The Bishop of Bamberg in Bavaria has been stigmatized as a hypocrite because he sends the infirm of his flock on a pilgrimage to Lourdes or Laas or some other holy shrine, while he prefers for himself the profane waters of Karlsbad or Kissingen. But in so doing he is not guilty of any inconsistency, since a journey to sacred places and contact with sacred relics would not act upon him with the same force as upon the ignorant and superstitious masses of his diocese. His conduct only evinces his disbelief in the supernatural character of the remedies he prescribes. The distinguished French physician, Professor Charcot, as already mentioned, recognized the curative power of faith under certain circumstances, and occasionally found it eminently successful in hysterical and other purely nervous affections. In some cases he did not hesitate to prescribe a pilgrimage to the shrine of any saint for whom the patient may have had a peculiar reverence; but in no instance in his experience did faith or exorcism or hagiolatry heal an organic disease, set a dislocated joint or restore an amputated limb. What Falstaff says of honour is equally true of faith, it “hath no skill in surgery.” But to return from this digression, Père Bougeant’s theory of the diabolical possession of pagans and unbaptized persons would provide for comparatively few devils, and the gradual diffusion of Christianity would constantly diminish the supply of human beings available as their proper habitations. The ultimate conversion of the whole world and the custom of baptizing infants as soon as they are born would, therefore, produce serious domiciliary destitution and distress among the evil spirits and set immense numbers of them hopelessly adrift as vagabonds, and thus create an extremely undesirable diabolical proletariat. This difficulty is avoided by assuming that the vast majority of devils are incarnate in the billions of beasts of all kinds, which dwell upon the earth or fly in the air or fill the waters of the rivers and the seas. This hypothesis, he adds, “enables me to ascribe to the lower animals thought, knowledge, feeling, and a spiritual principle or soul without running counter to the truths of religion. Indeed, so far from being astonished at their manifestations of intelligence, foresight, memory and reason, I am rather surprised that they do not display these qualities in a higher degree, since their soul is probably far more perfect than ours. Their defects are, as I have discovered, owing to the fact that in brute as in us, the mind works through material organs, and inasmuch as these organs are grosser and less perfect in the lower animals than in man, it follows that their exhibitions of intelligence, their thoughts and all their mental operations must be less perfect; and, if these proud spirits are conscious of their condition, how humiliating it must be for them to see themselves thus embruted! Whether they are conscious of it or not, this deep