THE truth is simple. Untruth is always complicated and elusive, and grows more and more so with attempts to make use of it and to place dependence upon it. This is so universally true that absence of simplicity, the presence of intricacy and complication in statement or appearance, induce uncertainty and distrust, a feeling that somewhere there is error, the discovery of which will account for and do away with the involved condition. A structure, physical or philosophical, may have interest and charm, due wholly to its elaborateness and intricacy or to the skill used in its construction; but when vital interests are concerned, we turn to the straight lines and solid bases of simplicity with a sense of safety and security.
Among those concerned in the investigation of animal life, perhaps most pride is felt in the result of the work along the lines of bacteriology and physiological chemistry. During the past few years especially, the work in these departments has been tireless and enthusiastic, and the changes produced in the beliefs of medical men have been nothing short of revolutionary. According to these findings, the animal body is a laboratory in which at least the greater number of its forces are employed in the manufacture of poisons. It is held that some of these are so powerful in their toxic action that a very small fraction of a grain set free in the blood-stream is sufficient to cause death in a few seconds. These asserted poisons are of various natures, and counteract one another. It is said that there must be just the right amount of each poison secreted and set free in the blood, and overproduction, underproduction, or misdirection of any one of them is attended by grave danger to the whole body, unless such effect is counteracted by its antidote. Their so-called normal action is such that if discontinued from any cause, debility or death of the body follows. The countless hordes and species of bacteria believed to inhabit the body produce by their life-processes substances which are poisonous to themselves. It is upon this assumption that antitoxins are developed and administered in certain diseases. There are also said to be in the normal blood countless millions of soldiers,—organisms whose function it is to make war upon other organisms by devouring them, thus preventing their harmful action. These processes are believed to be under the direction and control of the sympathetic nervous system, the different departments of which are scattered throughout the body with a network of nerves connecting them.
Now these various departments are by no means of the same opinion, as we have seen. Each station and substation may be said to act as a separate intelligence. To cite a most familiar example: A substance taken into the mouth may be approved of by the taste organs, meet with decided opposition in the stomach, and in the analytic and synthetic processes through which it passes before it is done with the inquisitorial examination by all the organs before which it comes, there will be many differing judgments. Moreover, this sympathetic nervous system, with its army of ganglia and their products, pays slight if any attention to the brain, the will or the so-called mind of the person, who imagines that he controls "his" body. It determines, by the amount of the different poisons it manufactures and their distribution, whether the man shall be happy or sad, courageous or cowardly, hopeful or discouraged, as well as physically strong or weak. According to all these findings, the human body—which is, from the standpoint of the materialist, the human being—is seen to be a manufactory of implements for its own destruction; a battle-ship on board which there is continual mutiny, and which must inevitably be destroyed by its own crew; a many-minded aggregation, from which the mortal feels himself separated; of which he stands in awful fear, and to whose decisions he is compelled to bow down; a charnelhouse in which he finds himself chained; a body which is not his, but whose he is; a master whom he despises; a servant whom he fears and obeys and before whom he cringes; a leaderless mob of deadly forces which will not listen to reason, entreaties, threats, or promises.
