Homeopathy in the treatment of moral illnesses(See the March 1867 issue)
The article that we published in the March issue, on the action of homeopathy in moral diseases, has given us, from one of the keenest supporters of this system, and at the same time one of the most avid followers of Spiritism, Doctor Charles Grégory, the following letter that is our duty to publish, given the light that the discussion can bring to the question.
“Dear and revered teacher,
I will try to explain to you how I understand the action of homeopathy, on the development of moral faculties.
You admit, like me, that every healthy man possesses the rudiments of all the faculties and all the cerebral organs necessary for their manifestation. You also admit that certain faculties are always developing, while others, those that are undoubtedly only rudimentary, after having hardly given a few glimmers, seem to be extinguished altogether. In the first case, according to you, the cerebral organs relating to the faculties in full development, would have their free manifestation, while those that are rudimentary, and most often also related to rudimentary abilities, would atrophy completely with the progress of age, for the lack of vital activity.
If, therefore, by means of appropriate medicines, I act on the imperfect organs, if I develop in them an additional vital activity, if I call for a more powerful nutrition, it is quite clear that, by increasing the volume, they will allow the rudimentary faculty to better manifest itself, and that, by the transmission of the ideas and feelings that they will have drawn, by the senses, in the external world, they will impart to the corresponding faculty a salutary influence, and therefore develop it, for everything is linked and held together in man; the soul influences the physical, as the body influences the soul. We have, consequently, observed the first influence of drugs by means of the enlargement of the organs, on the corresponding faculties of the soul; therefore, the possibility of man growing in potentialities and skills, by means of forces taken from the material world.
Now, it has not been proven to me at all that our small doses, that have reached a state of sublimation and subtlety that go beyond all limits, do not have something spiritual in them, in a way, that acts in its own right, on the Spirit. Our medicines, given the state of division that the art makes them undergo, are no longer material substances, but many forces must necessarily, in my opinion at least, act on the faculties of the soul, that are also forces.
And then, as I believe that the Spirit of man, before incarnating in humanity, climbs all the steps of the ladder and passes through the mineral, the plant and the animal, and in most types of each species, where he preludes to his full development as a human being, who tells me that by medically giving what is no longer either mineral, plant or animal, but what we could call their essence, and in a way their spirit, we do not act on the human soul, composed of the same elements? Because, say what they will, the Spirit is indeed something, and since it has developed and is constantly developing, it must have taken its elements from somewhere.
All I can say is that we are not acting on the soul materially, but virtually and sort of spiritually, with our 200th and 600thdilutions.
Now the facts are there, many facts, well observed, and that could well demonstrate that I am not entirely wrong. To quote myself, although I do not like personal questions very much, I would say that experimenting homeopathic remedies on me, for thirty years, I have in a way created in myself new faculties, rudimentary no doubt, but that in my most luxuriant youth, I had never known, for I did not know homeopathy, and that today, at the age of fifty two, I find well developed: the perception of color and shapes.
I will add further that under the influence of our means, I have seen characters change completely; lightheartedness was succeeded by reflection and the solidity of judgment; lubricity, by continence; wickedness, by benevolence; hatred, by kindness and forgiveness of insults. It is, obviously, not a matter of a few days; it takes a few years of care, but these fine results are obtained by such convenient means that there is no difficulty in deciding the clients who are devoted to you, and a physician always has them. I even noticed that the results obtained by our means were acquired forever, while those given by education, good advice, frequent exhortations, moral books, hardly stood before the possibility of satisfying an ardent passion, and the temptations related to our weaknesses, rather asleep and numb than healed. If successes were manifested in the latter case, it was not without fierce struggles, that was not good to prolong too long.
“These are, dear teacher, the observations I wanted to submit to you on this very serious question of the influence of homeopathy on human moral.
To conclude: whether it is through the brain that the drug acts on the faculties, or that it acts both on the cerebral fiber and on the corresponding faculty, it is nonetheless demonstrated to me, by hundreds of facts, that the subtle and profound action of our doses on human moral is very real. It is demonstrated to me, moreover, that homeopathy depresses certain faculties, certain feelings or certain passions that are too exalted, to activate others too weakened, and as if paralyzed, and by this very reason, leads to balance and to harmony, hence resulting in real improvement and progress of man in all his aptitudes, and ease in overcoming himself.
Do not think that this result eliminates human responsibility, and that this much desired progress is achieved without suffering and without struggles; it is not enough to take a medicine and say to yourself: "I am going to succeed over my inclination of anger, of jealousy, of lust. Oh! not! The appropriate remedy, once introduced into the organism, brings about a profound modification only at the cost of fierce moral and physical sufferings, and often of long, very long duration; sufferings that must be repeated several times, varying the drugs and the doses, and this for months, and sometimes years, if one wishes to arrive at conclusive results. This is the price that we must pay for moral improvement; this is the trial and the atonement by which everything is paid in this world, and I confess that it is not easy to correct oneself, even by homeopathy. I do not know if, by the internal anguish that one suffers, one does not pay more dearly for this progress than by the slower modification, it is true, but certainly softer and more bearable of the purely moral action of every day, through self-observation and the burning desire to overcome oneself.
I stop here; later, I will tell you several facts that may well convince you.
Receive, etc."
This letter in no way modifies the opinion we have expressed on the action of homeopathy, in the treatment of moral diseases, and which, on the contrary, confirms the very arguments of Dr. Grégory. We, therefore, persist in saying that: if homeopathic medicines can have an effect on morale, it is by acting on the organs of manifestations, that can be useful in certain cases, but not on the Spirit; that good or bad qualities and aptitudes are inherent to the degree of advancement or inferiority of the Spirit, and that it is not with any medicine that one can make them advance faster, nor give them the qualities they can only acquire successively and through work; that such a doctrine, making the moral dispositions dependent on the organism, removes all responsibility from man, whatever M. Grégory may say, and releases him from all work to improve himself, since one could make him good, without him knowing it, by administering such and such a remedy; that if, with the aid of material means, we can modify the organs of manifestations, which we admit perfectly, such means cannot change the instinctive tendencies of the Spirit, any more than by cutting the tongue of a talker don't take away the urge to speak. A usage from the East confirms our assertion by a well-known material fact.
The pathological state certainly has moral influences, in certain respects, but the dispositions that this source have are accidental, and do not constitute the basis of the character of the Spirit; these are the ones, above all, that an appropriate medication can modify. There are people that are benevolent only after having had a good dinner, and from whom nothing should be asked when they are fasting; Are we to conclude that a good dinner is a remedy for selfishness? No, for this benevolence, brought about by the plentifulness of sensual satisfaction, is an effect of selfishness itself; it is only an apparent benevolence, a product of this thought: "Now that I don't need anything else, I can take care of the others a little." In summary, we do not dispute that some medications, and homeopathy more than any other, produce some of the effects indicated, but we dispute more than ever the permanent results, and especially as universal as some claim. A case in which homeopathy, above all, would seem to us particularly applicable with success, is that of pathological madness, because here moral disorder is the consequence of physical disorder, and it is now observed by the observation of the Spiritist phenomena, that the Spirit is not mad; there is no need to modify it, but to give it back the means to manifest itself freely. The action of homeopathy can be more effective here, since it acts mainly, by the spiritualized nature of its medicines, on the perispirit that plays a preponderant role in this disease. We would have more than one objection to make to some of the proposals contained in this letter; but that would take us too far; we are therefore content to compare the two opinions. As in everything, the facts are more conclusive than the theories, and it is they, ultimately, that confirm or reverse the latter. We eagerly wish that Dr. Grégory publishes a special practical treatise on homeopathy applied to treatment of moral illnesses, so that the experiment may be generalized and decide the question. More than any other, he seems capable of doing this work by profession.
