(I)
"What I can't yet quite understand," said Monsignor, "is that point I mentioned the other day about Faith and Science. I don't see where one ends and the other begins. It seems to me that the controversy must be unending. The materialist says that since Nature does all things, even the most amazing things must be done by her—that we shall be able to explain them all some day, when Science has got a little farther. And the theologian says that some things are so evidently out of the reach of Nature that they must be done by a supernatural power. Well, where's the point of reconciliation?"
Father Jervis was silent for a while.
* * * * *
The two were sitting on the upper deck of an air-ship towards evening, travelling straight towards the setting sun.
He had grown almost accustomed to such views by now; and yet the sight that had been unrolling itself gradually during the last half-hour had held him fascinated for minute after minute. They had taken ship in Rome after a day or two more of sight-seeing, and had moved up the peninsula by stages, changing boats soon after crossing the frontier, for one of the high-flying, more leisurely and more luxurious vessels on which the more wealthy classes travelled. They were due in Lourdes that evening; and, ever since the higher peaks of the Pyrenees had come into sight, had moved over a vision of bewildering beauty. To their left rose the mountains, forming, it seemed to them at the height at which they travelled, an enormous jagged and gigantic pile, hard-lined as steel, yet irradiated with long rays, patches, and pools of golden sunset-light alternated by amazing depths of the shadow whose tones ran from peacock to indigo. Then from the feet of the tumbled pile there ran out what appeared a loosely flung carpet vivid and yet a soft green, patched here and there with white towns, embroideries of woodland, lines of silver water. Yet this too was changing as they watched the shadows grow longer with almost visible movement. New and strange colours, varying about a fixed note of blue according to the nature of that with which the earth was covered, slowly came into being. Here, in front, now and again a patch of water glowed suddenly, three thousand feet beneath, as it met the shifting angle between the eye and the sun; and beyond, far out across the darkening plain, shone the remote line of the sea, itself ablaze with gold, and above and about in every quarter burned the enormous luminous dome of sky.
* * * * *
"I can't put it all accurately," said Father Jervis at last. "I mean I can't tell you off-hand all the tests that are exactly applied to every case. But it's something like this. . . ."
He paused.
"Yes, tell me," said the other, still staring out at the softly rolling landscape.
"Well, first," began the old priest slowly, "in the last fifty years we've classified almost exhaustively everything that nature can do. We know, for instance, for certain, that in certain kinds of temperaments body and mind are in far greater sympathy than in others; and that if, in such a temperament as this, the mind can be fully persuaded that such and such a thing is going to happen—a thing within the range of natural possibility, of course—it will happen, merely through the action of the mind upon the body."
"Give me an instance."
"Well" (he hesitated again) . . . "well, I'm not a physician, and cannot define accurately; but there are certain nervous diseases—hysterical simulation, nervous affections such as St. Vitus' dance—as well, of course, as purely mental diseases, such as certain kinds of insanity—-"
"Oh, those," said the other contemptuously.
"Wait a minute. These, I say, given the right temperament and receptiveness to suggestion, can be cured instantaneously."
"Instantaneously?"
"Certainly—given those conditions. Then there are certain other diseases, very closely related to the nervous system, in which there have been changes of tissue, not only in the brain, but in the organs or the limbs. And these, too, can be cured by mere natural suggestion; but—and this is the point—not instantaneously. In cases of this kind, cured in this way, there is always needed a period, I won't say as long as, but proportionate to, the period during which the disease had been developing and advancing. I forget the exact proportions now, but I think, so far as I remember, that at least two-thirds of the time is required for recovery by suggestion as was occupied by the growth of the disease. Take lupus. That certainly belongs to the class I'm speaking of. Well, lupus has been cured in mental laboratories, but never instantaneously or anything like instantaneously."
"Go on, father."
"Finally, there are those physical states that have practically nothing to do directly with the nervous system at all. Take a broken leg. Of course the cure of a broken leg is affected by the state of the nervous system, since it depends upon the amount of vital energy, the state of the blood, and so on. But there are distinct processes of change of tissue that are bound to take a certain fixed period. You may—as has been proved over and over again in the mental laboratories—hasten and direct the action of the nervous energy, so that a man under hypnotic suggestion will improve more rapidly than a man who is not. But no amount of suggestion can possibly effect a cure instantaneously. Tuberculosis is another such thing; certain diseases of the heart—-"
"I see. Go on."
"Well, then, science has fixed certain periods in all these various matters which simply cannot be lessened beyond a certain point. And miracle does not begin—authorized miracle, I mean—unless these periods are markedly shortened. Mere mental cures, therefore, do not come under the range of authorized miracle at all—though, of course, in many cases where there has been little or no suggestion, or where the temperament is not receptive, practically speaking, the miraculous element is most probably present. In the second class—organic nervous diseases—no miracle is proclaimed unless the cure is instantaneous, or very nearly so. In the third class, again, no miracle is proclaimed unless the cure is either instantaneous, or the period of it very considerably shortened beyond all known examples of natural cure by suggestion."
"And you mean to say that such cures are frequent?"
The old priest smiled.
"Why, of course. There is an accumulation of evidence from the past hundred years which——"
"Broken limbs?"
"Oh yes; there's the case of Pierre de Rudder, at Oostacker, in the nineteenth century. That's the first of the series—the first, I mean, that has been scientifically examined. It's in all the old books."
"What was the matter with him?"
"Leg broken below the knee for eight years."
"And how long did the cure take?"
"Instantaneous."
There was silence again.
Monsignor was staring out and downwards at the flitting meadow-land far below. A flock of white birds moved across the darkening grey, like flying specks seen in the eye, yet it seemed with extraordinary slowness and deliberation, so great was the distance at which they flew. He sighed.
"You can examine the records," said the priest presently; "and, better than that, you can examine some of the cases for yourself, and the certificates. They follow still the old system which Dr. Boissarie began nearly a century ago."
"What about Zola?" demanded Monsignor abruptly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Zola, the great French writer. I thought he had . . . had advanced some very sharp criticisms of Lourdes."
"Er—when did he live?"
"Why, not long ago; nineteenth century, at the end."
Father Jervis shook his head, smiling.
"I've never heard of him," he said, "and I thought I knew Lourdes literature pretty well. I'll enquire."
"Look," said the prelate suddenly; "what's that place we're coming to?"
He nodded forward with his head to where vast white lines and patches began to be visible on the lower slopes and at the foot of long spurs that had suddenly come into sight against the sunset.
"Why, that's Lourdes."