Probably there has never been an age, nor any country (except Yankee-land?) in which disease has been so generally prevalent as in England to-day; and certainly there has never (with the same exception) been an age or country in which doctors have so swarmed, or in which medical science has been so powerful, in apparatus, in learning, in authority, and in actual organisation and number of adherents. How reconcile this contradiction—if indeed a contradiction it be?
But the fact is that medical science does not contradict disease—any more than laws abolish crime. Medical science—and doubtless for very good reasons—makes a fetish of disease, and dances around it. It is (as a rule) only seen where disease is; it writes enormous tomes on disease; it induces disease in animals (and even men) for the purpose of studying it; it knows, to a marvelous extent, the symptoms of disease, its nature, its causes, its goings out and its comings in; its eyes are perpetually fixed on disease, till disease (for it) becomes the main fact of the world and the main object of its worship. Even what is so gracefully called Hygiene does not get beyond this negative attitude. And the world still waits for its Healer, who shall tell us—diseased and suffering as we are—what health is, where it is to be found, whence it flows; and who having touched this wonderful power within himself shall not rest till he has proclaimed and imparted it to men.
No, medical science does not, in the main, contradict disease. The same cause (infidelity and decay of the central life in men) which creates disease and makes men liable to it, creates students and a science of the subject. The Moon[11] having gone from over the waters, the good people rush forth with their mops; and the untimely inundations, and the mops and the mess and the pother, are all due to the same cause.
As to the lodgment of disease, it is clear that this would take place easily in a disorganised system—just as a seditious adventurer would easily effect a landing, and would find insubordinate materials ready at hand for his use, in a land where the central government was weak. And as to the treatment of a disease so introduced there are obviously two methods: one is to reinforce the central power till it is sufficiently strong of itself to eject the insubordinate elements and restore order; the other is to attack the malady from outside and if possible destroy it—(as by doses and decoctions)—independently of the inner vitality, and leaving that as it was before. The first method would seem the best, most durable and effective; but it is difficult and slow. It consists in the adoption of a healthy life, bodily and mental, and will be spoken of later on. The second may be characterised as the medical method, and is valuable, or rather I should be inclined to say, will be valuable, when it has found its place, which is to be subsidiary to the first. It is too often, however, regarded as superior in importance, and in this way, though easy of application, has come perhaps to be productive of more harm than good. The disease may be broken down for the time being, but, the roots of it not being destroyed, it soon springs up again in the same or a new form, and the patient is as badly off as ever.
The great positive force of Health, and the power which it has to expel disease from its neighborhood is a thing realised, I believe, by few persons. But it has been realised on earth, and will be realised again when the more squalid elements of our present-day civilisation have passed away.
III
The result then of our digression is to show that Health—in body or mind—means unity, integration as opposed to disintegration. In the animals we find this physical unity existing to a remarkable degree. An almost unerring instinct and selective power rules their actions and organisation. Thus a cat before it has fallen (say before it has become a very wheezy fireside pussy!) is in a sense perfect. The wonderful consent of its limbs as it runs or leaps, the adaptation of its muscles, the exactness and inevitableness of its instincts, physical and affectional; its senses of sight and smell, its cleanliness, nicety as to food, motherly tact, the expression of its whole body when enraged, or when watching for prey—all these things are so to speak absolute and instantaneous—and fill one with admiration. The creature is "whole" or in one piece: there is no mentionable conflict or division within it.[12]
Similarly with the other animals, and even with the early man himself. And so it would appear returning to our subject—that, if we accept the doctrine of Evolution, there is a progression of animated beings—which, though not perfect, possess in the main the attribute of Health—from the lowest forms up to a healthy and instinctive though certainly limited man. During all this stage the central law is in the ascendant, and the physical frame of each creature is the fairly clean vehicle of its expression—varying of course in complexity and degree according to the point of unfoldment which has been reached. And when thus in the long process of development the inner Man (which has lain hidden or dormant within the animal) at last appears, and the creature consequently takes on the outer frame and faculties of the human being, which are only as they are because of the inner man which they represent; when it has passed through stage after stage of animal life, throwing out tentative types and likenesses of what is to come, and going through innumerable preliminary exercises in special forms and faculties, till at last it begins to be able to wear the full majesty of manhood itself—then it would seem that that long process of development is drawing to a close, and that the goal of creation must be within measurable distance.
But then, at that very moment, and when the goal is, so to speak, in sight, occurs this failure of "wholeness" of which we have spoken, this partial break-up of the unity of human nature—and man, instead of going forward any longer in the same line as before, to all appearance falls.
What is the meaning of this loss of unity? What is the cause and purpose of this fall and centuries-long exile from the earlier Paradise?
There can be but one answer. It is self-knowledge—(which involves in a sense the abandonment of self). Man has to become conscious of his destiny—to lay hold of and realise his own freedom and blessedness—to transfer his consciousness from the outer and mortal part of him to the inner and undying.
The cat cannot do this. Though perfect in its degree, its interior unfoldment is yet incomplete. The human soul within it has not yet come forward and declared itself; some sheathing leaves have yet to open before the divine flower-bud can be clearly seen. And when at last (speaking as a fool) the cat becomes a man—when the human soul within the creature has climbed itself forward and found expression, transforming the outer frame in the process into that of humanity—(which is the meaning I suppose of the evolution theory)—then the creature, though perfect and radiant in the form of Man, still lacks one thing. It lacks the knowledge of itself; it lacks its own identity, and the realisation of the manhood to which as a fact it has attained.
In the animals consciousness has never returned upon itself. It radiates easily outwards; and the creature obeys without let or hesitation, and with little if any self-consciousness, the law of its being. And when man first appears on the earth, and even up to the threshold of what we call civilisation, there is much to show that he should in this respect still be classed with the animals. Though vastly superior to them in attainments, physical and mental, in power over nature, capacity of progress, and adaptability, he still in these earlier stages was like an animal in the unconscious instinctive nature of his action; and on the other hand, though his moral and intellectual structures were far less complete than those of the modern man—as was a necessary result of the absence of self-knowledge—he actually lived more in harmony with himself and with nature,[13] than does his descendant; his impulses, both physical and social, were clearer and more unhesitating; and his unconsciousness of inner discord and sin a great contrast to our modern condition of everlasting strife and perplexity.
If then to this stage belongs some degree of human perfection and felicity, yet there remains a much vaster height to be scaled. The human soul which has wandered darkling for so many thousands of years,