THE

BRITISH JOURNAL

OF

HOMEOPATHY.

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS,

BY DR. GEDDES SCOTT,

(Read before the Congress of British Homœopathic Practitioners held in London on the 30th May, 1856.)

THE subject which forms the bond of union connecting the members of the present meeting having been for many years investigated in every aspect, and by almost every variety of mind, it is scarcely possible at the present day to offer any new or original view, or even any real and valuable instruction, in aid to advancement.

With no such expectation, certainly, have I consented to read the introductory address to an assembly of gentlemen, all of whom, I am justly entitled to take for granted, are as well instructed in the matter, and as familiar with its every form as myself. I know no point, theoretical or practical, which has not already been handled, certainly none on which I am conscious of being able to throw further light, though I may, in the sequel, ask the present state of opinion on some questions frequently discussed but not yet satisfactorily settled. In reviewing the records of homœopathy, I find myself like an amateur at an exhibition who sees every attractive picture ticketed as already "sold," and I can only turn away with the VOL. XIV, NO. LVII.-JULY, 1856.

2 A

customary benediction on the plagiarism of our predecessors who have stolen from us all chance of originality by saying all our good things before us. In such a case, the only resource seems to be to assume a little latitude, and to forego the attempt exclusively to confine the attention to one particular subject, and to select some wider and more common ground of remark which may include and be relevant to it. Let us, then, for a while forget all idols of the cave, the temple, the forum, and the theatre, and take a periscopic view of the present standing point of man, especially in our own country, and shew how the characteristic features of his position are exemplified in relation to homœopathy.

The general central idea of my remarks may be expressed by the single word progress, this being the most marked feature of the present age, an age which can with justice assume only one half of the motto, noble in its complete form, but questionable in either of its elements, "without haste, without rest," for though" without rest," we are certainly not "without haste;" but yet an age which I would gladly believe illustrative of the words of the Hebrew seer, "Watchman, what of the night? And the watchman saith, the morning cometh."

For if we consider the actual state of mankind at any period of history, and compare it with what it might be, I feel warranted in describing it as the night, or, at best, the dawn, for night is the time in which man lies helpless, and his powers are dormant, yet not incapable of being roused into fresh activity, and the dawn is the time of unsettled struggle between the darkness and the light. The intensity of the darkness may vary; the night may he still and calm, or it may be agitated by storms; it may be moon-lit or star-lit; or lit up by fitful flashes from the thunder-cloud; but still it is night in most aspects; the capabilities of man are so much greater and more elevated than his attainments have ever been. In thus speaking I am not conscious of any exaggerated estimate of human perfectibility, nor of having recourse to a sanguine imagination to unfold the future, or to modify the observation of the present. For if we deduct from the actual experience of man all those evils which result from his moral defects, and which

therefore depend upon his will to be avoided, the amount of evil removed would be so great that this alone would introduce a condition of comparative day. Cancel the single vice of intemperance, and you introduce a morning ray into a thousand homes now darkened by poverty, wretchedness, and despair. Stay the outbursts of rage, and you dissipate a thunder-cloud which could darken the brightest sky. Extinguish or govern lawless passion, and how do you scatter those chilling vapours which, exhaled from the damp earth and midnight air, blight the fairest promise that the world can shew!

If, then, we are warranted in regarding every period of man's history as, in some aspect or other, some season of the night, or at best of the misty dawn, what signs have we that "the morning cometh ?"

The night of which I speak is moral, political, educational and scientific, for assuredly man is not in any of these aspects what he ought to be, or what he might be. Are there any bright streaks in the horizon in any of these directions? I think some may be seen in all.

In the moral, I of course include the religious, at once the foundation and the culminating point of the moral. Here there is much darkness, but also some struggling beams of the morning sun. If we look to the worst specimens, and the most degraded resorts of the human race, we shall suppose ourselves plunged into unalleviated midnight; but if, from that central position, we look around us, we discern so many efforts made from without to penetrate the darkness, that we can hardly fail to believe them the precursors of the dawn. If, emerging from the thickest gloom, we approach the outer circle, we are brought as into moonlight; there is light, but it is pale and reflected, not derived directly from the original, but from some secondary source. Our morality is in a great degree a conformity with conventional requirements; our religion is chiefly that which is taught by large communities, and received because taught by them, or by individuals of commanding character and intellect, and acknowledged because stamped with their image and superscription, rather than that which each man's conscience recognizes as a ray directly emanating

from the primeval source. Nor, in general, do men care to go back further. They have a certain light, which yields some degree of cheerfulness and guidance, and this is enough; or if not, they occupy themselves with concentrating the moonlight, which, however, through the strongest lens, is moonlight still; yet, if it be light at all, it is not to be undervalued or neglected. But in this district of the horizon, there are streaks of morning light various highly important views of Christian doctrine, which, even in their fainter and reflected form, have afforded strength and comfort to many, have been found inadequate in that form to satisfy others, and these views, therefore, men of devout and thoughtful minds have endeavoured to trace further home, and thus to introduce a brighter because a more direct and original light than that which was adapted to less claimant organs which rejoiced in paler beams, but not, as it seems to me, in any essential opposition to it, as the direct rays of the sun can never be in opposition to themselves when reflected— light will be always light. And leaving the retirement of studious men, we see continually in the busiest and most repulsive scenes, a constant effort to raise the moral standard, and to afford a fresh and hopeful start to those who have fallen. -a constant recognition of a remaining element of good even in the least worthy, without which, of course, all attempts at reformation are hopeless and unavailing, as would be the dawning of the day to the blind. And to my own mind, I confess it is a pleasant and not a difficult task, to trace this desire to elevate the moral tone of the country even in measures and proposals of an apparently contradictory character. Those who would throw open the various places of public amusement on the day ostensibly appropriated to tranquillity and devotion, and to such kinds of recreation as are compatible with the repose of the amusers as well as the amused, profess, and I believe with sincerity and earnestness in many cases, to have in view not merely the abolition of an irksome restraint, but rather the elevation of the moral and intellectual condition of the multitude; while those who object to such an innovation are not influenced by sordid, or selfish, or self-righteous motives, but by an earnest desire for the same great end. Which may act with

the greater force of reason, this is not the place to argue; I adduce the example merely as indicating the approach of morning in a moral and religious aspect. That the efforts of those who would lead it on should be attended with obscurity, uncertainty and vacillation, may be ascribed to the mists which owe their existence to the coming on of the day.

The political world has been in night, illuminated here and there by some bright, particular stars, and by the faint moonlight reflected from time-honored institutions admirably adapted to their special time and office, but not to all times and all circumstances. The political arrangements of the world cannot be said to have done all for man that can be effected by the holy ordinance of law and government. Yet there is surely nothing in human nature to render a political night unavoidable; it does not appear impossible that laws and institutions. should be so constructed as to afford at once a support, a protection, and a restraint, while yet they should possess an elasticity which should admit of inward growth without the perpetual introduction of organic change-which should yield to the demands and necessities of those whom they embrace, spontaneously and without conscious interference, and without the perpetual recurrence of popular outbreaks on the one hand, or of tyranny and faithlessness on the other. The establishment of institutions possessing this character would, I think, indicate sun-rise, because they would be founded on the necessary and universal demands of human nature, and not on any restricted or partial claims limited by time and circumstance; for the very nature of man demands such a combination of firmness and elasticity. I cannot, indeed, assert that no such light has dawned, for to me it seems to have burst upon the world when it was discovered that the union of kingly power and lordly dignity, and popular energy and freedom of speech, was not possible only, but was the surest method of securing each of these elements; and therefore we may rejoice that our lot is cast where, if there be not the full and unclouded light of day, there is at least the nearest approach to it hitherto made, and the smallest amount of fitful illumination. And in proportion as the same great principles are recognized and