Antithesis

“ ANTITHESIS (the Greek for “setting opposite”) , in rhetoric, the bringing out of a contrast in the meaning by an obvious contrast in the expression, as in the following:—“When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble.” ”

“ The antithesis is complete and one is driven to believe that the terrible mutilation to which he had been subjected had broken down his personality and left him in all things less than man. His narrative is full of accusations against all manner of people, but it is not necessary to take all these literally, for it is evident that his natural egotism, overlaid by the circumstances of his calamity, produced an almost pathological condition wherein suspicions became to him realities and terrors established facts. ”

“ All detrimental and dangerous, as well as futile and indifferent ideas, mixed with a few good and useful ones, are atomistically diffused and spread in every possible shape and quarter. And if against this boundless dissemination of evil thoughts—this elementary decomposition and chemical analysis of the human mind, and the whole body of human thoughts, a negative barrier be set up as a preventive measure of defense, and as a temporary substitute for a better and higher state of things, murmurs and reproaches immediately rise from all sides. ”

“ One would suppose that Science was ever more powerful for good than for evil. The same skill which discovered fresh poisons, should discover fresh antidotes—or at least, where the operation of the poison is too quick, fresh tests, so as to render impunity well-nigh hopeless. On the other hand, juries do not like to hang scientifically, so to speak—that is, upon the bare testimony of men of science. ”

“ I purpose in this chapter to sketch, as briefly as I may, the history of this warfare, or rather of this evolution of truth out of error.
Nothing is more simple and natural, in the early stages of civilization, than belief in occult, self-conscious powers of evil. Troubles and calamities come upon man; his ignorance of physical laws forbids him to attribute them to physical causes; he therefore attributes them sometimes to the wrath of a good being, but more frequently to the malice of an evil being. ”

“ I can well understand that medical men may hesitate to admit it amongst the legitimate resources of orthodox pathology; because, as I gather from what you and others say of its practice, it must, at the best, be far too uncertain in its application to satisfy the requirements of science. Yet an examination of its pretensions may enable you to perceive the truth that lies hid in the powers ascribed to witchcraft; benevolence is but a weak agency compared to malignity; magnetism perverted to evil may solve half the riddles of sorcery. ”

“ Light and darkness, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice, the negative and positive poles of galvanic or magnetic mysteries, are evidences of all-pervading antitheses, which, acting like the good and evil genii of Persian Mythology, neutralize each other's powers when they come into collision. It is the office of science to solve these mysteries. ”

“ Only when it enters into relation with another thing does relative good and evil come into existence. If anything enters into the constitution of man, which is not in harmony with its elements, the one is to the other an impurity, and can become a poison.” (“Paramirum,” II. 1.)
There is no doubt that modern chemistry, physiology and pathology teach more than ancient science in regard to the chemical constitution, the physiological action of poisons and of the pathological effects which they produce in the animal body ”

“ Paul wants to dispose of the “wisdom of this world”: his enemies are the good philologians and physicians of the Alexandrine school—on them he makes his war. As a matter of fact no man can be a philologian or a physician without being also Antichrist. ”

“ And a new solution! And new philosophers! The moral earth also is round! The moral earth also has its antipodes! The antipodes also have their right to exist! there is still another world to discover—and more than one! ”

“ And should one say that an antidote cannot heal or hemlock kill, he is unwittingly deceived. For none of these operates except one makes use of the plant and the drug; just as the axe does not without one to cut with it, or a saw without one sawing with it. ”

“ Some say that they have to be employed as antitheses; we can't get on without them, at least at this stage of the proceedings. Perhaps we shall advance so far that we shall be able to use historical or accomplished evil for the contrasts by which we shall know actual good. ”

“ But you are now applying tests which have no soundness in them, and in consequence are unreasonably violent against us; for if you had understood from the beginning that it is not the pursuits which you follow that are the causes of your participation in good or in evil, but rather the divine reason, which is the helmsman and governor of the universe, then you would more easily have borne the events which have befallen you, ceasing to bring false accusations against us, and to attribute to us effects which we are unable to produce. ”

“ It is worth remembering, that more than two hundred years ago, when an absurd and fantastic remedy was asserted to possess wonderful power, and when sensible persons ascribed its pretended influence to imagination, it was boldly answered that the cure took place when the wounded party did not know of the application made to the weapon, and even when a brute animal was the subject of the experiment, and that this assertion, as we all know it was, came in such a shape as to shake the incredulity of the keenest thinker of his time. ”

“ If your writings win, you are a teacher of millions. So, in order to reach the public ear, you may cater to the tastes and wishes of the majority.
8. If you see some vile conditions of humanity, send out, in your writings, vials of vileness. “Like cures like.” If any part of the church cries, “poison, poison!” you may justify yourself by the fact that the so-called “poison” in your productions will only neutralize the poison so prevalent in society, on the same principle that poison is administered to a sickly body in order to effect a cure. ”

“ If [1]
we can aid in abating suffering and diminishing sin,
we shall have accomplished much; but if we can bring
to the general thought this great fact that drugs do not,
cannot, produce health and harmony, since “in Him [5]
[Mind] we live, and move, and have our being,” we shall
have done more.”
Love Your Enemies.
Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? ”

“ The effects of the drug in altering the scale of time and space, and merging the senses have nothing primarily to do with the invasion. They come to any one who is fool enough to take an experimental dose. It is the other features of your case that are unusual. You see, you are now in touch with certain violent emotions, desires, purposes, still active in this house, that were produced in the past by some powerful and evil personality that lived here. ”

“ Any dishonesty in your theory and practice betrays a gross ignorance of the method of the Christ-cure which Dishonest concessions. Christian Science reveals. Science makes no concessions to persons or opinions. One must abide strictly by its rules, or he cannot demonstrate its Principle. So long as drugs are administered, or external applications prescribed, illness cannot be efficaciously treated by the metaphysical process. Truth alone does the work, and you must both understand and abide by this divine Principle of your demonstration. ”

“ The traditional idea of always poisoning out disease, as we smoke out vermin, is now seeking its last refuge behind the wooden cannon and painted port-holes of that unblushing system of false scientific pretences which I do not care to name in a discourse addressed to an audience devoted to the study of the laws of nature in the light of the laws of evidence. ”

“ Ever Divine warfare. since the foundation of the world, ever since error would establish material belief, evil has tried to slay the Lamb; but Science is able to destroy this lie, called evil. The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse typifies the divine method of warfare in Science, and its glorious results. The following chapters depict the fatal effects of trying to meet error with error. The narrative follows the order used in Genesis. First the true method of creation is set forth in Genesis, and then the false. Here, also, the Revelator first exhibits the true warfare, and then the false. ”

“ That such fluctuations in opinion and versatility in practice should have produced, even in the most candid and learned observers, an unfavourable impression with regard to the general efficacy of medicines, can hardly excite our astonishment, much less our indignation; nor can we be surprised to find, that another portion of mankind has at once arraigned Physic as a fallacious 4art, or derided it as a composition of error and fraud. ”

“ But to me, my lords, the establishment of our armies, comprising different views, and connecting various subordinate regulations, may be compared to a medicine composed of different ingredients, and found infallibly efficacious in a dangerous disease, in which, though some of the parts may seem to physicians of the profoundest learning, superfluous or improper, it would be no less than the folly of preferring experiments to life, to make any alteration.
The wantonness of innovation, my lords, is a dangerous disease of the mind ”

“ Now, for instance, with regard to fiction, you must not first, as is done in all modern education, admit the disease, and then dose with warm water to expel it; you must not put fiction into your child’s hands, and not give him a single principle to guide his judgment respecting it, till his mind has got wedded to the poison, and too weak, by its long use, to digest the antidote. ”

“ The cases of the successful employment of this antidote in the human subject, which have appeared in the periodical press during the last eight years, are so numerous, that its utility can scarcely be called in question, whatsoever may be its precise mode of action. ”

“ If a person is aiding an enemy, he is as guilty as the thief. I want you to know that every word that is spoken is either matter or Wisdom. Opinions are condensed into a belief. So, if I [as a typical doctor] tell you that you have congestion of the lungs I impart my belief to you by a deposit of matter in the form of words. As you eat my belief it goes to form a disease like its author, my belief grows, comes forth, and at last takes form as a pressure across the chest. The doctor comes to get rid of the enemy and by his remedies creates another disease in the bowels. ”

“ Having done this, we may afterwards try, if we can, to invent for this action a theoretical explanation. Our arguments and theories will not affect the fact, nor will they lead us into danger, if we have first laid down the truth, however incomprehensible, as the only secure foundation, in such a manner that it shall be incapable of being disturbed by the flimsy superstructure. ”

“ Nothing is more common than to read serious admonitions, in medical works, about the folly of trusting to remedies which only palliate for the moment but leave the root of evil untouched; and, of course, there is a certain respectable modicum of the fire of truth behind all this orthodox smoke. ”

“ By right thinking we can neutralize the poison sewage of our bodies, just as chemists can take the foul sewage water which flows out from a city and by the help of chemicals neutralize all the filth, making it absolutely pure again. By applying their antidotes we can neutralize the poisons of disease, the results of wrong thinking and living, which sap and embitter our lives, which make us suffer from all sorts of ills and leave us unable to accomplish one-tenth of what we might if we had that splendid physical and mental vigor which is normal to humanity. ”

“ For you will remember that this principle is that Like cures Like, and not that Same cures Same; that there is resemblance and not identity between the symptoms of the disease and those produced by the drug which cures it, and none have been readier to insist upon this distinction than the Homoeopathists themselves. For if Same cures Same, then every poison must be its own antidote,—which is neither a part of their theory nor their so-called experience. ”

“ In addition to the obstacles already enumerated, the progress of our knowledge respecting the virtues of medicines has met with others of a moral character, which have deprived us in a great degree of another obvious method of research, and rendered our dependance upon testimony uncertain, and often entirely fallacious. ”

“ Call such resistance an antidote if you will, but remember that not all antidotes are poisonous. The worst that can be said of resistance or protection is, not that it is an evil, but that it is a loss of productive force in a necessary effort to overcome evil. It can be called an evil only in the sense that needful and not especially healthful labor can be called a curse. ”

“ The present astounding multiplication of drugs, of inoculations, of mutilations in the practice of medicine, with the eager attempt to prove each new invention by a formidable array of imperfect statistics, is a striking object lesson in the present day of the error into which false methods of research have led many members of a noble and humane profession. It is a fallacy necessarily proceeding from a wrong view of what science really is. ”