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 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 
 
 A Journal of Ortho genic s 
 
 For the Study and Treatment 
 of Retardation and Deviation 
 
 Editor : 
 
 LIGHTNER WITMER, Ph. D., 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 MENTAL HEALING AND THE EMMANUEL_ MOVEMENT 
 
 AN EDITORIAL CRITICISM 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC PRESS 
 Woodland Ave. and 36th St. 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Reprinted from Voi,. II, Nos. 7-9. 
 
 PRICE, 25 CENTS. 
 
In contributing to this discussion, the 
 purpose of The Psychological Clinic has been 
 to shift the burden of adverse criticism from 
 psychology to those who misrepresent its ideals, 
 methods, and practical results.” 
 
MENTAL HEALING AND THE EMMANUEL MOVEMENT 
 
 AN EDITORIAL CRITICISM 
 
 Religion and Medicine. By Elwood Worcester, D.D., Ph.D., Samuel 
 McComb, M.A., D.D., and Isador H. Coriat, M.D. Moffatt, Yard & 
 Co., New York, 1908. 
 
 Psychotherapy. A Course of Reading in Sound Psychology, Sound Medi- 
 cine and Sound Religion. Vol. I, No. 1. Centre Publishing Com- 
 pany, New York, 1908. 
 
 We shall discuss the system of mental healing or psychotherapy, 
 represented in what has come to be called the “Emmanuel Movement,” 
 under the following heads : — 
 
 1. As a social movement. 
 
 2. As a criticism of medicine and an appreciation of psychology. 
 
 3. As a curative., system and propagandist movement for the Church. 
 
 4. As a system of psychology and philosophy. 
 
I 
 
 AS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT 
 
 Any fair-minded man who hears for the first time of the practical 
 work undertaken by Dr. Richard C. Cabot, a physician, and Dr. Elwood 
 Worcester, an Episcopal clergyman, for alleviating the unhappy mental 
 condition of a class of patients suffering from what are commonly called 
 functional nervous diseases, must welcome it with cordiality and wish 
 it godspeed. 
 
 Several very diverse streams of intellectual and active endeavor are 
 represented in the thought which underlies Dr. Worcester’s work. These 
 diverse streams of thought and action seem to agree in one particular, 
 that they place increasing emphasis upon the importance of an applied 
 or practical psychology. 
 
 This recognition of the value of an applied psychology is due in 
 great measure to the development of psychology itself. Until the last 
 quarter of the last century, psychology was not a separate science, but a 
 department of philosophy. As a branch of speculative thinking its prin- 
 ciples and conclusions had little or no reference to, and certainly no 
 value for, ordinary life. Then came the laboratory, with its experimental 
 investigations into problems of which we may take as an example the 
 time it takes to respond to a stimulus of sight or sound, or to associate 
 one idea with another, — in other words, the time of the thinking process. 
 These normal times once established, investigators led the way into the 
 field of comparative psychology. The effects of alcohol, tobacco, and 
 other drugs upon the character and time of the associations of ideas 
 represented in thinking, and the differences between the sane and the 
 insane mind with respect to these mental processes, were soon under 
 investigation. So to-day we find in Germany, in France, and in this 
 country a rapidly increasing series of investigations into the mental 
 processes of various normal and degenerative types of mind, and different 
 methods have been proposed to enable us to study the slightly disordered 
 and insane mind as these have never been investigated before. 
 
 Another field of applied psychology was opened, — and the credit 
 belongs first of all to G. Stanley Hall, — by the persistent effort of investi- 
 gators to obtain exact results as to the effect of the educative process 
 upon the human mind during the developmental period. To these must 
 
6 
 
 be added a third line of inquiry, represented by the original work of 
 Francis Galton in England, and the labors of Cattell and Thorndike in 
 America, to determine the variability in mental processes dependent upon 
 different levels of social and intellectual development. Thus, at the 
 present time, certain pioneers in an applied psychology are developing 
 new departments of knowledge in connection with medicine, educa- 
 tion and social statistics. 
 
 This stream of psychological investigation moving on toward fields 
 of practical endeavor has been met by streams which had their origin 
 each in its respective province of medicine, education and sociology. 
 The study of nervous disease as a medical specialty has led physicians 
 more and more to call attention to the psychological factors involved in 
 the treatment of disease. Thus we find Dr. S. Weir Mitchell among 
 the first in this country to awake to a consciousness of the importance 
 of the physician’s appeal to the mind of the patient, — a method which 
 has never been absent from the repertoire of the genuine physician or 
 healer, although until the time of Dubois no one had deemed it worth 
 while to give expression and fixed form to these psychological methods. 
 Within the field of education also, any number of men have shown that 
 the educational problem was being studied from the psychological point 
 of view, and that the educator was not only ready to accept the results 
 of the laboratory investigator, so far as these might be helpful, but was 
 even going abroad to search for psychological methods to solve the 
 problems which confronted him. 
 
 Another stream of modern thought and activity, which is to be found 
 in combination with the currents of practical work proceeding from 
 psychology, medicine and education, has its source in the study of social 
 conditions. Statistical and economic investigations have tended to show 
 that poverty is not so much a cause as an effect of economic and social 
 conditions, and this discovery has led to a more exact investigation, to 
 which such organizations as the United Charities in New York under 
 Dr. Devine are committed, in order to ascertain the extent to which 
 social inefficiency is due to economic conditions or to the defective char- 
 acter of the individual. The sociologist, therefore, who on the practical 
 side is the social worker, has been ready to extend the hand of co-opera- 
 tion to the psychologist and the physician. 
 
 The physician, for his part, has begun to cry out for help to the 
 social worker. Already in waging his combat against the plague of 
 smallpox the physician found it necessary to seek for social and political 
 assistance in order to place effective vaccination laws upon the statute 
 books for the prevention of this dread disease, and to-day smallpox is 
 reduced to a minimum in most civilized communities through the en- 
 forcement of compulsory vaccination in connection with compulsory 
 education. In the same class with smallpox in this respect, we find one 
 after another diphtheria, malaria, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and at the 
 present time most of all tuberculosis, the centre of a rallying cry for the 
 co-operation of the social and medical influences of the country to carry 
 
7 
 
 out such precautions as the medical profession has demonstrated to be 
 necessary. This co-operation has taken concrete form in the organization of 
 many medical and non-medical societies to combat tuberculosis, the most 
 conspicuous example of which was the International Congress, carried 
 on with such distinguished success last October in the city of Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Of less general importance but perhaps even greater significance, 
 because it is a definite and concrete realization of the association of 
 social worker and physician, is the social service department, organ- 
 ized and guided originally by Dr. Ki chard C. Cabot and Dr. James 
 J. Putnam, which was first undertaken at the Massachusetts General 
 Hospital, and since has spread to other hospitals. The physician, so they 
 contend, wastes his time if he endeavors to cure tuberculosis at the dis- 
 pensary without sending some one into the home to instruct the patient’s 
 family and to see that the medical advice given is actually carried out. 
 From tuberculosis Dr. Cabot applies the same principles to nervous and 
 mental diseases. The medical profession recognizes that in the treatment 
 of most functional and some organic nervous diseases, the efficient cure or 
 ameliorating agency is what may be comprised under a regimen of life. 
 Dr. Cabot in a remarkable article invites attention to a consideration of 
 the value of the social worker, whom he considers at the present day the 
 only expert in the field of human character.- There can be little doubt that 
 the social worker and the grade teacher will become in time the most 
 important repository of information concerning the development of 
 mental, moral, and physical traits. 
 
 Another significant feature in modem medicine is the breaking down 
 of the spirit of secrecy which surrounded the methods and prescriptions 
 of the old-time physician. To-day many physicians even go to the extent 
 of instructing the apothecary to copy the prescription upon the label, 
 and there is a growing consensus of opinion that one important function 
 of the medical profession is to instruct the public in the hygienic meas- 
 ures which are necessary to prevent and cure disease. 
 
 Through the agency of Dr. Cabot and Dr. Worcester, we see these 
 various streams of intellectual progress united with quite a different stream 
 of activity. To this union we owe the organization of what has come to 
 be called the Emmanual Movement. It produced the church clinic, and 
 has given rise to the interesting contention that the clergyman has a 
 service partly social in character and partly medical, which he can and 
 ought to perform. As Dr. Cabot puts it, “What we need is team play, 
 and there are at least three on the team, the medical man, the social 
 worker, and the minister.” Let us examine a little more narrowly the 
 stream which at this point combines with that which took its origin in 
 medicine on the one hand and in social and philanthropic work on 
 the other. 
 
 The Church has always been a social and political force. Through 
 its social service to humanity, in connection with education, in fostering 
 the arts and sciences through several centuries, in the establishment of 
 
8 
 
 hospitals and other philanthropic institutions, the Church for many years 
 kept a firm hold upon its people. When there was no expert physician, 
 no psychologist, no sociologist, no real educator, the Church was able to 
 offer to mankind in the person of its representative one who combined 
 the functions of priest, physician, educator, psychologist and sociologist. 
 But with the development of modern science one branch of learning after 
 another was swept away from its ancient moorings in the Church. The 
 first to go were medicine and the physical sciences. Then the moral 
 sciences split off, in the first instance through the development of social 
 science, economics, and politics, each branch developing institutions of 
 its own quite apart from its ancient foster mother. Last of all psychology 
 as the newest of all the sciences to take its place as a separate branch of 
 investigation and instruction in our universities, achieved its inde- 
 pendence of philosophy and theology. The first laboratory of psychology 
 was established by Wundt in the University of Leipzig in 1879, and the 
 first chair restrictedly designated as a professorship of psychology was 
 established at the University of Pennsylvania in the year 1889. The 
 recency of this development of psychology as a separate science gives rise 
 to such a phenomenon as that observed in Dr. Worcester’s teaching 
 philosophy and psychology while exercising the functions of chaplain at 
 Lehigh University. In many other universities outside of the Roman 
 Catholic communion, there is still this combination of theological and 
 psychological activity, and even in some of our leading institutions one 
 and the same man will presume to cover the fields of both philosophy and 
 psychology, a combination which has no more warrant, except in tradi- 
 tion, than a similar combination of philosophy with one of the exact 
 sciences, say physics, chemistry, or mathematics. But the theologian no 
 longer spreads his surplice over sociology, economics and history, and it 
 has almost escaped the memory of man that there was a day when he even 
 ventured to cover the physical sciences. 
 
 And so the Church has been stripped one by one of the ornaments of 
 civilization which it helped originally to design. This circumscrip- 
 tion of its influence is observable, according to Dr. Worcester, not merely 
 in its general relation to society, but also in its personal contact with 
 the individual. It is the object of Dr. Worcester to give to the Church 
 some measure of its original significance for society and for the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Of all the arts at one time practiced by the Church, the art of 
 healing was by far the most important. Since mankind has learned to 
 go to the doctor and not to the saint for the treatment of his physical 
 ills, the Church’s function in this field has been to offer solace and such 
 assistance as may come through prayer. It is not Dr. Worcester’s inten- 
 tion to claim that the church clinic, in resorting to prayer, will rely upon 
 a divine interruption of the orderly course of nature, — a miracle, in the 
 ordinary meaning of that word. In his opinion the healing power of 
 prayer lies in the suggestive influence that the surroundings of a church 
 and the personality of a righteous and godly man may exert upon 
 
9 
 
 the mental process of the sick. In chapter XI, X of “Religion and 
 Medicine,” written jointly by Dr. Worcester and Dr. McComb, the 
 attempt is made to prove that certain of the healing wonders of Christ 
 may be explained by psychotherapy. They group the miracles of Jesus 
 under four heads, (1) ordinary acts of healing, (2) the expulsion of 
 demons, (3) the raising of the dead, and (4) the so-called nature miracles. 
 An explanation of these miracles is offered which covers only the first 
 two of these groups. The authors do not wish to be understood as 
 throwing doubt upon groups three and four; they merely set them aside 
 “to be reserved to the day of fuller light.” In order to make good their 
 contention with regard to the first two groups, that these cures are the 
 result of suggestion, they are obliged to distinguish between curable and 
 incurable leprosy, between genuine epilepsy and hystero-epilepsy, and the 
 well known phrase cast out demons” is modernized into hysteria and 
 double or multiple personality. We are told that if the evidence warrants 
 us in holding that Jesus shared the contemporary belief in demonology, 
 this fact does not invalidate his spiritual authority as the founder of 
 the kingdom of God. 
 
 Hence Dr. Worcester’s idea is that the Church should follow literally 
 the example of Christ in healing the sick and entering more deeply into 
 the personal lives of the people. “Beneath the vulgar exterior of Chris- 
 tian Science,” Dr. Worcester finds a truth, “a spiritual power answering 
 to men’s needs, which the churches at present do not possess.” He there- 
 fore sees in this new movement her opportunity to regain some of the 
 power and prestige which she has lost, in consequence of having been 
 relegated through the progress of science to a small and secondary role 
 in human affairs. 
 
 The practice of psychotherapy through religious organizations was 
 first brought to popular attention through the Society of Emmanuel, 
 founded in London in October 1895. 1 It was taken up nearly three 
 years ago by the Emmanuel Church of Boston, when, as stated in the 
 introduction to “Religion and Medicine,” that church began its first work 
 for the relief of the sick through an organization of tuberculosis 
 classes under the medical direction of Dr. Joseph H. Pratt. “The treat- 
 ment consisted of the approved modern method of combating consump- 
 tion, plus discipline, encouragement and hope, in short a combination of 
 physical and moral elements.” The success of the tuberculosis class led 
 to the formation of many similar classes, and readily convinced Dr. 
 Worcester that the church had an important mission to discharge to the 
 sick, and that the physician and the clergyman could work together to 
 the benefit of the community. Accordingly, similar work was undertaken 
 in 1906 among the nervously and morally diseased. The work opened in 
 November of that year with an address by Dr. James J. Putnam, who 
 presided at the preliminary meeting, and brought with him the co- 
 operation of approved neurological science in this work of the church. 
 
 ’Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 15. 
 
10 
 
 Health conferences for both tuberculous and nervous cases, employing 
 religious exercises and including prayer as a psychotherapeutic measure, 
 were held weekly. This work was later supplemented with what would 
 be described as a free clinic, a church clinic, at which the patient was 
 treated by hypnotic and non-hypnotic suggestion in the study of Dr. 
 Worcester and his assistant. Dr. McComb. It is reported that the work 
 has been taken up along similar lines by other churches, representing not 
 only the Episcopal denomination, but including Baptist, Congregational, 
 Universalist, Unitarian and Presbyterian congregations, in Chicago, New 
 York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Buffalo, Detroit, and Northampton, Mass . 2 
 
 This work is therefore an attempt to help the sick by mental, moral 
 and spiritual methods. “To be successful,” Dr. Cabot says, “we must 
 appeal to the whole personality.” In addition, the patient is encouraged 
 to work. “We have also realized that the mental, moral and spiritual health 
 of the individual, through which we hope to influence his bodily condition, 
 depends upon his work, upon the way he does his work, upon the spirit he 
 puts into his work, and upon the satisfaction he gets out of it. We have 
 realized, furthermore, that the health of the mind is largely influenced 
 by home conditions, by personal friendships, by family affections, by all 
 that goes on between man and man, as well as by work, and by more dis- 
 tinctively intellectual or religious influence. Hence, the American type 
 of psychotherapy busies itself not only with the ideas that are floating 
 through the patient’s head, not only with his thoughts, his worries, his 
 griefs, but also with his personal relations, with his friendships, his love 
 affairs, his domestic and family affections.” 
 
 It , is made quite plain that the methods to be employed are not based 
 upon an appeal to any supernatural agency, nor do Dr. Cabot and Dr. 
 Worcester require, as one would at first sight imagine, that the priest 
 shall have a knowledge of medicine. A physician is to diagnose the cases 
 before the clergyman undertakes their treatment. If the physician has 
 ascertained that the patient is suffering from any functional nervous 
 disease, he is invited to turn the patient over to the clergyman for 
 treatment. 
 
 Why are we to believe that these cases will be better treated by a 
 clergyman, unlearned in medicine, than by a neurologist or the general 
 practitioner of medicine? 
 
 “Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 15. 
 
n 
 
 AS A CRITICISM OF MEDICINE AND IN APPRECIATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 “So long/’ says Dr. Worcester , 1 “as the training of our physicians is 
 strictly material, such patients will continue to be their despair.” In this 
 statement, manifestly unfair, an appeal to prejudice strikes the first note 
 which puts the Emmanuel Movement out of harmony with a sound and 
 conservative development. What does Dr. Worcester consider a spiritual 
 training which should supplement that which our physicians at present 
 receive? Do not our physicians and our clergymen partake of much the 
 same training? Physicians, let us hope, have been subjected to the 
 moral and spiritual influences of a good home. Most of them have gone 
 to Sunday-school and church; they have attended the elementary and 
 secondary schools, many of them a college where they have enjoyed with 
 other young men bound for the ministry the same opportunity to profit 
 by instruction in philosophy, psychology and ethics. It is only when the 
 one enters the medical school and the other the divinity school that we 
 find a separation in professional interests. And yet we cannot call the 
 one strictly material and the other strictly spiritual. The theological 
 student spends a great deal of his time in textual criticism, and this is 
 quite as definitely a training in material things as is the examination 
 of dry bones by the student of anatomy. If Dr. Worcester means the 
 training which develops character, we doubt very much the justice of 
 the contention that a course in a divinity school is more likely to 
 develop an exalted moral character than a course in a medical school. 
 If it be devotion to social service which Dr. Worcester desires to see 
 cultivated, we find the medical profession presenting the most con- 
 spicuous examples of an unselfish service for mankind in their writings, 
 in their attendance on free dispensaries and hospitals, in public 
 addresses, in work on sanitary and hygienic commissions, and in the 
 
 ‘“Religion and Medicine,” p. 5. Consider also in this connection the 
 following passage: “One reason why American physicians are so slow to 
 
 avail themselves of psychical influence in combating disease is that 
 they have been educated in a too narrowly materialistic school of science, 
 which assumes that only material objects possess reality and which thinks 
 that the mind can safely be ignored.” Tb., p. 52. 
 
 11 
 
12 
 
 active support of important public measures before our legislative bodies. 
 It would be a difficult undertaking to prove that the Church within 
 the last ten or twenty years has performed a more important social 
 service to American society than the medical profession. If it be the 
 force of personality which Dr. Worcester has in mind, that rare com- 
 bination of keen insight into human nature, of enthusiasm and 
 sympathy, which makes a man mentally and morally the helper, teacher 
 and hope of his fellow-men, and which Dr. Worcester himself calls, “A 
 factor of the highest importance, the individuality of the physician,” 
 then we inquire, — does Dr. Worcester believe that any kind of training, 
 either theological or medical, can develop this trait in a man? Such a 
 combination of qualities can scarcely be cultivated. If a physician 
 happens to have this rare personality he will do great things; if a 
 clergyman, he also will move mountains as, for example, Father de Nisco 
 at Koseto, Pa., but it is doubtful whether he can train a school to follow 
 in his footsteps. 
 
 To ask that the clergyman shall perform a useful social service as 
 an assistant to the physician in the treatment of certain mental and nerv- 
 ous diseases, is one thing, but to claim that the necessity for the assump- 
 tion of this service on the part of the clergyman is due to the lamentable 
 failure of the neurologist and practising physician, is quite another 
 thing, and when this fact is explained as due to the physician’s neglect 
 and ignorance of psychology, it becomes necessary to inquire whether 
 there is any justification in fact for this statement, and whether Dr. 
 Worcester offers a form of psychological treatment which is any better 
 than that which the medical profession has been employing. Dr. Cabot, 
 in an address delivered in New York City on December 3d, whether 
 intentionally or otherwise, even went to the extent of limiting the func- 
 tion of the neurologist in connection with functional nervous disease 
 to its mere diagnosis. When such diagnosis has been made, his recom- 
 mendation is to turn the case over to a clergyman for treatment. A 
 man desiring to purchase something often gets into the wrong shop, so 
 he contended, and for these nervous cases the wrong shop is the neurol- 
 ogist’s office, and the right shop is the church and the clergyman’s study. 
 Dr. Cabot, a physician himself, appears to forget that the physician is 
 not a diagnostician primarily but a healer, when he invites his pro- 
 fessional colleague to admit himself a failure and turn over a part 
 of his practice to his clerical brother. 
 
 The vital question is not whether the physician fails to treat suc- 
 cessfully a large number of cases. Human beings will always die, some 
 will always suffer from incurable diseases, and others will get along as 
 best they can with diseases more or less curable. The profession there- 
 fore will always be subjected to outside and ignorant criticism. It is 
 also subjected to the keenest criticism from inside the profession itself. 
 In the most whole hearted and disinterested way, every method known 
 to man is being employed within the medical profession, thoiigh not 
 necessarily by its every member, to improve therapeutic practice. 
 
13 
 
 Has the physician overlooked the importance of psychology in the 
 practice of his profession? It is significant, indeed almost humorous, 
 to find in “Religion and Medicine” as well as in the serial called Psycho- 
 therapy, not one single authority quoted as having contributed to the 
 development of psychotherapy who is not a physician. It is true, opinions 
 are cited of such psychologists as William James and Joseph Jastrow, 
 and such pseudo-psychologists as Myers and Hudson, but these are 
 known for their contributions to the theory of psychology and not at all 
 for any practical applications of psychological principles in the treat- 
 ment of disease. It is a very common mistake to imagine , 2 because 
 psychology is defined as the science of mind, that the psychologist as a 
 psychologist must have something to offer in the mental treatment of 
 disease. You might just as well imagine that a professor of pedagogy 
 will necessarily be a good teacher, or a psychologist a good judge of 
 character. Something more than general principles is needed. If the 
 psychologist will address himself to the solution of practical problems 
 and develop an applied psychology, there can be no doubt that in time 
 the profession of psychology will develop methods of psychological treat- 
 ment which will be far and away better than those which are at our 
 disposal at the present time. Just as within the medical profession 
 itself, the subject of pathology is developing as a separate line of inquiry, 
 and a group of pathologists are arising who do not practise medicine, 
 but who contribute results which are reconstructing the basis of practice, 
 so we shall expect to find psychological experts connected with institu- 
 tions for the insane and with the public school systems, whose work will 
 doubtless contribute results of great value, and on whose work mental 
 and educational treatment will be based in the future. But to-day, 
 while it calls attention to the science, it invites criticism, to play up the 
 psychologist at the expense of the practicing physician and neurologist. 
 
 The reason why Dr. Worcester, and probably Dr. Cabot also, fail to 
 take cognizance of the work that is really establishing psychotherapy on 
 a sound basis, is because they are not familiar either with “sound medi- 
 cine” or “sound psychology.” In “Religion and Medicine” we find 
 authorities on hypnotism and suggestion quoted ad libitum and ad 
 nauseam, but you will find no mention of the psychotherapeutic work of 
 Kraepelin, the most conspicuous example of an investigator who com- 
 bines in one person a sound training in psychological method with a 
 similar training and experience in medicine. Kraepelin, a product of 
 the psychological laboratory at Leipzig, is the leader in psychiatry to- 
 day. To hypnotism, suggestion, and double personality he has paid no 
 more attention than the importance of these subjects warrants, and 
 hence he is unknown to the leaders of the Emmanuel Movement, except 
 as an investigator of the psychical effects of alcohol. It would lead us 
 
 2 For example : — “To-day, if he so willed, Professor James might easily 
 rank with the greatest neurologists in the treatment of a large group of 
 diseases, and this solely by virtue of his consummate ability as a 
 physiological psychologist.” Worcester, “Religion and Medicine,” p. 15. 
 
14 
 
 too far afield to attempt to collate the evidence which might be brought 
 to show the existence of a practical psychological experience within the 
 medical profession. Take for an example such a judicial paper as that of 
 Dr. Charles K. Mills on “Psychotherapy, Its Scope and Limitations,” 
 read before the Philadelphia County Medical Society, March 25, 1908, 
 from which I quote the following conservative opinion of Dubois’s 
 work, called “epoch-making” by Dr. Cabot: “I would not for a moment 
 question the verity of his reports, but it has seemed to me with regard 
 to some of them that, like reports of cures from operations or from 
 new medicinal remedies, sufficient time has not been allowed before 
 recording, to decide on the real merits of the treatment. It is true that 
 he tells us of the relapses of his patients, and of his occasional failures, 
 but discounting these, his results still remain apparently so brilliant 
 that it is hard to reconcile them with our experience, even making all 
 allowances for the superior powers of the recorder.” 
 
 “The American type of psychotherapy,” says Dr. Cabot, meaning 
 thereby the type of psychotherapy practised in the church clinic, “busies 
 itself not only with the ideas that are floating through the patient’s 
 head, not only with his thoughts, his worries, his griefs, but also with 
 his personal relations, with his friendships, his love affairs, his domestic 
 and family affections.” That the American neurologist did not need 
 to receive illumination from the Emmanuel Movement in order to treat 
 the entire personality of his patient is shown in a conspicuous manner 
 in a timely work 8 entitled “Letters to a Neurologist,” which may help- 
 fully be employed to offset the criticisms of Dr. Cabot and Dr. Worcester. 
 Through the medium of this correspondence Dr. Collins presents types 
 of mental and nervous disease which will be familiar to every neurologist. 
 They would be reported ordinarily in the medical literature in such a 
 manner that they would not interest the general reader or make a 
 permanent impression upon his mind, despite the fact that persons 
 suffering from such diseases often present interesting personalities, clear- 
 cut and aggressive. This is because the neurologist draws his clinical 
 pictures primarily in order to furnish a description, analysis and classifi- 
 cation of symptoms. These letters to a neurologist present to the reader 
 the neurasthenic, the psychasthenic, the manic-depressive, the mentally 
 defective child, and other types of mental and nervous disorder in such 
 a way that they will live henceforth in the reader’s mind not as gradually 
 fading groups of symptoms but as concrete individuals introduced to him 
 through the medium of a personal letter. 
 
 Nor is there any evidence in the neurologist’s replies to these letters 
 which would indicate that Dr. Collins overlooks the importance of 
 psychotherapy in the treatment of his cases. His presentation of the 
 methods of psychotherapy, which include practically every method in Dr. 
 Worcester’s repertoire, excepting hypnotism, prayer and the appeal to 
 religious emotion through the setting of a church edifice or a clergyman’s 
 
 '“Letters to a Neurologist,” Joseph Collins, M.D. 
 
15 
 
 study, comes just at the critical moment when its real position is en- 
 dangered by a crude and exaggerated popularization. 
 
 The presence among these twelve letters of one dealing with the 
 education of mentally defective children invites attention to a field which 
 would seem to be peculiarly the province of the clerical therapeutist. The 
 case presented by Dr. Collins is one of mental retardation. In the moral 
 sphere an analogous retardation is attracting the attention of the modern 
 psychologist, social worker and physician. How to avoid moral de- 
 linquency in young adolescents and how best to treat it are questions on 
 which we naturally look to the clergyman to throw much light. But in 
 our search for those who are doing the most active work in this field we 
 come upon a member of an entirely different profession. Judge Lindsey 
 of Denver, for the first inspiring exhibition of what may be accomplished 
 through intelligent psychological insight. It seems almost trivial to 
 talk of the wonders of hypnotism and suggestion when Judge Lindsey, 
 relying only upon his powers of logic and moral suasion, can induce a 
 juvenile offender to take a railroad journey, without a guard or attendant, 
 for the purpose of committing himself to the Reform School. Dr. Collins 
 does not discuss the case of the morally retarded child, but of the trainers 
 who are necessary to carry out the treatment of the mentally defective 
 children, he says, “The successful trainer of mentally defective children 
 should have unusual force of character, intelligence, insight, originality, 
 knowledge of articulation work such as is given to deaf mutes, and a 
 familiarity with the modes of application of massage, baths and calis- 
 thenics.” Many a case of psychasthenia, neurasthenia, melancholia, and 
 perhaps even dementia prsecox, would stand a better chance of recovery 
 could the neurologist call upon a thoroughly competent psychological 
 assistant to carry out such mental and moral educational programs as 
 the one outlined by Dr. Collins. 
 
 The value of work as a therapeutic measure is also emphasized by 
 Dr. Collins, as it has been by Dr. Cabot and Dr. Worcester. It has 
 already been recognized as an important element in the training of the 
 insane. Adequately trained attendants or nurses require a thorough 
 knowledge of the crafts and arts in order to keep their patients con- 
 stantly occupied and interested. To this end there must be a variety of 
 occupations at the instant command of the person in charge of the 
 patient. Ho amount of special instruction from outside teachers will 
 avail. Such a disciplinary regime can be carried out by no one but the 
 single trainer who is constantly with the patient. The Friends’ Asylum 
 for the Insane at Frankford, Phila., where the services of a resident 
 psychologist are beginning to make themselves felt, has found this form 
 of treatment so essential that a course in handiwork has this year been 
 added to the regular training course for nurses, and it is reported that 
 the results obtained are already most encouraging. 
 
 This little book of Dr. Collins’s also exemplifies what has already 
 been referred to as the tendency of the medical profession to tear down 
 the veil of mystery and to instruct both the public and in some cases the 
 
10 
 
 patient as to the exact nature of the disease. Thus, in a letter to a 
 patient suffering from migraine, who reports her experience in going about 
 from one physician to another, from osteopathy to Christian Science, 
 Dr. Collins frankly admits that she is suffering from an incurable 
 disease of which the chief manifestation is headache, from which no 
 drug or remedy known to medicine can permanently relieve her. “When 
 your headaches are very severe, send for any commonsense doctor and 
 ask him to give you one or two doses of some simple pain reliever. Tell 
 him you don’t want to be cured, you want only to be relieved. Smile 
 blandly at the doctor who says he can cure you.” Which shall it be, — 
 the apparently pessimistic truth or the false optimism which we are 
 advised operates so powerfully through suggestion? It is certainly a 
 mistake to imagine that every pessimistic opinion is objectionable. What 
 the patient usually desires in these cases is to lead an unhygienic but 
 pleasant life and be freed from the consequences. For such a patient the 
 only remedy is a full and complete knowledge of the situation, and the 
 resolution to carry out a stoical regime of life. 
 
 There would thus appear to be little warrant for the opinion that 
 the neurologist or even the general practitioner has failed to pay about 
 as much heed to psychology as is warranted in view of the present 
 undeveloped state of that science. In fact, when we consider the history 
 of the development of psychotherapy within the medical profession and 
 in connection with social work, we must admit in all fairness that the 
 physician and the social worker exhibit a greater readiness of mind to 
 accept the co-operation of the professional psychologist than do those 
 whose training and experience lie within the profession of the ministry. 
 
 The Emmanuel Movement gives promise of performing an important 
 and necessary social work. Dr. Worcester is a man of action as well as 
 of words. He has done something worth while, and we must recog- 
 nize in his work much that is good. Unfortunately he has addled 
 a very good egg through a premature exploitation of his work, which has 
 brought him into an attitude of criticism toward the medical profession, 
 and through the foundation of his psychotherapy upon a type of 
 psychology which, as it will appear, is not representative of the best 
 which that science affords. 
 
 * 
 
m 
 
 AS A CURATIVE SYSTEM AND PROPAGANDIST MOVEMENT FOR THE CHURCH 
 
 “The object of the book called ‘Religion and Medicine/ ” says Dr. 
 Worcester, “is to describe in plain terms the work in behalf of nervous 
 sufferers which has been undertaken in Emmanuel Church, Boston.” 
 This work, according to Dr. Worcester, has been confined to a large 
 group of maladies, known as functional nervous disorders, in which field 
 “all its real victories have been won.” Dr. Worcester devotes a chapter 
 to the subconscious mind, one to the value of suggestion, another to 
 the types of functional neuroses, two chapters to the causes of nervous- 
 ness and one to the outlook of the Church. Dr. McComb has contributed 
 chapters on auto-suggestion, fear and worry, abnormal fears, faith and 
 its therapeutic power, suicide and its prevention; while Dr. Worcester 
 and Dr. McComb jointly write on prayer and its therapeutic value and 
 the healing wonders of Christ. Dr. Coriat, a neurologist, writes on the 
 nervous system in health and disease, the diseases of the subconscious, 
 the nature of hypnotism, the therapeutic value of hypnotism, psychic and 
 motor re-education, and the general principles of psychotherapy. 
 
 It is disappointing not to find in all this one thorough or detailed 
 description of a case treated or a victory won. There are some vague 
 references to cases, and in two instances grateful letters are quoted, but 
 if the object of the book is really to describe the work in plain terms, 
 then its authors have failed of their purpose. 
 
 The apparent object of this book is to make propaganda, to exploit 
 the methods of the Emmanuel Movement in order that these methods 
 may be taken up by the Church in other parts of the country. Exploita- 
 tion is more frankly disclosed, however, in the publication entitled 
 Psychotherapy, of which the first of twelve promised numbers has made 
 its appearance. The volume is very attractively gotten up, in a manner 
 suggesting a high-grade prospectus of some patent medicine. Psycho- 
 therapy justly attributes great influence to personality, but is this suffi- 
 cient reason for publishing the likenesses of Dubois, Putnam, Jastrow, 
 Fallows, Peterson, Woodworth and Powell? And side by side, in a 
 single frame suggesting fraternal co-operation, the Rev. Boring W. 
 Batten and Professor Royce? Not satisfied with these smaller likenesses, 
 Dr. Putnam, Dr. Peterson and the Rev. Dr. Batten appear also in hand- 
 
 17 
 
.18 
 
 some fall-page illustrations. From these men and a number of others, 
 whose personal appearance remains for the present in the background, 
 appear articles or the promise of articles, dealing with subjects more or 
 less closely related to psychotherapy. If the contributions which appear 
 in the first number are an earnest of what is to come, we cannot expect 
 to find much in the way of a scientific and accurate report of a series 
 of therapeutic experiments. Much less can we look for the development 
 of sound psychological and philosophical principles, for these do not 
 underlie the particular brand of psychotherapy represented in the 
 Emmanuel Movement. The article by Professor Angell is a sound 
 enough expression of the opinion of a trained psychologist, but its 
 contents offer small encouragement to the Emmanuel Movement, while 
 its sober garb of science seems singularly out of place amidst the 
 flamboyant coloring of the other articles. 
 
 Dr. Worcester and his collaborators have resorted to an unfortu- 
 nate method of exploitation. Here is a plan of therapeutic procedure 
 undertaken as recently as the year 1906. Habitual drunkards are reported 
 to have been cured; persistent insomnia, which had resisted the best 
 efforts of the neurologist, has been successfully treated; grave forms of 
 hysteria, neurasthenia and psychasthenia, have disappeared as soon as the 
 patient came within the sphere of suggestive influence exerted by the 
 study chair of these reverend gentlemen. In a similar situation a 
 neurologist, careful of his reputation, or a discreet psychologist, would 
 have waited five years, perhaps ten, before publishing the discovery of 
 a panacea for what he considered the most serious disorders of modern 
 civilized life. If, at the end of this period of observation, experiment 
 and reflection, he felt impelled to proclaim to the world that he had 
 cured eighty per cent of all drunkards who had come to him for treat- 
 ment, 1 he would have announced this result with much hesitancy and 
 with the expectation of being asked for an exact statement of the condi- 
 tion before treatment was undertaken, for the details of the treatment 
 employed and for a report of the results accomplished, the failures as well 
 as the successes. Ho one jealous of his scientific reputation would care 
 to publish, without an exact history of each case, such marvelous cures 
 as those reported to have been accomplished through the Emmanuel 
 Movement. These gentlemen reveal their slight acquaintance with the 
 methods of the sciences which they criticise, by their ignorance of the 
 fact that the prime object of a scientific experiment is to eliminate the 
 factor of personal authority. There is no one who stands so high in 
 any science that his unsupported word wins acceptance from the body 
 of the profession without satisfactory demonstration and proof. When 
 
 a “In a lecture recently given in New York City on “Alcoholism,” Dr. 
 McComb was asked what percentage of cures they had made. He replied, 
 “Eighty per cent.” He was then asked the total number of cases treated. 
 He answered that he could not remember at the moment, but “quite a 
 number.” 
 
19 
 
 Dr. Worcester claims his system of record to be that of the Masachusetts 
 General Hospital, supplemented by notes on the moral and spiritual 
 advice given and the effect of that advice, it is to be hoped the reading 
 public will not hastily conclude that Dr. Worcester’s methods of present- 
 ing his results are also those of the Massachusetts General Hospital. As 
 a matter of fact, these are the methods of Christian Science, and also 
 of the quack who is usually to be found outside of, but occasionally even 
 within, the ranks of legitimate medicine and psychology. 
 
 It is humiliating for psychology to be forced to admit the close 
 resemblance between Dr. Worcester’s methods of exploitation and the 
 jaunty way in which the profesor of psychology at Cambridge goes about 
 the country, claiming to have treated in his psychological laboratory 
 hundreds and hundreds of cases of this or that form of nervous disease. 
 The resemblance is probably the result of a conscious, perhaps a sub- 
 conscious, imitation. Dor Dr. Worcester might easily enough have con- 
 sidered himself justified in accepting as sound the methods of one of 
 our most widely known experimental psychologists. He would have 
 found it difficult, however, to discover within the legitimate profession 
 of psychology, another example of these methods of exploitation. Since 
 Elmer Gates subsided into philosophic calm at Chevy Chase, it is the 
 clarion voice of Miinsterberg which has been most heard crying his 
 psychological wares in the market place. We do not mean to suggest 
 that Miinsterberg is a supporter of Worcester and the Emmanuel Move- 
 ment. On the contrary, he conducts at Cambridge a rival shop of psy- 
 chotherapy, but in both the methods of public exploitation are the same. 
 Thus, in McClure's for August, 1908, Miinsterberg says, “If I look back 
 over the last years in which I often studied the effects of suggestion and 
 hypnotism on habitual drunkards, I do not hesitate to say that it was, 
 in most cases, an easy thing to cure the social drinker of the large cities, 
 but very hard to break the lonely drinker of the temperance town.” Up 
 to the present time, the reports of cases presented by Professor Miinster- 
 berg do not warrant us in believing that he has cured any drunkard what- 
 ever. We do not wish to cast the slightest suspicion upon the truth of Pro- 
 fessor Miinsterberg’s claim. We only contend that no one is justified 
 in believing a statement of this kind until an adequate report has been 
 given to the scientific world, and while awaiting this report, the situation, 
 so far as science is concerned, is the same as though the statement had 
 never been made. Miinsterberg is not only presenting false standards of 
 scientific method, which we believe are being imitated by the pro- 
 jectors of the Emmanuel Movement, but this kind of work is throwing 
 discredit upon the science of psychology. Thus his methods of apply- 
 ing psychology to law have probably postponed for many years the 
 acceptance of the psychological expert in the courts. In July, 1907, he 
 asked the public, who had become critical of his methods of reaching 
 the conclusion that Orchard was telling the truth, to wait until the trial 
 was over, when he would report in “scientific archives” what he had 
 
20 
 
 found. This report has not yet been made, and surely the profession 
 of psychology may ask that Professor Miinsterberg will reveal the 
 methods of distinguishing truth from falsehood which he employed so 
 successfully and which he claims are on a par for exactitude with the 
 chemical tests for arsenic in the stomach. This and other so-called 
 applications of psychology to the methods of legal procedure have earned 
 the sobriquet of “Yellow Psychology,” given by a writer in Law Notes 
 for October, 1907. They have also called forth an energetic protest, 
 under the caption of “A New Peril,” in the Boolcman , 2 for August of the 
 same year. 
 
 We can scarcely blame Dr. Worcester, with the example of so dis- 
 tinguished an authority before him, for a failure to realize the require- 
 ments of science in the presentation of his results. None the less we 
 find it necessary to point out the defects of this method of presentation. 
 To pick out a few successful cases for inadequate report, to claim an 
 unusually high percentage of cures, to give no heed to the failures, are 
 methods which do not encourage the serious consideration Dr. Wor- 
 cester’s work deserves. One reason why Dr. Worcester hesitates to 
 publish his failures as well, as his successes is due to the fact that his 
 failures will increase in number as soon as his patients are made aware 
 that his system is not infallible. As hypnotic and waking suggestion 
 is the dominant feature of his system of psychotherapy, perfect confi- 
 dence and faith in the operator are necessary for its successful operation. 
 The victim of insomnia must be told that no one ever sits in the 
 operator’s study chair without going to sleep. If the patient knows 
 that in two cases out of five, or even in one case out of five, the sugges- 
 tive influence of the chair and the operator are ineffective, he is the less 
 easily influenced. Inevitably there gathers around the constant employ- 
 ment of hypnotism an element of charlatanry. The operator must to 
 some extent dupe the patient. 8 No man can keep this up day after day 
 
 a “Psychology is being badly overworked in these days. In the sphere 
 of education it has become ridiculous, and in the sphere of criminal law 
 it is now becoming perilous. This thought is suggested by the appearance 
 of Professor Hugo Miinsterberg as a psychological expert in the Hayward 
 trial at Boise City. The astonishing testimony of Thomas Hogan alias 
 Harry Orchard naturally made one doubt whether such a tale could 
 possibly be true. But, of course, the only sane and sensible way of testing 
 its truth lay in the comparison of it with the other testimony given in the 
 trial. Professor Miinsterberg, however, was called in to determine the 
 veracity of Orchard by psychological formulas and psychological lore. 
 Had the case not been so shocking the professor’s methods would have 
 had a purely comic aspect. He did not hear Orchard give his testimony. 
 He conferred only with persons engaged in the prosecution. He saw the 
 prisoner for only a short time. Then he went off and wrote a sort of 
 horoscopic screed to the effect that Orchard was undoubtedly telling the 
 exact truth.” 
 
 8 “A curative suggestion is an effect obtained through the conviction 
 that it is about to take place. I tell a young girl she is blushing and the 
 chances are that she will blush immediately. I place a man in a comfort- 
 able reclining chair, cut off the stream of external sensations by darkening 
 
21 
 
 and escape a feeling of moral deterioration. It is for this reason, quite 
 as much as for the reason that hypnotism as a therapeutic measure has, 
 according to competent opinion, a large percentage of failures that the 
 medical profession has hesitated to recommend its general adoption. 
 
 Hypnotism is a very satisfactory agent for occasional use, and we 
 have no objection to offer to its employment by Dr. Worcester or any 
 other hypnotist competent to use it. But if he does employ it as an 
 element in the spiritual and moral treatment of his patients, he should 
 say very little about it, and this should have been the very last feature 
 of his work to bring to the attention of the public. Dr. Worcester has 
 taken the opposite course, and has made hypnotism the predominant 
 therapeutic measure exploited in “Religion and Medicine.” It is owing 
 to this great emphasis upon the hypnotic feature of his work that popular 
 enthusiasm has been aroused; but the usual outcome of such work is at 
 first a number of miraculous cures, followed by a rapid subsidence of 
 interest, and finally disappearance in a cloud of suspicion, chicanery, and 
 quackery. We leave it to the clergy to determine whether it is desirable 
 for those, who stand before the community as representatives of the high- 
 est morality, to play such a dubious role as that of the professional 
 hypnotist. 
 
 So far, therefore, as it is possible to pass judgment upon the Emman- 
 uel Movement, after reading the prospectus, it stands for the general 
 employment by the clergy of hypnotism and suggestion, and it is pre- 
 cisely this feature of the work which merits disapproval. Certainly the 
 claim that there is something new in Dr. Worcester’s psychotherapy 
 is not justified, with the possible exception of the methods employed to 
 appeal to religious feelings and beliefs. The book is in effect a garner- 
 ing of undigested material from various sources dealing with hypnotism 
 and allied phenomena, and the sources upon which chief reliance is 
 placed do not constitute the best literature on the subject. What is 
 known as “crank literature” is a constant psychological phenomenon 
 present at every period in the world’s history. A typical book of this 
 sort, which Dr. Worcester seems to look upon as an authority, is Hud- 
 son’s “Law of Psychic Phenomena.” Another work, scarcely a shade 
 removed from this type of literature is Bramwell’s “Hypnotism,” in large 
 part a compilation, not very well done, from the literature on that sub- 
 ject, together with addenda of doubtful validity embodying the author’s 
 own experience and point of view. A third writer whose views are woven 
 
 the room and insuring quiet, and I earnestly tell him that in a few moments 
 he will he asleep. If he knows that hundreds of other persons have under- 
 gone this experience he will be more certain to accept my assurance and 
 to obey the suggestion. . . . Another patient is suffering from acute 
 
 pain. T divert her mind, place my hand on the suffering part to heighten 
 the impression that something is about to he done for her, or to direct her 
 subconscious mind more strongly to it, and I confidently inform her that 
 the pain is diminishing, that it is going down by degrees and that in a 
 given time, five minutes, it will have disappeared. This also is completely 
 successful.”— Dr. Worcester, in “Religion and Medicine,” pp. 44-45. 
 
22 
 
 into the warp and woof of Dr. Worcester’s theory is the pseudo-psy- 
 chologist Frederic W. Ii. Myers. If Dr. Worcester continues to follow 
 his chosen authorities in matters of concrete detail as well as in theory, 
 he may find himself some day in an unpleasant situation. Thus Wor- 
 cester enlarges upon Bramwell’s opinion, cited in “Religion and Medi- 
 cine,” — “Where the act demanded is contrary to the moral sense, it is 
 usually refused by the normal subject and invariably by the hypnotized 
 one,” — and arrives at the conclusion that we observe in hypnosis “an 
 elevation of the moral faculties, greater refinement of feeling, a higher 
 sense of truth and honor, often a delicacy of mind which the waking 
 subject does not possess. 4 ” It is a question for speculation how long 
 Dr. Worcester can safely ignore the well-known effect of hypnotism and 
 even etherization in producing sexual excitement in some women. 
 Physicians who are well aware of the physiological effect of hypnotism 
 upon the sexual function, quite without any suggestion on the part of 
 the operator, preserve themselves from unjust suspicion and attacks by 
 refusing to hypnotize women except in the presence of some third person, 
 although the presence of an observer distinctly diminishes the effective- 
 ness of the hypnotic method. That this danger is perceived by at least 
 one follower of Worcester, appears from the somewhat enigmatic words 
 of the Rev. Lyman P. Powell, — “Sooner or later Mrs. Potiphar is sure to 
 follow Mrs. Gummidge to some spiritual clinic, as she, alas, too often 
 follows her into the office of the doctor. But if, like Joseph, the Emman- 
 uel worker leaves nothing more than his reputation in her designing 
 hands, no lasting harm can come to him or to the cause.” 5 * * 8 
 
 The practice of hypnotism as proposed by Dr. Worcester contains 
 specific elements of danger to the community. It is also based upon 
 principles which are subversive of the morality professed by Christianity 
 and developed through the philosophic systems of western Europe. This 
 morality, in strong contrast to Worcesterism, presupposes a very different 
 training, one which prepares the youth for a strenuous personal combat 
 against the forces which make for evil in himself and in the world. 
 An appeal to his reason is supposed to awaken in the young offender an 
 intellectual appreciation of the nature and consequences of wrong action. 
 The effort- is made to build up conscious and volitional inhibitions of 
 
 4 “Nor lastly do I deny that a perversion of character might take place 
 
 in hypnosis through the repeated efforts of a cunning and wicked person, 
 though the corruptor would meet with far greater difficulty than if he 
 attacked his victim in his or her normal consciousness. But I do assert 
 
 with distinctness and confidence that no virtuous man or woman will accept 
 
 a suggestion which is repugnant to his or her moral nature. On the con- 
 trary, what we observe in hypnosis is an elevation of the moral faculties, 
 greater refinement of feeling, a higher sense of truth and honor, often a 
 delicacy of mind which the waking subject does not possess. In my opinion 
 the reason for this is that the subconscious mind, which I believe is the 
 most active in suggestion, is purer and freer from evil than our waking con- 
 sciousness.” — R. and M., p. 73. 
 
 8 Psychotherapy , Vol. I, No. 1, p. 93. 
 
23 
 
 instinctive, automatic and. reflex activities. Spiritual growth is culti- 
 vated through training, which is supplemented by an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the thoughts and actions of the great moral leaders of the 
 world. To do right, men must, to an extent, think right, and Dr. 
 Worcester to the contrary notwithstanding, neither right thinking nor 
 right acting proceeds from the consciousness of a hypnotized subject. 
 The systems of belief which represent the antithesis of the intellectual 
 and moral ideals of our European civilization, namely oriental mysticism 
 and theosophy, cultivate a laxness of spirit characteristic of this dream 
 state, and consign the will and character to the automatic, i. e. sub- 
 conscious, currents of imagination and emotion. There is something 
 repugnant in Worcester's theory that the subconscious mind, which is 
 most active in suggestion, is purer and freer from evil than our waking 
 consciousness. A woman recently asked help of the Psychological 
 Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania in controlling the actions of 
 her son, a youth of eighteen or nineteen years. She claimed he showed 
 no respect for her opinions, no regard for her feelings, declined to work 
 at any profitable employment, refused to do small chores about the house, 
 and appropriated to his own nse any sum of money she might not have 
 under constant guard. And yet her view, — and this was the view upon 
 which she had trained the boy,— was that he was subconsciously refined, 
 noble, and admirable. It was only his actions, she said, that were abnor- 
 mal and wrong, and she wanted to know whether we could not, by absent 
 treatment (as she could not get the boy to come to the laboratory), cause 
 his subconscious self to gain control over his conscious activities. She 
 had apparently tried to dream the boy into paths of rectitude instead of 
 compelling him thereto by the force of stern moral discipline. The 
 hypnotic consciousness, the dream consciousness, the relaxed moments 
 of revery, the alcoholic and drug consciousness, the so-called subcon- 
 sciousness, — these are closely allied. “The blessed path of auto-sugges- 
 tion.” may remove inhibitions or checks on the activity of the will, but 
 auto-suggestion is certainly not the will in action, as Dr. Worcester 
 would have us believe. On the contrary, the personal will of the indi- 
 vidual is momentarily in more or less complete abeyance. Worcester’s 
 idea that there is no better aid to the education of the will than the 
 practice of auto-suggestion, would serve to raise a smile, did we not 
 reflect on the practical outcome of a theory in comparison with which 
 the principles of Christian Science are a harmless bit of child s play. 
 
 6 “‘The education of the will,’ says Emerson, ‘is the object of our 
 existence.’ And there is no better aid in this education than the practice 
 of auto-suggestion. For what, after all, is the will? It is simply the 
 effort to concentrate our attention on and thus select one idea rather than 
 another. Now in auto-suggestion the predominant element is the concen- 
 tration of thought on, or the narrowing of the consciousness to, a single 
 idea. So that in a sense we might say that auto-suggestion is simply the 
 will in action. It is a roundabout way of getting the will to work. And 
 the blessed path which auto-suggestion takes is that of the removal of 
 
24 
 
 After a perusal of “Religion and Medicine/’ one is convinced that 
 Dr. Worcester and Dr. M.cCoxnb have, at all events, removed the inhibi- 
 tions which the logical faculty ought to exercise over imagination and 
 thought. They appear to have ignored the fact that logical analysis 
 and critical revision are necessary to develop soundness of judgment, 
 conservatism in the statement of facts, and adequate expression free 
 from contradictions. As an example, take the explanation of the 
 miracles of Christ as the work of an artist in suggestion, accomplished 
 without the direct intervention of the Deity, and contrast with this, their 
 claim to be able to put the patient into a condition where the Deity 
 directly intervenes to work what is in effect a therapeutic miracle. 
 When by hypnotic or waking suggestion patients have been put into a 
 state of complete repose, we are told that many moral changes occur 
 with little effort on the patient’s part. Dr. Worcester states that men 
 and women have asserted again and again that this change did not take 
 place through their own effort or volition, but through the instrumentality 
 of a higher power. “We may call this suggestion, but I can hardly 
 believe that the mere assurance of a human being can effect moral 
 changes so stupendous and to the unaided victim so impossible .” 7 Dr. 
 
 inhibitions or checks on the activity of the will. Here is to be found the 
 secret of that new sense of power which has come into so many lives to-day 
 thi ough the medium of Christian Science, Faith-healing, Metaphysical 
 Healing, the Raja Yoga of Indian theosophy, and other forces of mental 
 gymnastics. These systems are so many aids to the training of the will 
 by auto-suggestion so that the reserves of mental and moral energy within 
 us may be made available for physical and spiritual health.”— R and M 
 p. 103. ” 
 
 I ought pei haps to admit that I personally attach a religious impor- 
 tance to this state of mind. When our minds are in a state of peace and 
 our hearts open and receptive to all good influence, I believe that the 
 Spirit of God enters into us and a power not our own takes possession 
 of us. Thus I am tempted to explain the marked moral and physical 
 improvement which I have frequently seen follow such -brief periods of 
 complete repose, and especially moral changes which occur with very 
 little elfort on the part of the patient. When a man who has struggled 
 unsuccessfully for years against sexual vice or alcoholism suddenly finds 
 himself tree, it is evident that one of two things has happened to him. 
 Eitliei the old temptation has died within him, or a new spiritual energy 
 has entered into him which lifts him above its power. Again and again I 
 have heard men and women who had undergone this experience express 
 surprise that it had taken place with so little effort of their own and like 
 the woman whose letter I have cited, they say this change has not taken 
 p!ace through their own effort or volition, but through the instrumen- 
 tality of a higher power. We may call this suggestion, but I can hardly 
 believe that the mere assurance of a human being can effect moral changes 
 so stupendous and to the unaided victim so impossible. A woman who had 
 been bedridden for years through a form of hysterical paralysis, and who 
 had been apparently restored to health and strength, told me that when she 
 became profoundly still and concentrated her mind on the thought of God’s 
 presence within her, she frequently felt such a sudden increment of 
 strength that it frightened her. In this connection it is to be remembered 
 how earnestly Jesus warned men against injurious agitation and passion 
 
25 
 
 Worcester therefore inclines to the belief that in the hypnotic state a 
 new spiritual energy may enter into man which lifts him above the 
 power of some vice against which he has successfully struggled for 
 years. “To-day,” he says, “we recognize the universe to be a great 
 storehouse of invisible energy, contact with which has enormously in- 
 creased the potentiality of human life. Is it probable that all those 
 energies are mechanical? Does not the whole moral and religious life 
 of man testify to the existence of unseen spiritual powers which are 
 friendly to us?” Why not also unseen spiritual powers which are un- 
 friendly to us ? If we are to return to a belief in the beneficent activity 
 of ministering angels whose aid we may procure through the church 
 clinic, how can we prevent a similar return to a belief in the malicious 
 activity of demons, which the afflicted may seek to ward oil by a visit 
 to the witch doctor? 
 
 If a general acceptance of this function of the church clinic to 
 act as a direct intermediary with the unseen powers of darkness and 
 light, of evil and good, should result from the propaganda of the Emman- 
 uel Movement, we shall see, not for the first time in the history of the 
 Church, rival clerical groups and individuals disputing with one another 
 for public recognition as preferred dispensers of the divine favor. There 
 are those who contend that the Church fosters superstition, but history 
 shows that the Church itself has eradicated more superstitions from the 
 human mind than it has ever fostered or propagated. In fact, we con- 
 sider that the Church has contributed in no small measure to the develop- 
 ment of civilization by serving as a bulwark against the rising tides of 
 popular superstition. In this connection we refer the reader to an 
 article by Dr. Joseph Collins in the Medical Record for July 4, 1908, on 
 “The Miracles at the Tomb of B. Frangois de Paris,” showing the active 
 part played by the Church in the suppression of this outbreak of sug- 
 gestive healing, which finally assumed the form of miracle working. A 
 marvelous cure effected through clerical suggestion and hypnotism may 
 be so easily construed as a miracle wrought directly by God through the 
 intercession of the priest, that the sponsors for the Emmanuel Movement 
 here stand on very delicate ground. They have failed to make clear their 
 position, as we can gather from the following statement from the pen 
 of Dr. McComb: “If we regard faith simply as a psychical process or 
 mental attitude, history and experience alike testify that it has healing 
 virtue. Not only does it form an indispensable factor in the various 
 
 against anger, fear, and anxious cares, and the importance which I-Ie 
 attached to calm and peace. We have .lust begun to fathom His motives 
 but there can be no doubt that in His colossal task of the moral regenera- 
 tion of the world Tie counted on a higher power than man’s unaided will 
 To-day we recognize the universe to be a great store-house of invisible 
 energy, contact with which has enormously increased the potentiality of 
 human life. Is it probable that all those energies are mechanical? Does 
 not the whole moral and religious life of man testify to the existence of 
 unseen spiritual powers which are friendly to us?”— R. and M pp 67-68 
 
26 
 
 healing cults from those of ancient Egypt and Rome to the mesmerism 
 of the eighteenth century and the Christian Science, the spiritualism and 
 the ecclesiastical pilgrimages to this or that sacred shrine in our own 
 time, but also it may be said to enter into all modern scientific psy- 
 chotherapy. What indeed is psychotherapy at bottom but an elaborate 
 system of suggestion, and what would suggestion avail were it not met 
 with trust on the part of the sufferer? Eaith is as necessary in a 
 psychological clinic as at Lourdes or St. Anne de Beaupre. ‘Confidence/ 
 says Eeuchtersleben, ‘acts like a real force/ Hence it is not so much the 
 quality as the strength of the faith that is of vital moment so far as 
 the removal of a given disorder is concerned. The relic of a dead super- 
 stition, a bone from the supposed skeleton of a medieval saint, may 
 achieve as great things in the cure of physical disorders as faith in the 
 living God/’ 8 If Dr. McComb and Dr. Worcester fail to make clear the 
 difference between the therapeutic value of the clergyman’s study chair, 
 and some relic of a dead superstition, how can they expect the layman in 
 religion, medicine, and psychology, to read this distinction into their 
 theory ? 
 
 Another false position, into which the supporters of the Emmanuel 
 Movement have been forced in making propaganda, is the exaggeration 
 of the prevalence of nervous diseases. Nervousness in its manifold 
 forms, Dr. Worcester tells us, is even called a disease of civilization. He 
 sounds the warning that “unless we find some better means than we 
 possess at present to calm and simplify our lives, the end of our civiliza- 
 tion is in sight, for we cannot continue to use up our forces faster than 
 those forces are generated.” But there is hope, for he continues, “relief is 
 already in sight. It will come in the discovery and use of those inex- 
 haustible subconscious powers which have their roots in the Infinite.’' 9 
 Bishop Fallows, in “Health and Happiness,” draws the bow-string a 
 notch or two tighter : “The functional disorders of the nervous system are 
 quite modern. They appeared some time in the last century, and were 
 never known before in the history of the human race. They are so 
 common now that the physicians designated as neurologists can not take 
 care of one-tenth of one per cent of these cases.” 
 
 Experts on the force of suggestion, like Dr. Worcester and Bishop 
 Fallows, should show some mercy for the frailties of the human mind, 
 and not use their best endeavor to cultivate the very diseases they set 
 out to cure. As a matter of fact, the consensus of neurological opinion 
 and the verdict of history point to a decrease in the functional disorders 
 of the nervous system, especially those which are most easily affected 
 by hypnotism. If Dr. Worcester had opened his church clinic several 
 hundred years ago, it is reasonable to suppose from what we know of 
 historic epidemics of hysteria that the Emmanuel Church could not have 
 
 8 R. and M., p. 293. 
 
 °Op. clt., pp. 133-134. 
 
 / / 
 
27 
 
 contained the tide of humanity which would have swept into the city 
 of Boston. From all appearances the race is progressing toward a greater 
 functional stability of the nervous system. 
 
 We wish to give Dr. Worcester the heartiest support in the employ- 
 ment of such measures as will contribute to the growth and influence of 
 the Church, and at the same time administer to the spiritual and physical 
 welfare of mankind. But we can not perceive the wisdom of taking a 
 leaf from the book of Christian Science because, according to Dr. Worces- 
 ter, “while most other religious bodies are decreasing or barely holding 
 their own, it grows by leaps and bounds.” We object to the admiration 
 implied by imitation, with which Dr. Worcester views the “solid and 
 enduring temples” which have been reared all over this country “by 
 grateful hands, and consecrated to the ideal and name of Mrs. Eddy.” 
 If temporary worldly success constitutes sufficient ground for imitation, 
 then why not turn also to Dowie and the Book of Mormon ? As far as the 
 claim of disinterestedness goes, we can see no objeotion to a clergyman’s 
 , charging a graduated fee for services rendered to patients who can afford 
 to pay. The personal motive is necessarily and inextricably interwoven 
 with social and altruistic motives. The frank acceptance of a fee to be 
 retained by the clergyman or turned over to the church would have 
 provided a sounder basis for the development of the Emmanuel Move- 
 ment than the claim that “the Christian character of our undertaking 
 is to our mind guaranteed chiefly by the fact that it is absolutely dis- 
 interested. We neither ask nor accept any reward for our services .” 10 
 The position of taking with the left hand what is rejected by the right 
 is frankly enough expressed by the Bev. Lyman P. Powell in Psycho- 
 therapy. “Church attendance,” he urges in advocacy of the adoption 
 of the church clinic by the minister, “will increase with the increase 
 of the number who have found the clinic a veritable Peniel from which 
 they have come down singing with Jacob, ‘I have seen God face to face 
 and my life is preserved.’ Church finances will be less of a vexation to 
 minister and people, as gratitude forbidden to express itself in monetary 
 compensation to the minister breaks its costly alabaster box on the Church 
 he loves.” 
 
 Much as we commend and admire the social service work of the 
 Emmanuel Church, and also the determined effort to appeal to religious 
 impulse and to make spiritual and moral training really effective, we 
 believe on the whole, since the publication of “Religion and Medicine” 
 and Psychotherapy, that the further development of the Emmanuel 
 Movement is likely to accomplish more harm than good. Whatever Dr. 
 Worcester’s practice may be in his own church clinic, the principles of 
 psychotherapy to which he and his associates adhere, are based upon 
 neither sound medicine, sound psychology, nor to our lay mind, upon 
 sound religion. The Emmanuel Movement has already lost the support 
 
 “R. and M., p. 6. 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
28 
 
 of Dr. Putnam, one of a number of able physicians in Boston, without 
 whose assistance Dr. Worcester claims he would not have proceeded to 
 the treatment of nervous cases. It seems to us inevitable that Dr. Cabot, 
 to whom is chiefly owing the social service idea, will also be compelled 
 to withdraw his support if the movement gains the momentum which its 
 present exploitation seeks to give it The loss of its scientific supporters 
 we consider inevitable, because the publications we have had under 
 examination reveal the false system of psychology upon which the move- 
 ment is based, and to which we shall give our attention in the following 
 section. 
 
iv; 
 
 AS A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 We are prone to judge men by the company they keep. The fact 
 that reputable psychologists are contributors to Psychotherapy will be 
 accepted by many as a guarantee of the psychological foundation of the 
 system. Three American psychologists appear in the list of contributors 
 to this publication, Professor Angell of Chicago, Professor Jastrow of 
 Wisconsin, and Adjunct Professor Woodworth of Columbia. The con- 
 tributions of Professors Angell and Woodworth have already made their 
 appearance. Neither of these articles affords the slightest support for 
 the principles which underlie the psychotherapeutic work of Worcester 
 and his associates. The unreflecting public, however, without even 
 reading the articles, will assume that these professional psychologists 
 have lent the force of their academic position and personal authority to 
 promote the Emmanuel Movement. Why should reputable men of 
 science be represented in a publication which permits the president and 
 founder of the English Society of Emmanuel to make the following 
 statement : 
 
 “The Society of Emmanuel has now a secure position. Its work 
 has gained public and authoritative recognition. During the last 
 year, for example, 1,086 treatments have been given to the suffering. 
 The results have been most encouraging. Among the cases success- 
 fully treated may be mentioned one of cancer, in which case the 
 specialist called in had given the sufferer only three months to live. 
 By means of the laying on of hands in prayer a complete cure was 
 effected. 
 
 “Again, there are cases of rupture, rheumatoid arthritis, loco- 
 motor ataxia, colitis, and numerous cases affecting more directly the 
 mental, moral and spiritual nature, in all of which a complete cure 
 was brought about by the same means. In all these cases there is 
 complete evidence as to the dise’ase, and subsequently as to the 
 recovered health of the patient. And these are but a fraction of the 
 actual number of cures.” 1 
 
 Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 89. 
 
 29 
 
80 
 
 We recall that some years ago an institution in the state of New 
 York, calling itself the American School of Science, published a work 
 on “Hypnotism, the World’s Greatest Power.” This work contained 
 articles by a number of well-known psychologists. The articles were 
 scientific and conservative statements of fact and theory, but their 
 employment in this publication was intended to give a false reputation 
 to an institution whose object was the instruction of the general public 
 in the art of hypnotism. “When,” says the prospectus, “a few traveling 
 hypnotists more or less deft in the art but ignorant of the science, were 
 the only votaries of hypnotism, there was room for doubt as to its 
 genuineness, but when the leading universities of the civilized world 
 speak through their professors of psychology and philosophy to an intelli 
 gent public, all doubts must be dispelled. When our universities recog- 
 nize this branch as a part of their curriculum, hypnotism takes its 
 place as a branch of education .” 2 It appeared later that the authors of 
 these articles had been induced to write them through misrepresentation, 
 and subsequently they made a formal protest against the use to which 
 their contributions had been put. Do Professors Angell and Woodworth 
 fully appreciate the interpretation which may be given to the association 
 of their personal authority and academic position with the active exploi- 
 tation of this Boston system of psychotherapy? 
 
 Sometimes without warrant a great name may be used to support a 
 weak cause . 3 Thus the claim is made that Dr. Worcester is a trained 
 psychologist and a student of Wundt’s. This means a great deal, when 
 we consider that for years students of psychology have gone to Wundt’s 
 laboratory at Leipzig to complete their professional training. It there- 
 fore becomes necessary for us to inquire in what sense Dr. Worcester is 
 a psychologist and a student of Wundt’s. It appears from “Who’s Who 
 in America” that he took a doctor’s degree in philosophy at the Univer- 
 
 2 In answer to a letter from an applicant, the president of this insti- 
 tution writes, “I asked my secretary to send you our new treatise on 
 personal magnetism, hypnotism, magnetic healing, suggestive therapeutics, 
 and allied phenomena. I am now writing to ask if it reached you safely 
 I know you will find this booklet interesting; it tells of the marvelous 
 possibilities which can be attained through a knowledge of these sciences. 
 If you have read it you will then understand why progressive business and 
 professional men are absorbed in the study of personal magnetism and 
 hypnotism, why our instruction is endorsed by scientists of world-wide 
 reputation as the most practical, thorough, and comprehensive course ever 
 given to the public. 
 
 “For the first time the leading colleges and universities of the world 
 have through their specialists made all the secrets of these wonderful 
 
 sciences public. Men like Professor of Yale, of Harvard, 
 
 of Princeton, of the University of Berlin, and others equally 
 
 noted, thirty in all, tell you just how you can develop and use the most 
 mysterious power known to man. How well their efforts have been appre- 
 ciated may be judged by the chorus of grateful praise which is coming from 
 thousands of successful students in. every quarter of the globe. It matters 
 not what your business is, you can use this secret knowledge to your 
 advantage.” 
 
 •As, for example, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s in connection with the Em- 
 manuel Movement. 
 
31 
 
 sity of Leipzig, but this would not necessarily mean that he had received 
 instruction in psychology. It is also true that Dr. Worcester taught 
 philosophy and psychology while acting as chaplain at Lehigh University. 
 This likewise has little or no bearing on the question, because certain 
 institutions of learning assign the task of teaching philosophy and 
 psychology to anyone they please, irrespective of previous training and 
 professional equipment. Since Worcester taught psychology at Lehigh, 
 our standards of professional training in psychology have been raised. 
 In the world of science, fitness to teach psychology rests upon adequate 
 training in experimental method and upon the possession of scientific 
 capacity as shown in original contributions to the science. When we hear, 
 therefore, that Worcester was a student of Wundt’s at the University 
 of Leipzig, we naturally infer that he was entered as a student in the 
 laboratory of psychology and partook, to some extent at least, of labora- 
 tory training in methods of experimentation. A careful reading of 
 “Religion and Medicine,” however, does not reveal the slightest trace of 
 the influence of the psychological genius to whom we owe before all 
 others the development of modern psychology in its many diverse 
 aspects. An examination of the catalogue of Lehigh University for the 
 year 1893-4 discloses the probable explanation of this failure of Wundt 
 to leave an impress upon his pupil’s thought. In the announcement of 
 a course entitled “Outlines of Physiological Psychology,” Dr. Worcester 
 states, “These lectures are founded principally on Wundt’s lectures on 
 the same subject given at the University of Leipzig in the summer of 
 1888,” after which he cites eight different standard works which to- 
 gether with Wundt’s lectures served as the basis for his course. The 
 sources from which Dr. Worcester’s lectures were drawn have been so 
 freely cited that there is little reason to doubt that if he had done any 
 work in Wundt’s laboratory, he would have mentioned it. It is perhaps 
 unnecessary to say that no psychologist would feel justified in claiming 
 that he was a student of Wundt’s, if his work had been limited to attend- 
 ing a course of lectures given during a single term. 
 
 The psychology of the Emmanuel Movement is not the psychology 
 of Wundt, nor indeed of any psychological laboratory. It is the psychol- 
 ogy of Hudson, Bramwell, and Myers. It is from Hudson that Dr. Wor- 
 cester gets his notion of the subconscious mind, which he commends as 
 an explanation of double personality. It is from Bramwell that he takes 
 over, among other absurdities, the opinion that in the hypnotic state a 
 subject cannot be induced to commit an act which is contrary to his 
 moral sense. It is from Myers, who has given expression to an ancient 
 theory under the modern concept of subconsciousness, that he derives 
 his belief in a hypnotism which brings us in direct contact with a larger, 
 purer, and nobler consciousness. 
 
 As a matter of fact the psychology which underlies Hudson’s, Myer’s 
 and Worcester’s thought is as old as human thought itself. It appears 
 variously as neoplatonism, animism, psychism, anthropomorphism, 
 
32 
 
 occultism, mysticism. This type of psychology, moreov«r, has always 
 manifested a special interest in mental healing. Mr. Myers, apparently 
 ignorant of the history of thought, has simply labored to give a new 
 expression to an ancient doctrine. It is in fact a very primitive concep- 
 tion that we find underlying Worcester’s psychotherapy and Myers’ theory 
 of subconsciousness. Our primeval ancestor, when he saw the moon 
 shining upon him in a friendly manner, felt that he was beholding a 
 personality like his own. Not only the moon, the stars, and every stick 
 and stone, but each organ of the body was supposed to be animated by a 
 separate spirit. Between these spirits there was supposed to exist a 
 subtle sympathy by virtue of which one was capable of acting upon 
 another. Thus, Descartes found it necessary to explain that when the 
 magnet attracted iron filings, it was not because of any sympathy between 
 the magnet and the filings, but through the operation of certain mechani- 
 cal forces. The notion that the stars exert an influence upon human 
 destiny dies hard, and in medicine the efficacy of mystical signatures 
 and the doctrine of essences and potencies still continue to play a popu- 
 lar role beyond the pale of science. 
 
 While the psychology of “Religion and Medicine” is the psychology 
 of Myers, Hudson, and Bramwell, the driving force which has brought 
 conviction to Worcester and his associates is Professor William James. 
 “This distinguished writer,” says Dr. Worcester , 4 “goes on to show how 
 levels of new energy which have remained unutilized may be tapped 
 by the will set to work by various suggestive methods. Thus modern 
 psychology puts its imprimature on a very ancient doctrine.” Without 
 questioning for the present the propriety of identifying in this manner 
 Professor James and modern psychology, we proceed to inquire whether 
 Dr. Worcester is justified in thus bringing to his support a distinguished 
 authority. 
 
 That James has not been misrepresented, clearly appears from his 
 appraisement of Myers’ contributions to psychology . 5 James considers 
 Myers’ investigations and his theory of the subliminal consciousness 
 a contribution of great value. He says, “Looking back from Frederic 
 Myers’ vision of vastness in the field of psychological research upon the 
 programme as most academic psychologists frame it, one must confess 
 that its limitation at their hands seems not only unplausible but in 
 truth a little ridiculous.” He adds, “Myers’ conception of the exten- 
 siveness of the Subliminal Self quite overturns the classic notion of what 
 the human mind consists in.” “The outlying Subliminal repre- 
 sents according to him more fully our central and abiding being.” And 
 again he says, “In one shape or another the Subliminal has come to stay 
 with us.” Although Professor James accuses “official” science of refus- 
 ing to attend to subconscious phenomena, as a matter of fact, science 
 
 4 R. and M., p. 104. 
 
 B Popular Science Monthly, Yol. LIX, p. 380. 
 
33 
 
 has concerned itself with subliminal phenomena since the days of Des- 
 cartes,, to whom we owe the theory of automatic and reflex functions of 
 the nervous system, which made possible the development first of modern 
 physiology and then of psychology. Every few seconds the eyelid sweeps 
 over the eyeball, removing dust and keeping moist its anterior surface. Is 
 this the work of a beneficent consciousness or merely reflex action ? Where 
 are we to draw the line in ascribing consciousness to the lower nerve 
 elements? For example, the heart muscle through its nervous ganglia 
 shows remarkable powers of spontaneous automatism, keeping up its 
 ceaseless rhythm with but slight modifications throughout a life-time. 
 Should we not then recognize within the heart a soul which does its 
 duty nobly without personal interest or gratification? Some one has 
 said that the first cry of the newborn child is the wail of a pure soul 
 thrust into a world of sin. Shall we permit theories of subconsciousness 
 to revive fanciful speculations of this kind, or shall we continue to follow 
 the development of physiological and psychological science, and ascribe 
 the cry of the child to purely mechanical processes? If we are to 
 accept Myers’ theory of subconsciousness, Descartes labored in vain, 
 and the sciences of psychology and physiology have been erected upon 
 an insecure foundation . 6 
 
 In this issue, therefore, it is William James versus science. To 
 uphold his side of the contention, James is compelled to attack current 
 psychology just as Worcester is compelled to attack current medicine. 
 Like Worcester, also, he proceeds to the attack by accusing psychology 
 of narrowness. “I record my bare opinion here,” he says in another 
 place, “unsupported by the evidence, not, of course, in order to convert 
 anyone to my view, but because I am persuaded that a serious study of 
 these trance phenomena is one of the greatest needs of psychology, and 
 think that my personal confession may possibly draw a reader or two into 
 a field which the soi-disant ‘scientist’ usually refuses to explore .” 7 And 
 all this from an acquaintance with the trances of one medium, Mrs. Piper, 
 whom Professor J ames calls “my own white crow,” who upsets for him the 
 general law that all crows are black, meaning all mediums are frauds . 8 
 
 It is not our intention to show that Professor James wilfully mis- 
 represents the attitude of scientific men toward these phenomena. Men of 
 science have explored this field, and some have had their fingers badly 
 burned by playing with the fire of charlatanry and deceit. Almost all of 
 them have gained enough acquaintance with the methods of James, 
 Hodgson, and Myers, to feel that these men utterly fail to appreciate 
 
 "To appreciate the scientific conceptions which have but recently been 
 outgrown and to which Myers and James would have us return, consult 
 “A Sketch of the History of Reflex Action,” by G. Stanley Hall and G. F. 
 Hodge, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. Ill, pp. 71 ff., 149 ff., and 
 343 ff. 
 
 '“Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I, p. 396. 
 
 •“The Will to Believe,” p. 319. 
 
34 
 
 the first principles of scientific experimentation. 0 Our purpose is not 
 to answer James, but to define his position. He does this best himself 
 in an article entitled, “What Psychical Eesearch Has Accomplished,” 
 published in the Forum for August, 1892. In this article, James makes 
 
 "Nevius gives frank expression to the conditions which are usually 
 insisted upon in these experiments. “Any experiment to be successful must 
 conform to all the conditions of the case. An experiment with spirits can 
 never be like one made in chemistry or physics. A spirit is an intelligent 
 and moral being who may be supposed to have some choice as to where 
 and how to exhibit its presence and power. A spirit must be sensitive to 
 the moral conditions and atmosphere that surround it, and must be gov- 
 erned by moral affinities and antipathies. Things that a spirit will do in 
 one company it cannot or will not do in another. If spirits have anything 
 to do with these phenomena they have some purpose in what they do, and 
 are seeking to accomplish some end. They will naturally do most where 
 the conditions are most favorable to this end. . . . Yet in the presence 
 of persons in whom there may be recognized a sufficiently pronounced moral 
 antagonism, the medium or spirit may be utterly helpless, or so guarded 
 that nothing is done.” (“Demon Possession and Allied Themes,” pp. 317- 
 318.) 
 
 Dr. Horace Howard Furness found that Professor James considered 
 “unfair to the medium,” questions involving an alternative, where the 
 alternative lay between very strong contrasts. Spirits always prefer the 
 remote to the near, the extraordinary to the ordinary. For example, a spirit 
 is announced; Dr. Furness asks, “Is it the spirit of a white man or an 
 Indian?” The answer will invariably be, “An Indian.” A spirit informs 
 the sitter through the medium that when in this life he was always inter- 
 ested in books. “Are they ordinary sized books or large books?” The 
 answer will be, “Large books.” “Are they books to read, or books to write 
 in, like keeping accounts?” The answer will be, “They are books to keep 
 accounts in.” “Are the accounts kept in dollars and cents, or in pounds, 
 shillings, and pence?” The answer will be, “In pounds, shillings, and 
 pence.” 
 
 I had an opportunity personally to ascertain Hodgson’s temper and 
 attitude. On one occasion he travelled from Boston to Philadelphia to 
 examine a medium who had been discovered by my colleague. Professor 
 Newbold. My method with mediums is passively to await developments, 
 and, wishing neither to interfere nor give suggestions, I took no part in the 
 proceedings until Professor Newbold announced that the writing hand of 
 the medium was calling for me. I then went to the medium from the 
 corner of the room where I was otherwise occupied, and saw that the 
 medium had written words that looked like “my boy.” I took special care 
 not to read these words myself, and forced the medium to write them 
 several times. Professor Newbold announced from the appearance of these 
 words and of a word that looked like “father.” “It’s your father speaking 
 to you : ask him what he wants.” I then asked. “Is this my father who 
 wants to speak to me?” and the answer came, “Yes.” I then said to the 
 hand, “What do you want to say?” In reply to this and other questions the 
 hand gave me a lengthy communication involving a watch, a dog, my 
 brothers and sister. Throughout, I asked no leading question whatever, but 
 took simply what the hand gave, without suggestion. At the end of the 
 seance, which thoroughly disposed of this medium, for my father was still 
 living, Mr. Hodgson was extremely indignant, contending that T had treated 
 the medium unfairly. I claimed that in the presence of a communication 
 from a supposed spirit, T must receive in utter ignorance the information 
 given me. no matter how startling it might appear. I must not be supposed 
 even to know that my reputed father was my real father. Moreover, I knew 
 so little about the behavior of spirits, that I was just as ready to receive 
 a communication through the medium’s hand from a living father as from 
 a dead relative. This single experience of Hodgson’s attitude toward what 
 I believe to have been a sound scientific procedure, was sufficient to destroy 
 any confidence T may previously have had in his methods of experimenta- 
 tion. — Editor. 
 
35 
 
 his confession of faith, and announces himself the leader of an anti- 
 scientific revolt. We quote the crucial statements of this article as 
 they are given by the author of a book on “Demon Possession and Allied 
 Themes ,” 10 who seized upon them to support a belief in the existence 
 of demons, in much the same way that James’ general attitude toward 
 science is used by Worcester to sound the key-note of “Religion and 
 Medicine.” 
 
 “We believe in all sorts of laws of nature which we cannot our- 
 selves understand, merely because men whom we admire and trust 
 vouch for them. 
 
 “If Messrs. Helmholtz, Huxley, Pasteur, and Edison were simul- 
 taneously to announce themselves as converts to clairvoyance, 
 thought-transference and ghosts, who can doubt that there would be 
 a popular stampede in that direction? We should have as great a 
 slush of ‘telepathy’ in the scientific press as we now have of ‘sugges- 
 tion’ in the medical press. We should hasten to invoke mystical 
 explanations without winking, and fear to be identified with a by- 
 gone regime if we held back. In society we should eagerly let it be 
 known that we had always thought there was a basis of truth in 
 haunted houses, and had, as far back as we could remember, had 
 faith in demoniacal possession. 
 
 “Now, it is certain that if the cat ever does jump this way the 
 cautious methods of the S. P. R. (Society for Psychical Research) 
 will give it a position of extraordinary influence. 
 
 ’"Nevius, “Demon Possession and Allied Themes,” p. 431. The general 
 conclusion of this book is, — “It would seem that every age and country 
 present phenomena which exhibit, in some variety of form, the reality 
 of demon intercourse with men, and of demon-possession. The demoniac 
 is an involuntary victim of possession. The willing subject becomes a 
 medium.” P. 332. James says of this work: “This interesting contribu- 
 tion to mental pathology would probably fifteen years ago have gained for 
 its author a reputation for nothing but mendacity or childish credulity in 
 scientific circles ; but now, thanks to the ‘apperceiving mass’ which recent 
 investigations into trance conditions have prepared, probably few readers 
 of this journal [The Psychological Review, September, 1895] will be 
 seriously tempted to doubt its being a trustworthy report of facts. . . . 
 
 Epidemics of possession like those recorded in Savoy by Constans and 
 Chiap e Franzolini are not related by Dr. Nevius. The phenomena are 
 among the most constant in history, and it is most extraordinary that 
 ‘science’ should ever have become blind to them. The form which they 
 take in our community is the benign one of mediumship. Dr. Nevius is a 
 believer in the reality of the alleged demons, and in the objectivity of 
 their driving out in the name of Christ, etc. Such questions cannot be 
 fairly discussed, however, till the phenomena have been more adequately 
 studied. Dr. Nevius gives a large amount of collateral material and 
 bibliographical information ; and we have to thank him for an extremely 
 good contribution to a really important subject.” 
 
 The writer of a supplement to the third edition of “Demon Possession 
 and Allied Themes” says, “And so its use to psychology has been highly 
 approved in the Psychological Review by Dr. William James of Harvard 
 University, a physician whose eminence in psychology is international, 
 whose writings are the most fascinating and the most read in his field.” 
 
36 
 
 “Now, the present writer (not wholly insensible to the ill conse- 
 quences of putting himself on record as a false prophet) must can- 
 didly express his own suspicion that sooner or later the cat must 
 jump this way. 
 
 “The special means of his conversion have been the trances of the 
 medium whose case in the ‘Proceedings’ was alluded to above. 
 
 “I find myself also suspecting that the thought-transference ex- 
 periments, the veridical hallucinations, the crystal vision, yea, even 
 the ghosts, are sorts of things, which with the years will tend to 
 establish themselves. All of us live more or less on some inclined 
 plane of credulity. The plane tips one way in one man, another 
 way in another; and may he whose plane tips in no way be the first 
 to cast a stone! 
 
 “But whether the other things establish themselves more and 
 more or grow less and less probable, the trances I speak of have 
 broken down for my own mind the limits of the admitted order of 
 nature. Science, so far as science denies such exceptional facts, lies 
 prostrate in the dust for me; and the most urgent intellectual need 
 which I feel at present is that science be built up again in a form in 
 which such facts shall have a positive place.” 
 
 In these words, William James deliberately opens a campaign for 
 occultism. He essays, alone, what he predicts will let loose a flood of 
 scientific “slush,” — the task which he asserts Helmholtz, Huxley, Pasteur, 
 and Edison might have accomplished. In one respect at least, James is 
 undoubtedly right. Most men are incapable of independent thought, 
 because sound logical conclusions follow only upon a right method of 
 thinking, and the necessary training in right method requires experience 
 and painstaking effort. It is therefore highly creditable to the thinking 
 portion of the American people that so few converts to these old super- 
 stitions have been made on James’ authority. Seventeen years have 
 elapsed since James opened his campaign, and we still await the 
 announcement that the first American scientist has jumped with the cat 
 after Mrs. Piper, thought-transference, veridical hallucinations, crystal 
 vision, and ghosts. 
 
 Thus far we have shown Professor James in the attitude of an 
 individual authority versus the science of psychology, but we shall see 
 that he has called to his aid an even higher authority than his own. In 
 the year 1898 he appeared before the joint committee of the Massa- 
 chusetts legislature on Public Health. He is reported to have said, 
 “I am here having no axes to grind except the axe of truth, that ‘Truth’ 
 for which Harvard University, of which I am an officer, professes to 
 exist. I am a doctor of medicine, and count some of the advocates of 
 this proposed law among my dearest friends, and well do I know how 
 I shall stand in their eyes hereafter for standing to-day in my present 
 position. But I cannot look on passively, and I must urge my point. 
 That point is this: that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is not a 
 
37 
 
 medical body, has no right to a medical opinion, and should not dare 
 to take side in a medical controversy.” 11 
 
 Professor James’ appearance before the legislature was for the 
 purpose of opposing a bill which was intended, according to the secretary 
 of the Board of Registration in Medicine, to protect the citizens of the 
 commonwealth of Massachusetts from the Christian Science practitioner 
 and other charlatans. It must be left to those more nearly concerned 
 to determine whether an officer of an institution of learning is justified 
 in using the name of his institution in such an adventure. But we feel 
 at liberty to take exception to Professor James’ right to speak in the 
 name of Truth spelled with a capital T, and in the name of the pro- 
 fession of medicine. Obtaining his medical degree from Harvard Uni- 
 versity in 1870, Dr. James, so far as we know, never engaged in the 
 active practice of medicine. He taught from 1872 to 1880 in the 
 Harvard Medical School as instructor and assistant in comparative 
 anatomy and physiology. Since 1880 his path has widely diverged from 
 that of the medical practitioner. Professor James had scarcely more right 
 than any recent medical graduate, to speak before the state legislature 
 of Massachusetts as a doctor of medicine, which doubtless meant to 
 his auditors a practitioner of medicine. 
 
 The recognition which Professor James has obtained as a psycholo- 
 gist is also used at times to support his individual opinions. In the 
 article on Frederic Myers, Professor James says, “As for years I occupied 
 the chair of Professor of Psychology, the suggestion has been made 
 and by me gladly welcomed, that I should spend my portion of this 
 hour in defining the exact place and rank which we must accord to him 
 as a cultivator and promotor of the science of the mind.” Using as he 
 does in this passage, the academic position of professor of psychology, 
 it is quite in place for The Psychological Clinic to examine the basis 
 of Professor James’ claim to speak in this authoritative way as a 
 representative of the science of psychology. Is William James a psy- 
 chologist, is he a scientist? 
 
 The son of a Swedenborgian mystic and writer, 12 William James 
 was born in the year 1842. He. attended the Lawrence Scientific School 
 but took no degree, and subsequently graduated from the Harvard Medi- 
 cal School in 1870, where he taught from 1872 until 1880 as instructor 
 and assistant in comparative anatomy and physiology. Professor James 
 may therefore be said to have had at least the training of a man of 
 
 “From “Hearings on Proposed Medical Bills in Massachusetts and New 
 York,” reprinted from the Christian Science Journal, April, 1908. 
 
 “William James’ mysticism and intellectual nonconformity may be 
 attributed to his Swedenborgian parentage. Henry James, the father, 
 “studied law for a time and then, in 1833, entered Princeton Theological 
 Seminary, though he no longer assented to some of the articles of the 
 Calvinistic Creed. The effect of his unorthodox opinions upon the other 
 students being objected to, he withdrew in 1835, and, going to England, 
 there pursued the study of theology and of philosophy. In that country he 
 
38 
 
 science. In 1880 he became assistant professor of philosophy and in 
 1885 professor of philosophy. In 1889 he assumed the chair of psy- 
 chology which he held until 1897, when he again returned to the chair 
 of philosophy. Alone of the larger universities of this country, Har- 
 vard still fails to make a definite distinction between the departments 
 of philosophy and psychology. Their philosophers teach and write psy- 
 chology, and their psychologist teaches and writes philosophy. A phi- 
 losopher-psychologist, temperamentally interested in mysticism, pro- 
 fessionally engaged in philosophy, and temporarily assuming the role of a 
 psychologist, Professor James represents to-day the survival of an acad- 
 emic tradition. In addition to his eight years occupancy of the 
 chair of psychology at Harvard, his claim to recognition as a psychologist 
 is based upon the publication in 1890 of a work entitled “The Principles 
 of Psychology.” Gifted with a charming literary style, a keen sense 
 for the dramatic in presentation, and a love of speculation without any 
 positive determination to arrive at a solution, James has produced the 
 most popular text book in psychology. This book is accepted by many 
 as a standard work on the subject. As a matter of fact, it represents a 
 transition between old and new psychology, and partakes more of the 
 spirit and methods of the old than of the new. 
 
 We turn now to a characteristic attitude of James towards distinctly 
 scientific problems. Modern psychology is distinguished by the experi- 
 mental method. James certainly is not an experimentalist in the sense 
 that he has conducted experimental investigations of any importance. 
 It is possible, however, to call a writer scientific, if he systematizes ex- 
 perimental results obtained by others, and, with a sympathetic apprecia- 
 tion of what has been accomplished, presents views serviceable for the 
 further development of the science. At the time when James’ book on 
 psychology was written, there was one problem which held the center 
 of interest. This was the problem of Weber’s law, which became of great 
 importance after Fechner’s researches and theoretic formulations, and 
 which really served as the starting point for the definite development of 
 experimental psychology. Worcester takes cognizance of this position of 
 Fechner and Weber in the following words: “We believe with Professor 
 James that the subconscious powers of the mind really exist and that the 
 recognition of them forms the most important advance which psychology 
 has made since the days of Fechner and Weber.” While James would 
 accept this statement so far as the subconscious powers of the mind are 
 
 became acquainted with the sect of the Sandemanians, and after his return 
 (1839) he published an edition of Sandeman’s ‘Letters on Theron and 
 Aspasia.’ In 1840 he put out a pamphlet, ‘Remarks on the Apostolic 
 Gospel,’ in which he affirmed the divinity of Christ, though denying the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. Revisiting Europe in 1843, Mr. James became a 
 convert to the doctrines of Swedenborg. He objected, however, to the 
 ecclesiasticism of the New Jerusalem church, and formulated his opposition 
 in a lecture delivered in Albany, ‘What is the State?’ (184G) and in a ‘Letter 
 to a Swedenborgian’ (1847).” (National Cyclopaedia of American Biog- 
 raphy, Vol. XIII, p. 66.) 
 
39 
 
 concerned, Worcester scarcely expresses James’ opinion of Fechner and 
 Weber. For the work of these men, James himself has nothing but 
 half-humorous contempt. “Those who desire this dreadful literature,” 
 he says, “can find it; it has a ‘disciplinary value’; but I will not even 
 enumerate it in a foot note .” 13 Professor Titchener, to whom we owe not 
 only the newest but also the most exhaustive work in the English lan- 
 guage on experimental psychology, replies that it depends on the measure 
 of interest one takes in the subject matter, whether or not a literature 
 appears dreadful. Titchener finds it necessary to devote two volumes 
 to the presentation of this literature, and after analyzing James’ views 
 in detail, comes to the conclusion that they “have done real harm to the 
 cause of experimental psychology in America .” 14 While the truth of this 
 statement is doubtless realized by other psychologists, it has not else- 
 where been so frankly acknowledged. In the early nineties of the last 
 century some of the most important investigations connected with the 
 problem of Weber’s law and the psycho-physical methods, made their 
 appearance in this country, and for a brief moment American science 
 led in the development of the psycho-physical theory. This lead could 
 easily have been maintained, but after these early publications, nothing 
 of any importance appeared until Titchener’s, an Englishman’s, book. 
 It may be a mere coincidence that interest in these problems was sud- 
 denly lost at the time of the appearance of the “Principles of Psychol- 
 ogy,” but it is more likely to have been due to this book, since American 
 students would naturally be unwilling to waste their time upon problems 
 known to them only through the contemptuous remarks of an authority 
 whom they consider competent, because he holds a professor’s chair and 
 has published the most popular text book in the science. 
 
 James’ attitude, even toward more general problems of psychology, 
 is one of utter weariness at the difficult task of investigation on a 
 scientific basis. It looks like intellectual asthenia, but it is really the 
 boredom of an emotional and mystical temperament forced to dig when 
 it would like to fly. Naturally, therefore, he gives expression to such 
 debilitating opinions as the following: — “Perhaps you will ask me what 
 are the practical benefits conferred on the world by this interesting 
 science. So far as I am able to discern, absolutely none .” 15 Thus 
 might a poet feel toward the progress that has been made in the 
 science of electricity from Faraday to Edison. The poet’s opinion would 
 scarcely influence the course of science or the feelings of the practical 
 man as he turns on the electric light. But a clever writer with a poet’s 
 make-up, backed by an academic position, is capable of arresting to an 
 
 ““Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I. p. 549. 
 
 ““Experimental Psychology,” Vol. II, Introduction, p. cxvi. Titchener 
 adds, “Young students must be urged to ‘plough through the difficulties’ of 
 Fechner’s books, if they are presently to become psychologists : and James’ 
 criticism, which is .mainly a criticism of temperament and not of reason, 
 gives them an excuse to shirk these difficulties.” 
 
 1B R. and M., p. 15. 
 
40 
 
 appreciable extent the progress of a science which has still its place 
 to win in the world. 
 
 While James contributes neither in fact nor in spirit to the results 
 and methods of modern experimental psychology, the science might 
 yet owe him much for the development of its theory. James’ contribu- 
 tions to the theories of the science appear to be important. A theory 
 of the emotions goes by the name of the James-Lange theory, but the 
 difference between James’ method and that of Lange is well known in 
 this connection. J ames has contributed a phrase, a paradox, and literary 
 expression, whereas Lange has contributed results which, whether they 
 be accepted or ultimately rejected, have played a determining part in 
 the development of the analysis of the emotions. James’ exposition 
 of the theory is chiefly useful to arouse to a newer point of view those 
 in whom reflection is moribund. Throughout the “Principles of Psy- 
 chology,” the dramatic, the sensational, and the unusual, have played 
 the leading roles. For this reason the work is a stimulus rather than 
 a treatise — a book for the beginner, and not for the scholar. That it 
 has had a tremendous influence in arousing an interest in psychological 
 questions and has assisted in the development of the science is only an 
 evidence of the low level of scientific work in this country. Wundt’s 
 Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie is still the great com- 
 pendium of information in modern psychology. The last edition of 
 this work appeared in 1903. To make it an authoritative record, the 
 entire literature of psychology has been scanned for worthy contributions 
 to the science. In this encyclopaedic work not a statement of fact nor 
 an acceptable theory is reported on the authority of James, unless we 
 except the statement that deaf mutes whose labyrinth is destroyed do 
 not seem to be exposed to dizziness. 16 
 
 18 Wundt refers to James nine times in the course of three volumes : — 
 
 I, 357. In a footnote, James is cited as an opponent of the analytic 
 method, who is yet compelled to resort to a partial analysis of the stream 
 of thought, because otherwise a psychological investigation would be impos- 
 sible; but J. does not carry out the analysis so far as to arrive at the 
 “simple elements,” stopping short at a point which he fixes arbitrarily. 
 
 II, 26. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of the supporters of a theory 
 which W. calls suspect ( psychologisch l)cdenklich) . 
 
 II, 40. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of the supporters of a view 
 which W. considers to rest upon an obviously insufficient acquaintance with 
 the facts. 
 
 II, 367-8. The only reference of any length. After quoting J., “we do 
 not cry, because we are sad, but we are sad, because we cry,” W. says in 
 effect, “Even the paradoxical inversion of the causality of feelings, given 
 by James and Lange, has at least the relative merit of emphasizing the 
 intensifying effect which is exerted upon sensations of strong feeling-tone 
 accompanying the emotions, although this effect was known long ago.” W. 
 then proceeds to discuss the fundamental defect of these and all other 
 physiological theories of feeling. 
 
 II, 478. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of several authorities for the 
 statement that deaf-mutes whose labyrinth is destroyed do not seem to be 
 subject to dizziness. 
 
41 
 
 We therefore find little warrant in fact for considering James a psy- 
 chologist , 17 in the meaning which must be given to this term since G. 
 Stanley Hall brought “psychology” from Germany and established the 
 first laboratory of the science at Johns Hopkins University. James’ 
 propaganda for occultism forces us reluctantly to question his authority 
 as a psychologist, but we have no desire to detract in any way from his 
 distinction as a litterateur, whose work is characterized by a pronounced 
 interest in psychological subjects. The art of William James resembles 
 that of his brother Henry, although the medium in which they give 
 expression to their thought and feeling differs greatly. William James 
 may be something far better than a psychologist. The science of phil- 
 ology is a very different human product from the drama, and yet both 
 concern themselves with words. In the estimation of the world, the 
 dramatist takes a higher position than the philologian, but this does 
 
 II, 655. In a footnote, J. is enumerated among the representatives of 
 a certain type of nativistic theories of space, all of which theories W. 
 asserts involve hopeless contradictions. 
 
 III, 241. J.’s theory of the emotions is mentioned as a radical expres- 
 sion of the “sensational theory,” emphasizing the mimetic and pantomimic 
 accompaniments. W. calls the sensational theory an entirely arbitrary 
 hypothesis which corresponds neither with the entrance (into conscious- 
 ness) and course of these acompaniments nor with the facts of introspec- 
 tion. 
 
 Ill, 298. In a footnote, J. is cited as a representative of one of the 
 theories of the will which are essentially transcendental. 
 
 Ill, 568. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of those present-day psychol- 
 ogists who follow Hartley in theorizing on the physiology of associations. 
 
 17 In discussing some of James’ contributions to the psychology of re- 
 ligion, Hall says: “Although the most brilliant litterateur and stylist in 
 
 philosophy since Schopenhauer, unless it be Nietzsche, whose diathesis his 
 so resembles, our leading American in this field, a most copious and 
 judicious quoter and such a masterly describer of his own even flitting and 
 evanescent subjective psychic processes, with both person and page invested 
 with such irresistible charm, his method, and many of his positions here, 
 seem to do no less violence to fact than do his dicta concerning sex. Most 
 of the cases and experiences which constitute so large a part of his volume 
 are abnormal and some teratological, from which true religion, I believe, 
 saves its followers. These pathological varieties of religious experience 
 can explain piety itself no more than the mental and physical freaks of 
 hysteria explain true womanhood, the Wiertz museum explain art, or the 
 effects of music on the insane show its real nature. That God is proven 
 by an hallucinatory sense of presence, that the religion of the healthy- 
 minded is mind cure, that immortality is demonstrated by ghostly telepathy, 
 and that the lurid experiences of pious StreT)erthum, saturated by affecta- 
 tion, impressionism, and the passion to be unique and interesting, described 
 in colors laid on with a trowel and all marked by an abandon and super- 
 lativeness that throws scientific caution and moderation to the winds, and 
 which, at the best, are only a few of the most superficial phenomena of 
 the adolescent ferment — this seems to me the babel of Babylon or of 
 Walpurgis night, and not the music of the heavenly city. True, the 
 psychopathic temperament has advantages, but they are at best only 
 literary, and it is itself essentially both anti-religious and anti-scientific. 
 Many if not most of these ‘experiences’ are the yellow literature of religious 
 psychology.” “Adolescence,” Vol. II. pp. 292-3. 
 
42 
 
 not justify the dramatist in using his position, real or assumed, to 
 establish standards of criticism for the philologian. As a matter of fact, 
 James belongs to the list of semi-scientific, semi-imaginative writers 
 of whom Maeterlinck is one of the best examples . 18 In biology the place 
 of Burroughs, Maeterlinck, Thompson-Seton, and others is fixed beyond 
 the confines of the science. Full credit may be given to the work which 
 these men do, although its effect upon the science itself may be small. 
 Psychology, however, is not yet so far advanced that the natural history 
 attitude and method may be clearly distinguished from the strictly 
 scientific phases of development. James himself commends the natural 
 history method, which he so conspicuously exemplifies. He says, “Behind 
 the minute anatomists and the physiologists with their metallic instru- 
 ments, there have always stood the outdoor naturalists with their eyes 
 and love of concrete nature. The former call the latter superficial, but 
 there is something wrong with your laboratory biologist who has no 
 sympathy with living animals. In psychology there is a similar distinc- 
 tion. Some psychologists are fascinated by the varieties of mind in 
 living action, others by the dissecting out, whether by logical analysis 
 or by brass instruments, of whatever elementary mental processes may 
 be there .” 10 We cannot eat our cake and have it too, nor can we dissect 
 the human mind and at the same moment palpitate with emotion over 
 its fascinating varieties. It is as foolish to attack the psychologist 
 upon this score as it would be to assert that the physiological chemist 
 who analyzes the contents of the stomach ignores the fact that there 
 is such a human sensation as hunger. Tiddledewinks and picture puz- 
 zles differ essentially from the game of chess. Perhaps they are better 
 games. Certainly they make a wider appeal and are socially more 
 useful, but none the less when one is playing chess it is desirable to 
 play the game according to its rules and for all there is in it. Pro- 
 fessor James’ criticism of science, if allowed to stand, would brush aside 
 the logical and experimental methods which the human intellect has 
 developed as rules of the game. 
 
 With unusual charm of manner and literary style, with an outspoken 
 sympathy for every human interest, William James has won recogni- 
 tion as our leading American psychologist through sheer force of 
 personality. Nothing but a realization of the danger to the public 
 and of the injury to psychology, which result from his using his pro- 
 fessional authority to build up a modern occultism, would justify us in 
 questioning this authority. The spoiled child of American psychology, 
 exempt from all serious criticism, and the beau ideal of a large and 
 cultured circle, Professor James, since the publication of his “Principles 
 of Psychology,” has apparently relaxed the intellectual inhibition which 
 every man should exert over his desires. The wish, from being father 
 
 “For example, “The Life of the Bee.” 
 
 10 Popular Science Monthly, Vol. LIX, p. 388. 
 
43 
 
 to the thought, becomes father to the fact as well . 20 Characterized 
 throughout a long life by an unusual fairness of mind, we find him at 
 last becoming so tolerant of all beliefs that he is willing to exalt the 
 value of systems which to the common-sense judgment contain but very 
 few grains of truth. “Our scientific respectability keeps us from exer- 
 cising the mystical portions of our nature freely. If we are doctors, 
 our mind-cure sympathies, if we are mind-curists, our medical sympathies 
 are tied up .” 21 The “Will to Believe” throws down the ordinary canons 
 of truth and offers emotional value as a substitute. “Faith in a fact can 
 help create the fact .” 22 In “Pragmatism” James practically asserts that a 
 principle is true because it appears to work. Pragmatism affords a good 
 philosophic basis for Christian Science, but a very insecure foundation 
 for real science . 23 It says in effect that the difficulties of arriving at 
 truth are too great, and that scientific methods carry us forward too 
 short a distance. Therefore a short cut is made, which does not solve 
 the difficulties, but like Christian Science, sidesteps the issue and refuses 
 to acknowledge their existence. Dr. Worcester is a follower of James 
 into this field of philosophic speculation. “In spite of John Stuart Mill, 
 the most powerful motive of religion will ever be the Practical Motive, 
 and by the Practical Motive we mean believing because it is good 
 and useful to believe, believing what is good and useful to believe. We 
 are neer at a loss to find reasons for what we wish to believe .” 24 Flam- 
 marion also exhibits an hypertrophied “will to believe.” In discussing 
 
 “As for example in,— “As regards prayers for the sick, if any medical 
 fact can be considered to stand firm, it is that in certain environments 
 prayer may contribute to recovery and should be encouraged as a thera- 
 peutic measure.” (Quoted in R. and M., p. 309.) Surely we may believe 
 in the therapeutic efficacy of prayer without believing it to be a medical 
 fact as well established as the physiological action of castor oil. 
 
 James himself says,— “All depends on the character of the personal 
 contribution x. Wherever the facts to be formulated contain such a con- 
 tribution, we may logically, legitimately, and inexpugnably believe what 
 we desire. The belief creates its verification. The thought becomes literally 
 father to the fact, as the wish was father to the thought.” (“The Will 
 to Believe,” pp. 102-103.) 
 
 21 “The Energies of Men,” Philosophical Review, Yol. XVI, p. 3. It is 
 curious to find James accepted by people of orthodox religious belief. For 
 example, this opinion is widely and favorably quoted, “It is quite obvious 
 that a wave of religious activity, analogous in some respects to the spread 
 of early Christianity, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism, is passing over 
 our American world.” To understand the significance of this passage it is 
 necessary to take it in connection with the context, which is as follows, 
 “We are just now witnessing— but our scientific education has unfitted most 
 of us for comprehending the phenomenon — a very copious unlocking of ener- 
 gies by ideas, in the persons of those converts to ‘New Thought,’ ‘Christian 
 Science,’ ‘Metaphysical Healing,’ or other forms of spiritual philosophy, who 
 are too numerous among us to-day. The ideas here are healthy-minded and 
 optimistic ; and it is quite obvious that a wave of religious activity, analo- 
 gous in many respects to the spread of early Christianity, Buddhism, and 
 Mohammedanism is passing over our American world.” (“The Energies of 
 Men.” The Philosophical Review, Yol. XVI, pp. 16-17.) 
 
 ““The Will to Believe,” p. 25. 
 
 “This refers only to the James variety of pragmatism. 
 
 “R. and M., p. 11. 
 
44 
 
 the disclosures of fraud on the part of the medium, Eusapia Paladino, 
 he says, “When one has the conviction that something real exists, one 
 always returns, in spite of incessant trickery .’’ 25 Philosophy may be, 
 as James believes, “more a matter of passionate vision than of logic ,” 20 
 but surely, pasionate vision has been the sphere of the poet and prophet, 
 while philosophy has concerned itself with the logical foundation of what- 
 ever visions, true or false, may come to man. 
 
 We pause to consider one more instance of the scientific “slush ” 27 
 whose source is to be found in James’ example and teaching. A fervid 
 imagination, unrestrained by logical method, has swept a physician 
 out of his clinic into the philosopher’s chair . 28 It is remarkable that it 
 does not seem to have crossed Dr. Putnam’s mental horizon that for 
 him to give birth to a system of philosophy which antagonizes the current 
 trend of scientific thought is analogous to a clergyman’s picking up a 
 theory like the similia similibus curantur and building thereon a com- 
 plete system of therapeutics. We marvel at the naivete of such state- 
 ments as the following: “Philosophic doctrines leaning toward ‘idealism’ 
 of some sort have indeed made of late much progress, and many men 
 who might deny them verbally are ready to die, if need be, in behalf 
 of the truths for which such doctrines stand — the reality of love and 
 justice and freedom of the will .” 29 Idealism, as a matter of fact, has 
 made not a little continuous progress since the time of Descartes. An 
 outspoken determinism like Huxley’s may rest upon an idealistic founda- 
 tion. Whether Huxley, or anybody else, has ever been ready to die for 
 the reality of love, we are unable to say. A mother may show her will- 
 ingness to die for the concrete love of her child, but to die for love in 
 the abstract, even for justice in the abstract, and above all to die for 
 such an abstraction as the freedom of the will, would seem to require 
 a very unusual measure of the instinct of useless self-destruction. 
 
 The substitution of emotion for thought so characteristic of the 
 philosophy of James, appears in the following gem: “At first sight the stu- 
 dents of the exact sciences seem safe guides. But in fact the worlds con- 
 ceived of by biology and physics are but fictitious and conventional fig- 
 ments. The materials for their construction are but heaps of atoms, 
 piles of stones, with nothing between them but blind ‘forces,’ really 
 another set of ‘facts,’ a poor substitute for the human consciousness heav- 
 
 a II. Addington Bruce. “The Progress of Psychical Research.” The 
 Forum, Vol. XL, p. 579. 
 
 m Hil)bcrt Journal, Vol. VII, No. 2, p. 294. 
 
 27 In addition to current periodicals, which are full of it, see Baker, Ray 
 Stannard, “New Ideals in Healing Fallows, the Rt. Rev. Samuel, “Health 
 and Happiness, or, Religious Therapeutics and Right Living McComb, S., 
 ■“Healing Ministry of the Church;” MacDonald, R., “Mind, Religion and 
 Health ;” Sanford, Dr. A. E., and Drum, Rev. Walter, “Pastoral Medicine.” 
 w James J. Putnam, M.D., “The Philosophy of Psychotherapy.” Psycho- 
 therapy, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 17 ft. 
 
 30 Psychotherapy , Vol. I, No. 1, p. 19. 
 
45 
 
 ing with emotion .” 30 We try our best to imagine the process of construc- 
 tion when between the piles of stones, instead of the customary mortar, we 
 place a human consciousness heaving with emotion. 
 
 When arguments fail Dr. Putnam, poetry helps him out. He incor- 
 porates a poem of Schiller’s which advises us to get into our boat, and, 
 without a pilot, but with inspiration as our guide, sail on, just believing 
 and daring, for thus only through a marvel can we reach the land of 
 marvels. 
 
 Thus inspired. Dr. Putnam finds that the world which the physicist 
 considers “heaps of atoms and of forces” is really “a world of ‘persons/ 
 and the streams of atoms and of forces are signs and symbols of the 
 constructive, purposeful activity of some unifying consciousness, par- 
 taking, like all symbols, of the actual nature of the thing they stand 
 for. This cataract of waves, assumed to be but particles of inert 
 matter, reveals itself as human voices instinct with reason and emotion. 
 In lieu of ‘sequences’ we find causality and creation actually at work. 
 We need Dr. Putnam’s assurance that this is “a world of ‘values,’ and 
 one in great part approved by common sense.” We rejoice with him 
 that this world in a measure satisfies his longings, and we learn with real 
 regret that “When we strive to live wholly and permanently in this new- 
 found, timeless world of ‘values,’ we find that it is impossible.’ Aftei 
 all, “we must accept the physicist’s devices as admirable and indispens- 
 able, even when we cast aside their claim to represent reality. Even 
 though Dr. Putnam is confident that he has found a better and surer 
 way to grasp the “inner meaning of the universe,” he admits what the 
 perusal of his philosophy has already led us to suppose,— that the task 
 is “too difficult for reason, difficult even for faith.” 
 
 While this cosmology of Putnam’s is a museum specimen, we note 
 throughout its exposition the reverberation of obscurantist elements from 
 Professor Royce’s philosophy. We are therefore not surprised to find 
 that Professor Royce is one of the “well certified authorities,” whom he 
 “principally” followed in piecing together this travesty on metaphysics. 
 
 In Worcester also, we find an obscurantism of similar origin. “We 
 often hear men say, ‘Faith belongs to religion; knowledge is the mark 
 of science; the weakness of religion is its uncertainty; the strength 
 of science is its firm standing on the bed-rock of observation and ex- 
 periment.’ Yet as Professor Royce has abundantly shown, the whole 
 structure of science rests upon a body of great faiths, of beliefs which 
 must be trusted but cannot be proved. . . . Such a faith which lies 
 
 behind all the great scientific advances and discoveries of the modern 
 world must be first accepted and relied on, and in proportion as it is 
 accepted and relied on it evinces its genuineness .” 31 
 
 80 Psychotherapy , Vol. I, No. 1, p. 34. 
 
 81 R. and M., p. 290 ; referring to Royce, “The Religious Aspects of 
 Philosophy,” pp. 291-324. 
 
4(5 
 
 Professor Royce has been more guarded in indicating the popular 
 implications of his obscurantist attitude than James has been in exploit- 
 ing the occult and mystical elements of his psycho-philosophical theories, 
 or than Miinsterberg in the application of psychological methods and 
 results to law, medicine, and everyday affairs . 32 Royce’s work, more- 
 over, has been thought out in more deliberate fashion, and presents a 
 point of view and a system of philosophy which would require, in order 
 to do them justice, an exhaustive treatment not suitable to this journal. 
 Nevertheless, in these pragmatic times we may justly judge a tree by 
 its fruits, and in the work of Worcester and Putnam, we discover Royce’s 
 obscurantism performing its appointed task. In the preface to the 
 “Philosophy of Loyalty,” Royce mentions Dr. Cabot and Dr. Putnam 
 among the friends to whom he is indebted for “direct and indirect aid” 
 in preparing the book, and for “criticisms and other suggestions .” 33 
 However Royce may feel toward Putnam’s perspicuous display of 
 philosophic absurdities, there has been an admitted interchange of 
 intellectual inspiration. Moreover, Royce is announced and pictured 
 as a contributor to Psychotherapy, and promises an article on “Idealism 
 and Spiritual Health.” Ihe gifts which the three wise men of our most 
 venerable institution of learning lay at the feet of the infant science in 
 this country are obscurantism, occultism, and bluff. 
 
 If any supporter of the scientific “slush” whose outpouring Professor 
 James predicted, flings at us such stones of rhetoric and false logic as 
 “materialism” and “soulless psychology,” we appeal, in reply, to the 
 practical outcome of our psychology, — the social forces with which 
 we believe ourselves to be aligned. Many shades of opinion are repre- 
 sented in the multiplicity of current movements toward social and 
 individual betterment. To the aid of these diverse movements, The 
 Psychological Clinic wishes to bring the best that modern psychology 
 can offer. They include the Emmanuel Movement itself, so far as its 
 spiritual, moral, and social elements are concerned; the Y. M. C. A., 
 which for so many years has proved a healthful influence in the lives 
 of adolescents; the combination of religious, social, and economic 
 forces represented by modern philanthropic work, by church labor 
 organizations, prison reform work, public hygiene, the anti-tuber- 
 culosis campaign, the Juvenile Court, special schools, the agitation for 
 child labor legislation, play-grounds, and social settlements. In other 
 words, The Psychological Clinic stands for everything that the Emman- 
 uelists appear to advocate, except the unbridling of our intellectual 
 inhibitions, the depreciation of science and of the human intellect, the 
 
 32 For a complete disposal of Mtinsterberg’s pretensions, SO' far as the law 
 is concerned, see “Professor Miinsterberg and the Psychology of Evidence,” 
 by John H. Wigmore, in the Illinois Law Review, Vol. Ill (No. 7, February, 
 1909), pp. 399-444. 
 
 ““The Philosophy of Loyalty,” preface, p. xi. 
 
47 
 
 recrudescence of occultism, the popularization of hypnotism, and the 
 practical developments of the theory of subconsciousness, represented hy 
 Worcesterism and the thousand and one cults which revive primitive 
 animistic beliefs. 
 
 If Dr. Worcester’s book and the periodical called Psychotherapy had 
 been isolated phenomena, if they had not made pretensions to represent 
 the science of psychology, and if these pretensions had not been appar- 
 ently justified, no attention would have been paid to them. They have 
 been subjected to a critical examination, because they are typical exam- 
 ples of the intellectual flotsam borne along on a rising tide of occultism, 
 and because the force of lunar attraction which is lifting this tide to 
 its present high water mark radiates from the philosophical department 
 of our leading American university. The tide which is now at flood 
 will presently ebb. The moonbeams of “anti-science” will fade in the 
 full light of frank discussion. In contributing to this discussion, the 
 purpose of The Psychological Clinic has been to shift the burden of 
 adverse criticism from psychology to those who misrepresent its ideals, 
 methods, and practical results. 
 
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