dispenser of happiness and blessings.[1]
The only way, therefore, how man can be cured of his diseases with certainty and can again secure entire happiness is to abjure science and all things scientific.
It is very difficult, to be sure, to protect one's self altogether from this cunning serpent at present; for men have been obliged to listen to science from early childhood, and have imbibed its poison from innumerable books; many have sacrificed their entire fortune and their health to science,—in short, men everywhere have worshipped at the feet of this celebrated goddess.
When man is just beginning to allow himself to be guided once more by nature, in a simple manner, without any doubts and subtleties, the cries and exclamations of science are heard to interfere from all sides. In hygiene and pathology then the talk is of bacilli, albuminous matter, nutritive salts, colds, etc., etc. Man is then easily led astray again.
Let man therefore be guided solely by the voices of nature (instinct, conscience, organs of sense, etc.).
It may be objected that it is easy to see how the animals are safely guided by their instinct, but it is hard to understand how for the present man can be led by nature in the same manner.
To be sure, man has not listened to the voices of nature for a long time. Instinct and conscience have consequently grown silent, and the organs of sense have become weakened. But nevertheless we can still be led by them easily and safely. Well does the great Goethe say: <poem>
"Quite softly speaks a God in our breast, Quite softly yet perceptibly He shows us Which we must seize, and which to flee."
- ↑ It is still a risky thing to attack science, notwithstanding the fact that precisely her most faithful and honest devotees are the most afflicted with disease and suffering. I need refer only to the many nervous and broken-down savants. Our opponents here remind us of the great and beneficent researches, discoveries, inventions, etc. But I trust that those who read my book will no longer be dazzled by the great "achievements" of science or the great blessings of civilization, that are said to have grown out of it for man.
