152 TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 



the strength of conviction, and so keep adding to 

 what you call your experience never verifying, and 

 perhaps altogether wrong in your ideas as to what 

 had really happened in the interesting cases on 

 which you have built. Will it be remarkable if 

 your notions become crude, if your own belief in 

 pathology and in precise diagnosis become dulled, 

 and your practice degenerate to a stupid supersti- 

 tion ? This picture is by no means an altogether 

 imaginary one. It is the record of what I have 

 seen. The cure is to be found in the increase of 

 facilities for comparing the theories formed in at- 

 tendance on the living with the revelations that are 

 offered by the dead ; and that is a matter which 

 rests with the general public. 



The general public is a vague and not altogether 

 satisfactory body to deal with. It is possible to 

 have the greatest respect for your fellow-men indi- 

 vidually, and have little for the general public : and 

 justly so ; because the opinions, passions, and pre- 

 judices that pass most current in the throng are by 

 no means the secretly cherished and better judg- 

 ments of the individuals who compose it. We do 

 not air most blatantly on all occasions the wisdom 

 which we privately think the best ; I fear we should 

 be prigs if we did ; but so it happens that it is some- 

 thing a good deal worse than our best by which in 



