FOREWORD

THE study of the influence of mental states upon health has now entered upon the stage of exact investigation by both psychology and medicine. This treatise is an attempt to embody some of the latest results of the psychological study of this important subject and to lay down the fundamental psychological principles governing health and promoting healing.

Inasmuch as there is a strong tendency on the part of religious bodies to make non-medical healing a part of their work, and because this is done without a thorough knowledge of psychology or medicine, there is urgent need for the examination of this professed healing. The question whether divine healing and faith healing are essentially the same as mental or psychic healing, or whether the former are fundamentally different from the latter, is a perplexing question to a great many persons who are interested in the subject.

After a somewhat thorough psychological discussion of the subject of the influence of the mind upon health, including its larger aspects which relate to man as a purposive being, religious ground is entered upon. A painstaking examination is made of various systems of healing of a religious character from the standpoint of present-day scientific mental healing. Both the strong points and the weaknesses of these systems are pointed out.

252173

In the light of this twofold discussion, there arises the necessity of construction to show the relations of the scientific and religious in a true system of religious healing and to point the way by which, in the best light of scientific thought of to-day, the church may heal.

The work was originally submitted to the faculty of Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, as a thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, but it has been greatly elaborated since it was accepted as such. It is not claimed to be final but it is earnestly presented for the careful consideration of all who are interested in this subject which is so vitally related to human welfare. It is especially offered to those, on the one hand, who maintain an exclusive religious healing, and to those, on the other hand, who disdain religious healing of every kind.

Medical men have been freely consulted, and I desire to thank the men of this honored profession who have been so patient and kind in these consultations. Among these men who have volunteered valuable suggestions are Morton Prince, James J. Putnam, Edward Cowles, E. E. Southard, Boris Sidis, Hugo Münsterberg, Isidor H. Coriat, John D. Quackenbos, Adolph Meyer, N. Trigant Burrow, and Tom A. Williams.

Other practitioners and writers upon the subject, who have thrown light upon the discussion, are Elwood Worcester, D.D., and Samuel McComb, D.D., of the Emmanuel Movement; A. B. Simpson, President of the Christian and Missionary Alliance; John Willis, editor of the Christian Science publications; Leander Whipple, founder of "Metaphysical Healing"; Robert McDonald, D.D., author of "Mind, Religion, and

Health"; and Samuel Fallows, D.D., author of "Science of Health" and "Health and Happiness."

Special thanks are due President G. Stanley Hall for his admirable introduction and for many kind criticisms and suggestions; also to Professors W. H. Burnham and Edward Cowles and President E. C. Sanford, for the critical reading of manuscript and important advice.

Thanks are also due to the librarians of the Congressional Library and the Surgeon General's Library, Washington, D.C.; of Johns Hopkins University Library, Baltimore, Maryland; of the Boston Medical Library; and particularly to Dr. Louis N. Wilson, Librarian of Clark University, for the freest facilities in the use of library privileges.

January, 1913.

E. E. W.