The Faith Cure rests on the declarations of the Bible, that faith will remove mountains, and redeem the lost. When Christ or his disciples laid hands on the sick to heal, the first and paramount question was: Have they faith? There is curative power in faith. It is half gained to have the sick confident that they will recover; and the belief that they will be sustained by certain means often has more influence than the means.
The Mental Cure asserts the superiority of the mind over the body, as a scientific fact, without appeal to God or faith. In vital essence, in making the body the servant of the mind, all these systems are identical. Christian Metaphysics and Christian Science, a difference of name, and mental cure, mind cure, etc., have the same basis. Each has enclosed a narrow field, and writes its name over the entrance. Christian Science, by making the greatest display, has become most conspicuous. Many of its propositions call forth no dissent, others are on their face too absurd to require contradiction.
The same line of argument will apply to all these systems, and they need not be taken separately.
Influence of the Mind Over the Body.—The mind has a very great influence over the body, as has been remarked by those who have investigated the subject since the time of Hippocrates. The strongest mind sometimes is found in a weak body.
Lord Brougham, with a frail physique, performed the most Herculean mental tasks. It is said that he once worked one hundred and forty-four hours, or six consecutive days, and then slept all Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday night, and was waked Monday morning by his valet to resume his labors.
The power of mind over the body is illustrated by the annals of explorers in the frigid zone, and in the deadly regions of the tropics. The leaders of such expeditions, with all the burden and responsibilities of their position, bear up better than their men, and rarely succumb to adversities to which the latter yield. The hardships met by Dr. Kane and Lieut. Greely are fresh in the mind; and the invincible Stanley, braving the savage foes and deadly malaria of the Black Continent, is another example. Such leaders, encouraged by the honors success will yield, and dreading the shame of defeat more than death, persevere against all opposing forces, while their men, with less at stake either to win or lose, sink, apathetically, before reaching the goal. In such cases, the will sustains the body, and shows its independence of the material forces which affect it.
In no instance is the control of mind over the sensations, affecting it through the body, shown with greater force than in the terrible ordeals of martyrdom. The weak and delicate woman, as well as the strong man, was bound on the rack, or subjected to the unspeakable horrors of the thumbscrew, burning pincers, or the smouldering fagots, and yet so far from uttering moans or sighs, smiled on their tormentors, or sang hozannas amid the flames. Their minds had risen to such exaltation that physical pain was unfelt, in fact, was a relief to the mental tension.
There is no pathological phenomena more freely attested than the sudden vitiation of the secretions by intense mental disturbances. A mother subjected to intense fright, or fear, will have her milk become poisonous to her babe. Dr. A. Combe mentions an instance where a mother left her child to assist the father in combat with a drunken soldier. After the fight was over she nursed the babe, which was strong and healthy. After a few minutes it ceased nursing, and sank dead in its mother’s arms. The milk had become a virulent poison.
A lady with a violent temper was warned by her physician against indulging it while nursing her babe, and she had obeyed until the child was several months old, strong and healthy. At that time she became enraged at some trivial circumstance, and soon afterwards she nursed her babe, which became ill, and within an hour was dead. The changes wrought in the saliva by anger are well known. The bite of an enraged man is as much to be dreaded as that of a mad dog. Blood poisoning is almost a sure consequence of inoculation with the saliva of an angry man or brute.
Hydrophobia itself is probably a spontaneous production in canines subjected to starvation and ill-usage.