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The Physiology of Faith and Fear; or, the Mind
in Health and Disease. By WILLIAM S. SADLER, M.D. Author
of " The Science of Living ; or the Art of Keeping Well,"
"The Cause and Cure of Colds," etc. With an Appendix and
Index. Large Cr. 8vo, 580 pp., with 44 full page illustrations, cloth
gilt, 6s. net.
Practically every system of modern mental healing is based on some
creed or craft and dependent upon the acceptance of some particular
moral teaching or religious doctrine. The author of this work approaches
the subject from the standpoint of the physiologist and separates
its study from association, not with religion as a state of mind, but
with any and all particular systems, sects, or forms of religious belief.
His desire is not only to call attention to the power of the mind
over the body, but also to point out the vast influence of the body
over the mind, more particularly the influence of the diseased or
disordered physical body on the mental state and the moral
tendencies. The argument of the work is pursued in simple language
divested of all scientific technicalities and laboratory terminology
so that an intelligent schoolboy may fully understand the narrative
and comprehend the conclusions. The scientific value of a sunny
aspect to a sick room has its natural corollary in the physical value
of a cheerful spirit on a jaded body, and the influence of faith and
hope in the maintenance of health and the struggle with disease.
This work shows the harmful influence of fear and the wholesome
effect of faith and belief.
The Insanity of Genius : and the general inequality
of human faculty physiologically considered. By J. F. NISBET.
Author of "The Human Machine," etc. Sixth and new
edition, with an Introduction by DR. BERNARD HOLLANDER.
Crown Svo, 53. net.
For over two thousand years some subtle relationship has been
thought to exist between genius and insanity. Aristotle noted how
often eminent men displayed morbid symptons of mind, and Plato
distinguished two kinds of delirium one being ordinary insanity
and the other the spiritual exaltation which produces poets,
inventors, or prophets and which he regarded not as an evil, but
as a gift of the gods. The furor pofticus and the amabilis insania
of the Romans had reference to the same phenomenon. On the
other hand there has always been a strong body of opinion,
philosophical and scientific, against the supposed connection of
genius with insanity. Locke ascribed all intellectual superiority to
education, and Dr. Johnson maintained that genius resulted from a
mind of large general powers being turned in a particular direction,
while Goethe held that a man of genius sums up in his own person
the best qualities of the family or the race to which he belongs.
The author enters upon the discussion of the subject in the light
of later discoveries and more modern methods of investigation and
with a knowledge of the localisation of the functions of the brain and
the establishment of kinship between an extensive group of brain
and nerve disorders which leads him to the conclusion that,
apparently at the opposite poles of human intellect, genius asd
insanity are, in reality, but different phases of a morbid susceptibility
of, or want of balance in, the cerebro-spinal system.