Homeopathy in moral illnesses.

— Can homeopathy modify moral dispositions? Such is the question that certain homeopathic physicians ask themselves, and which they do not hesitate to answer in the affirmative, relying on facts. Taking into account its extreme gravity, we shall examine it with care, from a point of view that seems to us to have been neglected by those gentlemen, however spiritualist and even Spiritist they doubtless may be, for there are very few homeopathic physicians who are not the one or the other. But, for the understanding of our conclusions, some preliminary explanations regarding the modifications of the cerebral organs are necessary, especially for persons unacquainted with physiology. A principle that simple reason leads us to admit, which Science verifies daily, is that there is nothing useless in Nature, that, even in the most imperceptible details, everything has a purpose, a reason for being, a destination. This principle is particularly evident with respect to the organism of living beings.

In all times the brain was considered as the organ of the transmission of thought and the seat of the intellectual and moral faculties. Today it is recognized that certain parts of the brain have special functions and are affected by a particular order of thoughts and feelings, at least insofar as the generality is concerned; thus one places, instinctively, in the anterior part, the faculties belonging to the domain of intelligence, and a strongly depressed and narrowed forehead is, for everyone, a sign of intellectual inferiority. The affective faculties, the feelings and the passions, are by this very fact regarded as having their seat in other parts of the brain. Now, if one considers that thoughts and feelings are exceedingly numerous, and starting from the principle that everything has its destination and its usefulness, it is permissible to conclude that each fibrous bundle of the brain not only corresponds to a distinct general faculty, but that each fiber corresponds to the manifestation of one of the nuances of this faculty, just as each string of an instrument corresponds to a particular sound. It is a hypothesis, no doubt, but one that has all the characteristics of probability, and whose denial would not invalidate the consequences that we shall deduce from the general principle; it will aid us in our explanation. Thought is independent of the organism. There is no reason to discuss this question here, nor to refute the materialist opinion, according to which thought is secreted by the brain, as bile is by the liver, and is born and dies with that organ; besides its disastrous moral consequences, this doctrine has against it the fact that it explains nothing.

According to the spiritualist doctrines, which are those of the immense majority of men, matter being unable to produce thought, thought is an attribute of the Spirit, of the intelligent being, which, when united to the body, makes use of the organs especially destined for its transmission, as it makes use of the eyes to see, of the feet to walk. The Spirit surviving the body, thought also survives it.

According to the Spiritist Doctrine, not only does the Spirit survive, but it preexists the body; it is not a new being; it brings, at birth, the ideas, the qualities and the imperfections that it possessed; thus are explained the innate ideas, aptitudes and inclinations. Thought is therefore preexistent to and surviving the organism. This point is capital, and it is for not having recognized it that so many questions have remained insoluble.

All the faculties and aptitudes being in Nature, the brain contains the organs, or at least the germ of the organs necessary for the manifestation of all thoughts. The activity of the Spirit's thought upon a given point impels the development of the fiber or, if one prefers, of the corresponding organ; if a faculty does not exist in the Spirit, or if, existing, it is to remain in a latent state, the corresponding organ, being inactive, does not develop or atrophies. If the organ is atrophied congenitally, the faculty being unable to manifest itself, the Spirit seems deprived of it, although in fact it possesses it, since it is inherent in it. Finally, if the organ, originally in its normal state, deteriorates in the course of life, the faculty, from brilliant as it was, gradually loses its color, then is extinguished, but is not destroyed; it is merely a veil that obscures it. Depending on the individuals, there are faculties, aptitudes, tendencies that manifest themselves from the beginning of life, while others reveal themselves at later periods and produce the changes of character and disposition that are noted in certain persons. In this latter case, they are generally not new dispositions, but preexisting aptitudes, which lie dormant until some circumstance comes to stimulate and awaken them. One may be certain that the vicious dispositions, which sometimes manifest themselves suddenly and tardily, had their preexisting germ in the imperfections of the Spirit, for the latter, ever marching toward progress, if it be essentially good cannot become bad, whereas from bad it can become good. The development or the weakening of the cerebral organs accompanies the movement that takes place in the Spirit. These modifications are favored at all ages, but above all in youth, by the intimate work of renewal that takes place incessantly in the organism, in the following manner:

As is known, the principal elements of the organism are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon which, by their multiple combinations, form the blood, the nerves, the muscles, the humors and the different varieties of substances. By the activity of the vital functions, the organic molecules are incessantly expelled from the body through perspiration, exhalation and all the secretions, so that if they were not replaced, the body would diminish and end by wasting away. Food and respiration incessantly bring new molecules, destined to replace those that depart, whence it follows that, in a given time, all the organic molecules are entirely renewed and, at a certain age, there no longer exists a single one of those that formed the body at its origin. It is the case of a dwelling, from which the stones were pulled out one by one, replacing them gradually with a new stone of the same shape and size, and so on, down to the last. One would always have the same house, but formed of different stones. The same happens with the body, whose constitutive elements are, according to the physiologists, totally renewed every seven years. The various parts of the organism always subsist, but the materials are changed. From these general or partial changes are born the modifications that supervene, with age, in the sanitary state of certain organs, the variations that the temperaments undergo, the tastes, the desires that influence the character.

The acquisitions and the losses are not always in perfect equilibrium. If the acquisitions surpass the losses, the body grows, increases; if the contrary occurs, the body diminishes. Thus are explained growth, obesity, emaciation, decrepitude.

The same cause produces the expansion or the interruption of the development of the cerebral organs, according to the modifications that take place in the habitual preoccupations, in the ideas and in the character. If the circumstances and the causes that act directly upon the Spirit, provoking the exercise of an aptitude or a passion, are maintained in a state of inertia, the activity that is produced in the corresponding organ causes the blood to flow there and, with it, the molecules constituting the organ, which grows and gains strength in proportion to this activity. For the same reason, the inactivity of the faculty produces the weakening of the organ, just as a very intense and persistent activity can also lead to its disorganization or weakening, by a kind of wear, such as happens with a too tightly stretched cord. The aptitudes of the Spirit are, therefore, always a cause, and the state of the organs an effect. It may happen, however, that the state of the organs is modified by a cause foreign to the Spirit, such as an accidental illness, atmospheric or climatic influence; then it is the organs that react upon the Spirit, not altering its faculties, but disturbing their manifestation.

A similar effect may result from the substances ingested in the stomach, such as foods or medicines. These substances decompose there, and the essential principles they contain, mixed with the blood, are carried, by the current of the circulation, to all parts of the body. It is recognized by experience that the active principles of certain substances are carried more particularly to such or such viscera: the heart, the liver, the lungs, etc., and there produce reparative or deleterious effects, according to their nature and special properties. Some, acting in this manner upon the brain, can exercise upon the whole, or upon determined parts, a stimulating or stupefying action, according to the dose and the temperament, for example, alcoholic beverages, opium and others. We have dwelt somewhat upon the preceding details, in order to make understood the principle upon which the theory of the modifications of the moral state by therapeutic means may, with an appearance of logic, rely. This principle is that of the direct action of a substance upon a part of the cerebral organism, having as its special function to serve for the manifestation of a faculty, a feeling or a passion, for it cannot occur to anyone's thought that such a substance could act upon the Spirit.

Granting, then, that the principle of the faculties is in the Spirit, and not in matter, let us suppose that one recognizes in a substance the property of modifying the moral dispositions, of neutralizing a bad inclination: this could only be by its action upon the organ corresponding to that inclination, an action that would have the effect of interrupting the development of that organ, of atrophying it or paralyzing it, if it is developed. It becomes evident that, in this case, one does not suppress the inclination, but its manifestation, exactly as if the musician were deprived of his instrument.

It is probably effects of this nature that certain homeopaths have observed, and that have led them to believe in the possibility of correcting, with the help of appropriate medicines, vices such as jealousy, hatred, pride, anger, etc. Such a doctrine, if true, would be the negation of all moral responsibility, the sanction of materialism, for then the cause of our imperfections would lie solely in matter; moral education would be reduced to a medical treatment; the worst man could become good without great efforts, and Humanity could be regenerated with the help of a few pills. n If, on the contrary, as there is no doubt, the imperfections are inherent in the very inferiority of the Spirit, one will not improve it by the modification of its carnal envelope, just as one would not straighten a hunchback by concealing his deformity under the fabrics of his clothes. Nevertheless, we do not doubt that such results are obtained in some particular cases, for, in order to affirm so grave a fact, it is necessary to have observed; but we are convinced that they have been mistaken about the cause and the effect. By their ethereal nature, homeopathic medicines have an action that is in some way molecular; they can no doubt act, more than others, upon certain elementary and fluidic parts of the organs and modify their intimate constitution. If, then, as it is rational to admit, all the feelings of the soul have their corresponding cerebral fiber for their manifestation, a medicine that acted upon that fiber, whether to paralyze it, or to exalt its sensibility, would paralyze or exalt, by this very fact, the expression of the feeling of which it was the instrument, but the feeling would not cease to subsist. The individual would be in the position of an assassin from whom the possibility of committing homicides was removed by cutting off his arms, but who retained the desire to kill. It would therefore be a palliative, but not a curative remedy. One cannot act upon the spiritual being except by spiritual means; the usefulness of material means, if the above effect were verified, would perhaps be to dominate the Spirit more easily, to render it more flexible, more docile and more accessible to moral influences; but we would lull ourselves in illusions if we expected from any medication a definitive and lasting result. It would be completely different if it were a matter of aiding the manifestation of an existing faculty. Let us suppose an intelligent Spirit incarnated, having at its service only an atrophied brain and consequently unable to manifest its ideas: it will be for us an idiot. Admitting, what we judge possible for homeopathy, more than for any other kind of medication, that one can give more flexibility and sensibility to the cerebral fibers, the Spirit would manifest its thought, like a mute whose tongue had been loosened. But if the Spirit were an idiot by itself, even though it had at its service the brain of the greatest genius, it would be no less an idiot for all that. Since no medicine can act upon the Spirit, it could not give it what it does not have, nor take from it what it has; but acting upon the organ of the transmission of thought, it can facilitate that transmission without anything being thereby changed in the state of the Spirit. What is difficult, most often even impossible in the idiot from birth, because there is a complete and almost always general interruption of development in the organs, becomes possible when the alteration is accidental and partial. In this case, it is not the Spirit that is improved, it is the means of communication. [Review of June.]

Homeopathy in the treatment of moral illnesses.

(2nd article. — See the issue of March 1867.)

The article that we published in the March issue on the action of homeopathy in moral illnesses earned us, from one of the most ardent supporters of this system and, at the same time, one of the most fervent adherents of Spiritism, Doctor Charles Grégory, the following letter, which we deem fitting to publish, on account of the light that the discussion may bring to the question.

“Dear and venerated master, “I shall try to explain to you how I understand the action of homeopathy upon the development of the moral faculties.

“Like me, you admit that every healthy man possesses rudiments of all the faculties and of all the cerebral organs necessary for their manifestation. You also admit that certain faculties go on always developing, while others, those that are no doubt merely rudimentary, after having barely given a few flashes, seem to be extinguished completely. In the first case, in your opinion, the cerebral organs that pertain to the faculties in full development would have their free manifestation, whereas the rudimentary ones, which most of the time relate, likewise, to rudimentary aptitudes, atrophy completely with the advance of age, for lack of vital activity.

“If, then, by means of appropriate medicines, I act upon the imperfect organs, if I develop there an increase of vital activity, if I summon there a more powerful nutrition, it is quite clear that, by increasing the volume, they will allow the rudimentary faculty to manifest itself better, and that, by the transmission of the ideas and feelings that they have gathered, through the senses, in the exterior world, they will impress upon the corresponding faculty a salutary influence and, in their turn, will develop it, because everything is connected and held together in man; the soul influences the physical, as the body influences the soul. This is therefore already a first influence of the medicines, through the increase of the organs, upon the corresponding faculties of the soul; a possibility for man to grow in potentialities and in aptitudes, by means of forces drawn from the material world. “Now, for me it is not at all proved that our small doses, having reached a state of sublimation and subtlety that surpass all limits, do not in some way have in themselves something spiritual, which in its turn acts upon the Spirit. Our medicines, given in the state of division that art makes them undergo, are no longer material substances, but, in my opinion, forces that, necessarily, must act upon the faculties of the soul which, they too, are forces.

“And then, since I believe that the Spirit of man, before incarnating into Humanity, ascends all the rungs of the scale and passes through the mineral, the plant and the animal and through most of the types of each species, where it preludes for its complete development as a human being, who tells me that, by giving a medicine that is neither mineral, nor plant, nor animal, but what one might call its essence and, in some way, its spirit, one does not act upon the human soul composed of the same elements? For, say what one will, the spirit is indeed something and, since it has developed and develops incessantly, it must have taken its elements somewhere. “All I can say is that we do not act upon the soul with our 200th and 600th dilutions, materially, but virtually and, in some way, spiritually.

“The facts are there, facts numerous, well observed, and which could well demonstrate that I am not completely wrong. To cite myself, although I do not much like personal matters, I will say that, by experimenting on myself, for thirty years, with homeopathic remedies, I have in some way created in myself new faculties, no doubt rudimentary, but which in my most exuberant youth I had never known when I was ignorant of homeopathy, and which today, at the age of fifty-two, I find well developed: the sense of color and of forms.

“I will add further that, under the influence of our means, I have seen characters change completely; to frivolity succeeded reflection and the solidity of reasoning; to lubricity, continence; to malice, benevolence; to hatred, kindness and the forgiveness of injuries. Evidently it is not a matter of a few days; even some years of care are required, but one arrives at these fine results by means so convenient that there is no difficulty in deciding the clients who are devoted to you, and a physician always has some. I myself have observed that the results obtained by our means were acquired forever, whereas those given by education, good counsels, sustained exhortations, books of morals, scarcely resisted before the possibility of satisfying an ardent passion, and the temptations relating to our weaknesses, which had been lulled and numbed rather than cured. If, in this latter case, triumphs arose, it was not without violent struggles, which it was not advisable to prolong for very long. “These, dear master, are the observations that I wished to submit to you on this so grave question of the influence of homeopathy upon the human moral nature.

“To conclude: whether it be through the brain that the medicine acts upon the faculties, or whether it acts at the same time upon the cerebral fiber and upon the corresponding faculty, it is no less demonstrated to me, by hundreds of facts, that the subtle and profound action of our doses upon the human moral nature is quite real. Moreover, it is demonstrated to me that homeopathy depresses certain faculties, certain feelings or certain passions that are too exalted, in order to enhance others that are too weakened, and as it were paralyzed, leading, by this very fact, to equilibrium and harmony and, consequently, to the real improvement and the progress of man in all his aptitudes, and the ease of conquering himself. “Do not think that such a result annuls human responsibility, and that one arrives at this so desired progress without sufferings and without struggles. It is not enough to take a medicine and say: ‘I am going to conquer my inclination toward anger, jealousy and lust.’ Oh! no! The appropriate remedy, once introduced into the organism, brings there a profound modification only at the price of violent moral and physical sufferings and, very often, of long, very long duration; sufferings that must be repeated several times, varying the medicines and the doses, and this for months and, sometimes, years, if one wishes to arrive at conclusive results. This is the price to pay for one's moral improvement; this is the trial and the expiation by which everything is paid for in this inferior world, and I confess to you that it is not an easy thing to correct, even by Homeopathy. I do not know whether, by the inner anguishes that one suffers, one does not pay more dearly for this progress than by the slower modification, it is true, but doubtless gentler and more bearable, of the purely moral action of every day, by the observation of oneself and the ardent desire to conquer oneself. “I end here. Later I shall recount to you innumerable facts that may well convince you.

“Receive, etc.”

— This letter in no way modifies the opinion that we have expressed on the action of Homeopathy in the treatment of moral illnesses, and which, on the contrary, comes to confirm the very arguments of Dr. Grégory. We insist, therefore, in saying that, if homeopathic medicines can have an action upon the moral nature, it is by acting upon the organs of the manifestations, which may have its usefulness in certain cases, but not upon the Spirit; that the good or bad qualities and the aptitudes are inherent in the degree of advancement or of inferiority of the Spirit, and that it is not with any medicine that one can make it advance more quickly, nor give it qualities that it can acquire only successively and through work; that such a doctrine, making the moral dispositions depend upon the organism, takes from man all responsibility, in spite of what Mr. Grégory says, and dispenses him from all work upon himself in order to improve himself, since one could make him good in spite of himself, by administering to him such or such remedy; that if, with the help of material means, the organs of the manifestations can be modified, which we admit perfectly, these means cannot change the instinctive tendencies of the Spirit, just as, by cutting the tongue of a talker, one does not take from him the desire to speak. A custom of the Orient comes to confirm our assertion by a well-known material fact. Evidently the pathological state influences the moral nature in certain respects, but the dispositions that have this source are accidental and do not constitute the foundation of the Spirit's character; it is these, above all, that an appropriate medication can modify. There are persons who are benevolent only after having dined well, and from whom nothing should be asked when they are fasting; should one conclude from this that a good dinner would be a remedy against egoism? No, for that benevolence, provoked by the plenitude of sensual satisfaction, is an effect of egoism itself; it is only an apparent benevolence, a product of this thought: “Now that I no longer need anything, I can occupy myself a little with others.” In sum, we do not contest that certain medicines — and the homeopathic ones more than any others — produce some of the effects indicated, but we emphatically contest their permanent results and, above all, results so universal as some persons claim. One case in which Homeopathy appears to us particularly applicable with success is that of pathological madness, because here the moral disorder is the consequence of the physical disorder, and it is now verified by the observation of the Spiritist phenomena, that the Spirit is not mad. There is no reason to modify it, but to give it the means to manifest itself freely. The action of Homeopathy may here be all the more efficacious, as it acts principally, by the spiritualized nature of its medicines, upon the perispirit, which presents a preponderant role in this affliction. We would have more than one objection to make regarding some of the propositions contained in this letter, but this would lead us too far. We content ourselves, therefore, with considering the two opinions. As, in everything, facts are more conclusive than theories, and it is they, in the last analysis, that confirm or destroy the latter, we ardently desire that Dr. Grégory publish a special practical treatise of Homeopathy applied to the treatment of moral illnesses, so that experience may become generalized and decide the question. More than any other, he appears to us capable of doing this work ex professo.

[See: The spiritual sense, 2nd letter of Dr. Grégory to Allan Kardec.]

[1] Translator's note: This reasoning of Allan Kardec is perfectly logical, considering the state in which the medical science of his time found itself. At that time the advances achieved in the field of pharmacology, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology and engineering were not available, which permitted the synthesis of medicines of real value, today used with success in mental disorders. Although they do not cure the illness itself, whose substratum lies in the immortal Spirit, it is undeniable that they bring a certain relief to the injured parts, or those supposed as such, perhaps reaching the perispirit itself, and affording a respite to the sick person, followed by visible improvement, so that his moral reform, this indeed, and the resources of prayer and fluidotherapy may operate the definitive cure, in the present or in the course of other existences.