236 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 



assistance and partial delivery. By the light which the 

 science of physiology has given to. medicine, by the aid 

 which chemistry, electricity, and botany have supplied, 

 as well as by the many discoveries of the powerful 

 remedial effects of certain drugs and agencies, the modern 

 physician is enabled to attack declared diseases with 

 much more knowledge and skill. He is able, moreover, 

 to contend much more successfully with the disturbing- 

 causes within ; while we ourselves, by a knowledge of the 

 general principles of physiology and by ordinary atten- 

 tion to the known laws of health, may in great measure 

 escape those diseases and ailments which people so 

 often bring upon themselves, and may preserve ourselves 

 in good bodily health. 



5. But the mind diseased, can any medicinal art 

 minister to it ? The " rooted sorrow," can Science pluck 

 it from the memory ? Can physic or the positive con- 

 clusions of philosophy 



Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 

 And with some sweet oblivious antidote, 

 Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 

 Which weighs upon the heart ? 



And the answer of the positive scientific thinker is, Yes, 

 to a degree; science and the philosophy founded on 

 science do enable us to deal with and to diminish this 

 class of ills. Science can really minister to the mind 

 diseased, as well as teach us to escape the causes of such. 

 She can veritably mitigate the deeper soul-sicknesses, as 

 she can effectually cure the more ordinary but less malig- 

 nant forms of the same general type of disorder. For 

 mental physiology and medical science now well under- 

 stand that mental disorders, both of the serious and 

 superficial sort, are really bodily disorders; that the 

 mind diseased is but the brain and nervous system 



