The Untroubled MindHall, Herbert J. (Herbert James)
Philosophy
The Untroubled Mind
Hall, Herbert J. (Herbert James)
Mental health
There really need be no issue or disagreement between medicine and faith
cure. At its best, one is not more wonderful than the other, and both
aim to accomplish the same end--the relief of human suffering. When the
two are merged, as some day they will be, we shall be surprised to
discover how alike they are. Christian Science is rightly scorned by
medical men because it is unscientific, because it makes absurd and
untenable claims outside its own field, and because it has not as yet
investigated that field in the scientific spirit. When proper study and
investigation have been made it will be found that faith cure, not in
its present state, but in some future development, will have an immense
field of usefulness. It will be worthy of as much respect in that field
as medicine proper in its own sphere. As a matter of fact both medicine
and faith cure are miraculous in a very real sense, as both depend for
efficiency now and always upon the same great laws which may be fairly
called divine. What is the discovery that the serum of a horse will
under certain circumstances cure diphtheria? Does it not mean that man
is tapping sources of power far beyond his understanding? Is man
responsible save as the agent? Did he produce the complex animal
chemistry that makes this cure possible? Did man make the horse, or the
laws that control the physiology and pathology of that animal? Here,
then, is faith cure in its largest and best sense. The biologist may not
be willing to admit it, but his faith in these great laws of God have
made possible the cure of a dread disease. Here, as in all matters of
pure religion, it is what men say and write, not the fact itself, that
makes all the misunderstanding; we make our judgments and conceive our
prejudices from mere surface considerations. Call life what you
will,--leave out the symbolic word "God" altogether,--the facts remain.
The true scientific spirit must reverence and adore the power that lies
behind creation. It is as inconsistent for the bacteriologist to be an
unbeliever as it is for the Christian Scientist to deny the value of
bacteriology. Medicine is infinitely farther advanced than Christian
Science, and yet Christian Science has grasped some truth that the
natural scientist has stupidly missed. When an obsession is thrown off
and courage substituted for fear, we witness as important a "cure" as
can be shown to the credit of surgery. If the Christian Scientists and
the other faith-curers were only less superficial and less narrow in
their explanation of the facts, if they would condescend to study the
diseases they treat, they would be entitled to, and would receive, more
respect and consideration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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