Page:Science and Health.djvu/387

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HEALING THE SICK.
383

road to recovery, on whom this mal-practitioner has produced a relapse.

Scientific treatment fills the mind with Truth that heals the sick; but the mal-practitioner impregnates it with error that produces new disease; rubbing the head, he keeps his cases constantly on hand, because of the struggle between the little Truth he brings to bear on the case, and the error he introduces. To have barely sufficient right to make the wrong plausible, is more fatal to science than the unmasked error. No enthusiasm or praise is as zealous or fullsome as this mal-practitioner can elicit, while nothing is more relentless and unyielding than the prejudice he can arouse; but mesmerism governs them both, and enables the doctor to gain his point in sin, but not in science. Surely “the fool hath said in his heart, no God.” Manipulating the head, even to a thinness that would reveal the brains, can never heal the sick in science. This mental mal-practice is a shameless waste of time and opportunity, an abuse of ignorance or good nature inconsistent with science, the economy of Soul and the harmony of man. This secret trespassor on human rights manipulates the head to carry out, on a small scale, a sort of popery that takes away voluntary action instead of encouraging the science of self-control, and sets himself up for a doctor who is a base quack. For intermeddling with what should be the independent functions of society, the mal-practitioner gets his fee, but the involuntary agents of his schemes get bad pay for their services.

Conservatism or dishonesty, either in the statement or demonstration of science, is clearly impossible; where Principle is concerned there is no secret; explanation