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."

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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 healers. Mrs. 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

or feeling which are independent of the will, and these habits have got the better of them, so that it is difficult to exert that power of self-direction which the well trained mind will make its highest object. Hence we see hysterical convulsions, coma or syncope, analgesia, loss of sight, hearing or speech, various forms of muscular contractures or paralysis-all these without other than a psychic foundation. They may be due to mental representations, to fixed ideas, or to functional trouble out of the whole cloth (Dubois). And all the symptoms will be greatly exaggerated by constant brooding over them. Many a slight injury has been nursed by constant thought and worry until paralysis, contracture or joint debility of years standing has resulted. Such cases sometimes get into the courts in the form of damage suits, and not always with intentional fraud on the part of the patient, who may honestly believe himself to be damaged in health for life. The mental stimulus of a good round sum in compensation for damages is the best form of mind cure. It is very well known that whatever tones up and strengthens the will power of such patients will cure them. Sir James Paget long ago recognized that these patients may be jolted, as it were, out of their disease, when he wrote to a colleague: "What unsatisfactory cases these are! This clever, charming lady will some day disgrace us all by being juggled out of her malady by some bold quack, who by mere force of assertion will give her the will to bear, or forget, or suppress all the turbulances of her nervous system.

Then we have the neurasthenics, patients who are depressed in mind and body from various causes. We have our hypochondriacs also, who imagine every disease in turn and have none of them long. Then we have in every community a set of people who are simply depressed from disappointments of various kinds. So great is the tension of modern life that those especially of defective nervous force are apt to let down under the strain. All the optimism in one's nature is needed to keep the system from dropping below the level of health, and both body and mind may become disordered, trifling causes producing undue influence. Out of these classes come the faith cures. We well know that such cases as these are very numerous, especially in the cities, and they are always abnormally susceptible to the influence of suggestion.

It should be noted as a truth that the great majority of cases of the magically cured patients were never very sick, never organically, never physically sick. They were neurotic, distressingly ill no doubt, as really ill as many with organic diseases, and with disorders more difficult of cure by ordinary methods than are many organic diseases. It is the mental treatment that they especially need, for the disorder is largely mental. Mental stimulation, faith, hope, everything that can lift from doubt and despair, are needed to cause a brighter outlook. The disposition of

the human mind is such as to place confidence in the operation of mysterious agencies. As we have seen, Mesmer well understood the value of subdued light, elegant furniture, and the sound of distant music. As to cures wrought at shrines and in churches, it may be remarked that the surroundings are such as to impress the nervously sick. The vaulted ceilings, the swinging censer, the dim religious light, the robed priest or minister, serve as powerful suggestions. Said the psychologist, Prof. James: "We are all to some extent susceptible to outside suggestions and prone to act in accordance with what we are made to expect. Perhaps on no other topic is suggestion so readily accepted by people as in matters pertaining to their health." Patients go to the places and to the people having the reputation for special power to heal. They have faith to start with. They expect results. They are at once impressed by the positive manner of the healer, and if any crutches and canes are on exhibition these have a tremendous influence. The sick at once have more confidence in themselves and try to do things, and finding themselves succeeding, their confidence increases and their spirits revive. Hope of improvement sets the patient to looking for signs of progress, and as these appear the old idea of disease becomes inhibited; and with increased cheer there is bound to come increase of appetite and strength, which will continue until the old depressing thoughts are forgotten. Constructive nervous and vascular impulses are carried to the cells and organs of the body by cheerful emotions and a hopeful view of life, and the bodily functions are soon more perfectly performed. Even in acute affections faith and hope are valuable adjuncts to the physician's efforts to cure. How much more so to the nervous and discouraged. This is recognized by the proprietors of a sanitarium who display the following stanza:

"Talk health; the dreary, never-ending tale
Of mortal maladies is worn and stale.
You cannot charm, or interest, or please
By harping on the minor chord, disease.
Say you are well, or, all is well with you,

And God shall hear and make it true to you."

Celsus, writing in the first century, recognized the benefit of cheer when he said: "It is the mark of a skillful practitioner to sit awhile by the bedside with a blithe countenance;" and Cassiodorus, in the fifth century, wrote: "To give joy to the sick is natural healing; for once make your patient cheerful, and his cure is accomplished." And Burton, in the seventeenth century, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, wrote: "All the world knows that there is no virtue in charms but a strong conceit and opinion alone, which force the humors, spirits and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from the parts affected. The like we may say of the magical effects, superstition and cures, etc., such as