DEATH 



zoology, but also the monistic tendency of my whole 

 system. As the medical training in its widest sense in- 

 cludes anthropology — and so should include psychol- 

 ogy also — its value for speculative philosophy cannot be 

 exaggerated. The scholastic metaphysicians who still 

 regard the chairs of philosophy at our universities as 

 their monopoly would have avoided most of their 

 dualistic errors if they had had a thorough training in 

 human anatomy, physiology, ontogeny, and phylogeny. 

 Even pathology, the science of the diseased organism, 

 is very instructive for the philosopher. The psychologist 

 especially acquires, by the study of mental disease and 

 the visiting of the asylum wards, a profound insight into 

 the mental life which no speculative philosophy could 

 give him. There are few experienced and thoughtful 

 physicians who retain the conventional belief in the 

 immortality of the soul and God. What would the 

 immortal soul do on the other side of eternity when 

 it is already utterly ruined in this life, or was even 

 bom as an idiot? How can a just God condemn the 

 criminal to the fires of hell when he himself has tainted 

 the man with an hereditary bias, or has placed him 

 in an environment in which, seeing the absence of 

 free-will, crime was a necessity for him? And how 

 can this all-loving God answer for the immeasurable 

 sum of want and miser}^ and pain and unhappiness, 

 which he sees accumulated before him every year in the 

 lives of families and states, cities and hospitals? It is 

 no wonder that the old saying ran: Ubi ires medici, duo 

 stmt athei (Of three doctors two are sure to be atheists). 

 One of my medical colleagues was an old, experienced, 

 and sympathetic physician who had travelled all over the 

 world, and had then, as director of a large hospital, been 

 a close witness of the sufferings of humanity. Religiously 

 educated by pious parents, and endowed with keen sensi- 

 tiveness, he was, after long struggles, forced by his 



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