RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION. 765 



may cause it to rise into the air ; this upward movement is, how- 

 ever, no violation of the law of gravitation, but merely a counter- 

 action of its usual workings through the intervention of a superior 

 force ; therefore, miracles are wrought without violating natural 

 laws. We commend this palpable non sequitur to any writer 

 who wishes to make a collection of peculiarly gross fallacies for a 

 work on logic. 



An admirable reply to Dr. Korum's book is a brochure of 

 eighty-three pages written by Friedrich Jaskowski, and entitled 

 Der Trierer Rock und seine Patienten vom Jahre 1891 (Saar- 

 briicken : Carl Schmidtke, 1894). The author is a Catholic priest 

 in the diocese of Trier, and therefore under the jurisdiction of the 

 bishop, the absurdity of whose statements and the untenableness 

 of whose arguments he so courageously exposes and so conclu- 

 sively refutes. The holy coat, he says, has been in the custody of 

 the cathedral since the twelfth century, and was exhibited and 

 adored as a sacred relic probably a dozen times from 1512 to 1810, 

 but during these three centuries no healing virtue or wonder- 

 working power was ever ascribed to it. In 1810 some ignorant and 

 superstitious devotees reported that miracles had been wrought 

 by it, but these stories were not indorsed by the ecclesiastical 

 authorities. Not until 1844 did the popular demand for miracles 

 become so loud and persistent that Bishop Arnoldi finally yielded 

 to it and announced officially that "bodily wonders" or miracu- 

 lous cures had been performed. If the holy coat can restore the 

 sick, Jaskowski thinks it rather odd that it should have no power 

 of self-restoration ; it gets moldy when shut up in a damp closet, 

 wears out by use, and has to be cleaned, darned, and patched like 

 any other garment. The miracles of healing cited by Dr. Korum 

 are then subjected to a critical examination and shown to be 

 utterly unworthy of credence. In several instances the persons 

 said to have been cured died shortly afterward. Of the thirty- 

 eight cases cited, thirteen were men and twenty-five women. 

 " This predilection for the fair sex " is a rather suspicious circum- 

 stance, indicating that the maladies were mostly hysterical and 

 nervous and might be easily ameliorated by any influence that 

 would powerfully affect the imagination, without the aid of either 

 medicine or miracles. Jaskowski quotes Prof. Charcot, Dr. Forel, 

 and other neuropathologists to prove that hetero-suggestion 

 emanating from a physician or priest, or auto-suggestion origi- 

 nating in the person's own mind, may often be the most effective 

 remedy for disorders of this kind. In auto-suggestion the pa- 

 tient is possessed with the fixed idea that the doing of a certain 

 thing, which may be in itself absolutely indifferent, will afford 

 relief ; as an example of this faith-cure Jaskowski refers to the 

 woman who was diseased with an issue of blood, and approaching 



