance should override the individual faith in its curative effects upon a particular occasion. Or is it that the general belief of mankind gives the drug inherent qualities which it did not obtain from Nature? Such minor inconsistencies, however, have no power to dismay the devotee of Christian Science, and not content with the

medicinal theories, he extends the lash of his scorn to our daily bread. In the picturesque language of Mrs. Eddy "gustatory pleasure is a sensuous illusion." It is true that she would not absolutely prohibit the use of food, that she even goes so far as to admit its desirability in our present sinful state; but she promises us that, when we come to a better understanding, we shall find that our "bodies are nourished more by truth than by food." As, however, her statement of the question is a marvel of close and accurate reasoning, it will be desirable to give it in her own words.

Admitting the common hypothesis that food is requisite to sustain human life, there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction,namely, that food has power to destroy life, through its deficiency or excess, in quality or quantity. This is a specimen health-theories. of the ambiguous character of all material They are self-contradictory and self-destructive,—“ a kingdom that is divided against itself, that is brought to desolation." If food preserves life, it cannot destroy it. The truth is, food does not affect the life of man; and this becomes self-evident when we learn that God is our only life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of soul or life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain more goodness and a clearer comprehension of the living ing, we shall neither eat to live, nor live God. In that perfect day of understand

to eat.

It may be observed that while exercise in moderation is exceedingly beneficial, over-exercise is apt to produce disease of the heart; but the further dissection of this remarkable argument may be left to the reader, who, it may be, has hitherto cherished the mistaken impression that the greater part of mankind even now has higher aims in life than eating.

But assuming that Christian Science

is a mask for a great deal of imposture, and a still greater amount of ignorance, it is impossible to dismiss the mental treatment of disease as a mere farrago of nonsense. The power of suggestion in a certain class of ailments cannot be disputed. The cure of patients by bread-pills is said to be not unknown in the medical profession; and although these cures are usually confined to cases of hysteria and such like imaginary complaints, it would seem to be indisputable that even in physical disease the patient's mental condition may exercise a beneficial or injurious effect upon his physical welfare. It would be unwise, without farther inquiry, to either affirm or deny the truth of a hypothesis which has been put forward in America, to the effect that there is a subconscious, or subjective, mind at all times amenable to suggestion, while possessed of powers not owned by the objective mind, including a control over the physiological and pathological processes and a faculty known as telepathy. The idea will, no doubt, be dismissed by many as ridiculous; but that has often been the reception of propositions which have subsequently become the commonplaces of every-day existence. A thousand remarkable discoveries in every branch of science warn us that in such cases as these the only proper course is to keep an open mind, carefully examining the evidence brought forward in support of them, while ready to admit the truth if the test be satisfactorily passed. Every one, probably, has heard of men being branded with cold iron, and of a criminal being done to death by listening to the dripping of water which he believed to be his own life-blood. The authentification of such cases is difficult, for they do not occur now in countries where they can be scientifically tested, and we must be wary of accepting

reports handed down to us from a more credulous age; but if we allow the possibility of their correctness, we are also driven to admit that Faith-Healing may be an effectual remedy in other than purely nervous maladies. Indeed, a very close connection has been recently established on thoroughly credible testimony between psychical treatment and the disappearance of warts, as well as in a number of other cases in which, perhaps, one would more naturally expect to find the patient's mental attitude playing a pronounced part.

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Dr. Buckley in his work on FaithHealing gives, on the authority of Dr. Tuke, the two following instances of an astonishingly rapid and unexpected cure of warts, after the ailment had long defied the usual medical applications. "In one case," Dr. Tuke declared, a relative of mine had a troublesome wart on the hand, for which I made use of the usual local remedies, but without effect. After they were discontinued, it remained in statu quo for some time, when a gentleman 'charmed' it away in a few days." Again, the daughter of a friend of this witness had been long troubled with warts on her hands, to which caustic and other remedies had been applied without success. gentleman, happening to call, noticed them and asked how many there were; the girl said she did not know exactly, but believed about a dozen. "Count them," he said, and took down the number, remarking, "You will not be troubled with your warts after next Sunday." Dr. Tuke tells us that by the day named the warts had disappeared and did not return.

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According to the bias of the reader the result in these cases will be described as a mere coincidence, or as a remarkable example of the ascendency

FAITH-HEALING AND KINDRED PHENOMENA, p. 20; London, 1892.

of mind over matter. Several, however, of the following instances for which I am also indebted to Dr. Buckley, go a considerable way to establish the truth of the proposition that a patient's belief in the course of treatment adopted will at times be efficacious in cases which are not solely due to hysteria or hypochondria. At all events they cannot all be ascribed to coincidences.

During the siege of Breda in 1625 scurvy became so prevalent in the town that the Prince of Orange was about to capitulate. The medicine had run short, but one of the physicians bethought him of trying the following experiment. Three small phials were given to each physician, and as the contents were not in fact sufficient to cure two patients, it was publicly given out that three or four drops of the medicine would impart a power of healing to a gallon of liquor. "The effect of the delusion," says Dr. Frederic Van der Mye who was present, was really astonishing; for many quickly and perfectly recovered. Such as had not moved their limbs for a month before were seen walking the streets, sound, upright, and in perfect health."

Metallic and wooden tractors, stated to act as a galvanic battery, although in reality the effect was purely mental, are reported to have cured cases of chronic rheumatism in the ankle, knee, and hip, where the joints were swollen and the patient had been ill for a long time; and even a case of lockjaw of three or four days' standing was cured by the same means in fifty minutes, after the physicians had lost all hope. Dr. Buckley states that he has himself tested this principle, and has found that the application of a silver dollar wrapped in silk to ulcerated teeth, when the patient had been suffering for many hours, or even days, relieved

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the pain forthwith; but when the true effect of the remedy was explained, its magic power was at once lost. 1867 a well-known public singer, on the evening of his concert, was taken dangerously ill with great nausea and intense headache. Two applications of the silver dollar to his forehead at once relieved him, and he performed a full programme with his usual energy. The next case, an instance of inflammatory rheumatism in a bad form, is vouched for by Dr. Buckley personally, he having taken a prominent part in the cure. The patient was terribly swollen, and could not move, nor bear to be touched :

of the hands of the patient was so swollen that the fingers were very nearly as large as the wrist of an ordinary child three years of age. In fact, almost all the space between the fingers was occupied, and the fist was clenched. It was plain possible, and to move them intensely that to open them voluntarily was impainful. The daughter informed us that the hand had not been opened for several weeks. When all was ready I held the needles about two inches from the end of the woman's fingers, just above the clenched hand, and said: "Now, Madam, do not think of your fingers, and above all do not try to move them, but fix your eyes on the ends of these needles." She did so, and, to her own wonder and that of the daughter, the fingers straightened out and became flexible without the least pain. I then moved the needles about over the hand, and she declared that all pain had left her hand except in one spot about half an inch in diameter.

The power of the king's touch to cure scrofula was widely credited in

is said to have touched nearly a hundred thousand victims of this complaint, and the second James on a single occasion touched eight hundred persons in Chester cathedral. William the Third, more conscientious or less sympathetic than they, refused to attempt the exercise of this power, and in consequence, Macaulay tells us, brought down upon his head an avalanche of tears from the parents of suffering children. The religious deemed his refusal impiety, while his enemies asserted that he dared not try to exert a power which belonged only to legitimate kings. The gibe of the latter seems, however, to have been undeserved, since an ancient writer assures us that "the curing of the King's Evil by the touch of the king does much puzzle our philosophers, for whether our kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did cure for the most part."

Sir Humphrey Davey is stated to have cured a case of paralysis quite unintentionally. He placed a thermometer under the tongue of the patient merely to ascertain the temperature, whereupon the latter at once claimed to experience relief. The same treatment was continued for a fortnight until the patient was entirely cured.

The above instances are clearly not cases of merely imaginative ailments. There was absolute physical disability, and the cure was effected by means of the patients' belief in the treatment. The explanation, established by the experiments of Hunter and others, is that the concentration of attention upon any part of the human system affects the sensations, and produces a change in the circulation, a modification of nutrition, and finally an alteration in structure. Such an explanation would sufficiently account for the miracles of Lourdes and the

favourable results actually obtained by Faith-Healing. It would not account for the higher claim put forward by Christian Science to be able to cure where there is in fact no credence of the treatment on the part of the patient, and we must conclude that such claims are founded on insufficient data.

The system of Faith-Healing would be held in higher estimation were its votaries a little less eager to seize upon every scrap of evidence which appears to be even remotely in their favour, and to magnify it into positive proof of the soundness of their views. They take no account of failures or relapses, for fear of detracting from the glory which they consider that their cures confer upon their religion; and in many of their apparent successes the malady supposed to have been cured is not authentically proved to have ever existed. Want of will and energy is the cause of a large number of ailments, and these may be cured by any sudden excitement, or by a powerful will in another, as well as by the Faith-Healer. A burning house, or a shock of earthquake, may cause the apparent paralytic to walk even more speedily than a dawning faith in his own powers induced by religious exercises. The following story is an excellent illustration of the ease with which the cure of a serious physical injury may be claimed as the result of faith, when in fact due merely to an unwonted exercise of will on the part of patient or operator. A young American lady had for a long time been ill, suffering great pain and quite unable to walk. It was before the day when the Röntgen rays enabled a medical adviser to see through his patient physically as well as mentally, and one of the most famous surgeons in New York declared, after careful examination, that she had diseases of