Conscience & Fanaticism: An Essay on Moral Values

by George Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers

The principle of psychotherapeutics depends, as is well known, upon the close dependence of the organs and normal bodily functions upon the behests of the mind. Hudson expresses this in the form of a proposition, namely: "The subjective mind has absolute control of the functions, conditions and sensations of the body." Although this statement contains a very important principle we should not allow it to obscure the fact of the reverse process. As James, Bain and others have shown, antecedent bodily conditions often react directly upon the mind. The general truth, however, of the proposition may be readily perceived when we remember that perfect anæsthesia can be produced at the will of the operator by suggestion. The effect of mental stimuli upon functional conditions is also commonly observed under normal conditions in such phenomena as blushing, turning pale, the quickening of the pulse, fainting, etc., all of which should be sufficient to convince any one who gives the subject a moment's consideration of the very direct and instant way the mind affects the body.

Several typical examples of the influence of autosuggestion, or imagination, over intestinal action during sleep are quoted by Bernheim from the "Bibliothèque choisie de Médecine." They consist for the most part of recorded cases where, for instance, the subjects, having registered an intention to use a purgative the following day, have dreamt during the night with particular vividness that the dose had already been taken, with the result that, influenced by the imaginary aperient, they had awakened to yield to nature's demands, with the same result as if the dose had already been taken.

It may not be out of place to refer to another example from my personal experience of the potency of suggestion in affecting functional disturbances during sleep. During my first week at a public school, the dampness of the new climate brought on a bad attack of bronchial asthma, which I had not been troubled with for some time previously. The first bad attack occurred at night, when some noise had caused me to wake up. When I had recovered sufficiently to look at the time, I noticed it was 2 a.m. and at the same time heard the school clock faintly striking that hour. Fearing and half expecting another attack the next night; I asked that asthma powder and the usual remedies might be made available in case they were needed. That night, as I had feared, and for the next ten nights in succession, I woke struggling for breath, precisely on the first stroke of the school clock striking two, and experienced the worst attacks I ever had. They were undoubtedly induced at that exact time by the autosuggestion which connected the symptom with the hour and by the conviction or fear, after the first experience, that the attack would recur at the same hour.

As we have already shown, one of the chief factors in autosuggestion is faith. This is, in fact, a fundamental principle recognized by all Faith-healers from Jesus of Nazareth onwards.

The cases during the present war where nervous aphonia and paralysis, popularly diagnosed with co-related cases of neurasthenia under the comprehensive title "Shell Shock," have completely yielded to simple suggestion by affirmation on the part of the physician and confidence on the part of the patient, must number hundreds of recorded cases. Excellent results are often obtained in cases of aphonia and paralysis by the suggestive influence of electricity applied to the vocal cords and the nerve centres. Bernheim[55] records several cures of this description. Smith and Pear[56] quote a striking but somewhat erratic case in which suggestion was conveyed purely by the faradic current. The case is recorded by Bläsig[57] of a sailor on the German battle cruiser Derfflinger. "A seaman from the Derfflinger was brought into a naval hospital with loss of voice on December 22, 1914, and could only speak in a whisper. He stated that his voice had always been clear and well under control. At the beginning of December he had a slight cold, which he attributed to sentry duty on deck in very stormy and wet weather. While in the ammunition chamber of the big guns, he was greatly upset during the firing and suddenly lost his voice. After fourteen days he recovered his speech. On February 12, 1915, he returned to hospital with complete loss of voice, immediately after the naval engagement in the North Sea. On February 15 he was treated with electricity, directly applied to the vocal cords, and on March 20 he was discharged with complete recovery of his speech. But on returning to duty, as soon as he went on board his ship, his voice was suddenly lost for the third time and he remained aphonic."

More spectacular, but not more wonderful than the cures of the professional psychiatrist, are some of the so-called miracles that fill the pages of religious history; and they are less easy to explain, according to the invariable laws of suggestion, only in proportion to their lack of authenticity. There is no reason for doubting that thousands of remarkable and absolutely authenticated cures have taken place at the healing waters of Lourdes, or that many of the recorded cases of the cure of epileptics, blind, deaf and dumb and sick at the hands of Saints and others are substantially true. Many of these stories are, of course, embellished and exaggerated, while others are wholly fictitious, but the majority are based upon more than a foundation of fact. The one essential in all these cases is faith in healer and patient. The truth of the hypothesis upon which that faith is founded has not the slightest effect on the efficacy of the cure. Hudson quotes the following passage from Bernheim: "Among all the moral causes which, appealing to the imagination, set the cerebral mechanism of possible causes at work, none is so efficacious as religious faith. Numbers of authentic cures have certainly been due to it." On this fact are based the numerous theories propounded by the different sects and schools of faith- and prayer-healers that exist to-day.

The conclusion is irresistible and obvious to any one not blinded by religious prejudice that whether the object of faith is real or false the result attained will be the same in either case. Faith will produce "miracles" irrespective of the premises on which it is founded. This accounts for the quite considerable success (apart from financial considerations) attained by "Christian Scientists" in spite of the self-evident absurdity of their tenets, and the fact that they are without the remotest conception of the real principles which underlie their so-called "science."

One of the most important and striking facts discovered by students of hypnotism is the complete recollection by the subject in the hypnotic condition of all he may have learned or forgotten in the normal state, and, in fact, of all he may consciously or unconsciously have experienced, and this recollection can be induced at the will of the operator. The subjective mind is said to have a perfect memory, that is to say, it is capable of registering with unfailing accuracy every experience of the individual; for this reason hypnotic subjects have a range and wealth of knowledge quite beyond their waking abilities. It is self-evident that any forgotten fact that is recalled by an effort or at random, when an associationist explanation would be wholly inadequate, must have lain stored all the while below the level of consciousness.

As the factors of memory and heredity together have an important bearing on the growth of moral ideas, we may deal with the subject a little more fully. According to James, "The Stream of Thought flows on: but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion."[58] "Retention means liability [the italics are the author's] to recall, and it means nothing more than such liability. The only proof of there being retention is that recall actually takes place."[59] His position is slightly modified some pages later, where he says, after recording a few cases of hypnotic memory: "All these pathological facts are showing us that the sphere of possible recollection may be wider than we think, and that in certain matters apparently oblivion is no proof against possible recall under other conditions." But adds: "They give no countenance, however, to the extravagant opinion that nothing we experience can be absolutely forgotten."[60] The only reason he gives, however, for discountenancing this possibility is that he cannot find sufficient explanation for it. On the other hand, we believe that there is now ample evidence to show that all experience is retained in some portion of the psychic whole, and that although it may not have been consciously realized at all, it will still have been subconsciously registered. One of the cases most often quoted in illustration of this appears in Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria"[61] and is here repeated since it is given by James and also at greater length by Hudson.[62] According to the author it occurred a year or two before his arrival at Göttingen.

"In a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a young woman, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a fever, and was said by the priests to be possessed of a devil, because she was heard talking Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Whole sheets of her ravings were written out and found to consist of sentences intelligible in themselves but having slight connexion with each other. Of her Hebrew sayings, only a few could be traced to the Bible and most seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. Many eminent physiologists and psychologists visited the town and cross-examined the case on the spot. All trick was out of the question; the woman was a simple creature: there was no doubt as to the fever. It was long before any explanation, save that of demoniacal possession, could be obtained. At last the mystery was unveiled by a physician, who determined to trace back the girl's history, and who, after much trouble, discovered that at the age of nine she had been charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor, a great Hebrew scholar, in whose house she lived till his death. On further inquiry, it appeared to have been the old man's custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice out of his books. The books were ransacked, and among them were found several Greek and Latin Fathers, together with a collection of Rabbinical writings. In these works so many of the passages taken down at the young woman's bedside were identical that there could be no reasonable doubt as to their source."