by seeking the excitement of a quarrel with some other patient. Without such assistance, she could also, by the mere effort of will, produce the mental condition from which the bleeding resulted. There is an "absolute identity in all essential respects of the cases of Maria K—— and Louise Lateau," and, it may be added, of Francis Bernardone and all other stigmatists. Many other instances like that of Maria K—— are mentioned by dermatologists.
The stigmata are worthless except as proving the influence of the mind over the body, and in this influence the power of thought, affection, and will upon its nutrition, force, and availability for service, or the contrary. They prove nothing in favor of Christianity as divine, nor of the superiority of one form of Christianity over another, or over any system of religion and ethics. They unquestionably prove nothing in favor of the moral excellence of the subjects, and certainly not that the stigmata of Francis were, as the popes declared, "the special and wonderful favor vouchsafed to him in Christ." He was not, even in later years, an ideally good man; Lateau is not of the loftiest character; Palma and the Stumbele woman were vile, and the Swedish girl utterly unscrupulous. The stigmata are useful, if useful at all, simply because they furnish material for scientific investigation, and because they warn against the dangerous material and moral conditions under which such abnormal phenomena become possible. The "Liber Conformitatum" and many other volumes exemplify the tendencies of ignorant superstition. Francis was exalted above Christ. His worship in prayer and in picture vied with that of the Redeemer. Indignant reaction from the degrading absurdity was attended by the bitterest satire and the rudest burlesque, and wrought fearful damage alike to reason, religion, and good morals.
Truth is only for those who supremely desire it. Belief, if not faith, is largely a matter of inheritance, of education, of circumstance, of preference, of will. In the debate which followed the presentation of M. Warlomont's report to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium on the subject of Louise Lateau, the opinions of the speakers were in agreement with their predilections. "M. Lefebvre held to his view of miracle in the case, and M. Crocq declared that it did not pass beyond the category of pathological occurrences." Finally, the Academy decided to have nothing more to do with the matter.
