This universalization of the primitive self-centred life leads to the realization of Sin. When we enter that Garden of Gethsemane where the woes of the world, the murders and seductions, the cruelties and hypocrisies, are revealed in all their hideousness, we realize that we are partakers in this Sin; for it is the result of that self-centred arrogance, that selfishness with which each one has to fight, and which is the essence of Sin. It is through this tremendous conviction that all must enter into that life of the Universal, where alone is true freedom, and where alone the fulness of individual life is to be found. Only by this saturation with the Universal does that hatred of Sin arise which makes sins henceforth impossible.
Then the recognition of Right and Wrong in human action becomes clear, and the supremacy of the Moral Law inevitable.
It is indispensable to refer to these deeper principles of existence in considering their varied application. They give force to those condensed maxims of practical wisdom which, transmitted to us from the experience of our forefathers, are guides for our present daily life.
‘Never do evil that good may come’ is a proverb so familiar to us in various forms that we fail to see the profound wisdom which it expresses.
It is a confession of that intellectual limitation which cannot foresee complicated results; it is an acceptance of that inflowing light of conscience (however dim) by which everyone must honestly walk; it is the subjection of the narrow, self-centred Will to the Universal Life by which the individual becomes a free co-worker with the Divine.
Physiology rightly studied in the light of this fundamental principle—incarnation—vindicates the supremacy of the Moral Law, which is the Law of Unity, or transfiguration of the Self. It gives the perception of Right and Wrong. The Law of the Universal, reverently and intelligently studied, will guide all practical action; it will show us how to build a hospital, plan a medical school, organize an institute of preventive medicine, legislate for a community, or guide the individual life.
The Law of Unity relegates bacteriology to its proper place as a branch of pathology, and proves that truth cannot be gained by searching into the quivering organs of tortured animals. It shows us also that individual health cannot be secured by building a Chinese wall around one’s self. We cannot stop the revolution of the earth in an atmosphere which may bring bacilli from inundated China, from starved Russia, from leprous India, or from the slums of the West.
We must work gradually towards the realization of our ideal—Health—and work in many directions and on many lines. Advancing sanitation will place our future hospitals in country neighbourhoods, with only temporary receiving houses and dispensaries in large towns.
‘The oldest hospitals were the temples of Esculapius, where Divine assistance was sought.’ To these Asclepeia, always erected on healthy sites, hard-by fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the sick and maimed resorted to seek the aid of the ‘god of Health.’ To this wisdom of the ancients we must certainly return when the present tendency to subordinate the welfare of the sick to the convenience of students be checked.
The most urgent need which now exists in our profession is the establishment of an Institute of Preventive Medicine guided by the Moral Law. Such an Institute will recognise that mind and matter meet in the fact called Life, will reverently study all the conditions and laws of healthy life, and not be diverted from this great aim by curious investigations into artificially propagated disease.