e sublime will has so wrought that
a little portion of the great All is set within us to sustain the
phenomena of living; in every man it formulates itself distinctly,
making each, to all appearance, a separate individual, yet in one point
co-existent with the infinite cause. So we ought to make a separate
study of each subject, discover all about it, find out in what its life
consists, and wherein its power lies. From the softness of a wet sponge
to the hardness of pumice-stone there are infinite fine degrees of
difference. Man is just like that. Between the sponge-like organizations
of the lymphatic and the vigorous iron muscles of such men as are
destined for a long life, what a margin for errors for the single
inflexible system of a lowering treatment to commit; a system that
reduces the capacities of the human frame, which you always conclude
have been over-excited. Let us look for the origin of the disease in the
mental and not in the physical viscera. A doctor is an inspired being,
endowed by God with a special gift--the power to read the secrets of
vitality; just as the prophet has received the eyes that foresee the
future, the poet his faculty of evoking nature, and the musician the
power of arranging sounds in an harmonious order that is possibly a copy
of an ideal harmony on high."

"There is his everlasting system of medicine, arbitrary, monarchical,
and pious," muttered Brisset.

"Gentlemen," Maugredie broke in hastily, to distract attention from
Brisset's comment, "don't let us lose sight of the patient."

"What is the good of science?" Raphael moaned. "Here is my recovery
halting between a string of beads and a rosary of leeches, between
Dupuytren's bistoury and Prince Hohenlohe's prayer. There is Maugredie
suspending his judgment on the line that divides facts from words, mind
from matter. Man's 'it is,' and 'it is not,' is always on my track;
it is the _Carymary Carymara_ of Rabelais for evermore: my disorder is
spiritual, _Carymary_, or material, _Carymara_. Shall I live? They have
no idea. Planchette was more straightforward with me, at any rate, when
he said, 'I do not know.'"

Just then Valentin heard Maugredie's voice.

"The patient suffers from monomania; very good, I am quite of that
opinion," he said, "but he has two hundred thousand a year; monomaniacs
of that kind are very uncommon. As for knowing whether his epigastric
region has affected his brain, or his brain his epigastric region, we