might succumb. And then, after all, why go to all this trouble of focalization, etc., when it is just as easy, generally speaking, not to sit in a draught? It seems to us that in point of simplicity materialistic teaching has, in this matter at least, a decided superiority over the spiritualistic. The believer in the laws of matter says: "If you sit in a draught, particularly when you are heated and perspiring, you will be in danger of catching cold, which may take the form of pneumonia, pleurisy, lumbago, or something else both dangerous and painful; therefore don't sit in a draught if you can possibly help it." The spiritual philosopher says: "Don't sit in a draught unless you are sure of your subjective conditions. Draughts do not cause illness; it is your susceptibility does that, and it should be your aim to get rid of such susceptibility by pursuing ideals and getting your attitude of mind properly focalized." A poet already quoted, who gives us many a shrewd hint, tells of a philosopher who, while gazing at the stars, walked into a well; and we should be inclined to dread some not altogether dissimilar catastrophe for the devotee of this exalted doctrine.
It is a great mistake, we are told, to say, "I am cold," "I am ill," "I have hurt myself." The proper phrases to use are not given, but it is implied that, if we would express the truth, we should say, "The plastic material which I, a soul, have picked up is cold, ill, etc." The body is the wicked partner that gets into these scrapes, and we should remind ourselves continually that the soul has no complicity in such misdoings. A man "may mentally say to himself—even mechanically at first until the habit is formed—I, the real ego, am well, I am strong, I am pure, I am perfect, disregarding adverse physical sensations." Ordinary common sense tells us that "adverse physical sensations" ought not to be disregarded, but on the contrary ought to be taken as warnings that we have violated in some way the laws of our physical nature. If we have an acute indigestion caused by taking food excessive in quantity or unsuitable in quality, we should, according to the above teaching, meet the emergency by eulogizing our soul for its strength, its purity, and its perfection, for its oneness "with the divine spirit of wholeness." Not occupying so exalted a plane as the advocate of mental healing, we should be disposed to consider the occasion a very unsuitable one for eulogizing the soul. If the soul does not direct or control the voluntary actions of the body, it is hard to see what good it is; and if our soul has allowed us to make a beast of ourselves, it would be better, it seems to us, to tell it some home truths. It is really almost too ridiculous to say that if a man gets drunk he is to "disregard adverse physical sensations," and sing a paean, however huskily, to his ego; yet, where is the line to be drawn?
But again, what degree of triumph over physical phenomena may we expect to achieve? It was promised to the early believers in Christianity that they should be able to take up serpents with impunity, and that if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt them. Is something like this the goal of the system we are discussing? Once take the position that the material is the unsubstantial, and all the foundations of our everyday life give way. The "plastic material" which the soul appropriated in order to acquire "articulate manifestation" loses all definite properties; and how that would answer the purposes of the soul is a very obscure question. As we have hinted in our headline, the whole theory under discussion lies
