243

The future of the doctor. There is no profession today that would permit such h high aspirations as that of the doctor, particularly since spirit doctors, the so-called spiritual advisers, may no longer practice their conjuring arts to public applause, and a cultured man avoids them. A doctor's highest intellectual development is no longer reached when he knows the best new methods, and is well practiced in them, able to make those swift deductions from effects to causes, for which diagnosticians are famed; he must in addition have an eloquence adaptable to each individual and capable of drawing the heart out of his body; a masculinity at whose sight even despondency (the worm-eaten spot in all ill people) is dispelled; a diplomat's smoothness in mediating between those who need joy for their cure and those who must (and can) create joy for reasons of health; the subtlety of a police agent or lawyer in understanding the secrets of a soul without betraying them-in short, a good doctor today needs all the tricks and privileges of all the other professions; thus armed, he is then in a position to become a benefactor to all of society, by increasing good works, spiritual joy and productivity; by warding off bad thoughts or intentions, and villainy (whose repulsive source is so often the belly); by producing a spiritual-physical aristocracy (as marriage broker and marriage censor); by well-meaning amputation of all so-called spiritual torments and pangs of conscience. Thus from a "medicine man" he will become a savior, and yet need neither to work miracles nor to be crucified.