Chapter III: Part 3

One reason why I deprecate easy credence, leaning to the sceptical side though believing that the thing sometimes happens, is, that there is danger of a return to superstition, if belief outruns the evidence. If the popular mind gets the notion that telepathy is more or less a constant occurrence--that mind can influence mind whenever it likes--there is a possibility of a return to the witchcraft belief which resulted in so many poor old women being burnt at the stake in the seventeenth century. I prefer excessive disbelief to excessive credulity in these things; it at least does not burn old women because they have a squint and a black cat and a grievance against someone who happens to have fallen ill. Unbalanced minds are very ready to believe that someone is influencing them. I have received quite a number of letters from people (not spiritualists) who, knowing of my interest in these matters, got it into their foolish heads that I was trying some sort of telepathic black magic on them. I had not even been thinking about them. It was entirely their own imagination. One of these people is now in an asylum. I think she would probably have become insane in any case--if not on this, then on some other subject--but these incidents almost make me wish that we could confine the investigation and discussion of the subject to our own circle or society until education has developed more balanced judgment in the masses. But of course such a restriction is impossible. The daily press and the sensational novelists have got hold of the idea. We must counteract the sensational exaggerations, which have such a bad effect on unbalanced minds, by stating the bare, hard facts. Here, as elsewhere, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is the half-informed people who are endangered. The remedy is more knowledge. Let them learn that, though there is reason to believe that under certain conditions telepathy is possible and real, there is nevertheless no scientific evidence for anything in the nature of "bewitching", or telepathy of maleficent kind. This cannot be too strongly insisted on. Let us follow the facts with an open mind, but let us be careful not to rush beyond them into superstition.

THE TRUTH ABOUT HYPNOTISM

Various popular novelists, such as George Du Maurier in _Trilby_, and E. F. Benson in _The Image in the Sand_, have taken advantage of the possibilities which hypnotic marvels offer to the sensational writer, and have put into circulation a variety of exaggerated ideas. This is regrettable. Of course the novelist can choose his subject, and can treat it as he likes; it is the public's fault if it takes fiction for fact, or allows its notions of fact to be coloured or in any way influenced by what is avowedly no more than fiction.

But it is certain that it is thus influenced. It is therefore desirable that the public should be told from time to time exactly what the scientific position is--what the conclusions are, of those who are studying the subject in a proper scientific spirit, with no aim save the finding of truth. This will at least enable the public to discriminate between fact and fiction, if it wants to.

No doubt the phenomena in question have been often discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered; but in modern times the movement dates from Mesmer. Friedrich Anton Mesmer was born about 1733 or 1734. In 1766 he took his doctor's degree at Vienna, but did not come into public notice until 1773. In that year he employed in the treatment of patients certain magnetic plates, the invention of Father Hell, a Jesuit, professor of astronomy at Vienna.

Further experiments led him to believe that the human body is a kind of magnet; and that its effluent forces could be employed, like those of the metal plates, in the cure of disease. Between 1773 and 1778 he travelled extensively in Europe, with a view to making his discoveries better known. Also he sent an account of his system to the principal learned bodies of Europe, including the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and the Academy at Berlin.

The last alone deigned to reply; they told him his discovery was an illusion. Apparently they knew all about it, without investigating. There is no dogmatism so unqualified, no certainty so cocksure, as that of complete ignorance.

The method at first was probably a system of magnetic passes or strokings of the diseased part by the hand of the doctor. But, as the patients increased in number, a more wholesale method had to be devised. Consequently Mesmer invented the famous "_baquet_". This was a large tub, filled with bottles of water previously "magnetised" by Mesmer.

The bottles were arranged to radiate from the centre, some of them with necks pointing away from it and some pointing towards it. They rested on powdered glass and iron filings, and the tub itself was filled with water. In short, it was a sort of glorified travesty of a galvanic battery. From it, long iron rods, jointed and movable, protruded through holes in the lid. These the patients held, or applied to the region of their disease, as they sat in a circle round the _baquet_. Mesmer and his assistants walked about, supplementing the treatment by pointing with the fingers, or with iron rods, at the diseased parts.

All this may seem, at first sight, very absurd. But the fact remains that Mesmer certainly wrought cures. And apparently he frequently succeeded in curing or greatly alleviating, where other doctors had completely failed. It is no longer possible for any instructed person to regard Mesmer as a charlatan who knowingly deluded the public for his own profit. His theories may have been partly mistaken, but his practical results were indubitable.

It is also worth noting that he treated rich and poor alike, charging the latter no fee. He was a man of great tenderness and kindness of heart, devoted to the cause of the sick and suffering; and the accounts of his patients show the unbounded gratitude which they felt towards him, and the respect in which he was held.

The orthodox doctors, of course, felt otherwise. They were envious and jealous of the foreign innovator and his success. And his fame was too great to allow of his being ignored. Consequently the Royal Society of Medicine (Paris) appointed a commission to inquire into the new treatment. The finding, of course, was adverse. The investigators could not deny the cures, but they fell back on the recuperative force of nature (_vis medicatrix naturae_) and denied that Mesmer's treatment caused the cure.

Obviously, Mesmer, having treated his patients, could not prove that they would not have recovered if he had _not_ treated them; so his critics had a strong position. But, on the other hand, neither can an orthodox doctor prove that _his_ cures are due to _his_ treatment. If it is _vis medicatrix naturae_ in one case, it may be the same in the other.

Modern medicine is more and more coming to this conclusion--is abandoning drugging as it abandoned bleeding and cautery, and is leaving the patient to nature. This is a significant fact.

But there is good reason to believe that Mesmer's treatment was a real factor in his cures, for in many cases the patient had been treated by orthodox methods for years without effect. Perhaps, as the doctors said, it was "only the recuperative force of Nature", but if the doctors could not set that force to work, and Mesmer somehow could, he is just as much entitled to the credit of the cure as if he had done it by bleeding or drugging. However, by one sort of persecution or another, he was driven out of Paris, and more or less discredited. After a visit to England, he retired to Switzerland, where he lived in obscurity until his death in 1815.

The method was kept alive by various disciples, such as the Marquis de Puysegur, Dupotet, Deleuze, and many more, but in an amateurish sort of way. The first-named found that in one of his patients he could induce a trance state which showed peculiar features. In trance, the man knew all that he knew when awake, but when awake he knew nothing of what had happened in trance. This second condition thus seemed to be equivalent to an enlargement of personality.

Both in England and France the medical side came to the front again, in the hands of Braid (a Manchester surgeon who first used the term "hypnotism", from Greek _hypnos_, sleep, and whose book _Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep_ was published in 1843), Liebeault, Bernheim, Elliotson, and Esdaile.

Elliotson and Esdaile still believed in a magnetic effluence, but the idea was given up by Braid and the "Nancy school" (the investigators who followed the lines of Liebeault of Nancy), for it was found that patients could be hypnotised without passes or strokings or any manipulation. Braid told his patients to gaze fixedly at a bright object, _e.g._, his lancet. Liebeault produced sleep by talking soothingly or commandingly filling the patient's mind with the idea of sleep. In some cases it was found that patients could hypnotise themselves by an effort of will (this was confirmed more recently by Dr Wingfield's experiments with athletic undergraduates at Cambridge), and this disposed of the hitherto supposedly necessary "magnetic effluence" from the operator.

The most modern opinion is pretty much the same. Dr Tuckey, who learnt his method from Liebeault himself, and who practised for twenty years in the West End of London, is convinced that the whole thing is suggestion. So is Dr Bramwell, who shares with Dr Tuckey the leading position among hypnotic practitioners in England. The latter, it may be remarked, was the first qualified medical man to write an important book on the subject in English, after Braid.

The tendency now is to give suggestions without attempting to induce actual trance. It is found with many patients that if they will make their minds passive and receptive, listening to the doctor's suggestions in an absent-minded sort of way, those suggestions--that the health shall improve and the specified symptoms disappear--are carried out. The explanation of this is "wrapped in mystery". No one knows exactly how it comes about. But it seems to be somewhat thus:

The complicated happenings within our bodies, such as the chemical phenomena known as digestion and the physical phenomena such as blood circulation and contraction of involuntary muscles, seem to imply intelligence, though that intelligence is not part of the conscious mind, for we do not consciously direct the processes. They go on all the same--for example--when we are asleep. Presumably, then, there is a mental Something in us, which never sleeps, and which runs the organic machinery. If we could get at this Something, and give it instructions, a part of the machinery which is working wrongly might get attended to and put right. Unfortunately, the ordinary consciousness is in the way. We cannot get at the mechanic in the mill, because we have to go through the office, and the managing director keeps us talking.

Well, in hypnotic trance, or even in the preoccupied "absent-minded" state, we get past the managing director--who is asleep or attending to something else--into the mill. We get at the man who really attends to the machinery. We get past the normal consciousness, and can give our orders to the "subconscious" or "subliminal"--which means "below the threshold". In Myers' phrase, suggestion is a "successful appeal to the subliminal self", but exactly how it comes about, and why the patient usually cannot do it for himself but has to have the suggestion administered by a doctor, we do not know.

Of course the word "suggestion" does not really explain anything. It is a word employed to cover our ignorance. Suggestive methods are as empirical as Mesmer's. In each case a successful appeal is made to the recuperative forces of nature, _vis medicatrix naturae_; but exactly how or why suggestion does it, we know no more--or hardly any more--than we know how and why Mesmer's _baquet_ did it. The fact remains, however, that the thing is done. What we lack is only a satisfactory theory.

At one time it was thought that only functional disorders could be relieved. But it is now recognised that the line between functional and organic is an arbitrary one. If we cannot find definite organic change in tissue, we call the ailment functional; but nevertheless some change there must be, though microscopic or unreachable. Consequently even functional disorders are at bottom organic; and, though of course grave lesions produce the gravest disorders, there is no _a priori_ impossibility in a hypnotic cure of even the most radical tissue-degeneration.

However, as a matter of practical fact, the "mechanic" has his limitations, like the normal consciousness. He is not omnipotent. Consequently we cannot be sure of being able to stimulate him to the extent of a cure. It depends on his knowledge and power. But he can always do something, if we can get at him. The chief difficulty is that in many people he is inaccessible.

For instance, I have many times submitted myself to the treatment of Dr Tuckey and another medical friend, without effect. I have each time tried my best to help, making my mind as passive as I could; for I was sure that if a suggestible stage could be reached, some troublesome heart symptoms and insomnia could be alleviated. But I was never able to reach a state even approaching hypnosis. I suppose my normal consciousness could not put itself sufficiently to sleep. Being interested in the scientific aspect of the subject, my consciousness watched the process and analysed its own sensations, instead of "letting go" and subsiding out of the way.

As to the proportion of susceptible persons, observers differ. Wetterstrand and Vogt hold that all sane and healthy people are hypnotisable, and Dr Bramwell's results among strong farm labourers at Goole support that view. Patients with nervous ailments are difficult to hypnotise; out of one hundred such cases in his London practice, Dr Bramwell only influenced eighty. This is the percentage of susceptibles found by Drs Tuckey and Bernheim also.

The insane are usually unhypnotisable, probably because of their inability to concentrate their attention. Out of the 80 per cent. of sane susceptibles, only a small proportion go off into hypnotic sleep; ten according to Tuckey, rather more according to the experience of Bramwell, Forel, and Vogt. Most of the susceptible, however, though retaining consciousness, may be deprived of muscular control. For example, if told that they cannot open their eyes, they find that it is so.

The various "stages" of hypnosis shade gradually into each other, and classifications are not much good. Charcot's three stages of lethargy, catalepsy, and somnambulism are now discredited as true stages. In good subjects they are producible at will, and as observed at the Salpetriere they were almost certainly due to training.

I have no space for the quoting of detailed medical cases, but it is desirable to emphasise the practical facts and to make the subject as concrete as possible to the reader, so I will quote just one, as illustration, from Dr Bramwell's contribution to _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xiv, page 99.

"Neurasthenia; suicidal tendencies. Mr D----, aged 34, 1890; barrister. Formerly strong and athletic. Health began to fail in 1877, after typhoid fever. Abandoned work in 1882, and for eight years was a chronic invalid. Anaemic, dyspeptic, sleepless, depressed. Unable to walk a hundred yards without severe suffering. Constant medical treatment, including six months' rest in bed, without benefit. He was hypnotised from June 2 to September 20, 1890. By the end of July all morbid symptoms disappeared, and he amused himself by working on a farm. He can now walk forty miles a day without undue fatigue." Similar cases are now being recorded in the military hospitals. Soldiers make excellent "subjects".

It has been much debated whether a hypnotised person could be made to commit a crime. Probably not; it is difficult to be quite sure, but the evidence is on the negative side. True, a hypnotised subject will put sugar which he has been told is arsenic into his mother's tea, but his inner self probably knows well enough that it is only sugar. On the other hand, it is certain that a hypnotiser may obtain a remarkable amount of control over specially sensitive subjects, particularly by repeated hypnotisations.

I have seen hypnotised subjects who seemed almost perfect automata, obeying orders as mechanically as if they had no will of their own left. Certainly no one, either man or woman, but particularly the latter, should submit himself or herself to hypnotic treatment except by a qualified person in whom full trust can be reposed. And, even then, in the case of a woman patient, it is well for a third person to be present.

But the stories of the novelists, about subjugated wills, hypnotising from a distance, and all the rest of it, are quite without adequate foundation in fact. There is very little evidence in support of hypnosis produced at a distance, and in the one case where it did seem to occur there had been repeated hypnotisations of the ordinary kind, by which a sort of telepathic rapport was perhaps established (Myers' _Human Personality_, vol. i, page 524).

Hypnotism against the will is a myth; except perhaps in here and there a backboneless person who could be influenced any way, without hypnosis or anything of the kind. The Chicago pamphleteer who wants to teach us how to get on in business by developing a "hypnotic eye" is merely after dollars. It is all bunkum.

There is a sense, however, in which hypnotic treatment can be a help in education and in strengthening the character. Backward and lazy children could probably be improved, and I know cases in which sleep-walking and other bad habits have been cured by suggestion. From this it is but a step to dipsomania, which can often be cured. Dr Tuckey reports seventy cures out of two hundred cases.

F. W. H. Myers, to whose genius doctors as well as psychologists owe their first scientific conceptions in this domain, was extremely optimistic here. He held that though we cannot expect to manufacture saints, any more than we can manufacture geniuses, there is nevertheless enough evidence to show that great things could be done.

"If the subject is hypnotisable, and if hypnotic suggestion be applied with sufficient persistency and skill, no depth of previous baseness and foulness need prevent the man or woman whom we charge with 'moral insanity', or stamp as a 'criminal-born', from rising into a state where he or she can work steadily and render services useful to the community" (_Human Personality_, vol. i, page 199). Experiments on hypnotic lines ought certainly to be carried out in our prisons and reformatories. As to the formerly alleged dangers of such experimentation--dangers of hysteria, etc., alleged by the Charcot school which is now seen to have been quite on a wrong tack--they do not exist, if the operator knows his business.

Says Professor Forel: "Liebeault, Bernheim, Wetterstrand, Van Eeden, De Jong, Moll, I myself, and the other followers of the Nancy school, declare categorically that, although we have seen many thousands of hypnotised persons, we have never observed a single case of mental or bodily harm caused by hypnosis, but, on the contrary, have seen many cases of illness relieved or cured by it". Dr Bramwell fully endorses this, saying emphatically that he has "never seen an unpleasant symptom, even of the most trivial nature, follow the skilled induction of hypnosis" (_Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xii, page 209).

A proof that _intellectual_ powers outside the normal consciousness may be tapped by appropriate methods is afforded by the remarkable experiments of Dr Bramwell, on the appreciation of time by somnambules. He ordered a hypnotised subject to carry out, after arousal, some trivial action, such as making a cross on a piece of paper, at the end of a specified period of time, reckoning from the moment of waking. In the waking state, the patient knew nothing of the order; but a subliminal mental stratum knew, and watched the time, making the subject carry out the order when it fell due.

The period varied from a few minutes to several months, and it was stated in various ways, _e.g._ on one occasion Dr Bramwell ordered the action to be carried out in "24 hours and 2880 minutes". The order was given at 3.45 P.M. on December 18, and it was carried out correctly at 3.45 P.M. on December 21. In other experiments, the periods given were 4,417, 8,650, 8,680, 8,700, 10,070, 11,470 minutes.

All were correctly timed by the subliminal stratum, the action being promptly carried out at the due moment. In the waking state the patient was quite incapable--as most of us would be--of calculating mentally when the periods would elapse. But the hypnotic stratum could do it, and this shows that there are intellectual powers which lie outside the field of the normal consciousness. The argument could be further supported by the feats of "calculating boys", who can sometimes solve the most complicated arithmetical problems, without knowing how they do it. They let the problem sink in, and the answer is shot up presently, like the cooked pudding in the geyser.

But these things are still in their infancy. Psychology is working at the subject, but we do not yet know enough to enable us to venture far in the direction of practical application of hypnotic methods in education. It seems likely, however, that further investigation will yield knowledge which may be of inestimable practical value in the training of minds, as well as in the curing of mental and bodily disease.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

It has been said, as a kind of jocular epigram, that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. With similar truth it may be said that Christian Science is neither Christian nor science, in any ordinary sense of those words. Still, perhaps we ought to allow an inventor to christen his own creation, even if the name seems inappropriate or likely to cause misunderstanding; and, Mrs Eddy having invented Christian Science as an organised religion--though, as we shall see, borrowing its main features from an earlier prophet--we may admit her right to give a name to her astonishing production. In order that the personal equation may be allowed for, the present writer begs to affirm that he writes as a sympathetic student though not an adherent.

Mary A. Morse Baker was born on July 16th, 1821, of pious parents, at Bow, New Hampshire. Her father was almost illiterate, rather passionate, a keen hand at a bargain, and a Puritan in religion. All the Bakers were a trifle cranky and eccentric, but some of them possessed ability of sorts, though Mary's father made no great success in life. His daughter made up for him afterwards.

The first fifteen years of Mary Baker's life were passed at the old farm at Bow. The place was lonely, the manner of life primitive, and education not a strong point in the community. Mrs Eddy afterwards claimed to have studied in her girlhood days Hebrew, Greek, Latin, natural philosophy, logic, and moral science! It was, however, maintained by her contemporaries that she was backward and indolent, and that "Smith's _Grammar_, and as far as long division in arithmetic", might be taken as indicating the extent of her scholarship. There is certainly some little discrepancy here, and perhaps Mrs Eddy's memory was a trifle at fault. She made no claim to any acquaintance with this formidable array of subjects in the later part of her life, and it seems probable that her contemporaries were right. Her physical beauty, coupled with delicate health, seem to have resulted in "spoiling", for even as a child she dominated her surroundings to a surprising extent.

In 1843 she married George Glover, who died in June, 1844, leaving her penniless. Her only child was born in the September following. After ten years of widowhood she married Daniel Paterson, a travelling dentist. In 1866 they separated, he making some provision for her. In 1873 she obtained a divorce on the ground of desertion. In 1877 she married Asa Gilbert Eddy, who died in 1882.

So much for her matrimonial experiences, which may now be dismissed, as they had no particular influence on her character and career. To prevent confusion, we will call her throughout by the name which is most familiar to us and to the world.

The chief event of Mrs Eddy's remarkable life, the event which put her on the road to fame and fortune, occurred in 1862. This was her meeting with the famous "healer", Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. This latter was an unschooled but earnest and benevolent man, who had made experiments in mesmerism, etc., and who had found--or thought he had found--that people could be cured of their ailments by "faith". He therefore began to work out a system of "mind-cure", which he embodied in voluminous MSS. Patients came to him from far and near, and he treated all, whether they could pay or not. Quimby was much above the level of the common quack, and his character commands our respect. He was a man of great natural intelligence, and was admirable in all his dealings with family, friends, and patients.

Mrs Eddy visited him at Portland in 1862, her aim being treatment for her continued ill-health. She claims to have been cured--in three weeks--though it is clear from her later letters that the cure was not complete. Still, great improvement was apparently effected, for she had been almost bedridden, with some kind of spinal or hysterical complaint, for eight years previously. But Quimby's effect on her was greater mentally even than physically. She became interested in his system, watched his treatment of patients, borrowed his MSS., and mastered his teachings. In 1864 she visited him again, staying two or three months, and prosecuting her studies. She now seemed to have formed a definite desire to assist in teaching his system. No doubt she dimly saw a possible career opening out in front of her; though we need not attribute her desire entirely to mere ambition or greed, for it is probable that Quimby did a great amount of genuine good, and his pupil would naturally imbibe some of his zeal for the relief of suffering humanity.

In 1866 Quimby died, aged sixty-four. His pupil decided to put on the mantle of her teacher, but more as propagandist and religious prophet than as healer. In this latter capacity perhaps her sex was against her. (Even now the average individual seems to have a sad lack of confidence in the "lady doctor"!) But she was poor, and prospects did not seem promising. For some time she drifted about among friends--chiefly spiritualists--preparing MSS. and teaching Quimbyism to anyone who would listen. (She afterwards denied her indebtedness to Quimby, claiming direct revelation. "No human pen nor tongue taught me the science contained in this book, _Science and Health_, and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it."--_Science and Health_, p. 110, 1907 edition.)

Though unsuccessful as healer (in spite of her later claim to have healed Whittier of "incipient pulmonary consumption" in one visit), she certainly had the knack of teaching--had the power of inspiring enthusiasm and of inoculating others with her ideas. In 1870 she turned up at Lynn, Mass., with a pupil named Richard Kennedy, a lad of twenty-one. Her aim being to found a religious organisation based on practical results (the prayer of faith shall heal the sick, etc.), it was necessary to work with a pupil-practitioner. Accordingly she and Kennedy took offices at Lynn, and "Dr Kennedy" appeared on a signboard affixed to a tree.

Immediate success followed. Patients crowded the waiting-rooms. Kennedy did the "healing" and Mrs Eddy organised classes, which were recruited from the ranks of patients and friends; fees, a hundred dollars for twelve lessons, afterwards raised to three hundred dollars for seven lessons. Before long, however, she quarrelled with Kennedy, and in 1872 they separated, but not before she had reaped about six thousand dollars as her share of the harvest. It was her first taste of success, after weary years of toil and stress and hysteria and eccentricity. Naturally, like Alexander, she sighed for further conquest. _L'appetit vient en mangeant._ And, though in her fiftieth year, she was now more energetic than ever.

Her next move was the purchase of a house at 8, Broad Street, Lynn, which became the first official headquarters of Christian Science. In 1875 appeared her famous book, _Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures_, which was financed by two of its author's friends. The first edition was of a thousand copies. As it sold but slowly, she persuaded her chief practitioner, Daniel Spofford, to give up his practice and to devote himself to advertising the book and pushing its sale. Since then it has been revised many times, and the editions are legion. Loyal disciples of the better-educated sort have assisted in its rewriting, and it is now a very presentable kind of affair as to its literary form. Most, if not all, of the editions have been sold at a minimum of $3.18 per copy, with _editions de luxe_ at $5 or more, and the author's other works are published at similarly high prices. All Christian Scientists were commanded to buy the works of the Reverend Mother, and all successive editions of those works. It is not surprising that Mrs Eddy should leave a fortune of a million and a half dollars. It may be mentioned here that she moved from Lynn to Boston in 1882, thence to Concord (New Hampshire) in 1889, and finally to a large mansion in a Boston suburb which she bought for $100,000, spending a similar sum in remodelling and enlarging. The modern prophet does not dwell in the wilderness, subsisting on locusts and wild honey. He--or she--has moved with the times, and has a proper respect for the almighty dollar and the comforts of civilisation.

In 1881 was founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. This imposingly-named institution never had any special buildings, and its instructions were mostly given in Mrs Eddy's parlour, Mrs Eddy herself constituting all the faculty. Four thousand students passed through the "College" in seven years, at the end of which period it ceased to exist. The fees were usually $300 for seven lessons, as before. Few gold-mines pay as well as did the "Metaphysical College". The fact does not at first sight increase our respect for the alleged cuteness of the inhabitants of the States. But, on further investigation, the murder is out. Most of these students probably earned back by "healing" much more than they paid Mrs Eddy. Our respect for Uncle Sam's business shrewdness returns in full force.

The experiment of conducting religious services had been made by Mrs Eddy at Lynn in 1875, but the first Christian Science Church was not chartered until 1879. The Scientists met, however, in various public halls of Boston, until 1894, when a church was built. This was soon outgrown, and 10,000 of the faithful pledged themselves to raise two million dollars for its enlargement. The new building was finished in 1906. Its auditorium holds five thousand people. The walls are decorated with texts signed "Jesus, the Christ," and "Mary Baker G. Eddy"--these names standing side by side.

The following examples, culled almost at random, will further show how great is her conviction that she has the Truth, how vigorously she bulls her own stocks (somehow, financial metaphors seem inevitable when writing of Mrs Eddy):

"God has been graciously fitting me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing". (_Science and Health_, p. 107.)

"I won my way to absolute conclusion through divine revelation, reason and demonstration". (_Ibid._, p. 109.)

"To those natural Christian Scientists, the ancient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, God certainly revealed the Spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter". (_Ibid._, p. 483.)

"The theology of Christian Science is truth; opposed to which is the error of sickness, sin, and death, that truth destroys". (_Miscellaneous Writings_, p. 62.)

"Christian Science is the unfolding of true Metaphysics, that is, of Mind, or God, and His attributes. Science rests on principle and demonstration. The Principle of Christian Science is divine". (_Ibid._, p. 69.)

The following maybe quoted as an example of mixed good and evil, with a certain flavour of unconscious humour:

"Hate no one; for hatred is a plague-spot that spreads its virus and kills at last. If indulged, it masters us; brings suffering to its possessor throughout time, and beyond the grave. If you have been badly wronged, forgive and forget: God will recompense this wrong, and punish, more severely than you could, him who has striven to injure you". (_Miscellaneous Writings_, p. 12.)

The advice is good, but it is not new. And Mrs Eddy seemed to experience a special joy in the thought that by leaving our enemies alone they will receive from God a more effective trouncing than we with our poor appliances could administer. The ideal Christian would not want his enemies handed over to the inquisitor--he would beg for them to be let off. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" That is the Christian attitude. It is perhaps too high for ordinary mortals to attain to, but Mrs Eddy made such high claims that we are entitled to judge her by correspondingly high standards.

The form of service in the various Christian Science churches at first included a sermon. But Mrs Eddy soon saw that this might introduce discord: for the preachers might differ in their interpretations of _Science and Health_. And Mrs Eddy above all things aimed at unity in order to keep the control in her own hands. Therefore, in 1895, she forbade preaching altogether. The Bible and _Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures_, were to be read from, but no explanatory comments were to be made. The services comprise Sunday morning and evening readings from these two books, with music; the Wednesday evening experience meeting; and the communion service, once or twice a year only. There is no baptismal, marriage, or burial service, and weddings and funerals are never conducted in Christian Science churches.

As to church government, there was a nominal board of directors, but Mrs Eddy had supreme power. She could appoint or dismiss at will. The Church was hers, body and soul. Probably no other religious leader ever had such an unqualified sway. The Holy Father at Rome is a mere figurehead in comparison with the late Reverend Mother.

In June, 1907, there were in all 710 branch churches. Of these, twenty-five were in Canada, fourteen in Britain, two in Ireland, four in Australia, one in South Africa, eight in Mexico, two in Germany, one in Holland, one in France, and the remainder in the States. There were also 295 societies not yet incorporated into churches. The total membership of the 710 churches was probably about 50,000. (In _Pulpit and Press_, p. 82, Mrs Eddy puts the number at 100,000 to 200,000; and this was in 1895. Some claim that the total number of adherents is as high as a million. But these are probably exaggerated estimates.) About one-tenth of these make their living by their faith. Here we come to the secret of Christian Science success.

There are about 400 authorised Christian Science "healers", and many who practise without diploma but not without pay. These people treat sick folks, receiving fees. Their method is to assure the patient that he is under a delusion in thinking himself ill, that matter is an illusion, that God is All, etc. It sounds very absurd. But the curious thing is that many people have been cured by this treatment, and--naturally--these people become ardent Christian Scientists. It is by the practical application that Christian Science as a religion lives and thrives. As to the kind of diseases cured, the most extravagant claims are made. In _Miscellaneous Writings_, p. 41, Mrs Eddy definitely states that "all classes of disease" can be healed by her method. After careful sifting of much evidence, however, Dr Myers and his brother (F. W. H. Myers) found that no proof was forthcoming for the cure of definite organic disease by Christian Science methods. (_Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. IX, p. 160; also _Journal_, vol. VIII, p. 247.) Undoubtedly they have been, and are continually, efficient in relieving, and even curing, many functional disorders which have resisted ordinary medical treatment--and it must be remembered that many functional derangements are as serious, subjectively, as grave organic disease--and consequently it is undeniable that Christian Science often does good. But it is probable that the same amount of good, and perhaps more, could be done by the hypnotic or suggestive treatment of a qualified medical man, or perhaps by other forms of "faith-healing". The Christian Scientist is using suggestion; but he couples it up with religion, and thus, perhaps--with some people--succeeds in driving the suggestion home with greater force. It is noteworthy that similar attempts are now being made in other directions--witness the Emmanuel movement in New York, the Faithists and various "psycho-therapeutic" societies in England, and the tendency in some quarters (Bishop of London) to return to anointing and laying on of hands by clergymen.

Psychologically, Mrs Eddy is at least classified, if not entirely explained, by one word--monoideism. She was a person of one idea. These people, for whom we usually have the simpler term of "crank", are common enough. I have no personal acquaintance with the circle-squaring and perpetual-motion cranks mentioned by De Morgan (_The Budget of Paradoxes_), but I know a "flat-earth" crank, and am well acquainted with a "British-Israelite" crank, who seems to derive unspeakable joy--tempered only by his failure to convert me--from the thought that we Britishers are veritably the descendants of one or more of the Lost Tribes. All these people are conscious of a mission. They have had a revelation, and are anxious to impart it. Their efforts may not be due to the "last infirmity of noble mind", still less to a lower motive. They may just be built that way. The majority of them, like my Lost-Tribes friend, get no hearing because of the inflexible pragmatism of a stiffnecked and utilitarian generation. "What difference does it make whether we are the Tribes or not?" asks the man in the street. And he passes on with a shrug or a grin, according to temperament. This terrible pragmatic test makes short work of many amiable cranks. And it is just here that Christian Science scores its point; for it cures physical disease, thereby becoming intensely practical. Health is the chief "good" of life. Anything that will restore it to an ailing body commands immediate and universal respect. Christian Science therefore appeals, on its practical side, to the deepest thing in us--to the primal instinct of self-preservation. Hence its success.

It is possible to blame Mrs Eddy unjustly for her love of power as such. She was not unique in this respect. The difference is that Mrs Eddy succeeded while the others have not, and are consequently not heard of. My Lost-Tribes friend would be as autocratic as anybody if he had the chance; but his motive would not be greed of power, but rather the overmastering desire to push his cause, to proselytise, to promulgate his one idea, almost by force, if such a thing were possible. Most of us know a few fanatics of this kind. The objects of their devotion are varied--one is mad north-north-west, another south-south-east--but all suffer from a lack of balance, a lack of proper distribution of interest. Of course, we may cheerfully admit that we are all more or less specialists in our several departments, and that the line between sanity and insanity is rather arbitrary. We all seem more or less mad to those who do not agree with us.

The good and true part of Christian Science is its demonstration of the influence of mind on body, and of the usefulness of inducing mental states of an optimistic character. It may, of course, be said that we need no Mrs Eddy to tell us this. True, we don't. The great seers and poets have always taught optimism, and the influence of mind on body was medically recognised--more or less--long before even Quimby's time. But we must remember that different minds need different treatment--need their nutriment and stimulant in different forms, to suit the various mental digestions and receptive powers. Consequently, though we may prefer Browning for optimism and the doctors for hypnotic therapeutics, we need not complain if others prefer Mrs Eddy and her disciples. If they get good from their way of putting things, and if that good manifests itself in their character and life--in their total reaction on the world--by all means let them continue to walk in their chosen way. It would be wrong to try to turn them. The system "works"; therefore it is true for them. The tree is known by its fruits. And the fruits of Christian Science are undoubtedly often good. In this complex world nothing is unmixedly good, and harm is no doubt done occasionally. But, on the whole, it seems probable that Mrs Eddy, with all her hysteria and morbidities and rancours and queerness, has been a power for good in the world. Her writings meet a want which some people feel, or, rather, provide them with a useful impulse in the direction of physical and spiritual regeneration. If you can make a sick person stop brooding over his ailments and worrying over things in general, you have achieved something which enormously increases his chance of recovery; and if you can make him turn all his thoughts and energies in the direction of recovery, and all his emotional powers in the direction of love and goodwill to his fellow-men and towards God, there is no limit to the powers which may be put in operation. In spite of all our achievements in science--and they have been great--we are only, as Newton said, picking up pebbles on the sea-shore. Nature is boundless; we can fix no limits to her powers. And we know so little, really, about disease, that I am not at all prepared to deny the Christian Science claims, even with regard to organic disease. The distinction between organic and functional is in our own inabilities, not in the nature of the case; we call a disease "organic" when we find definite tissue-change, and "functional" when we do not; but in the latter case there must be some organic basis, though too small perhaps to be discoverable--say a lesion in a tiny nerve. Consequently I regard the question of Christian Science cures as entirely one of evidence. I keep an open mind. If I come across enough evidence, I will believe that it can cure tuberculosis of the lungs and other diseases, as claimed, whether I can understand how it does it or not. At present, like Dr Myers, I am not convinced; but I have seen enough of Christian Science results among my own friends to prevent me from denying anything. I merely suspend judgment. But I do believe that the power of the mind over the body is so great that almost anything is possible; and I think that the medical advance of the next half-century will be chiefly in this hitherto neglected direction. I happen to know that this, or something very near this, was the strongly-held opinion of the late Professor William James of Harvard, who, in addition to being the most brilliant psychologist of his generation, was also a qualified doctor of medicine.

JOAN OF ARC

Great results often flow from small causes. Pascal said that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter the history of the world would have been different. Similarly it may be truly said that if a peasant girl of Domremy had not had hallucinations, France would now have been a British province. And it is curious to reflect that the Church which burnt her as a heretic and sorcerer has her, and her only, to thank for such hold as it still maintains on France, for the latter would have become Protestant if England had won. The Roman church now recognises this, and has beatified the Maid. The next step will be her canonisation as a saint. Thus does the whirligig of Time bring its revenges.

Jeanne d'Arc was born in the village of Domremy near Vaucouleurs, on the border of Champagne and Lorraine, on January 6th, 1412. She was taught to spin and to sew, but not to read or write, these accomplishments being beyond what was necessary for people in her station of life. Her parents were devout, and she was brought up piously. Her nature was gentle, modest, and religious, but with no physical weakness or morbid abnormality--on the contrary, she was exceptionally strong, as her later history proves.

At or about the age of thirteen, Jeanne began to experience what psychology now calls "auditory hallucinations". That is, she heard voices--usually accompanied by a bright light--when no visible person was present. This, of course, is a common symptom of impending mental disorder; but no insanity developed in Jeanne d'Arc. Startled she naturally was at first, but continuation led to familiarity and trust. The voices gave good counsel of a commonplace kind, as, for instance, that she "must be a good girl and go regularly to church." Soon, however, she began to have visions: saw St Michael, St Catherine, and St Margaret; was given instructions as to her mission; eventually made her way to the Dauphin; put herself at the head of 6,000 men, and advanced to the relief of Orleans, which was besieged by the conquering English. After a fortnight of hard fighting the siege was raised, and the enemy driven off. The tide of war had turned, and in three months the Dauphin was crowned King at Rheims, as Charles the Seventh.

At this point Jeanne felt that her mission was accomplished. But her wish to return to her family was over-ruled by king and archbishop, and she took part in the further fighting against the allied English and Burgundian forces, showing great bravery and tactical skill. But in November, 1430, in a desperate sally from Compiegne--which was besieged by the Duke of Burgundy--she fell into the enemy's hands, was sold to the English, and thrown into a dungeon at their headquarters in Rouen.

After a year's imprisonment she was brought to trial--a mock trial before the Bishop of Beauvais, in an ecclesiastical court. Learned doctors of the church did their best to entangle the simple girl in their dialectical toils; but she showed a remarkable power of keeping to her simple affirmations and of avoiding heretical statements. "God has always been my Lord in all that I have done". But the trial was only pretence, for her fate was already decided. She was burnt to death, amid the jeers and execration of a rabble of brutal soldiery, in a Rouen market-place on May 30th, 1431.

The life of the Maid supplies a problem which orthodox science cannot solve. She was a simple peasant girl, with no ambitions hankering after a career. She rebelled pathetically against her mission. "I had far rather rest and spin by my mother's side, for this is no work of my choosing, but I must go and do it, for my Lord wills it." She cannot be dismissed on the "simple idiot" theory of Voltaire, for her genius in war and her aptitude in repartee undoubtedly prove exceptional mental powers, unschooled though she was in what we call education. We cannot call her a mere hysteric, for her health and strength were superb. A man of science once said to an Abbe: "Come to the Salpetriere Hospital, and I will show you twenty Jeannes d'Arc." To which the Abbe responded: "Has one of them given us back Alsace and Lorraine?"

There is the crux, as Andrew Lang quietly remarked.

The retort was certainly neat. Still, though the Salpetriere hysterics have not won back Alsace and Lorraine, it is nevertheless true that a great movement may be started, or kept going when started, by fraud, hallucination, and credulity. The Mormons, for example, are a strong body, but the origins of their faith will not bear much criticism. _The Book of Mormon_, handed down from heaven by an angel, is more than we can swallow. No one saw its "metal leaves"--from which Joseph Smith translated--except Joseph himself. We have our own opinion about Joseph's truthfulness. Somewhat similarly with spiritualism. The great movement is there, based partly on fact as I believe, but supported by some fraud and much ignorance and credulity. May it not have been somewhat thus with Jeanne? She delivered France, and her importance in history is great; but may not her mission and her doings have been the outcome of merely subjective hallucinations, induced by the brooding of her specially religious and patriotic mind on the woes of her country? The army, being ignorant and superstitious, would readily believe in the supernatural character of her mission, and great energy and valour would follow as a matter of course--for a man fights well when he believes that Providence is on his side.

That is the usual kind of theory in explanation of the facts. But it is not fully satisfactory. How came it--one may ask--that this untutored peasant girl could persuade not only the rude soldiery, but also the Dauphin and the court, of her Divine appointment? How came she to be given the command of an army? Surely a post of such responsibility and power would not be given to a peasant girl of eighteen, on the mere strength of her own claim to inspiration. It seems, at least, very improbable.

Now it seems (though the materialistic school of historians conveniently ignore or belittle it) that there is strong evidence in support of the idea that Jeanne gave the Dauphin some proof of the possession of supernormal faculties. In fact, the evidence is so strong that Mr Lang called it "unimpeachable"--and Mr Lang did not usually err on the side of credulity in these matters. Among other curious things, Jeanne seems to have repeated to Charles the words of a prayer which he had made mentally, and she also made some kind of clairvoyant discovery of a sword hidden behind the altar of Fierbois church. Schiller's magnificent dramatic poem "_Die Jungfrau von Orleans_," though unhistorical in some details, is substantially accurate on these points concerning clairvoyance and mind-reading.

As to the voices and visions, a Protestant will have a certain prejudice with regard to the St Michael, St Catherine, and St Margaret stories, though he may very possibly be wrong in his disbelief. But, waiving that, it may be true that some genuine inspiration was truly given to the Maid from the deeper strata of her own soul, and that these monitions externalised themselves in the forms in which her thought habitually ran. If she had been a Greek of two thousand years earlier, her visions would probably have taken the form of Apollo and Pallas Athene; yet they might equally well have contained truth and good counsel, as did the utterances of the Oracles.

And, speaking of the Greeks, we may remember that the wisest of that race had similar experiences. Socrates--the pre-eminent type of sanity and mental burliness--was counselled by his "daimon"; by a warning Voice which, truly, did not give positive advice like Jeanne's, but which intervened to stop him when about to make some wrong decision. Again--to jump suddenly down to modern times--Charles Dickens says in his letters that the characters of his novels took on a kind of independent existence, and that Mrs Gamp, his greatest creation, spoke to him (generally in church) as with an actual voice. In fact, all cases of creative genius, whether in literature, art, or invention, are examples of an uprush from unknown mental depths: the process is not the same as the intellectual process of reasoning. In these cases, as for instance with Socrates, Jeanne d'Arc, Dickens, the deeper strata of the mind may be supposed to send up thoughts so vigorously that they become externalised as hallucinations; not necessarily morbid or injurious, though of course many hallucinations are undoubtedly both. The inspiration rises from below the conscious threshold. It is as if "given"; and the normal conscious mind looks on in passive astonishment. _Alles ist als wie geschenkt_, says Goethe--and he knew, if anybody did. A similar thing happens, on a more ordinary plane, when a problem that has baffled the working mind is solved in sleep. In short, the normal consciousness is not all there is of us; there are levels and powers below the threshold. And it seems likely that the new psychology is on the track of a better explanation of Socrates and Jeanne d'Arc, as well as of the nature of genius in general, than has yet been excogitated by the philosophers. Certainly these things supply interesting material for study, and many curious discoveries are now being made in this field of research.

IS THE EARTH ALIVE?