_ BOOK II CHAPTER XVII. WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE
At breakfast next morning Morton took up the paper with apprehension, and though he found Clarke's name spread widely on the page, he was relieved to find only one allusion to the unknown psychic on whose mystic power the orator was depending.
"She has another day of grace," he said to himself, thinking of Lambert.
All the way down to his laboratory he pretended to read the news, but could not succeed in interesting himself in the wars and famines of the world, so much more vital and absorbing were his own passions and retreats, so filmy was the abstract, so concrete and vital the particular. A million children might be starving in India, a thousand virgins about to be sold to slavery in Turkestan; but such intelligence counted little to a man struggling with doubt of the woman he loves, and questioning further the right of any philosopher to marry and bring children into a life of bafflement and pain and ultimate annihilation.
This must ever be so. The particular must outweigh the general, and philosophers, even the monists, must continue to be inconsistent. The individual must of necessity consider himself first and humanity afterwards; for if all men considered the welfare of the race to the neglect of self, the race would die at the root and the individual perish of his too-widely diffused pity. To be the altruist, one must first be the egoist (say the philosophers), to give, one must first have.
The questions which filled this implacable young investigator's mind were these: Is my love worthy? And again: Dare I, insisting on man's unity with all other organisms and subject to the same laws of extinction, entertain the idea of marriage? If the theories I hold are true--if the soul of a child is no more than the animating principle of the ant or the ape (and this I cannot deny)--then of what avail is human life? By what right do men bring other organisms into being knowing that they will only flutter a little while in the sun like butterflies and die as unavailingly as moths?
Up to this time he had accepted with a certain calm pitilessness the most inexorable tenets of the evolutionists, and had defended them with remorseless zeal; but on this fair spring morning, with love for Viola stirring in his heart, he found himself far less disposed to crush and confound. He acknowledged a growing sympathy with those who mourn the tragic fact of death.
All that he had read concerning clairvoyance, telepathy, hypnotism, and their allied subjects began to assume new significance and a weightier importance. He was annoyed to find himself profoundly concerned as to whether the power of "suggestion" was anything like as coercive as many eminent men believed it to be, and in this awakened interest he 'phoned Tolman (upon reaching his desk), asking him to lunch with him at the club. "If there is anything in his philosophy I want to know it," he said, as he turned to his desk.
He found no word from Lambert, and this troubled him. "If he does not come to-day I must act alone," he concluded, and attempted to take up his work, but found his brain preoccupied, his hand heavy.
Weissmann came in late, looking old and worn. He, too, had passed a restless night. He nodded curtly to his assistant and set to work without reference to the sitting or the psychic; and yet Morton was very sure his chief's mind was as profoundly engaged as his own, and a little later in the forenoon he stopped at his desk and said: "Lunch, with me, doctor; I have asked Tolman, and I want to talk things over with you both."
Weissmann consented in blunt abstraction, and the work proceeded quite in the regular routine so far as he was concerned.
Tolman was the farthest remove from the traditional mesmerist in appearance, being a brisk, blond man of exceeding neatness and taste in dress. He wore the most fashionable clothing, his hair and beard were in perfect order, and his hands were very beautiful. He was, indeed, vain of his slender fingers and gesticulated overmuch. His voice also was a little over-assertive, but his eyes were clear, steady, and strong.
As they took seats in the cheerful sunlit dining-room of the Mid-day Club, the three theorists formed a notable group and one that attracted general comment, but their conversation would have astonished the easygoing publishers and professional men who were chatting at neighboring tables, so full of interrogation and assertion was each specialist.
As Tolman rose to speak to a friend at a table across the room, Weissmann confidentially remarked: "I did not sleep last night, not a wink. I could not satisfy myself about those performances. Therefore I smoked and studied. Last night's test proved nothing to me except that the girl had nothing to do with the phenomena."
The young man's heart glowed at these words and he feelingly replied. "To prove that would mean a great deal to me, doctor."
Weissmann's tired face lighted up. "So! Then you are interested in her? You love her? I was right, eh?" he asked, with true German directness.
Serviss protested. "Oh no! I haven't said that; but it troubled me to think of her as a possible trickster. Please don't hint such a thing in Tolman's hearing."
As the hypnotist returned to his seat, Serviss opened up the special discussion by asking him his opinion of the claims of spiritualists.
This question threw Tolman into a roar. "That from you, and in the presence of Weissmann, is a 'facer'! What has come over Morton Serviss that he should invite me to a lunch to talk over a case of hysterico-epilepsy, and start in by asking my opinion of spiritualism? Come, now, out with the real question."
Serviss perceived the folly of any subterfuge, and briefly presented Viola's history, without naming her, of course, and ended by describing in detail the sitting of the night before, while Tolman ate imperturbably at his chop and toast with only now and then a word or a keen glance.
When the story was finished, he looked up, like a lawyer assuming charge of a witness. "Now there's a whole volume to say upon what you've told me, and our time is limited to a chapter. Make your questions specific. What point do you particularly want my opinion on?"
"First of all, has the preacher in this case been controlling the girl?"
"Undoubtedly, but not to the extent you imagine."
"Has the mother?"
"Yes. She has been a great and constant source of suggestion."
"You would advise taking the patient out of her present surroundings, would you not?"
"Yes, that would be helpful, but is not absolutely necessary. The essential step is to fill her mind with counter-suggestions." Here he launched into an exposition of the principles and potentialities of hypnotism, and was in full tide of it when Weissmann interrupted to ask:
"But suppose these phenomena actually and independently exist? Suppose that they are not illusions but objective realities, how then will your suggestion help?"
This put Tolman on his mettle. He entered into a discourse filled with phrases like "secondary consciousness," "collective hallucinations," "nerve-force," wherein, while admitting that great and good men believed in the phenomena of "spiritism," he concluded that they were overhasty in assigning causes. For his part, the realm of hallucination was boundless. "The mind has the power to create a world of its own--it often does so, and--"
Here Weissmann again broke in. "You will enroll yourself with Aksakof and Von Hartmann and Lombroso?"
"Not precisely. They admit the reality of the appearances. I do not believe that the mind has power to dematerialize objects, as in the case of your wine-glass last night, which was a trick."
"But the mind can produce a blister without external cause," said Serviss. "You hypnotic sharps have proved that it can also deaden nerves and heal skin diseases, if not bone fractures."
"Yes, we produce marvellous cures within the organism, but we draw the line at the periphery of the body. Telekinesis is to me the word of a lively fictionist."
"One is as easy to believe as the other, and Crookes, Lodge, Lombroso, Tamburini, Aksakof, Von Hartmann, all believe in the reality of these happenings," retorted Serviss. "They differ only in their explanations. One party believes them due to disembodied spirits, the other relates them to the inexplicable action of a certain psychic force generated within the sitters and acting on objects at a distance. I am not yet persuaded of the phenomena, but I am progressing. I am willing to admit that these gentlemen are entitled to a respectful hearing."
Tolman resumed his own explanation, and after several premises and general statements put a case. "For example, take automatic writing. You begin by placing a pad and pencil before the mind. That suggests writing--sets up a certain train of associated ideas. These ideas have the innate tendency to realize themselves, the will of the subject being weakened. This is why the left hand is often used. These ideas disassociate themselves from the rest of the mental organism and may, in highly developed cases, become what is called a 'secondary personality.' They may give a weak imitation of discourse. They may assume a vague resemblance to some other individual, but they can never give a full statement or a new statement. This is why all the so-called spirit communications are so fragmentary and so futile. The cure of any such state is to set up a strong current of counter-suggestion."
Weissmann asked: "Is it not extravagant to say that there can exist in the unconscious mind of a young girl, a skill so great as will enable her to draw intricate patterns, manipulate objects at a distance, and impersonate dead persons unknown to her?"
"But there you have passed into the region of hallucination or deceit."
"I'm not so sure of that. I do not see how fraud or hallucination can come into the most of what we saw last night. I will admit that coming alone by itself the test would have little weight; but it does not come alone. The literature of the subject is great and growing."
Tolman smiled. "Yes, the newspapers are filled with accounts of mediums exposed."
They entered then upon a discussion of the trance, and passed to a consideration of multiple personality, which brought out many singular facts. "We learned also," Tolman said in discussion of a certain case which he had studied, "that certain drugs have the power of arousing specific nerve-centres, and that in cases of alternating personality by flooding the brain with blood we were able to bring back the normal self."
"Doesn't that weaken your argument of the power of mind over matter?" asked Serviss, profoundly interested in this assertion.
"Not at all. It is my belief in the drug that influences the patient."
Serviss laughed and Weissmann's mouth twitched. "You cannot head them off--these modern mind-specialists! They plunge into the subconscious like prairie-dogs into the sod, only to come up at a new point."
Tolman's interest in the unknown psychic was now keen, and he asked for a chance to try his powers.
To this Serviss was strongly averse. "I have never had a chance at a case of this kind and I would very much like to experiment. Perhaps I may need you; but if suggestion is what you claim it to be, if the power is really in the mind of the subject, I can arouse it as well as any one. But as a believer in matter I would like to ally myself with the drug you mention."
"Very well, here is the prescription." He jotted down on a card a few hieroglyphic phrases. "And now I must hurry away. I'm sorry, but I have an engagement."
Serviss took his hand cordially. "I'm glad to have had this talk with you. It has suggested a new train of thought to me."
"If you need me on the case you mention, be sure to let me know. It sounds mighty interesting, and I'd like a hand in it."
After Tolman left, Weissmann remarked: "There is a school of thinkers which believes that exceptional individuals may have the power to effect molecular changes in matter at a distance."
"Yes, I know that. I spent most of the night reading the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, in which that theory has a large place."
"Well, may it not be that Miss Lambert has this power? May it not be that she is able in some such way as that suggested by Lombroso, to impart cerebral movements to the ether and so modify matter as to produce movement of objects, telekinetic writing, and all the rest of it?"
"That is too violent an assumption. We might as well surrender to the spiritists at once. What evidence have we that Clarke did not rise and tiptoe about the room manipulating the horn himself?"
"We have our own observation, joined to the report of Crookes and Richet."
"But Crookes is discredited on this score. He belongs to what Haeckel calls 'the imaginative scientists.' So do Von Hartmann, Lombroso, Wallace, and Lodge."
"Why should that be? Why should we accept their testimony on gases and the spectrum, and exclude it when it comes to a question of phenomena new to us? 'This man is a great chemist and physicist,' you say,'but a crazy ass when he sets to work to examine the claims of spiritism,' which is absurd and unjust. So far as I can see, he examined the phenomena of spiritism quite as a scientist should."
Morton believed that his chief was taking the opposing side out of perversity and replied: "I admit that as you read, they seem reasonable, and I also admit that the experiments with Eusapia, especially the recent ones, ought to be conclusive to my mind, but they are not. That is the singular thing--they do not convince."
"That is because we do not clear our minds of prejudice. These men are far-sighted and profound in their own lines. They have exposed themselves to sneers by going into these new fields. They are to be honored as pioneers. Why not believe the phenomena they discuss are at least worth our attention?"
"That is Clarke's plea."
"Precisely! And he is right. I am less critical of him to-day than I was last night. He gave his psychic over into our hands. What more could we ask?"
"He might have absented himself."
"He may do that next time."
"No; he was furious when I suggested the idea."
"My interest is awakened. It may be, as Clarke says, that this young lady is about to give the world of science a new outlook. It may be that she is to out-do Home and Eusapia."
Morton's face was cold and his voice firm as he said: "Not if I can prevent it. My zeal as an investigator does not go so far as that. I intend to free her from all connection with this uneasy world, and to that end I have wired her step-father to come on, and with his assistance I hope to end Clarke's control of her and set to work upon the cure she expects of me."
Weissmann smiled indulgently. "The scientist is defeated by the lover. I see; you would exclude all others from the sitting. Very well! that shall be as you wish; but it seems a shame now when we have such a wonderful chance to duplicate the Crookes' experiments. But, as you say, it would be too much to ask of a young and lovely girl. We will sacrifice only men and the ugly crones, eh?" Morton smiled faintly and his chief went on: "Well, now, in case you find yourself sitting--" he held up a warning hand--"I say if you find yourself unable to stop these trances--"
"I have no doubt of that--provided I can take her out of her present associations."
"Very good! I was about to say that all, or nearly all, of the phenomena of last night took place within a limited radius of the psychic. The books all came from behind her. The horn hovered near her--all of which would support the arguments of the 'psychic force' advocates. Lombroso and Tamburini both suggest that it is not absurd to say that possibly the subconscious mind may be able not merely to transmit energy, but to produce phantasmal forms, and I wondered last night whether there might not be some supernormal elongation of the psychic's arms which might enable her to seize and manipulate the horn at a distance beyond her normal reach."
"It is easier for me to believe that Mrs. Lambert did it. I am convinced that Clarke in some way played us false."
"I'm not sure of that. I am willing to grant that it is possible for the mind to alter the circulation of the blood, even to accelerate or decrease the up-building processes among the cells. If the mind can produce a pathologic process like a blister, it can also remove warts or cancer, as the hypnotists of the Charcot school claim. If the mind can move a book or a pencil without the intervention of any known form of matter, then Clarke (as well as his psychic) may be innocent, and all that happened last night be due to thought-transference and telekinesis."
The young man shrugged his shoulders. "To admit a single one of your premises would turn all our science upside down."
Weissmann smiled musingly. "So said the Ptolmaic philosophers when Copernicus came. Yet nothing was destroyed but error--they established the truth."
"I didn't mean what I said, exactly. I meant that the whole theory is opposed to every known law of physics."
"I'm not so certain of that, I can imagine a subtler form of force than magnetism. I can imagine the mind reacting upon matter, creating in its own right by the displacement and rearrangement of the molecules of a substance--say of wood. What is a wine-glass but an appearance? No, no! It will not do to be dogmatic. We must not assume too much. We must keep open minds. Are we not advancing? Is any one nearing the farther wall? No, my boy, each year should make us less arrogant. Ten thousand years from now men will still be discovering new laws of nature just as they were ten thousand years ago. It is childish to suppose that we or any other generation will know all that is to be known. Infinite research is before us just as infinite painful groping is behind us. I do not assume to say what the future will bring to mankind. Perhaps soon--very soon, science will shift its entire battle-line from matter to mind. To say the mind is conditioned in a certain way to-day does not mean that these conditions may not utterly change to-morrow. Great discoveries wait in the future."
"But you would not say that a new way of squaring the circle would appear--or that perpetual motion--"
"Oh no, no! Error is not a product of enlightenment. I only say that the problem which is insoluble to you and to me may be quite simple to the biologist of the twenty-second century. Once I thought I might come to know much of the universe, now I am quite certain I shall never know but a few processes--never the mystery itself."
As the old man talked with the light of prophecy in his gaunt face, the young man's imagination took wing into the future, that mighty and alluring void, black as night, yet teeming with transcendent, potential unborn men and women, and his brain grew numb with the effort and his heart humble with the moments' prophetic glance. Ay, it was true! He in his turn would seem a child of the foolish past--a fond old man to the wise future. His complacence was lost. His faith in his authorities violently shaken. He recalled a line from Whitman: "Beyond every victory there are other battles to be fought, other victories to be won." And his eyes grew dim and his thought filled with reverence for those seers of the future, and with awe of the inscrutable and ever-beckoning and ever-retiring mystery of life.
His chief resumed: "No, we pretend to larger knowledge of living organisms; but how will our text-books be regarded by the teachers of the future? Will they not read us and smile over us as curious mixtures of truth and error--valuable as showing the state of science in our day? Do you dream of solving the mystery of life? Of bridging the chasm between the crystal and the non-nucleated cell? I do not. As I sat alone last night unable to sleep, my eyes ran over the backs of the books on my shelves--they were all there, all the great ones, Laplace, Spinoza, Descartes, Goethe, Spencer, Hegel, Kant, Darwin, all the wonder-workers. How masterful each had been in his time. How complacent of praise; how critical of the past! But here now they all stood gathering dust, and I thought: so will the unborn philosophers of the next century fold me up and put me away beside the other mouldy ones--curious but no longer useful. My book will be but an empty shell on the reef of human history. Of such cruelty are the makers of scientific advance."
Morton was profoundly moved by the note of pathos, of disillusionment in the old man's voice. "Would you have me believe that these men we doubt to-day are forerunners of the future?"
"I feel so. The materialists have had their day. Some subtler expression of matter is about to be given to the world, not as Kant gave it, but through experiment, and to men like Myers and Sir William Crookes may come great honor some day."
"You would not have us weaken in our method?"
Weissmann's manner changed. He resumed his most peremptory tone. "By no means. We must not relax our vigilant scrutiny of fact one atom's weight, but we must keep our minds open to new messages--no matter how repulsive the source."
Morton sat for a moment in deep study, then said: "If I fail to stop the public announcement of Miss Lambert's powers, if Clarke's challenge is issued in spite of my protest, I shall ask the privilege of heading the committee in order to be present and shield her. If it comes to this, will you join me and support me?"
"With pleasure."
"But suppose the president and our board object?"
"What right have they to object? So long as I do not neglect my duties they will not dare to object."
"They will be scandalized. Two of us going into an investigation of this sort will seem to involve the whole school, and they may insist on our keeping out of it, so long as we are connected with the institution. If they ask for our resignation, the public will side with us, but all other institutions, and probably the bulk of our colleagues, will go against us. I hesitate, therefore, to ask you to take up this work. It is not a matter of bread and butter to me. I can resign, and I am thinking this is my best plan. At the same time I hope, for Miss Lambert's sake, that the public test will not be made."
Weissmann's shaggy old head lifted like that of a musing lion. "What is this opposition to me? I too can resign. What my colleagues say will not matter if I feel that I am advancing the cause of science. Their flames will scorch, but I have a thick skin. Besides, I am old, with only a few more years to work, and if I felt I could better serve the world by going into this investigation than by remaining in the one in which I now am, I would gladly do it. I will not utterly starve."
"Not while I am able to share a crust," quickly exclaimed Serviss. "If they ask for your resignation, give it and come with me. Together we will found an institute for the study of the supra-normal. What do you say?"
Weissmann's eyes glowed with the quenchless zeal of the experimentalist. "My dear boy, I would resign now for that purpose; but I hope it will not be necessary, for your sake."
They shook hands like two adventurers setting out on their joint exploration of a distant and difficult country; but this moment of exaltation was followed in Serviss's mind by a sense of having in some way dedicated Viola to the advancement of science rather than to the security of the fireside and to the joys of wife and mother. _