"healed" of consumption. I wrote her mother, who sent me a kind note,
inviting me to call several evenings later, and inclosing a
time-table. She stated, "I shall be happy to give you any information
in my power, as Christian Science has been a great blessing in my
family." Before the appointed evening I received a note, breaking the
engagement. Again, at an "experience meeting" a man arose and declared
he had cured a case of locomotor ataxia, "so that the patient's two
former physicians had been lost in amazement at the change." I learned
also that his wife, another "healer," had cured a case of cancer of
the tongue. I wrote this gentleman, and he sent me an answer, kindly
inviting me to call at his house. He lived out of town. I went to his
house, and spent the greater part of an evening trying to prevail upon
these two people to show me or to introduce me to these subjects of
locomotor ataxia and cancer of the tongue. They utterly refused to do
so. Their line of argument was quite of the same sort as that
contained in the letter of their better-known "brother in the church,"
which appears earlier in this paper. I was not investigating in the
right way. What I ought to do was to study Science and Health and the
other elucidatory works--above all with an obedient spirit, and "the
truth" would come to me in time. Or it may be this pair of "healers"
had in mind this reasoning, not new in my observation of this odd
cult: In the mind of the Christian Scientist the locomotor-ataxia
patient was healed, but he was withheld from inspection by the
deceptive senses of those outside the Christian-Science pale, to which
senses the patient might appear to stagger about and be as ill or more
ill than ever before. Following is this "healer's" letter to me:
"MY DEAR DR. HUBER: I received your letter with Joy, and name
next Monday eveng as a time to give you for your enquiry into the
workings of Truth as it has come under my notice. Our field is a
broad one coverig several towns, and we have not lately had an
eveng free for discussin the subject coverig this sublime and
stately Science That leads into all Truth even to the solving of
the problem of Being. The healing of the sick is only the primary
steps this step however is an important one as its demonstration
with proof attests its divine origen even God--Good, its
principle source and ultimates in Eternal Life. For the Life is
in his Son and Divine Science reveals this son Even our own
Christ our spiritual Individuality God being our Father and
mother,
"Yrs. in Truth
"----."
The writer of this letter is the leader of that Christian-Science
church in New Jersey a member of which was a woman who died, in June
of this year, of consumption,[4] and this woman's "healer" was the
writer's wife. The woman who died left the Episcopalian Church and
became a Christian Scientist in January, 1899. In April she contracted
a heavy cold, to which she gave no attention. Her husband remonstrated
with her, and wished her to consult a physician, but she would not do
so. She declared she could not be ill, but that she was well and
happy. The services of her "healer" were the only ministrations she
received. In the beginning of June her condition was so bad that her
husband prevailed upon her to see a physician, who examined her and
found her hopelessly ill with consumption. Another physician examined
her and reached the same conclusion. She then turned "longingly and
earnestly to the religion in which she had been brought up." Two weeks
after, she died, "asking the prayers of her co-religionists in behalf
of herself, her husband, and her children."
[Footnote 4: New York Times, June 24, 1899.]
Mrs. Eddy declares that she "healed consumption in its last stages,
the lungs being mostly consumed"; that she "healed carious bones which
could be dented with the finger"; and that she "healed in one visit a
cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the
jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord." Judge Hanna has
published statements to the effect that "cancer, malignant tumors,
consumption, broken bones, and broken tissues have been healed in
Christian Science, without the assistance of any material means
whatever." Mr. Carol Norton, a Christian-Science lecturer, has
publicly announced that Christian Science has healed "locomotor
ataxia, softening of the brain, paresis, tumor, Bright's disease,
cancer," etc. And many other Christian Scientists have made like
claims. Very well, then. Who are these people that have thus been
cured? What are their names? Where do they live? How can they be
found? Will Mrs. Eddy and her followers submit these cases for
scientific examination? I and other investigators are asking, and have
for years been asking, these questions, and we are all of us still
waiting for answers.
The importance of all this is no doubt manifest. The healing of
disease is, we are told, the outward and visible evidence upon which
Christian Science expects to be judged and accepted. Therefore the
cult must stand or fall upon the results of an investigation of the
healer's claims. "By their fruits ye shall know them."
There are Christian Scientists who will say that these statements of
Mrs. Eddy and her associates must be taken upon faith and as _ipse
dixit_ utterances. This is in the last degree silly. With such
statements faith has absolutely nothing to do. They are solely matters
for scientific inquiry.
Every Christian Scientist may be a healer. A little child may be a
healer in Christian Science. The treatment is said to consist in
thinking, speaking, and writing. It is declared that no material
substances are used. The following oddity in mental processes is here
to be noted: A healer told her patient to take a certain drug during
her illness, and that she would then demonstrate the power of
Christian Science _over this drug_.
The healer does not need to see his patient. He may, if he will, treat
"absently," by a species of thought transference. He would consider
his treatment effectual if he were in New York and his patient were in
Hong Kong.
I have rheumatism, let us say, and at midnight my swollen and inflamed
joint gives me pain. I send for a Christian-Science healer. In all
probability my messenger will call upon a person who has had no
preliminary medical education whatever. He is likely to find some one
who is quite illiterate, as witness the letter last presented. He may,
as I have, come upon some one who has been engaged in the occupation
of amusing the _habitués_ of beer saloons by playing upon the zither
before he took up the more remunerative business of Christian-Science
healing. Or he may, as I have, come upon some one who is engaged
simultaneously both in the business of selling drugs and in the
practice of healing by mental therapeutics alone.
Having been found, the healer, first requiring a fee from my
messenger, treats me "absently," while lying abed in his own home. His
treatment consists in sending me word that I only imagine I am ill,
that my joint is really not swollen, that it is really not inflamed,
and that it really does not pain me, but that, on the contrary, I am
really very well and very happy indeed.
Some diseases are in Christian Science considered to take longer to
heal than others; I have not understood why. If "all is mind, and
there is no matter,"[5] as the Christian Scientist holds, and if,
therefore, the varying densities of tissues need not be considered,
why should not cancer or locomotor ataxia be healed as easily and as
rapidly as a headache or a hysterical manifestation? Christian Science
despises bodily cleanliness, the use of baths, and the most ordinary
sanitary regulations. "To bow down to a flesh-brush, bath, diet,
exercise, and air is a form of idolatry."[6] We learn, finally, that
"the heart, the lungs, the brain, have nothing to do with life."[7]
[Footnote 5: Science and Health.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid.]
Christian Science has stood by the bedside of an infant sick with
diphtheria, has prevented interference with its incantations, and has
seen this infant choke, grow livid, gasp, and expire, without so much
as putting a drop of water to its lips.
Most Christian Scientists are well to do. Their tenet is that "no one
has any business to be poor." In New York their churches are in the
neighborhood of the wealthy, and there are no missions by means of
which the professed blessings of Christian Science may be disseminated
among the poor. Christian Science is demonstrably a powerful
organization for the accumulation of wealth, and by easy calculation
one may see that her propaganda has made Mrs. Eddy, who is said to
have been at one time very poor, conspicuously rich even in these
days of enormous fortunes. When we consider that this woman claims to
be actuated by the spirit of the poor Nazarene, has hypocrisy ever
gone to greater length?
Mrs. Eddy despises all metaphysical systems, yet her writings display
her inability to think logically through half a dozen consecutive
lines.
Mrs. Eddy declares that "no human being or agency taught me the truths
of Christian Science, and no human agency can overthrow it."[8] But
there are published statements,[9] of the truth of which the writer
offers to give legal proof, in which it is shown, by means of the
"deadly parallel," that the essential ideas underlying her system are
all plagiarized from the writings of an irregular practitioner to
whom, many years ago, she went for treatment. Published accounts of
her illness at that time present a picture of hysteria pure and
simple.
[Footnote 8: Science and Health.]
[Footnote 9: The Arena, May, 1898.]
Mrs. Eddy claims to possess healing powers nothing short of
miraculous, yet the writer just mentioned declares that she has
probably not been a well woman these forty years past. Certain it is
she almost never appears in public, and only a few of her followers
have ever seen her face except in copyrighted photographs.
The medical profession is most stupidly reprobated by Mrs. Eddy and
her associates, especially for its "mercenary motives." A specific
statement may here be not malapropos. In the year 1895 there were
1,800,000 inhabitants in the lesser city of New York, and on the rolls
of its hospitals and dispensaries were more than 793,000 names of
people for the treatment of whom New York's medical men received
practically no pecuniary reward whatever.
It is declared that Christian Science is a religious system, that the
treatment of the sick is a part of this system, and that, as the
Constitution forbids interference by the States with religion, no laws
can be enacted which could compel the healer to desist from his work.
But there is a sharp distinction between religious liberty and license
to commit, in the name of religion, unlawful acts. A man would not be
justified in killing his child in obedience to a fanatical belief, as
Abraham was about to do; but Christian Science has sacrificed the
lives of little children upon the altar of its pseudo-religion. Had
not these children rights which ought to have been safeguarded? If the
Christian Scientist's position be admitted, a thug might, upon the
same principles, be justified in committing murder, on the ground that
murder is a practice required by his religion; and a Mormon might, on
the same basis, practice polygamy. When a healer treats for hire a
sufferer from typhoid fever, is he acting in a religious capacity?
The observer will find in Christian Science much charlatanry (by which
many honest fanatics are deceived), much to surprise reason and common
sense, to offend good taste and the proprieties, to outrage justice
and the law, and to mortify the pious.
And in the last degree reprehensible will appear this cult's ghastly
masquerade in the garb of Him that prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane,
"the pale, staggering Jew, with the crown of thorns upon his bleeding
head," the tenderest, the divinest, the most mankind-loving
personality the world has ever known.
THE WHEAT LANDS OF CANADA.
BY SYDNEY C. D. ROPER.
When Sir W. Crookes, in his inaugural address as President of the
British Association, startled a large number of people by stating
that, unless some radical change was made in the present system of
wheat cultivation, there would be a bread famine in 1931, because the
world's supply of land capable of producing wheat would have been
exhausted, there was undoubtedly a considerable feeling of uneasiness
engendered, and more attention was paid to the address than is usual
even to so valuable a contribution as the inaugural address of the
President of that Association must always be. It was, therefore, with
a feeling of relief that we found one person after another, well
qualified to speak, coming, as it were, to the rescue, and pointing
out that Sir W. Crookes's conclusions were not warranted; and in the
minds of the majority, no doubt, the last feeling of uneasiness was
dispelled by the able letter in The Times, in December last, in which
Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert, who are _facile principes_ as
scientific agriculturists, and whose opinions carry greater weight
than even those of the President of the British Association, gave most
satisfactory reasons for being unable to believe in Sir W. Crookes's
predictions.
It is true that, in a subsequent letter, Sir W. Crookes stated that
his remarks were intended more as a serious warning than as a
prophecy; but, seeing that his conclusions were based on definite
statements of definite facts and figures, it is difficult to treat
them as other than prophetic.
In order, however, to establish the probability of a wheat famine in
the near future it became necessary for Sir W. Crookes to seriously
misrepresent and underestimate the wheat resources of some of the
principal countries most interested in producing that cereal, and it
is to a large extent by exposing the magnitude of these
misrepresentations that the validity of his conclusions is called in
question and disproved. The two countries which, with perhaps the
exception of Russia, are most concerned in the wheat production of the
future, and therefore in the correction of these misstatements, are
Canada and the United States.
Mr. Atkinson, the well-known writer on economic subjects, took up the
cudgels for the United States, and their case could hardly have been
in better hands; but so far no champion has appeared on behalf of
Canada; and while Sir W. Crookes may not have been alone in his views
about the possible exhaustion of the wheat area in the United States,
he certainly stood quite alone when he committed himself to the
remarkable statements that are to be found in the address, in order to
decry the capabilities of the Canadian wheat fields. I did not
immediately reply to them myself, thinking that some one better
qualified would do so, but this has not been done, and as I feel that
they can not be allowed any longer to remain unanswered, I propose to
deal with them in the present article.
Mr. Atkinson's defense has been criticised, in the March number of The
Forum, by Mr. C. Wood Davis, who naturally upholds Sir W. Crookes's
views, seeing that they appear to have been largely induced by his own
figures and agree with his own ideas, but his argument in that article
is more one of fault finding with the statements of others than an
attempt to justify his own position. As a specimen of his style of
criticism, Mr. Davis takes Mr. Atkinson to task for saying that "the
present necessities of the world are computed by Sir W. Crookes at
2,324,000,000 bushels," and says that in no part of his address was an
estimate of the whole world's requirements so much as mentioned; and
yet, on turning to the address, we find that Sir W. Crookes said: "The
bread eaters of the whole world share the perilous prospect.... The
bread eaters of the world at the present time number 516,500,000....
To supply 516,500,000 bread eaters will require a total of
2,324,000,000 bushels for seed and food." The requirements of the
whole world are distinctly stated here, for bread is required only for
the bread-eating population, and therefore the requirements of that
population are, as far as bread is concerned, the requirements of the
whole world. Mr. Atkinson, however, is well able to take care of
himself, and he and Mr. Davis can fight out for themselves the
question as to when, or if ever, the United States will cease to
export wheat; but it is amusing to find Mr. Atkinson charged by Mr.
Davis, of all men, with dealing in "purely speculative computations,"
for if there is any one who has freely indulged in these same purely
speculative computations it is Mr. Davis himself, as we shall
presently see.
The value of the various calculations that statisticians indulge in is
largely discounted by the fact that allowance is rarely made for
changing conditions. Such has been the ratio, such is the ratio, and
therefore in so many years' time such will be the ratio, is the burden
of their calculations, so that while their figures for the past and
present may be both correct and instructive, their calculations for
the future are frequently of little practical utility; and it is this
failure to allow for any variation in conditions that renders Mr.
Davis's figures of so little value, and Sir W. Crookes's conclusions,
which are based on them, of no greater importance.
It is surprising to find how much value Sir W. Crookes attaches to Mr.
Davis's figures, and it leads one to the conclusion that he has either
not examined them very closely, or shares with Mr. Davis a fondness
for "purely speculative computations"; and while it is not seemly to
accuse, as has been done, a man of Sir W. Crookes's standing and
reputation of resorting to "bucket-shop" methods to support his
conclusions, it is difficult to avoid thinking that the anxiety to
establish those conclusions has not only led him to accept Mr. Davis's
calculations without proper examination, but has also influenced the
preparation of some of his antecedent data and led him to subordinate
facts as a means to a required end. Since Sir W. Crookes thinks so
highly of Mr. Davis's figures and upon them has based some of the most
important conclusions of his address, and as Mr. Davis himself is so
ready to find fault with the calculations of others, it might be well
just here to see how some of Mr. Davis's own calculations have been
verified and what amount of dependence should be placed upon his
figures or on deductions from them.
In An Epitome of the Agricultural Situation, published by Mr. Davis in
1890, he predicted an annually increasing deficit in the world's wheat
supply and the almost immediate inability of the United States to do
more than grow enough wheat for home consumption, and, as a
consequence, that "After 1895 we (United States) must either import
breadstuffs, cease to export cotton, or lower the standard of living,"
this latter prophecy being emphasized by being printed in capital
letters. These predictions were made ten years ago--ample time,
surely, for at least some evidence of their fulfillment to be
apparent. But what are the facts? The Chief of the Bureau of
Statistics, in his report on the foreign commerce of the United States
for 1898, says: "The total exportation of meats and dairy products
amounted in the last fiscal year (1898) to $167,340,960, against
$145,270,643 in the highest year prior to that date (1894), while the
value of animals exported in 1898 was greater than that of any
preceding year; of wheat the exports of the year were the largest in
value, save the exceptional years of 1880, 1881, and 1892. Of cotton
the exports of the year were the largest in quantity in the history of
the country.... Thus, in the great agricultural products--breadstuffs,
provisions, and cotton--the exports have been phenomenally large,
while the total of products of agriculture exceed by $54,000,000 the
exports of agricultural produce in any preceding year of our history."
So much for exports; now for the imports of breadstuffs. The total
value of breadstuffs, both dutiable and free, entered for consumption
in 1898 was $957,455, of which $628,775 were for imports of macaroni,
vermicelli, etc., articles not in any case manufactured in the
country. I have not seen any explanation by Mr. Davis of the failure
of his predictions, but it is probable that he had them in mind when
he wrote in The Forum (March, 1899), "Had not the herds of hay- and
maize-eating animals shrunk greatly since 1892, thus rendering vast
areas of hay and maize lands available for wheat production, we should
probably have reduced the wheat area, instead of adding ten million
acres to it since 1895." This, however, is a purely arbitrary
assumption, unsupported by anything more substantial than Mr. Davis's
personal opinion. In the same article he says: "But herds being
insufficient for present needs must be added to in the measure of the
existing deficit, as well as in that of the animal products and
services required by all future additions to the population. This will
necessitate and force a restoration to other staples of acres recently
diverted to wheat." But, in the face of the figures quoted above, the
evidence is clear that herds are not only ample for present needs, but
afford a larger margin than ever of exportable surplus. If herds were
insufficient, there would have been a curtailment of exports and an
increase in the consumption of breadstuffs, but neither have happened;
neither has there been any reduction in the standard of living. Is not
the inference irresistible that the country was carrying a larger
number of animals than conditions absolutely required, since farm
animals have declined from 169,000,000 in 1892 to 138,000,000 in 1898,
without in any way disturbing the conditions of food supply or
reducing the exports of provisions? In 1890, Mr. Davis assumed that
44,800,000 acres of hay would be required in 1895 and 49,200,000 acres
in 1900, yet in 1898, 42,800,000 acres were found to be ample for the
needs of the country.
Do not the foregoing figures clearly indicate that it is not safe to
assume that the area employed in the cultivation of certain staples
at any given time, or the average of that area for any given period,
must necessarily be the proportion always to be required for the
cultivation of those articles, and that any calculations or
predictions made on that assumption are liable to be completely upset
by events unforeseen and unprovided for? Does it not seem probable
that if Sir W. Crookes had examined Mr. Davis's figures more closely
than apparently he did, he would have found that "average acre yields
for long periods" are not "essential factors"; that "unit requirements
for each of the primary food staples of the temperate zones" can not
be so easily determined; that "the ratio existing during recent
periods between the consuming element and acres employed in the
production of each of such primary food staples" are not necessarily
indicative of the ratio that will require to exist in the years to
come; and that Mr. Davis's "scientific method" does not "enable him to
ascertain the acreage requirements of the separate national
populations and of the bread-eating world as a whole"?