The type of mind which homoeopathy needs and which is susceptible to homoeopathy is not the type which waits to be told by science or some authority what to do. The right minds for homoeopathy will be attracted by the vision of it, by the spirit of adventure in the realm of principles and potentials. Trying to capture the modern scientist on his own level of practicality is a slippery enterprise. By lowering the price we are transferring an inferior grade of goods both ways.
Our mission should be to clarify our own vision, to show homoeopathy as we see it and know it in its higher psychic and mental form, to attract those susceptible to principles rather than to represent it in the form of a scientific manikin devoid of flesh and blood and vitality. We have no quarrel with any who feel a call to descend into the realm of science for the purpose of verifying and presenting homoeopathic truth and perhaps we should be somewhat grateful for the sacrifice; but that it exalts homoeopathy or adds anything to the artistry we doubt very much.
Not only so but scientific and mechanical tricks are catchy. They do not require much thought or depth of purpose. We fear that if ready-made homoeopathy gets out of hand and popularized that there may be distraction from the more vital and personal art, which we think, is more highly sensitized and individualized and probably deeper in its ultimate results. If so, the personal art would suffer for a long time. This is something for disinterested homoeopaths to consider. Anyhow, increased efforts to perfect the art and expand the resources according to the original plan should be executed.
Solely as a means of demonstrating the truth of homoeopathy the scientific method is superfluous. From the scientific view- point the procedure must be quite susceptible to both scientific and technical criticism; from an aesthetic view-point of homoeopathy criticism is inevitable until science itself becomes aesthetic.
To our unscientific mind it would appear sufficient to take a hundred people with warts, for instance, stand them in line, take their finger-prints, then prescribe homoeopathically for fifty of them and watch the warts-but that method might not have enough of the “romance of science” and we suppose thousands of warty individuals would have to be cured to satisfy the rules of scientific method.
Is not the real romance elsewhere? Even scientific activities to be effective or even intelligible must be regulated by and subject to higher powers, that it is, to principles. Only in so far as these principles are recognized and understood and only in ratio to the revelation of the more ideal of these principles does science develop the beautiful or the beneficial. Being under pressure on all sides as we are from the effects of applied science, we are prone to forget this fact. The notion that homoeopathy is ataxic and shaky without scientific verification or interpretation is the stigma of a common thinking, shallow feeling age.
But not all scientists are alike. If some of our scientifically inclined homoeopaths look toward the horizon they may see themselves being outdistanced by some of the scientists. A distinguished mathematician and scientist said recently: “The underlying reason why Einstein has performed such remarkable work is because it rests on an aesthetic basis; no great work can be performed in any field except on this basis.”
Probably true! And homoeopathy? Homoeopathy even in the law adherent to a slight degree, has its roots in the life and is inextricably involved in it. It must come from within outwardly, there must be vital susceptibility. The spiritual essence must be within the prospective homoeopath or facts will bound off from him like ammunition from a peashooter and conviction mean no more or less than silence.
As a homoeopath said, “Let us live homoeopathy.” Yes, because only life begets life. To scientize the language of homoeopathy and mechanize its technique possibly may be one way to spread it but it would be spreading mostly the husks. Whatever happens let there still be cultivated the homoeopathy of the spirit, gentle, warm and vital; more effective, we think, than anything else for probably 98 percent of the therapeutic needs of humanity.
Calcutta
Chief Editor, Homeopathic Herald