which accumulated in the early history of the human race, and reappear in certain temperaments in each generation. Whether such a thing as thought-transference exists, there is not space here to inquire; nor is it necessary, for the effects of the "absent treatment," so called, can all be accounted for without any such assumption.
Patients thus treated know or they do not know that they are being treated. When they know, there is nothing to explain, for it is the same as if patient and practitioner were in each other's presence. All the mental operations, as well as the original force of nature, proceed under the conviction that they are being treated by a mental healer. If they do not know the entire field of coincidence and the vis medicatrix naturæ remain inviolate; and to determine that there is any connection between the alleged treatment and the change in the condition of the patient would require a vast number of cases and detailed coincidence of time and symptom, for which these practitioners do not display ability, and for which, on their own testimony, they have had no opportunity. Indeed, their theories are such as to make all investigation superfluous and tedious.
The case upon which Mrs. Eddy appears to rely is described thus: "The day you received my husband's letter I became conscious for the first time in forty-eight hours." What can this prove? What evidence is there that she would not have become conscious if the letter had never been written? If she were ever to come out of an unconscious state and recover, it must be at some time. The coincidence of Mrs. Eddy's receiving a letter from the husband does not show any connection between the two facts, for such letters have been sent and the patients have died. To my personal knowledge her treatments have failed, and
