FALLACIES OF TESTIMONY. 257 



of the patient ; whilst, on the other hand, we are told that Jesus 

 did not do many mighty works in his own country " because of 

 their unbehef," — the very condition which, if these mighty works 

 had been performed by his own will alone, would have been 

 supposed to call forth its exertion, but which is perfectly con- 

 formable to our own experience of the wonders of mesmerism, 

 spirituaUsm, etc. So Paul is spoken of as " steadfastly behold- 

 ing " the cripple at Lystra, " and seeing that he had faith to be 

 healed." 



The potency of influences of the opposite kind upon minds 

 predisposed to them, and through their minds upon their bodies, 

 is shown in the "Obeah practices" still lingering among the negroes 

 of the West Indian colonies, in spite of most stringent legislation. 

 A slow pining away, ending in death, has been the not unfrequent 

 result of the fixed belief, on the part of the victim, that "Obi" has 

 been put upon him by some old man or old woman reputed to 

 possess the injurious power; and I see no reason to doubt that 

 the Obri men or women were firm believers in the occult power 

 attributed to them. 



Every medical man of large experience is well aware how 

 strongly the patient's undoubting faith in the efficacy of a par- 

 ticular remedy or mode of treatment assists its action ; and where 

 the doctor is himself animated by such a faith, he has the more 

 power of exciting it in others. A simple prediction, without any 

 remedial measure, will sometimes work its own fulfilment. Thus, 

 Sir James Paget tells of a case in which he strongly impressed a 

 woman having a sluggish, non-malignant tumour in the breast, 

 that this tumour would disperse within a month or six weeks ; and 

 so it did. He perceived the patient's nature to be one on which 

 the assurance would act favourably, and no one could more 

 earnestly and effectively enforce it. — On the other hand, a fixed 

 belief on the part of the patient that a mortal disease has seized 

 upon the frame, or that a particular operation or system of treat- 

 ment will prove unsuccessful, seems in numerous instances to have 

 been the real occasion of the fatal result. 



Many of the so-called " miracles " of the Romish Church, such 

 as that of the " Holy Thorn " (narrated in the History of the Port 

 Royalists) which stood the test of the most rigid contemporary 



