dropped out of sight. Of these Joanna Southcott has secured a place in history. Born in 1750, reared in ignorance, while a house servant she declared herself a prophetess, and when a maid of sixty years declared that on October 9th following she would become the mother of a second Shiloh, Prince of Peace, miraculously conceived. Her thousands of deluded followers made great preparation for the proper reception of the distinguished infant; but instead of the baby came death from dropsy; only this and nothing more. In reference to this woman Macauley says: "We have seen an old woman with no talents beyond the cunning of a fortune-teller, and with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophetess and surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted followers, many of whom were, in station and knowledge, immeasurably her superiors, and all this in the nineteenth century, and all this in London!" And in America we had her counterpart in the great Dowie, who organized a church, founded a publishing house, a bank, a land association, erected a tabernacle, founded a city, and in that city started an establishment for the manufacture of lace, goods typical of Dowie's flimsy pretensions. In 1901 he proclaimed himself "Elijah the Restorer," and hating the medical profession with a venomous hatred, he set up in opposition to heal the sick, and of course he had thousands of followers. But his influence waned, and falling sick, and his divine power failing to bring relief, he died in the good old way, in the care of a regular physician, thus giving the lie to all his pretensions.

We hear much these days of psychotherapy. The cure of disease by strong mental impression, as you all know, is very ancient, being mentioned in the Ebers papyrus, dating 1552 B. C. At different periods men have risen to notoriety if not distinction by the exercise of some seemingly mysterious power to heal the sick. Mesmer was one of these. An educated physician, he at first thought that the magnet possessed this power; then that animal magnetism was his peculiar possession. Unpopular in Vienna, he in Paris raised à furor of enthusiasm, and, thousands rushed after him, until a national commission, after investigation, announced his method as "a great proof of the power of the imagination." Mesmer was a born quack, and accompanied his practice by methods which were designed to be startling and dramatic rather than scientific, and to cloud with an appearance of mystery and even supernaturalism the simplest processes. His house was charmingly furnished. Mirrors lined his reception rooms, into which but a dim light came through stained glass windows. The halls were scented with orange blossoms, incense burned in antique vessels, and music, vocal and instrumental, from distant chambers stole upon the mysterious silence which was constantly maintained. How very suggestible all these surroundings! Is it any wonder that success came to such a man?

A later fakir was Dr. Perkins of tractor fame. With two rods, one of brass and one of steel, he set thousands agog in two continents, misled President Washington in Philadelphia, received from the United States Chief Justice a letter of commendation to John Marshall, later stirred London to its depths, confidence in him leading to the erection of a hospital for the cure of disease by the tractors, the first report from which expressed the "hope that Parliament would honor Perkins as a great discoverer." The doctor made $50,000, sickened and, like Dowie, died under the care of a regular physician. Not every one could make the tractors work, and the secret of Perkins' success was that he was a "very handsome man, six feet tall, of commanding personality, full of that intangible something that women call charm and men call magnetism." What a misfortune that all of us do not possess these qualities! Be it noted here that Mesmer and Perkins did heal the sick. And the sick are healed at Lourdes in France and at St. Ann's in Canada. And they are healed by the various forms of mental influence exercised by traveling mountebanks, and by systems of belief of which the most noted of today is Christian Science.

What shall be said of this popular craze? That it is one of the most stupendous frauds of this or any age will be generally admitted; and yet it is too big a thing to be thus summarily dismissed. Mark Twain doubts whether its founder "is in full and functional possession of her intellectual plant;" and we have seen that it is not necessary that one should be to secure a host of followers. That she is an uneducated woman, incapable of writing even respectable English, is well known. Of her book a writer says: "Of all the strange and frantic and uninterpretable books which the imagination of man has created this one is surely the prize sample." And yet this woman with this book has started a belief which she calls science, and an organization which she calls a church, which have been accepted by thousands of more or less intelligent people in several continents. This need not surprise us after the facts have been considered which we have already presented. To again quote Mark Twain: "That a commonplace person should go on climbing and become a god, or a half god, or a quarter god, and be worshipped is nothing. It has happened a million time, and it will happen a hundred million times more. It has been millions of years since the first of these supernaturals appeared, and by the time the last one shall have performed his solemn little high jinks on the stage and closed the business, there will be enough of them accumulated on the other side to start a heaven of their own and jam it."

We can readily agree with a recent writer who says: "Generally speaking, the class of recruits within the folds of the Christian Science church are the spiritually restless who have lost their one time faith in old-fashioned religion as a vital force in daily

life-those whose faith in the religious traditions of the Fathers has faltered and is out of touch with the life and interests of the community in general, leaving only a dwarfed and self-centered spiritual existence."

ers.

*

Mrs. Eddy's system of cure, whose essentials are as old as the ages, was stolen from Quimby, who had healed her of a chronic disorder, no doubt hysterical, and whom she once joyfully accepted as the prophet of a new dispensation and later repudiated. The organization which she formed and controlled with a grip of steel, has added mightily to her hold, and but for this the craze would long ago have run its course and been buried. Christian Science differs from all other faith cures in that it does not heal disease, but seeks to convince people that disease is nonexistent. Hear a few quotations from Mrs. Eddy and her healMrs. Eddy: "Matter and mortal body are the illusions of human belief." "This human error about physical wounds and colic is a part and parcel of the delusion that matter can see and feel." "Evil has no reality. It is * simply a belief, an illusion of material sense. (Science and Health, p. 93.) "Sin. sickness and, death * * are without a real origin or existence." (S. & H., p. 286.) A healer to a patient: "You have no disease. What you call disease is a fixed mode of thought." From the prayer of the president of the New York School of Christian Science: "Holy Reality, Thou art everything; thou art not sick, and therefore nothing in this universe was ever sick, is now sick, or can be sick." From all of which stuff it appears that the Christian Science "cure" is the discovery by the patient that there is no such thing as disease in the world, a most comforting reflection to one suffering with the pangs of cancer, neuralgia or gall-stone colic! It requires considerable patience to treat seriously such arrant nonsense as this; but the evil results of this craze are such that it demands some attention. Christian Science is an organized system of deceit, and it is leading many into a form of lunacy and more to death. It should therefore be denounced by all good people on all occasions. Says Dr. Warbasse: "I charge this unnatural system with cruelty. I have seen the sufferings of the unfortunate dupes of this delusion. I have seen the hand withheld that should have plucked the burning iron from the breast. I have seen them racked with pain till their faces were distorted, while through their tears they feebly murmured: "There is no pain.' I have seen them sink into unconsciousness and die and heard the weeping orphans told, 'He is not dead." And Rev. Bishop Fallows says: "Christian Science would deny all aid to the piteous cries for remedial help in burning fever and corroding cancer. It would refuse all antitoxin in diphtheria. It would prohibit all efforts against infection when some terrible disease is rampant, did not the law with its strong arm interfere." Rev. Myers, pastor of Immanuel Church, Chi

cago, says he has personally buried scores of Scientists where the deaths were due to neglect of proper medical treatment. Hundreds, he says, "are dying in Chicago because Christian Science has led them by its falsehoods to abandon the proper treatment for their diseases." And yet, to show their own hypocrisy, there is not a hospital in Chicago that is not caring for some of these fadists, some of whom, after being rationally cured, adhere to their insane delusion. John Armstrong, manager of the Christian Science Herald, when wanted as a witness in the recent Eddy law case, was found sick with pleurisy and under the care of a physician. So, while these queer people teach and preach lies and nonsense, the more sane of them are compelled to resort to rational treatment when seriously ill; but the infants, having no will of their own, are sacrificed on the altar of Eddyism. "Persons whose minds are susceptible to the Christian Science vagaries are still in the childhood stage of mental development. They love to talk of the great when they have not yet learned of the small. They discuss God and the infinite when they do not know nature and the finite" (Warbasse). Had they lived in the earlier days they would have been in the tulip craze, or wasting their money in pursuing the South Sea or Mississippi Bubble, or waiting for the advent of the Southcott baby, or burning witches, or patronizing Mesmer or Perkins and his tractors. They must have a fad of some kind, and the pity of it is that this latest fad kills so many people.

Two questions presented themselves to the writer when this paper was conceived. The first was, what is it in men, educated, intelligent, reasoning men, and more frequently women, that leads them at times to forsake their reason, to forget the deductions of their own and the world's experience, and rush madly, like herds of stampeded cattle, after a belief, a theory, an enterprise that could never commend itself to the calm judgment of any thoughtful man? It does not explain much to say that man is a very suggestible animal, and yet it is man's suggestibility that so often leads him to take up with the various crazes that all are familiar with. Suggestibility, as defined by Bernheim, is the aptitude of the mind to receive an idea, and the tendency to transform it into action, and Dr. Sidis says the idea, after a little opposition, is accepted uncritically at last, almost automatically. Man has been called a herd animal, and in the crowd and as an individual he is not the same person. As an individual he is a perceiving, reflecting, reasoning being. He is subject to certain feelings, emotions, desires and impulses prompting him to action more or less deliberate. He has been educated away from imitative, impulsive action toward thought, reflection,.deliberation, by the development of the higher brain centers. If these be put to sleep as in hypnosis, the man at once becomes an ideo-motor machine, acting on every suggestion made to him. In

the crowd, in crazes such as we have considered, a man's conduct approaches that of the hypnotic subject or the uneducated child. Men become creatures of imitation, and suggestions from the conduct of others easily influence them. Their usual reasoning powers are inhibited and deliberation becomes impossible. They then cease to draw conclusions from experience, and are controlled by impulses as are those around them. In faith-cure movements the desire for health is the first impulse, and this affects the mentally weaker first. The number seeking the same end increases and mental excitement results. If the healer have prestige from reported successes, his power is considerable. The excitement grows as more fall into line, and men soon cease to consult their judgment. Ere long a rush sets in and finally all reason seems lost. Wonder at results, real or imaginary, paralyzes the critical faculties and puts doubt to sleep. Such excitement in the lower brain centers as accompanies excessive emotion exercises an inhibitory or paralyzing effect upon the higher, reasoning centers, rendering calm thought, memory, association and correct reasoninh well-nigh impossible.

There are people in every community who possess what might be called the mob mind. They live on excitement, and although they possess no great qualities their restless, energetic spirit may constitute them leaders in crazy movements of whatever sort. They will always start with some foolish followers, and the power of suggestion increasing with the increase of numbers and close association, we soon find the craze in full swing. This is too much a day of crowds and associations. Is it not time that intelligent people should begin to consult their own sober reason and experience and place a curb bit on their suggestibility, that it may cease to carry them off the path of common sense after every fad that light-minded people so love and cultivate?

The second question to be considered is, how are we to account for the many cures of disease by the various methods that may be classed under the head of mind cure? We may premise. the remark that the fake healers cannot raise the dead, restore a lost eye or limb, give sight or hearing to one born blind or deaf, or mental power to the imbecile. Therefore they possess no superhuman power. Hence the cures we hear of, when genuine, must be attributed to an influence on the mind of the sick, a powerful impression of some sort that should be capable of explanation.

There are several classes of nervous disorder that are especially amenable to psychotherapy. The first we shall name is hysteria, a disease characterized by loss of will power as applied to the disorder of the patient, generally a female. To quote Paget's very apt saying: "The hysterical daughter says 'she cannot; the mother says 'she will not;' the doctor says 'she cannot will." The minds of such people have acquired habits of thought