(2) Again, to speak quite strictly, I do not know that anyone would care to draw a hard-and-fast line between what is ‘functional’ and what is ‘organic.’ These terms are extremely convenient, but we must remember that they are only terms. There is an oft-recurring danger, against which we all require to be continually on our guard, of falling into the old error of the realists. ‘Animate and inanimate’ (assuming that the recent claim to have demonstrated in metals a process of reproduction analogous to those observed in protoplasm is endorsed, as seems probable), ‘genus and species,’ ‘animal and vegetable,’ these and many others are eminently useful classifications, and the border line between each and its opposite varies from comparative precision to extreme vagueness. But in no case are they absolutely precise in the sense in which the distinction between an integer and a vulgar fraction is precise. And in the matter of the terms ‘functional’ and ‘organic’ we must walk very warily indeed. Is epilepsy a functional neurosis or an organic disease? Analogy suggests organic changes. No such changes have been constantly demonstrated by _post mortem_ evidence; partly, of course, because _post mortem_ examinations of cases of death in the epileptic or epileptiform condition have been extremely rare, and are not very common in cases where there is a well-authenticated history of attacks; but partly because our investigations into the minute anatomy of many morbid conditions are at present barred by the limitations of microscopic vision. We have no right whatever to assert dogmatically that there is no organic change in a tissue because we cannot see it under a magnification of 1000 diameters--though for a variety of reasons, which all pathologists will recognise, it is not altogether _probable_ that a magnification of 10,000 diameters would in such cases demonstrate a constant change. In any case, if we are told by a spiritual or psychic healer that he cures cases of, let us say, old-standing chronic nephritis or cirrhosis of the liver by his own peculiar methods, our reply must be, not that this is impossible because we are dealing with organic disease, but rather that-- (1) If he claims to act mentally or spiritually on the higher centres of the brain and so to reach the diseased tissues, a cure is in the highest degree unlikely, for a reason which will be given at a later stage; (2) If his method is avowedly quite empirical, and he only professes to exercise a power which he does not even dimly understand, we must respectfully ask for evidence, which can be examined and tested to the satisfaction of a competent and impartial mind. Now, as to the influence of ‘suggestion,’ whether or not accompanied by other methods, e.g. hypnotism, magnetism, electricity, &c., on (so-called) functional conditions, modern medical science speaks with no uncertain voice.