Can homeopathy modify moral dispositions? This is the question that certain homeopathic physicians have asked themselves, and to which they do not hesitate to answer affirmatively, based on facts. Considering its extreme gravity, we are going to examine it carefully from a point of view that seems to us to have been neglected by these gentlemen, however Spiritualists and even Spiritists they may be, no doubt, because there are very few homeopathic doctors that are not one or the other. But, for the understanding of our conclusions, some preliminary explanations on the modifications of the cerebral organs are necessary, especially for people foreign to physiology.
A principle admitted by simple reason, that science observes every day, is that there is nothing unnecessary in nature, that even in the most imperceptible details, everything has a goal, a reason to be, a destination. This principle is particularly evident in what relates to the organism of living beings.
Historically, the brain has been considered the organ of the transmission of thought, and the seat of intellectual and moral faculties. It is now recognized that certain parts of the brain have special functions, and are assigned to a particular order of thoughts and feelings, at least with respect to generality; it is thus that we instinctively place in the anterior part the faculties related to the domain of the intelligence, and that a strongly depressed and shrunken forehead is, for everyone, a sign of intellectual inferiority. The affective faculties, feelings and passions are thus found to have their seat in other parts of the brain.
Now, if we consider that thoughts and feelings are excessively multiple, and starting from the principle that everything has its destination and its utility, it is possible to conclude that, not only each fibrous bundle of the brain corresponds to a faculty general distinct, but that each fiber corresponds to the manifestation of one of the nuances of this faculty, as each string of an instrument corresponds to a particular sound. It is a hypothesis, no doubt, but that has all the characteristics of probability, and whose denial would not invalidate the consequences that we will deduce from the general principle; it will help us in our explanation.
Is thought independent of the organism? We do not have to discuss this question here, nor to refute the materialistic opinion that thought is secreted by the brain, as bile is by the liver; it is born and dies with this organ; in addition to its disastrous moral consequences, this doctrine has against it the fact that it explains nothing.
According to spiritualist doctrines, which are those of the immense majority of men, matter cannot produce thought, that is an attribute of the Spirit, of the intelligent being, that, when it is united to the body, uses the organs specially affected for its transmission, as it uses the eyes to see, the feet to walk. The Spirit surviving the body, thought also survives.
According to the Spiritist doctrine, not only does the Spirit survive, but preexists the body; it is not a new being; he brings in his birth the ideas, qualities and imperfections he possessed; this explains the innate ideas, aptitudes and inclinations. Thought is, therefore, preexisting and surviving the organism. This point is crucial, and it is for lack of recognition that so many questions have remained insoluble.
All the faculties and all the 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 thought of the Spirit, on a determined point, leads to the development of the fiber or, if you will, of the corresponding organ; if a faculty does not exist in the Spirit, or if it does exist but must remain in a latent state, the corresponding organ, being inactive, does not develop or atrophies.
If the organ is congenitally atrophied, the faculty not being able to manifest itself, the Spirit seems to be deprived of it, although he, in fact, possesses it, since it is inherent in him. Finally, if the organ, originally in its normal state, deteriorates during life, the faculty, brilliant as it was, dulls and then disappears, but is not destroyed; it is only a veil that covers it.
According to the individuals, there are faculties, aptitudes, tendencies which are manifested from the very beginning of life, others are revealed at later stages, and produce the changes of character and dispositions that one finds in some people. In the latter case, there are generally not new dispositions, but pre-existing aptitudes that lay dormant, until a circumstance comes to stimulate and awaken them.
We can be sure that the vicious dispositions that, sometimes, manifest themselves suddenly and belatedly, had their preexisting germ in the imperfections of the Spirit, for the latter, always marching to progress, if he is fundamentally good, cannot become bad, while from bad he can become good.
The development or depression of the organs of the brain follow the movement that takes place in the Spirit. These modifications are favored at any age, but especially at a young age, by the intimate work of renovation that is constantly taking place in the organism as follows:
The main elements of the organism are, as we know, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon which, by their multiple combinations, form the blood, nerves, muscles, humors, and different varieties of substances. Through the activity of vital functions, organic molecules are incessantly expelled from the body through perspiration, exhalation, and all secretions, so that if they were not replaced, the body would shrink and eventually waste away.
Food and aspiration constantly bring new molecules intended to replace those that go away; hence it follows that, in a given time, all the organic molecules are entirely renewed, and that at a certain age, there is no longer a single one of those that formed the body at its origin. This is the case of a house from which the stones would be removed, one by one, replacing them as they go by a new stone of the same shape and the same size, and so on, until the last one. We would still have the same house but made of different stones.
That is how it is with the body, the constituent elements of which are, say physiologists, totally renewed every seven years. The various parts of the organism still exist, but the materials are changed. From these general or partial changes arise the modifications that occur with age, in the healthy state of certain organs, the variations undergone by temperaments, tastes and desires that influence character.
Acquisitions and losses are not always in perfect balance. If the acquisitions outweigh the losses, the body grows or thickens; if the opposite takes place, the body shrinks. This explains the growth, obesity, weight loss, decrepitude.
The same cause produces the expansion or arrest of development of the cerebral organs, according to the modifications that take place in habitual concerns, ideas, and character. If the circumstances and the causes that act directly on the Spirit, provoking the exercise of an aptitude or of a passion, hitherto remained in the state of inertia, the activity that occurs in the corresponding organ, causes the blood to flow there and with that, the constituent molecules of the organ that 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 too great and too persistent an activity can lead to its disorganization or weakening, by a kind of wear and tear, as happens with a too tight rope.
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 illness, accident, atmospheric or climacteric influence; it is then the organs that react on the Spirit, not by altering its faculties, but by disturbing its
manifestation.
A similar effect can result from substances ingested in the stomach as food or medicine. These substances decompose there, and the essential principles that 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 taken more particularly to one or another organ: the heart, the liver, the lungs, etc., and produce there restorative or deleterious effects, depending on their nature and their special properties. Some, acting in this way on the brain, can exert, overall, or on specific parts, a stimulating or stupefying action, according to the dose and the temperament, as for example, alcoholic beverages, opium, and others.
We have extended somewhat on the preceding details, to facilitate understanding of the principle on which can be based, with an appearance of logic, the theory of modifications of the moral state, by therapeutic means. That principle is of the direct action of a substance, on a part of the cerebral organism, having the special function of serving for the manifestation of a faculty, a feeling or a passion, because nobody can conceive that this substance could act on the Spirit.
Admitting, therefore, that the principle of the faculties is in the Spirit, and not in the matter, let us suppose that one recognizes, in a substance, the property of modifying the moral dispositions, of neutralizing an evil inclination, this could only be by its action on the organ corresponding to that inclination, action which would have the effect of stopping the development of such organ, of atrophying or paralyzing it, if it is developed; it is obvious that, in this case, one does not suppress the inclination, but its manifestation, absolutely as if one took away the instrument from a musician.
Effects of this nature are, probably, those observed by some homeopaths, that made them believe in the possibility of correcting, with the help of appropriate drugs, vices such as jealousy, hatred, pride, anger, etc. Such a doctrine, if it were true, would be the denial of any moral responsibility, the sanction of materialism, for then the cause of our imperfections would be in matter alone; moral education would be reduced to medical treatment; the worst man could become good without much effort, and mankind could be regenerated with the help of a few pills. If, on the contrary, and there is no doubt of that, the imperfections are inherent to the inferiority of the Spirit, it will not be possible to be improved by modifying its carnal envelope, as one could not straighten a hunchback, by concealing his deformity under the cut of his clothes.
We do not doubt, however, that such results have been obtained in some particular cases, for in order to affirm such a serious fact, it is necessary to have observed; however, we are convinced that they were mistaken about the cause and the effect. Homeopathic medicines, by their ethereal nature, have a somewhat molecular action; they can, undoubtedly, more than others, act on the elementary and fluidic parts of the organs, and modify their intimate constitution. If therefore, as it is rational to admit, all the feelings of the soul have their corresponding cerebral fiber, for their manifestation, a drug that would act on this fiber, either to paralyze it or to exalt its sensitivity, would paralyze or exalt, for that very reason,
the expression of the feeling of which it would be the instrument, but the feeling would subsist, nonetheless. The individual would be in the position of a murderer, deprived of the possibility of committing murders by having his arms cut off, but who would, nonetheless, retain the desire to kill. It would, therefore, be a palliative, but not a curative remedy. One can only act onto the spiritual being by spiritual means; the usefulness of the material means, if the above effect were observed, would perhaps be to dominate the Spirit more easily, to make it more flexible, more docile and more accessible to moral influences; but one would be delusional by expecting a definitive and lasting result from any medication.
It would be different if it were a question of helping to manifest an existing faculty. Let us suppose incarnate an intelligent Spirit, having at its service only an atrophied brain, and therefore, not being to manifest his ideas. To us, he would be an idiot
[1]. By admitting, what we believe is possible to homeopathy, more than any other kind of medication, that we can give more flexibility and sensitivity to the cerebral fibers, the Spirit would manifest his thought, like a mute person that had his tongue untied. But if the Spirit himself were a fool, even if he had, at his service, the brain of the greatest genius, he would be no less foolish. Any medicine, not being able to act on the Spirit, can neither give it what it does not have, nor take away from it what it has; but, by acting on the organ of transmission of thought, it can facilitate this transmission without, for that reason, having anything changed in the state of the Spirit. What is difficult, most often even impossible, in an idiot from birth, because there is a complete and almost always general arrest of development in the organs, becomes possible, when the alteration is accidental and partial. In this case, it is not the Spirit that is being perfected, it is its means of communication.
[1] Kardec referring to a brain damaged person – the word
idiot was obviously not offensive in the nineteenth century (T.N.)
