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266 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
lignant. The causes of disease will best explain its
nature ; and by these we are pointed with unerring
certainty to the means of cure.
I can not avoid here some ambiguity of language.
The cause" of a disease is, in many cases, scarcely to be
separated in idea from the disease itself. Perhaps the
word disease is applied more strictly to the phenomena
which this cause produces, or to the efforts of the sys
tem to work against, overcome, or cast out the cause.
If the system sank quietly and unresistingly under every
know what sick
cause of disease, we should scarcely
ness is. The pain and action of disease are the outcries
and efforts of nature for relief. If the goodness of God
is more specially manifested in one thing than another,
it is in us making susceptible of pain. Pain is a friend
in need. We seldom have it but when it is deserved,
and it never comes without its uses. "Suffer, and be
strong," the poet says. Ache, and get well; and take
care not to need to ache again. Pain protects, and
warns, and saves us. I do not know that pain is, of
itself, remedial, as many suppose ; but it is preventive,
and urges us to curative measures. As God could not
create man without the liberty to do wrong, He did the
best He could for him, in affixing pleasure to good, and
making pain the consequence of evil.
The primary cause of disease is a hereditary lack of
vitality, either in the germ, the sperm, or in the com
bination of both. In such cases there may be early
abortion, miscarriage, still-birth, death in infancy, ma
rasmus, or lack of nutrition, rickets, convulsions, hydro
cephalus, difficult dentition, and all the effects of gene
ral debility.