330 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 635 



the 'pledge' in the history of the temper- 

 ance movement. A mere promise to his 

 sweetheart will clean up a youth's life all 

 over— at any rate for a time. For such 

 effects an educated susceptibility is re- 

 quired. The idea of one's 'honour,' for 

 example, unlocks energy only in those who 

 have had the education of a gentleman, 

 so called. 



That delightful being. Prince Pueckler- 

 Muskau, writes to his wife from England 

 that he has invented "a sort of artificial 

 resolution respecting things that are diffi- 

 cult of performance." "My device," he 

 says, "is this: I give my word of honour 

 most solemnly to myself to do or to leave 

 undone this or that. I am of course ex- 

 tremely cautious in the use of this expe- 

 dient, but when once the word is given, 

 even though I afterwards think I have been 

 precipitate or mistaken, I hold it to be per- 

 fectly irrevocable, whatever inconveniences 

 I foresee likely to result. If I were 

 capable of breaking my word after such 

 mature consideration, I should lose all re- 

 spect for myself— and what man of sense 

 would not prefer death to such an alterna- 

 tive? * * * When the mysterious formula 

 is pronounced, no alteration in my own 

 views, nothing short of physical impos- 

 sibility, must, for the welfare of my soul, 

 alter my will. * * * I find something very 

 satisfactory in the thought that man has 

 the power of framing such props and 

 weapons out of the most trivial materials, 

 indeed out of nothing, merely by the force 

 of his will, which thereby truly deserves 

 the name of omnipotent."* 



Conversions, whether they be political, 

 scientific, philosophic, or religious, form 

 another way in which bound energies axe 

 let loose. They unify, and put a stop to 

 ancient mental interferences. The result 

 is freedom, and often a great enlargement 



* ' Tour in England, Ireland and France,' Phila- 

 delphia, 1833, p. 435. 



of power. A belief that thus settles upon 

 an individual always acts as a challenge to 

 his will. But, for the particular challenge 

 to operate, he must be the right challengee. 

 In religious conversions we have so fine an 

 adjustment that the idea may be in the 

 mind of the challengee for years before it 

 exerts effects; and why it should do so 

 then is often so far from obvious that the 

 event is taken for a miracle of grace, and 

 not a natural occurrence. Whatever it is, 

 it may be a highwater mark of energy, in 

 which ' noes, ' once impossible, are easy, and 

 in which a new range of 'yeses' gain the 

 right of way. 



We are just now witnessing — but our 

 scientific education has unfitted most of us 

 for comprehending the phenomenon- — a 

 very copious unlocking of energies by 

 ideas, in the persons of those converts to 

 'New Thought,' 'Christian Science,' 'Meta- 

 physical Healing, ' or other forms of spirit- 

 ual philosophy, who are so numerous 

 among us to-day. The ideas here are 

 healthy-minded and optimistic; and it is 

 quite obvious that a wave of religious ac- 

 tivity, analogous in some respects to the 

 spread of early Christianity, Buddhism 

 and Mohammedanism is passing over our 

 American world. The common feature of 

 these optimistic faiths is that they all tend 

 to the suppression of what Mr. Horace 

 Fletcher has termed ' fearthought. ' Fear- 

 thought he defines as 'the self-suggestion 

 of inferiority'; so that one may say that 

 these systems all operate by the suggestion 

 of power. And the power, small or great, 

 comes in various shapes to the individual, 

 power, as he will tell you, not to 'mind' 

 things that used to vex him, power to con- 

 centrate his mind, good cheer, good temper ; 

 in short, to put it mildly, a firmer, more 

 elastic moral tone. The most genuinely 

 saintly person I have ever known is a 

 friend of mine now suffering from cancer 

 of the breast. I do not assume to judge 



