One of the cleverest productions of Professor Tyndall’s pen is his caustic essay upon Martineau and Materialism. At the same time it is one which in future years the author will doubtless be only too ready to trim of certain unpardonable grossnesses of expression. For the moment, however, we will not deal with these, but consider what he has to say of the phenomenon of consciousness. He quotes this question from Mr. Martineau: “A man can say ‘I feel, I think, I love;’ but how does consciousness infuse itself into the problem?” And thus answers: “The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, ‘How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?’ The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.”[168]
This chasm, as impassable to Professor Tyndall as the fire-mist where the scientist is confronted with his unknowable cause, is a barrier only to men without spiritual intuitions. Professor Buchanan’s Outlines of Lectures on the Neurological System of Anthropology, a work written so far back as 1854, contains suggestions that, if the sciolists would only heed them, would show how a bridge can be thrown across this dreadful abyss. It is one of the bins in which the thought-seed of future harvests is stored up by a frugal present. But the edifice of materialism is based entirely upon that gross sub-structure—the reason. When they have stretched its capabilities to their utmost limits, its teachers can at best only disclose to us an universe of molecules animated by an occult impulse. What better diagnosis of the ailment of our scientists could be asked than can be derived from Professor Tyndall’s analysis of the mental state of the Ultramontane clergy by a very slight change of names. For “spiritual guides” read “scientists,” for “prescientific past” substitute “materialistic present,” say “spirit” for “science,” and in the following paragraph we have a life portrait of the modern man of science drawn by the hand of a master:
“ ... Their spiritual guides live so exclusively in the prescientific past, that even the really strong intellects among them are reduced to atrophy as regards scientific truth. Eyes they have and see not; ears they have and hear not; for both eyes and ears are taken possession of by the sights and sounds of another age. In relation to science, the Ultramontane brain, through lack of exercise, is virtually the undeveloped brain of the child. And thus it is that as children in scientific knowledge, but as potent wielders of spiritual power among the ignorant, they countenance and enforce practices sufficient to bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of the more intelligent among themselves.”[169] The Occultist holds this mirror up to science that it may see how it looks itself.
Since history recorded the first laws established by man, there never was yet a people, whose code did not hang the issues of the life and death of its citizens upon the testimony of two or three credible witnesses. “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death,”[170] says Moses, the first legislator we meet in ancient history. “The laws which put to death a man on the deposition of one witness are fatal to freedom” says Montesquieu. “Reason claims there should be two witnesses.”[171]
Thus the value of evidence has been tacitly agreed upon and accepted in every country. But the scientists will not accept the evidence of the million against one. In vain do hundreds of thousands of men testify to facts. Oculos habent et non vident! They are determined to remain blind and deaf. Thirty years of practical demonstrations and the testimony of some millions of believers in America and Europe are certainly entitled to some degree of respect and attention. Especially so, when the verdict of twelve spiritualists, influenced by the evidence testified to by any two others, is competent to send even a scientist to swing on the gallows for a crime, perhaps committed under the impulse supplied by a commotion among the cerebral molecules unrestrained by a consciousness of future moral RETRIBUTION.
Toward science as a whole, as a divine goal, the whole civilized world ought to look with respect and veneration; for science alone can enable man to understand the Deity by the true appreciation of his works. “Science is the understanding of truth or facts,” says Webster; “it is an investigation of truth for its own sake and a pursuit of pure knowledge.” If the definition be correct, then the majority of our modern scholars have proved false to their goddess. “Truth for its own sake!” And where should the keys to every truth in nature be searched for, unless in the hitherto unexplored mystery of psychology? Alas! that in questioning nature so many men of science should daintily sort over her facts and choose only such for study as best bolster their prejudices.
Psychology has no worse enemies than the medical school denominated allopathists. It is in vain to remind them that of the so-called exact sciences, medicine, confessedly, least deserves the name. Although of all branches of medical knowledge, psychology ought more than any other to be studied by physicians, since without its help their practice degenerates into mere guess-work and chance-intuitions, they almost wholly neglect it. The least dissent from their promulgated doctrines is resented as a heresy, and though an unpopular and unrecognized curative method should be shown to save thousands, they seem, as a body, disposed to cling to accepted hypotheses and prescriptions, and decry both innovator and innovation until they get the mint-stamp of regularity. Thousands of unlucky patients may die meanwhile, but so long as professional honor is vindicated, this is a matter of secondary importance.
Theoretically the most benignant, at the same time no other school of science exhibits so many instances of petty prejudice, materialism, atheism, and malicious stubbornness as medicine. The predilections and patronage of the leading physicians are scarcely ever measured by the usefulness of a discovery. Bleeding, by leeching, cupping, and the lancet, had its epidemic of popularity, but at last fell into merited disgrace; water, now freely given to fevered patients, was once denied them, warm baths were superseded by cold water, and for a while hydropathy was a mania. Peruvian bark—which a modern defender of biblical authority seriously endeavors to identify with the paradisiacal “Tree of Life,”[172] and which was brought to Spain in 1632—was neglected for years. The Church, for once, showed more discrimination than science. At the request of Cardinal de Lugo, Innocent X. gave it the prestige of his powerful name.
In an old book entitled Demonologia, the author cites many instances of important remedies which being neglected at first afterward rose into notice through mere accident. He also shows that most of the new discoveries in medicine have turned out to be no more than “the revival and reädoption of very ancient practices.” During the last century, the root of the male fern was sold and widely advertised as a secret nostrum by a Madame Nouffleur, a female quack, for the effective cure of the tapeworm. The secret was bought by Louis XV. for a large sum of money; after which the physicians discovered that it was recommended and administered in that disease by Galen. The famous powder of the Duke of Portland for the gout, was the diacentaureon of Cælius Aurelianus. Later it was ascertained that it had been used by the earliest medical writers, who had found it in the writings of the old Greek philosophers. So with the eau medicinale of Dr. Husson, whose name it bears. This famous remedy for the gout was recognized under its new mask to be the Colchicum autumnale, or meadow saffron, which is identical with a plant called Hermodactylus, whose merits as a certain antidote to gout were recognized and defended by Oribasius, a great physician of the fourth century, and Ætius Amidenus, another eminent physician of Alexandria (fifth century). Subsequently it was abandoned and fell into disfavor only because it was too old to be considered good by the members of the medical faculties that flourished toward the end of the last century!
Even the great Magendie, the wise physiologist, was not above discovering that which had already been discovered and found good by the oldest physicians. His proposed remedy against consumption, namely, the use of prussic acid, may be found in the works of Lumæus, Amenitates Academicæ, vol. iv., in which he shows distilled laurel water to have been used with great profit in pulmonary consumption. Pliny also assures us that the extract of almonds and cherry-pits had cured the most obstinate coughs. As the author of Demonologia well remarks, it may be asserted with perfect safety that “all the various secret preparations of opium which have been lauded as the discovery of modern times, may be recognized in the works of ancient authors,” who see themselves so discredited in our days.