468 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



education furnishes him with the means of determining the symptoms 

 of true organic disorder, of functional derangement and of the modifica- 

 tions of these under the more or less unconscious interference of an un- 

 fortunate nervous system. It is quite as human for the physician as for 

 other mortals to err, and there is doubtless as wide a range among them 

 as among other pursuits, of ability, tact and insight. 'But when all is 

 said and done' the fundamental fact remains that the utilization of the 

 mental factor in the alleviation of disease will be best administered by 

 those who are specifically trained in the knowledge of bodily and men- 

 tal symptoms of disease. Such application of an established scientific 

 principle may prove to be a jewel of worth in the hands of him who 

 knows how to cut and set it. The difference between truth and error, 

 between science and superstition, between what is beneficent to man- 

 kind and what is pernicious, frequently lies in the interpretation and the 

 spirit as much as or more than in the fact. The utilization of mental 

 influences in health and disease becomes the one or the other accord- 

 ing to the wisdom and the truth and the insight into the real relations 

 of things that guide its application. As far removed as chemistry from 

 alchemy, as astronomy from astrology, as the doctrine of the localization 

 of function in the brain from phrenology, as 'animal magnetism' from 

 hypnotic suggestion, are the crude and perverse notions of Christian 

 Scientist or Metaphysical Healer removed from the rational application 

 of the influence of the mind over the body. 



The growth and development of the occult forms an interesting 

 problem in the psychology of belief. The motives that induce the will 

 to believe in the several doctrines that have been passed in review are 

 certainly not more easy to detect and to describe than would be the 

 case in reference to the many other general problems — philosophical, 

 scientific, religious, social, political or educational — on which the right 

 to an opinion seems to be regarded as an inalienable heritage of human- 

 ity or at least of democracy. Professor James tells us that often "our 

 faith is faith in some one else's faith, and in the greatest matters this 

 is most the case." Certainly the waves of popularity of one cult and 

 another reflect the potent influence of contagion in the formation of 

 opinion and the direction of conduct. When we look upon the popu- 

 lar delusions of the past through the achromatic glasses which histori- 

 cal remoteness from present conditions enables us to adjust to our 

 eyes, we marvel that humanity could have been so grossly misled, that 

 obvious relations and fallacies could have been so stupidly overlooked, 

 that worthless and prejudiced evidence could have been accepted as 

 -sound and significant. But the opinions to which we incline are all 

 colored o'er with the deep tinge of emotional reality, which is the 

 living expression of our interest in them or our inclination toward them. 

 What they require is a more vigorous infusion of the pale cast of 



