CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 215 



Clearly, if we can control the blood supply to the various organs, 

 many problems of disease are mastered. There is, however, one slight 

 difficulty; though we can in a measure control some local nerves, most 

 of those regulating the circulation are beyond the province of our 

 wills. It seems as if nature were willing to trust us with minor 

 matters like motion, but preferred to attend herself to subjects of real 

 importance like digestion and circulation, while we are forced to con- 

 ceal our humiliation by saying in a learned manner that " assimilation 

 and circulation are functions of the sympathetic nervous system, not 

 of the higher centers ! " 



Are we balked ? Well, not necessarily ! If the highway is blocked, 

 there are yet the by-paths of attention and incomplete motion. While 

 most of us are unable to control our blood supplies by a direct effort 

 of the will, all of us can do it indirectly to some extent. Have we been 

 reasoning in a circle, and are we still upon mere hypothetical ground 

 with the mental healers ? Not a bit of it ! We here emerge from the 

 perplexities of theory and stand upon the firm foundation of instru- 

 mental measurements, owing to the labors of a number of investigators, 

 prominent among whom are Dr. Wm. G-. Anderson, director of the 

 Yale Gymnasium, and Dr. Angelo Mosso, of Turin. 



Dr. Anderson places a student upon a low, legless table, about the 

 size of the body, so delicately balanced that a breath will make it move, 

 and outlines his figure so that he can resume his position after 

 leaving the " muscle bed " temporarily. Now every exertion, mental 

 or physical, means that more blood must be supplied to the active 

 part, thus increasing its weight, while as the amount of blood in the 

 body is limited, the excess must be taken from some other organ, 

 thus decreasing the weight of the latter. If the man on the bed rises 

 and dances a jig, when he resumes his place upon the balanced bed, his 

 feet will sink, and his head ascend correspondingly. 



Now this is nothing startling, as we all know that a member if 

 exercised, will grow at the expense of idle organs, which tend to 

 atrophy from disuse. Now it seems as if we had wandered from the 

 subject of the mind, but we shall soon see that even here the mind is 

 an indispensable factor. Curiously enough, if the man does not leave 

 the bed at all, but merely thinks of dancing a jig, simply mentally 

 going through the incomplete motions, but taking care not to move a 

 muscle, the delicately balanced bed will sink at the foot almost as much 

 as if the exercise had actually been performed. 



Now it is clear why the Christian Scientists say to a person troubled 

 with cold feet " Hold the thought that your feet are warm ! Deny 

 the ' claim ' that they are cold " ! It is reasonable to suppose that the 

 feet of one of the mental believers would sink upon the muscle bed just 

 as rapidly as those of the mental jig dancer, though we can not give 



