Editorial June 19, 1909 Issue

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING

John B. Willis

Whatever confidence the representatives of the various schools of materia medica may have in the alleged benefit to be derived from the remedies on which they rely, they must be entirely agreed that they have no philosophy of the relation of means to ends. So far as the observation and classification of the data of human experience is concerned, their procedure may be regarded as scientific, but so far as their claim of causal relation is concerned it manifestly has no rationale.

The pure materialist may prescribe a given drug for a given disease, and be able to cite evidence in proof that relief has attended its use under similar symptomatic conditions, but if asked how the particles of matter taken into the system are able to locate the inflamed part or inactive gland, to determine the nature of its disease, and so to influence it as to bring about a normal adjustment of things,—respecting all this he has no understanding; no, not even the vaguest theory. He may say that he doesn't need any philosophy; that all he wants is a practical working scheme which is based on empirical investigation, but in so saying he certainly abrogates all claim that his scheme is a science.

The semimaterialist, who assert that matter is a provision through which God accomplishes His ends, is equally incapable of giving any consistent explanation of that which he declares to be a divinely appointed order. If, for instance, God has arranged that a given kind of matter, such as calomel or arsenic, shall heal a given sickness, how is it that the continued use of these drugs poisons the system, thus producing another ill which is far more serious, perchance, than the original one? Has the matter in question escaped that divine control which was the dominating factor in the primary assumption, has the whole situation been taken out of the hands of purposeful affection and subjected to a malicious power which would doubly afflict the suffering? Can anything which is of God ever bring disharmony and suffering? These questions are simple but searching, and they enable us to see something of the self-contradictoriness of a so-called Christian point of view. The whole theory breaks down, not only because of the temporality of the asserted effectiveness of that which is believed to express divine law, but because of its entire lack of a rational modus operandi.

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June 19, 1909
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