Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/302

 whole inquiry into the phenomena of the subconscious, or subliminal, or subjective, or residual consciousness (whatever we choose to call it) is a psychological inquiry. It is for the psychologist to investigate the relation in which such phenomena stand to the normal working of the mind; and it is for the psychologist and physiologist together to probe the method by which subconscious mentality affects the diseased tissue, and in many cases effects a cure. The facts are becoming patent to all; the causes are a subject matter for science. Where, then, does religion come in? I answer that whilst the forces at work are psychical, and the inquiry into their mode of operation is scientific, they can be best put in motion by religion.

Some such demarcation of spheres seems to me to be essential. It would be fatal to assume that all manifestation of subconscious activity is supernatural; that all mental healing is necessarily spiritual healing. The facts postulate neither a special spiritual gift, nor a special theory of the universe (such as that of Christian Science) to account for them. They are, we repeat, psychical facts, and come under the domain of psychology.

Further, as I have suggested above, religion is not the only motive power by