EDITOR'S TABLE. 



267 



cuniary success, are attempting to 

 make faith, emotion, hallucination 

 do work which, so far as it is within 

 the range of possibility, belongs to a 

 well-devised system of physical, or 

 combined physical and mental, treat- 

 ment. It looks sometimes as if, ac- 

 cording to the well-known Latin 

 adage, the people really did wish to 

 be deceived ; and the upholders of 

 sound doctrine and sane methods are 

 doubtless tempted at times to be dis- 

 couraged. The thing to do in such 

 a case is to look away from the causes 

 of discouragement and renew the 

 battle against delusion and imposture 

 with more energy than before, know- 

 ing that some good must come of 

 every manifestation of the true na- 

 ture of things. 



We have no quarrel, as may 

 already have been gathered, with 

 those who maintain that some use 

 may be made of a wise direction of 

 thought and a healthy stimulation 

 of mental interest in combating va- 

 rious forms of physical ailment. 

 Every competent physician does 

 what he can to "keep up the spir- 

 its " of his patient ; and the common 

 wisdom of mankind has recognized 

 that mental conditions have in many 

 cases much to do with questions 

 of health and disease. A "mens 

 sana " is, we have not the least 

 doubt, a powerful aid toward the 

 maintenance of a " corpus sanum " ; 

 but, when this has been to the full- 

 est extent admitted, it remains none 

 the less true that the body is subject 

 to the laws of matter, and that a 

 given affection of our bodily organi- 

 zation will modify in the most im- 

 portant manner the action of our 

 mind. In this respect man has no 

 superiority over the brute : the phys- 

 ical causes which affect the latter 

 affect man equally, and sometimes 

 in greater measure, the equilibrium 

 of the human constitution being 

 perhaps, on the whole, less stable 



than that of the lower creatures. 

 We may say of man and the lower 

 animals what Shylock says of Jew 

 and Christian that they are u fed with 

 the same food, hurt with the same 

 weapons, subject to the same diseases, 

 healed by the same means, warmed 

 and cooled by the same winter and 

 summer." That man has the higher 

 mentality does not in the slightest 

 degree exempt him from the opera- 

 tion of physical laws, though it does 

 enable him to surround his life with 

 safeguards, and in a general way 

 pursue and secure his well-being by 

 methods which no other species can 

 understand or imitate. 



All this may seem to most of our 

 readers very commonplace and ob- 

 vious, but nevertheless there is need 

 to repeat even such truths as these 

 when we find some pages of a scien- 

 tific periodical* devoted to the advo- 

 cacy of contrary doctrines. " Man," 

 we read, "is a soul which, through 

 an inherent tendency toward articu- 

 late manifestation, has picked up a 

 little plastic material and erected it 

 into an animated statue. This same 

 dust has been, and will be, used over 

 and over again to express other and 

 different grades and qualities of life ; 

 and therefore it can have no distinct- 

 ive character or identity of its own." 

 It seems a great pity that man being 

 " a soul " should require the help of 

 a little characterless " dust " in order 

 to arrive at "articulate manifesta- 

 tion." How is it, we feel inclined 

 to ask, that so poor a quality of dust 

 should be able to render so mighty a 

 service to a soul ? It is also a ques- 

 tion what kind of existence a soul 

 enjoys, when, for want of what the 

 dust can supply, " pulveris exiqui 

 munera" as Horace hath it, it as yet 

 possesses no power of "articulate 

 manifestation." But perhaps, before 

 we trouble ourselves with such ques- 



* See New Science Review, July, 18 n 5. 



