Why Do Organisms Sometimes Fail to Maintain Unity? 



Health and Sickness Perhaps no organism long remains perfectly 

 adapted to the conditions around it, capable at all times of meeting every 

 situation suitably. Perhaps no organism is immediately killed when some 

 one part fails to act just right. Among human beings, as among other 

 species, there are defective individuals. Some are born with imperfect or- 

 gans, and all acquire various disabilities as they go along. We can imagine 

 "perfection", but we need neither expect to find it nor give up because it 

 does not appear in our lives. We may be sure, at any rate, that various forms 

 of general or partial incapacity, various forms of sickness and deficiency, 

 have troubled human beings from earliest times. 



In nearly every language the most common greetings refer to health. 

 "How are you?" We do not stop to answer each time, or we should not get 

 on with our business. "Hail!" is apparently a shortening of "Be hail" (or 

 "hale") — that is, Be whole, or be well. "Farewell!" is a parting wish for 

 one's welfare, including health. The Latin ave and vale have similar mean- 

 ings. The very word salute, from the Latin solus, means "health". 



As a rule, we think of illness as a condition in which something in the 

 body — that is, some part — goes wrong, and we often speak of illness or ail- 

 ing in relation to some part, such as the stomach, the liver, or the knee. We 

 seldom think of the whole organism as being sick. The trouble consists in 

 a disturbance of the wholeness. In the course of ages many different ideas 

 or theories have been used to explain such interferences with harmonious 

 workings of the organism. Such theories are always important, since they 

 guide us in restoring sick persons to health, or wholeness. 



Evil Spirits One of the earliest ideas for explaining sickness is that of 

 "evil spirits". Today we consider such explanations "superstitious" because 

 they rest on suppositions which do not agree with known facts. Without 

 such facts, however, most superstitions are quite as logical as our own wiser 

 notions. We know, for example, that a scratch or a bite may cause pain. A 

 cut may disable a hand; a sprain may disable a whole limb. We can see a 

 stick strike and cause injury. It is reasonable to explain inner aches and 

 pains as if they were caused by unseen sticks and stones in unseen hands — 

 by spirits, in short. And naturally they must be evil spirits, imps or devils, 

 for they cause evil. 



To this day millions of people can understand their Inner troubles only 

 by assuming that evil spirits somehow get in and cause mischief. To be sure, 

 we cannot "prove" that evil spirits cause troubles, for spirits are naturally 

 beyond the reach of our senses. We know only the effects they produce. On 

 the other hand, we can never prove that evil spirits do not cause sickness, 

 for we cannot prove a negative. If we assume that evil spirits, or devils, 



326 



