Southern slaveholder, published in 1859 a paper in which he gave an account of a Negro slave who had translated the Gospel of John into Negro dialect, using "the letters of the Koran, the book of his first religious instruction, in transcribing the Gospel, the book of his second instruction and conversion, into the adopted dialect of his land of captivity." Most of the others came from what were known as the pagan tribes of the coast. In spite of the fact that so large a proportion of the slaves came from these interior tribes, it was not until Mungo Park made his famous first journey to the interior of the Sudan in 1795 that the Western world knew anything definite about that region. The eminent German traveler and scholar Dr. Henry Barth first reached the famous commercial city of Kano in 1850, and until 1900 it was said not more than five Europeans had ever visited that city. The accounts that travelers give of the region and the people presents a picture of African life so different from that of the coast cities that I am tempted to quote at some length from these descriptions.

Several peoples, of strikingly different characteristics, contributed to form the several loosely connected states which now form the British Colony of Northern Nigeria, of which Kano is the principal city. The most important and interesting of these are the Hausas and the Fulahs, or Fellani, as they are sometimes called. The Fulahs are noted for their military spirit; the Hausas for their commercial enterprise. One has a light complexion, and the other is dark.

The Fulahs are an equestrian people, with a cavalry armed with lances and swords. They are zealous Mohammedans, with a knowledge of how to "divide and govern." Their independent character is described by the proverbial saying that a Fulah man slave will escape or kill his master, and that a Fulah girl slave will rule the harem or die." The Hausas are superior to the Fulahs in the arts of peace. They are possessed of unusual industry, judgment, and intelligence, and have a considerable degree of literary taste. The Hausas carry on the internal trade of the North and Central Sudan. They are well clothed and have many wellbuilt cities with populations sometimes of

from twenty to sixty thousand. Barth, in describing Kano, which is, perhaps, to West Africa what Chicago is to the United States, tells us that he mounted on horseback, "rode for several hours round all the inhabited quarters, enjoying at his leisure from the saddle the manifold scenes of public and private life, of comfort and happiness, of luxury and misery, of industry and indolence, which were exhibited in the streets, the market-places, and in the interior of the courtyards." Here he saw "a row of shops filled with articles of native and foreign produce, with buyers and sellers in every variety of figure, complexion, and dress." Now an open terrace of clay with a number of dye-pots and people busily employed in various processes of their hand-craft; here a man stirring the juice and mixing with indigo some coloring wood in order to give it the desired tint, there another ́ drawing a shirt from the dye-pot, there two men beating a well-dyed shirt;" farther on, "a blacksmith busy with his tools in making a dagger, a spear, or the more useful ornaments of husbandry;" and, in another place, "men and women hanging up their cotton thread for weaving."

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The market of Kano, said to be the largest in Africa, is celebrated for its cotton cloth and leather goods. Traditions of Kano go back over a thousand years. It is surrounded by walls of sun-dried clay from twenty to thirty feet high and fifteen miles in circumference.

The greatest chieftain that ever ruled in West Africa, Mohammed Askia, lived in Kano. He became ruler in 1492 and held sway over a region probably as large as the German Empire. Barth tells us that Mohammed Askia was an example of the highest degree to which Negroes have attained in the way of political administration and control. His dynasty, which was entirely of native descent, is the more remarkable if we consider that this Negro king was held in the highest esteem and veneration by the most learned and rigid Mohammedans. Not only did he consolidate and even extend his empire, but he went in 1495 on a pilgrimage to Mecca accompanied by 1,500 armed men, 1,000 on foot and 500 on horseback, and founded there a charitable institution.

He extended his conquests far and wide from what is now the center of Nigeria, westward almost to the borders of the Atlantic Ocean and northward to the south of Morocco. Askia governed the subjected tribes with justice and equity. Everywhere within the borders of his

extensive dominions his rule spread wellbeing and comfort.1

The career of Mohammed Askia is possibly the best example of the influence of Mohammedanism on that portion of Africa from which our American slaves were taken.

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think yourself well and you will be well" of the clock-maker Quimby. This crude theorizing has left its imprint on the mental healing of to-day, and its consequences are particularly noticeable in the two great movements which, under the names of Christian Science and the New Thought, have been until quite recently America's chief contributions to the development of psychotherapy.

Both of these movements, as was said in the previous article, are derivatives of the peculiar doctrines taught by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. Mrs. Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, had been a patient of Quimby's, and had been cured by him of a malady of years' standing. Profoundly grateful, and readily acquiescing in his belief that he had made a discovery of the greatest significance to humanity, she joyfully accepted him as the prophet of a new dispensation, and with almost fanatical zeal set herself to

1 See also Mr. Bruce's article on "The Origin and Evolution of Mental Healing," in The Outlook for August 28.-THE EDITORS.

study the " "Truth as this prophet had propounded it.

Little by little-but just at what time it is impossible to say, so shrouded in doubt and controversy is this phase of her career-she began to question the correctness of Quimby's explanation of the cures he worked. He was right, she felt, in teaching that disease was due to wrong thinking and could be overcome by getting the mind thinking right. But in her opinion it could be so overcome only because it actually was non-existent, the mind falsely imagining that the body was diseased. Thus, while Quimby had always conceded the reality of disease, although insisting on its mental origin, his disciple boldly affirmed its unreality. More than this, continuing her "investigations," she ultimately was led to deny the reality, not only of disease, but also of suffering, sin, and evil, and even of all things material; and took her stand squarely on as ultra-idealistic a philosophy as the mind of man has been invited to grapple with.

Its complete formulation was the work of years, and, we may well imagine, was attended by much brain-racking effort to meet the objections of worldly common sense. This is not the place to examine it in detail or to point out its many logical inconsistencies. What is important to note is the fact that Mrs. Eddy, after

"Discoveries in North and Central Africa," by Henry Barth. See also "A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan, with an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Virginia," by Flora L. Shaw (Lady Lugard).

testing with some success her own powers as a healer, became convinced that any one sincerely and fully accepting her revised version of the Quimbyian gospel would thereby free himself from disease, and might confidently undertake the treatment of others; and she accordingly resolved to devote the remainder of her life to the propagation of her views. The result was the founding of a new religion.

Putting aside for a moment all considerations of its spiritual and therapeutic value for Christian Science is essentially a religion of healing-it is impossible to resist a feeling of admiration for the courage, determination, and tireless energy displayed by Mrs. Eddy in her labors to gain a hearing. When she began her crusade she was a woman well advanced in years, of the scantiest means, and quite unknown. She had alienated many of her best friends by her devotion to her "queer ideas," and was practically alone in the world—a gray, gaunt, sad, pathetic figure. Her first attempts at proselytizing only elicited derisive laughter. Yet she patiently persevered until at last, in the person of a young Massachusetts man, Richard Kennedy, of Amesbury, she found a convert willing both to adhere to the faith she preached and to aid her in making it known.

Together they opened in Lynn a school for the teaching of Christian Science, and, while Mrs. Eddy spent most of her time at work on her now world-famous book, Science and Health," Kennedy sought to attract pupils by giving practical demonstrations of the therapeutic virtue of the doctrines he had learned from her. As a healer he proved successful enough to arouse a lively interest in the subject among the humble shoe-workers of Lynn, from whom his clientele was chiefly drawn, and it was not long before he had a number of applicants for instruction in "divine healing." This marked the turning of the tide, although it was not until several years later-after the publication of "Science and Health" and Mrs. Eddy's removal from Lynn to Boston, where she organized the First Church of Christ, Scientist, and established the Massachusetts Metaphysical College-that Christian Science took firm root and began to grow with the phenomenal rapidity that has

won for it, within little more than a quarter of a century, a conspicuous place among the religious denominations of the United States.

In 1882, when Mrs. Eddy settled in Boston, there were not one hundred Christian Scientists in the entire country. To-day there are almost one hundred thousand, of whom four thousand are actively engaged in the work of healing. The movement has spread to foreign lands, and thus far shows no sign of diminishing vitality. On the contrary, every year sees numerous accessions to the ranks of those seeking salvation along the lines laid down in "Science and Health," and ardently subscribing to its uncompromising denial of the facts of the physical universe.

The same may be said of the New Thought movement, which has developed side by side with Christian Science. Its adherents also number far into the thousands, and it, too, has been growing increasingly influential. Unlike Christian Science, however, it has never become organized into a religious system, although it is distinctly religious in character, and in some important respects its doctrines closely resemble those entertained by the followers of Mrs. Eddy. It upholds, as Christian Science does, an idealistic interpretation of life; it affirms the supremacy of mind over matter and the practicability of curing disease by purely mental means; and it finds warrant for its beliefs in the teachings of the Bible, particularly as exemplified in Christ's miracles of healing. But it parts company with Christian Science in refusing to acknowledge the validity of the latter's manifold "denials.”

While the Christian Scientist denies the reality of the physical universe, the New Thought believer, to quote one of its best known exponents, Charles Brodie Patterson, "looks upon the visible universe as an expression of the power of God. He perceives that there must be an outer as well as an inner; that there must be effects as well as causes; that all the great material universe is the visible word of

According to the religious statistics gathered by Dr H. K. Carroll and published last year in the Christian Advocate, there were then 668 Christian Science churches in the United States, with a total of 85,096 members. Doubtless Dr. Carroll's census for the present year will show a large increase.

God-God's word becoming manifest in material form; that the body of man, to some degree, represents man's spiritual and mental life; that by the influx of man's spiritual consciousness the mind is renewed, and the body strengthened and made whole." So, likewise, with disease, suffering, and sin, the reality of which is conceded by the New Thought, while claiming that they may be overcome by "the introduction of true thought into the mind of man." Consequently, the New Thought healer makes it his special business to introduce this "true thought" into the minds of his patients, confident that this is quite enough to cure them of dis

ease.

Or, to put it otherwise, the New Thought harks directly back to Quimby's "get yourself thinking right." Indeed, it frankly acknowledges its indebtedness to Quimby, another point wherein it differs from Christian Science, which has long since repudiated him as an "ignorant mesmerist." The "father" of the New Thought movement, like the founder of Christian Science, was one of his patients, Warren Felt Evans by name, and formerly a Methodist clergyman. Less speculative than Mrs. Eddy, but sharing her belief that Quimby had fully demonstrated the possibility of healing disease "through the power of a living faith," Evans opened a "mind cure " sanitarium in western New Hampshire, and, besides treating those who came to him, wrote a number of books describing the benefits to be derived from practical application of the " spiritual laws" discovered by Quimby. The Mental Cure," "Mental Medicine," and "Soul and Body" are the titles of the earliest of these books, all three of which, it is perhaps worth noting, were published before the appearance of Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health." At the time, however, they attracted little attention, and the New Thought movement cannot be said to have fairly established itself until another patient of Quimby's-Julius A. Dresser, the father of Horatio W. Dresser, himself one of the most prominent New Thought writers of to-day-began to practice mental healing in Boston in the same year that Mrs. Eddy removed to that city from Lynn.

Since then its growth has kept pace with, if it has not exceeded, that of Christian Science. Although handicapped to a certain extent by the absence of any formal organization such as that into which Christian Science has been welded, it has enjoyed the advantage of enlisting in its support a far larger number of able advocates than its great rival has ever secured; writers, for example, like Ralph Waldo Trine, Henry Wood, Aaron Martin Crane, and the younger Dresser, skilled in the art of presenting abstruse themes in language understandable by the average man. Moreover, its explicit recognition of the material side of life has commended it in quarters where the sweeping negations of Christian Science arouse only a feeling of contempt. But the principal reason for its success is found in the fact that, notwithstanding its doctrinal crudities and extravagances, it has proved sufficiently "workable " to justify, in the opinion of its adherents, the extreme claims it puts forth.

The same must be conceded of Christian Science. While it is lamentably true that the Christian Science healer has been guilty of much serious malpractice, it is equally certain that he has effected cures in cases pronounced hopeless by orthodox practitioners. And it is incontestable that in numerous instances Christian Science believers, as also followers of the New Thought, appear to gain greatly in health and happiness, growing more robust, efficient, energetic, and contented than they were before their "conversion." All this, of course, is most helpful in the way of winning recruits, and goes far to wring even from the obdurately skeptical a reluctant admission that "there may be something in it, after all."

In order to appreciate just what that "something" is, and to understand why Christian Science and the New Thought, on their therapeutic side, are so strangely compounded of success and failure, it is necessary to take account of the progress achieved by an altogether different type of mental healers-men of scientific temperament and training, whose efforts have been directed to upbuild a system of psychotherapy based, not on mystical speculation, but on exact knowledge. In fact, were it not for them, psychotherapy, so

far as concerns any real comprehension of its workings, would still be pretty much where it was in the dark ages of Mesmer. While others have been rashly conjecturing, they have quietly investigated, experimented, and observed; and although they are few in number, and have been at work only a comparatively short time, they have already made remarkable headway in fathoming the processes of mental healing, and in determining its proper place in the practice of medicine.

The labors of these investigators-who are technically known as psychopathologists, or students of the abnormal in mental life-began about thirty years ago with a systematic inquiry into the phenomena of hypnotism, scientific interest in which, as already stated, had been aroused by Liébeault's demonstration of its therapeutic helpfulness. Two great centers of experimentation were established, one in the town of Nancy, under the supervision of Liébeault himself, the other in Paris, at the asylum of the Salpêtrière, then in charge of the famous Dr. Charcot. At both these places it was soon ascertained that, quite apart from its power as a healing agent, suggestion, when applied in the hypnotic trance, was capable of producing most extraordinary effects on the human organism. It could seriously modify the processes of nutrition, circulation, and digestion; could bring about temporary loss of the power of sight, speech, hearing, feeling, and motion; and could even cause the appearance of blisters, swellings, eruptions, etc., on the body of the entranced subject. The mental apparatus was affected most remarkably. Under hypnosis patients were able to remember incidents in their past life which had vanished completely from their waking consciousness; and, more striking still, if, while hypnotized, they were given suggestions that involved the performance of some act at a specified time in the future, they would faithfully obey these "post-hypnotic " commands, notwithstanding the fact that when dehypnotized they knew nothing of the suggestions they had received.

It seemed a legitimate inference that there existed a much closer relationship between the psychical and the physical in man than had previously been suspected,

and that, in view of the effects of hypnotic suggestion on the physiological processes, it was possible that many maladies apparently physical in character had their origin in some psychical disturbance and could best be treated by psychical means. Verification of this theory was not long in forthcoming. Among the patients at the Salpêtrière were a number of victims of hysteria, a disease which, on account of the predominance of such symptoms as convulsions, paralyses, and contractures, had been regarded as primarily physical rather than mental, and treated accordingly, with but little success. By hypnotizing these patients and calling up in hypnosis the memories of their past life, Charcot and his associates were able to locate the source of all their troubles in long-forgotten experiences-frights, griefs, and so forth-which in some subtle way had thrown the nervous system out of gear and provoked the hysterical attacks.

Having thus demonstrated the distinctly psychical nature of one disease— and having incidentally learned the value of hypnotism for diagnostic as well as therapeutic purposes-the investigators broadened their field of inquiry, and gradually discovered that besides hysteria there were numerous maladies which similarly originated from psychical disturbances of one kind or another. The disquieting experience might have passed completely from the recollection of the sufferer, yet under hypnosis it readily revealed itself as existing subconsciously in his memory and acting as a perpetual irritant to produce all manner of unpleasant symptoms, physical and mental. In all such cases it was found that a cure could be effected by suggestion when ordinary methods of therapy were of little or no avail. But, what is most important, it was also ascertained that the efficacy of suggestion itself often depended on the precision with which a diagnosis was made and the secret, psychical cause of distress brought to light. Nor would suggestion succeed if the "dissociation," as it is called, had progressed so far as to involve radical destructive changes in the nerve cells, rendering the malady "organic" instead of merely "functional." For, as the psychopathologist frankly admits, suggestion is powerless in the presence of all "organic"