Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/173

Rh of human forces, changing the states of the mind, the whole adjustment of spheres, and thus the influx and movement of forces according to the correspondence of mind and body. Every good man is required by the "law of love," to carry about with him a sphere of trust, courage, and determination to all things orderly and useful; and to will his "goodwill toward men" not only in general but in particular, and with regard to the individual states of those to whom he can be useful so far as he can know them. Why should not this power of mind over mind, which belongs to the obligations of neighborly love, be studied and practiced on the same grounds, that make any of the more remote and indirect means of alleviating physical suffering allowable?

Mesmerism, as the control of the will of the patient, voluntarily yielded or compelled, is indeed capable of abuse in many ways. Ill-disposed persons may use it to acquire an influence for bad ends. It may be abused by patients by being resorted to as a kind of opiate to compensate for want of moral determination. But these possible abuses are not reasons against its use as a curative agent by suitable persons in indicated cases,