Читать книгу Medicine and the Church. Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick онлайн

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When the scheme for the present volume was drawn up over a year ago, it was felt that some authoritative statement was needed to guide the public in thinking out the topical questions of Spiritual Faith or Mental Healing. There has, in recent years, been an endless series of books issued from the European and American presses on this subject. Some of these publications being obviously the hand-books of societies whose name spelt their own condemnation, thinking people passed them by, but, on the other hand, much literature of a very misleading character has been placed on the market and purchased by many in the belief that they were learning from it the official views either of the Church or of the medical profession, or of both. The qualified medical practitioners of this country do not lightly decide to give expression to their views on therapeutics in books issued to the general public, and whenever they circulate opinions it may be taken for granted that they are the result of patient investigation of facts and of carefully thought out conclusions deduced from those facts. If one may be allowed to indicate in a general way the position taken up by the doctors who have written for the following pages, it is one of scepticism towards quasi-miraculous healing as a practical means of combating disease, but at the same time it is an attitude of extreme cordiality towards the minister of religion—in his capacity as a messenger of hope and expert in peace of mind. Of all the weighty evidence that has been gathered together to build up this book, the opinion of Sir Clifford Allbutt forms no unimportant section. Few of us can escape sickness altogether, and although some illnesses may be blessings in disguise, nevertheless our desire for health is only second to our desire for life, and it is right that it should be so. ‘The highest spiritual life depends on the best bodily health,’ Sir Clifford Allbutt tells us. The Bishops at Lambeth admitted with regret that ‘sickness has too often exclusively been regarded as a cross to be borne with passive resignation, whereas it should have been regarded rather as a weakness to be overcome by the power of the spirit.’ That there exist potentialities of healing apart from physic to-day no one can refute, but it is to be feared the Church and the medical profession have much lost ground to recover, through having in the past ignored those psychic forces that are now the object both of scientific inquiry and of theological study. The marvellous chemical discoveries of the past few years have revolutionised scientific conceptions. New theories of matter and of energy are being framed to explain the result of new researches. The wonders of radio-activity have converted the scientist from a materialist who believed in nothing unrevealed by test-tube or microscope, into an idealist prepared to argue from the unseen to the seen. Just as there are in the world of physical science forces whose existence we are only now beginning to recognise and whose capabilities are still unknown to us, there are undoubtedly psychic forces in man that are capable of development, but of whose exact nature we at present are ignorant, although we can trace their effects.9