THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 237 



diseased; and between them they have discovered a 

 curative treatment as well as a mental hygiene. There 

 are both material and moral medicines prescribed, which 

 act directly upon and compose the disordered molecular 

 action, at the root of all serious mental disturbance. 

 And there is a moral as well as a physical therapeutic 

 and regimen for our more serious and deep-seated soul- 

 sickness, our melancholies, world-weariness, despond- 

 encies, abysmal depressions, and paroxysmal despairs, 

 as well as for the lighter and more evanescent moral 

 ailments of the same general nature, though less virulent 

 in degree, which are the common human heritage. Even 

 when there is functional cerebral disorder, amounting to 

 mental aberration, there is now a possibility of complete 

 cure, or at least of mitigation which was not possible in 

 the old days of ignorance and barbarous treatment. 



And can Science, the mere ascertained sequence and 

 conjunction of phenomena can even physiology and 

 psychology enable us to banish from the breast the evil 

 passions, the poisons in our cup of peace remorse and 

 hatred and fear or aid us to dissipate in our fearful 

 imaginations gloomy apprehensions and the monstrous 

 magnified shadows of the coming evil ? Yes, to some 

 very considerable extent they can; and the incurable 

 residuum, a knowledge of the universal order, will teach 

 you to bear with patience, if not with fortitude. 



Can Science deliver us from the endless cares and the 

 disturbing perplexities of conduct, the trials, difficulties, 

 and dangers, the disappointments, and sometimes the 

 total defeats, with which we meet in life ? No, Science 

 cannot deliver you from these, nor should you ask it. 

 Science cannot cure this class of griefs, which is of the 

 inmost essence of life itself; but she can teach you to 

 minimize them, to see them in their true nature, to 



