. The physician is
thus too easily inclined to underestimate the good which may come in the
fight against disease from the ideas and emotions which form the
background of the mind of the patient. Even if the disease cannot be
vanquished, the mental disturbances which result from it, the pains and
discomforts, may be inhibited, as soon as hopes and joyful purposes gain
a dominating control of the mind. The nervous patient often needs a
larger hold upon life, while the routine prescriptions may too easily
reduce that hold by fixing the attention on the symptoms.

Here then is the right place for the moral appeal and the religious
stimulation. How psychotherapy is related to the church will interest us
later. At this moment morality and religion are for us not inspirations
but medicines. But from such a causal point of view, we should not
underestimate the manifold good which can come from the causal effect of
religious and ethical ideas. Those faith curists who bring mutual help
by impressing each other with the beauty and goodness of the world
really bring new strength to the wavering mind; and the most natural
channel for religious help remains, of course, the word of the minister
and the own prayer. Religion may work there causally in a double way.
The own personality is submerging into a larger all-embracing hold and
thus inhibits the small cares and troubles of merely personal origin.
The consciousness sinks into God, a mental process which reaches its
maximum in mysticism. The haphazard pains of the personality disappear
and are suppressed by the joy and glory of the whole. This submission of
will under a higher will and its inhibitory effect for suppression of
disturbing symptoms must be wonderfully reenforced by the attitude of
prayer. Even the physiological conditions of it, the clasping of the
hands, the kneeling, and monotonous sounds reenforce this inhibition of
the insignificant dissatisfactions. On the other hand, contact with the
greater will must open the whole reservoir of suppressed energies, and
this outbreak of hidden forces may work towards the regeneration of the
whole psychophysical system. Neglected functions of the brain become
released and give to the mind an energy and discipline and self-control
and mastery of difficulties which restitutes the whole equilibrium, and
with the equilibrium comes a new calmness and serenity which may react
almost miraculously on the entire nervous system and through