arm - and we call that a voluntary function. Now the question is whether the brain condition which accompanies the idea of enlivening our stomach can have any effect upon that involuntary func

tion.

Experiments with suggestion have proved that in some cases it can, if it continues long enough. Persons of a very suggestible nature can, for instance, by concentrating their mind upon a certain part of the body, increase the flow of blood to that part, although the regulation of blood-flow is supposed to be entirely involuntary. The action of the heart also, the movements of the digestive organs particularly, and of the organs of elimination, are almost directly affected in suggestible persons by that change in their brains which accompanies certain ideas. Individuals differ very much in the degree of control which can be established; they differ as much as they do in their ability to move their ears. And this difference in individuals so-called psychic and non-psychic types - does not seem to connect itself uniformly with any other characteristics. So it is hard to tell one from the other except by the actual experiment.

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Science has established, then, that suggestion can affect to some extent the so-called involuntary functions of the body; but the extent or limitation of these effects is by no means determined. It could not be determined scientifically without years of diligent experiment and tabulation. Any dogmatic statement upon one side or the other of that question is therefore premature and against the spirit of science.

Rev. Samuel McComb, Dr. Worcester's associate in the church in Boston which has recently inaugurated the use of suggestive treatment, together with religious and moral discipline, writes as follows: "With our present light it must be maintained that suggestion is available only within certain limits. There is not the slightest evidence that when an organic change has taken place in the body,

such a change can be affected by mental means."

The first sentence is unquestionable; the second is highly unscientific and untrue. Those words "organic change" and "organic lesion are used very bravely by many persons who have small apprehension of the difficulty they would have in explaining them. An "organic" trouble is one in which there is an abnormal condition of the tissues of an organ; a functional" trouble is one in which there is a failure in the action of an organ, without any discoverable change in its tissues. "Nervous dyspepsia " is a functional disorder, ulcer of the stomach an organic disorder. All persons who have been much in the mercy of our physicians are acquainted with this general distinction.

But it is only a distinction of practical language, and must not be overworked, for here again we are unable to draw the line. The brain and nervous system is an organ. The functioning of the stomach is largely controlled by the brain and nervous system. A functional disorder in the stomach therefore often represents an organic disorder in the brain or nervous system. And few things would be more likely to "affect " an “organic change in the nervous tissue than the permanent fixation of certain thought-habits in the brain. If the most delicate investigations were possible, we believe we should find that every trouble has its organic manifestation. Even those miseries which I called "primarily mental," are probably accompanied by abnormalities of cerebral structure somewhere, though they are too fine for us to discover. But if these slight organic changes can be affected by suggestion, we have no authority for the assertion that greater ones cannot be affected. It is a question merely of the degree of the effect, and not of the kind. If suggestion can affect those abnormalities of the nerves which accompany fixed ideas of fatigue, perhaps it can affect those abnormalities of the nerves which we call neurasthenia neurasthenia be

ing the name a doctor gives to his own ignorance. But perhaps it can also affect those greater abnormalities which are called neuritis. What I want to show is that there is no difference in kind between the disorders we can see, and those we cannot see. There is no reason to suppose that suggestion can affect changes which are invisible through the microscope, but that as soon as a change becomes visible, suggestion can no longer affect it. There is a limit to the effect of suggestion even in the most susceptible person, but we have at present no idea what that limit is. That is one reason for objecting to the statement which I quoted.

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Another reason is that, given a change in an organ, it is a part of the function of other organs to remove it. Even so small a thing as the increase of blood-supply in the disturbed region can have its curative effect upon an "organic change." Therefore if suggestion can increase the bloodsupply, it can affect an organic change. So that if we grant that suggestion can affect the functioning of parts of the tem, we have granted that it can indirectly affect the structure of other parts. It is of value in the removal of, or adjust ment to, organic disorders. The next sentence in Mr. McComb's article is an admission of this: "Yet even here the suggestive principle is not without value. It creates the most hopeful atmosphere within which the material remedies may work." If this is to be interpreted as science and not as fancy, it means that when an organic change has taken place in the body, such a change may be affected by mental means.

Issuing from the sweat of these technical arguments, we shall be better convinced by an example. Let me cite therefore the repeated experiments of those physicians who have produced in suggest

ible persons a structural alteration of the skin by suggesting in hypnosis the ap plication of a blister. This may be explained as a high control of the circulation, but it is an organic change produced thereby, and as such is of immense significance.

We have the comfort of knowing that no truly scientific person will for many years attempt to describe the limits of application of the suggestive principle. Each will adopt a general attitude which satisfies his temperament and explains his experience. There is ample support in the brilliant experiments of certain French physicians for those who are quite radical, and there is a mountain of traditional wisdom for those who are conservative.

If I have shown that the new practice of medicine, which takes account of psychology and cerebral physiology, is not dependent upon any doctrine of mind and matter, I have accomplished my reason's purpose. If in the by-going it has been suggested to some person that his woes can be alleviated by mental means, or, at least, that he can learn from some new prophet the best of the art of being an invalid, so much reasoning will not seem vain. Every sick man can afford to make this venture.

Finally, be it urged that those who believe in suggestion, and have perhaps been helped by it, shall quit their ignominious reticence and say so. It is wrath to the hopeful to see those who have sufficient breadth to go and put themselves under suggestive treatment, not having sufficient ardor of personal honesty and altruism to say they have done so, but hugging their secret like the insane. So long as the unprejudiced are cowards we are wholly damned by prejudice.

I HAVE been reading a magazine article on "The Joys of Small-Boat Sailing," and it has appealed to me as few magazine articles do. I, too, have owned a small boat. I, too, have been instructed in the art of fastening a "sheet-rope " so that it will stay as long as it is wanted and can be let go in a hurry. I, too, have felt the stout little hull leaping and plunging beneath me like a living thing. I, too, have known the thrill that comes in what my father used to call "a gale of wind," when, with the canvas pulling with all its strength, and the tiller tugging like a frightened horse, she heels till the white foam hisses and flashes right over the leeward gun'l'. I am not quite sure that I have ever had a balloon jibe, but I have been hit by a squall and have held on till the mast broke. Yes, and I, too, have listened to a sweet soprano voice, singing the sweet, old-fashioned songs, while the sails rounded gently in the soft nightbreeze, and all about us the water shimmered like a sea of molten silver. By moonlight and starlight we'll bound o'er

the billow.

If that enthusiastic magazine writer had been perfectly frank, and had told the whole truth as well as nothing but the truth, I think I should probably have to add that I, too, have toiled slowly homeward through a long, hot summer afternoon with the help of a white-ash breeze, while the sun blazed down from a cloudless sky and up from the mirroring water, and the perspiration trickled, and the oars grew heavier and heavier, and the canvas flapped, flapped, flapped, maddeningly, from side to side, and the wind blew steadily up and down the mast. But if I felt called upon to mention these things at all I should certainly say that they were all in the game, and that I have

You hurt my feelings, brother. Really, you do. Come now, and let us reason together, and perchance I shall convince you of the error of your views.

In the first place, you admit that a motor-boat is all right if one wants to go somewhere, but you hint that no one who really loves and appreciates the water ever does want to go anywhere in particular. Well, I do. I want to go somewhere.

Seventy miles away, down the great river that flows past my town, and out on the broad North Channel of Lake Huron, a full league from any other land, there lies a horseshoe-shaped island, with rocky reefs guarding the portal of its harbor, but with fifty feet of water under your keel if you enter in by the strait gate. Once upon a time it was a fishing-station. The fishermen are gone now, but you can still lay your launch alongside their rotting wharf; and if you come in after dark, and it is too late to gather balsam for a bed, you can spread your blankets on the planks and lie there till morning. The stars will watch over you, and now and then through the long, quiet hours you will hear the lonely night-call of the

waterfowl. Perhaps a rabbit will come to look for bread-crusts, or the splash of a leaping fish will break the stillness. And by and by, sooner than you expected, you will look across the glassy harbor and see the eastern sky brightening ever so little, while against it the pointed firs and the tall pine trees stand up blacker than ever. Another day is coming round the world. Presently, out of the inky silhouette of the land, and its inkier reflection in the water, faint details begin to appear the long, straight line of the beach; the white stems of the birches; dim, shadowy forms of big round rocks; and, last of all, the leaves. And all the time, in the sky above and the water below, that first soft, faint glow is deepening into splendor, till the whole earth is filled with the wonder and the glory of it, and at last the great sun himself comes over the treetops and bids you "Good-morning."

I've been there and seen it all, and I want to go again. I want to hear the gulls scream as they rise in angry clouds

from their nests on those rocky reefs, vexed beyond measure at the coming of a stranger, and I want to lie on the old brown wharf again and watch the sunrise.

And fifty miles away in another direction there is another island, where every June a family of young loons is reared. I want to go and see how they are getting along this year. There are people who say that a loon's laugh has a wild and lonesome, and even maniacal, sound. I don't think so. Not always, at any rate. That particular loon mother has a laugh that seems to me to tell of happy domesticity. I want to make sure that no one is disturbing her housekeeping.

And in still other directions there are the North Shore, and Whitefish Bay, and the Munuskong. I have seen them all, but I want to see them again, and when I am ready to go I shall not want to wait for the wind. And I shall not have to. Instead, I shall go down to the boathouse where the Sudden Sinker is waiting for me, and I shall say, "Fill up the

tank, Elmo, and give me ten gallons extra, and a gallon of cylinder oil, and a can of dope."

The dope and the oil and the gasoline will be forthcoming. The tents, and the blankets, and the axe, and the kettles, and the frying-pan, and the dishes, and the grub will be tossed aboard, or perhaps stowed in the rowboat that we sometimes take along as a tender. The crew and the passengers - if there are any passengers will take their places. And now a twist of the switch, a three-quarter turn of the needle valve, a quick throw of the crank,

And we go, go, go away from here;

On the other side the world we 're overdue.

Or perhaps it is a shorter run. We, too, like our friend of the sailboat, are somewhat given to leaving town for an afternoon and evening; and although we do not carry a chafing-dish, as he does, we often take a frying-pan and porterhouse steak, and find them a pretty good substitute. Somewhere down the Old Channel we go ashore, build our fire, open the lunch-basket, eat our supper, and watch the sun go down, the stars come out, and the river turn to glass. For, almost without fail, the breeze that has ruffled the water all day dies out with the coming of the night, and leaves it still as a mirror. It is the way with the winds of the Great Lakes. And when the time comes to start for home we should be in a bad fix if we had to depend on sails. Even a white-ash breeze could not help us now, for the current of St. Mary's is swift and strong, and home is up-stream, not down. But the Sudden Sinker is ready whenever we are, and by and by we touch a match to the headlight and give the crank another throw. It is pretty dark by this time, and the Old Channel is crooked and none too wide, but we hug the Canada shore, preferring to hit a mud-bank rather than a pile of rocks, till presently a pair of red range-lights, glowing like two live coals, come out from behind a point to show us the road.

And let me say right here that we are