AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF INSANITY

MENTAL HEALING IN AMERICA.*

BY I. WOODBRIDGE RILEY,

Professor of Philosophy, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. The history of mental healing in America falls into three periods: First, that of practice; second, that of perversion; third, that of revival. In this history the chief problem is to account for the neglect and decay of psycho-therapeutics in spite of the good start it had some one hundred and fifty years ago. Leaving out the peculiar religious faith healing sects like the Shakers, the Mormons and Restorationists, there were in general three schools who practiced drugless healing.

First and foremost were the Materialists of Philadelphia and the South. Followers of Hobbes and Hartley, of Darwin and Priestley, and consisting in the main of physicians, these pioneers emphasized the reciprocal influence of the physical and the psychical. As expressed by Provost Beasley, of the University of Pennsylvania, this meant that in every case in which there is performed an operation of the mind, there takes place, at the same time, a correspondent, correlative and consentient operation of the body. Next there were the Immaterialists of New England and the North. Followers of Cudworth and Norris, of Berkeley and Edwards, these philosophers emphasized the principles of pure reason at the expense of the principles of physiology. Aiming to live like disembodied spirits they sought to cure the ills of the flesh by subjective factors of control. Descendants of ascetic Puritans they attempted to live on supersensible realities. Especially prone to extremes were those who betook themselves to

*The annual address at the sixty-fifth annual meeting of the American Medico-Psychological Association, Atlantic City, June 1-4, 1909.