emember saying good night to Zaldu, and I handed her the quaint doll
from Egypt and bade her care for it. Then the thought seized me, and I
knew no more. My thoughts which had always run so freely before, like
a plashing brook, must have suddenly frozen, as the amber-trader from
the Baltic told me one day the rivers do in his far northern home. Oh,
sir, are you going so soon?
_Empedocles_
Yes, child. You must take nourishment now, and talk no more. But I am
coming again to see you, for I have many earnest questions still to put
regarding this singular adventure.
_Akron_
Let me walk with you. I will close the great door. Already the gay
streets are silent, and the people crowd this way, whispering awe-struck
together of the deed of wonder you have done this day. You have called
back the dead to life, and they make obeisance to you as you pass, as if
you were in truth a son of the immortals. Your name will go down the
ages linked with the miracle of Pantheia. You are immortal.
_Empedocles_
Nay, 'tis not so strange as that, and yet 'tis stranger.
_Akron_
I would know your meaning better.
_Empedocles_
The power of a thought, that is the real wonder! We just begin to have
glimpses of the effects of the mind upon the body. To me, Akron, the
faculty has set too great store upon herbs and bitter drafts, and
cutting with the knife. I would fain have the soul acknowledged more,
our therapy built on the dual mechanism of mind and substance. For if an
idea can lead to the apparent death of the whole body, so might other
ideas bring about the apparent death of a part of the body, like, for
example, a paralysis of the members, or of the senses of sight, feeling,
hearing; and in truth I have seen such things. Or a thought might give
rise to a pain, or to a feeling of general illness, or to a feeling of
local disorder in some internal organ; and I feel sure I have likewise
met with such instances. And if an idea may produce such ailments, then
a contrary idea implanted by the physician may heal them. I believe
this to be the secret of many of the marvels we see at the temples and
shrines of AEsculapius and of the cures made by the touch of seers and
kings.
But this teaching goes much deeper and further. If we could in the
schools implant in our youth ideas which were strong enough, we should
be able to make of them all, each in proportion to his belief in himself
and his ambition, great men, great generals, th
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