***IN his introduction to his book, *Philosophy and the Concepts of Modern Science (1935), Oliver ***L. Reiser, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, tells us that the one possible method of:
… integrating the vast and unwieldly masses of facts of the sciences into meaningful wholes the adoption of a phenomenological viewpoint is recommended. By phenomenology is meant a study of that which exhibits or displays itself: it is the descriptive point of view obtained by viewing the thing as a whole. Much of the trouble…. comes from an over emphasis upon microscopic details. Thus it comes about that we can no longer see the forest for the trees.
One of the really great discoveries of recent times is what has been termed the principle of *uniformitarianism by the geologists; that is, the theory that the forces now at work are identical in nature with those that produced changes in past ages.
If we take this phenomenological view of science to-day, we cannot help but see that Reiser’s comment on the over -emphasis upon microscopic details as being the source of multiplied data and chaotic theories of cause, action and effect is all too true. The strain of application to the microscope has produced a mental and philosophical astigmatism that permits each part to attain disproportionate focus in the whole.
Medicine, in particular, needs to view the whole and to take into consideration the principle of uniformitarianism. So far, as has been acknowledged by eminent authorities in the dominant school, homoeopathy alone has offered such a unified theory that embraces the cause of diseased conditions, the course of the condition and its prognosis; and at the same time the method of approach to the remedial agent, and the prognosis of its action upon the patient based upon the knowledge of the patient, the knowledge of the remedy, and a comprehension of the laws and their expression in varying states of health and disease. This another way of saying that the homoeopathic concept of disease and cure is from the phenomenological viewpoint in that it considers the broad outlines of the whole rather than some of of the minute divisions compassed by microscopic vision, and at the same time embraces the meaning of which the microscopic vision demonstrates but a part.
It is safe to say that the revelations in society yet to come are even more vital and far-reaching than those already exhibited. The specialist in specific branches of medical investigation can furnish us vast and detailed information based on his microscopic findings; yet as homoeopathic physicians we cannot permit ourselves to be hampered by details to the exclusion of the whole. We are privileged to view all these findings as a part of the universal application of a Law under which we work; for Man is naught if he be not a part of the Universe and subject to its laws.
Because man’s adaptation is highly specialized, we are able to correlate, through a study of his health variations and the fundamental laws of the universe (as far as we can determine these), our knowledge of each toward greater comprehension and applicability of the greater to the individual problem. Animal life, like vegetable life, has a high degree of adaptability to environment and proves the most delicate laboratory we have for our examination; yet the mineral kingdom furnishes us with an unsuspected link in our chain of evidence. Thus in conformity with statistical laws, we find again and again that the regular reaction or response of an individual is true of a group of individuals (with the necessary deductions for personal idiosyncrasies) and further, that what is true of a group of individuals may be true of any other group *in nature under similar conditions, so far as we can measure the reactibility of these other groups. This uniformity of results is unquestionably due to what we term Universal Energy, which may be expressed again in very modern terms as those basic electrons, protons, neutrons, which are radiate, electric, magnetic–the very definition of potential energy.
While energy has a certain stability of reactivity, it has selective action. Every portion of the human frame has a selective action over its function : it is susceptible to certain influences, constructive and destructive, and reacts selectively. Each atom of the human frame has a potential susceptibility to certain influences, and has developed selectively and according to the principles of uniformitarianism; and we are now by no means in a static condition, socially, economically or physically, any more than the geological formation of the present day is in a static condition, *although both man and rocks may seem to be.
In reality, we are continually in balance between dynamical laws and statistical laws, which are defined by Reiser as follows:
This duality of natural law is stated in terms of contrast between *dynamical and *statistical laws. The first type, dynamical laws, are causal laws, giving rigid determination and predictability, and the second type, *statistical laws, yield more probability and introduce indeterminism into the calculations. A dynamical or casual law eliminates contingency, and implies ability to visualize the mechanisms in operation. But in statistical laws, concerned with the calculation of mean values, the individual elements of the statistical ensemble 4are not studied…. The atomic processes of microscopic mechanisms are reversible (sometimes periodically) and subject to necessary causal laws, whereas the macroscopic states represents the mean value of a large number of individual processes of a statistical aggregate….
It is in this balance between dynamical and statistical laws that we find our margin of error in the application of homoeopathic principles to our patients. The Law of Least Action is one of the dynamical laws upon which homoeopathy was postulated and by which it has been affirmed. We acknowledge this law along with the Law of Similars and various other casual elements having to do with basic and cyclic action in natural processes, which in turn explain the processes of homoeopathic action.
It has been argued that if homoeopathy is the application of natural laws, the results of our remedies should be uniform; there should be less variation in the details of provings; the length of action of any potency should be the same in all cases. No matter how careful the practitioner may be, he knows from bitter experience his failures, in spite of the most careful study and prescribing. There is no satisfaction in asserting that it is the failure of the prescriber; it is unsatisfactory to accept the statement that variation in living conditions may be the cause. We can allow a margin for hereditary tendencies, and again for psychic or other forces which we understands too little, that govern the threads of our life span; but beyond all this there are factors in the variation of remedy action that we are unable to understand. We may say that statistical laws authorize us to expect certain results from those dynamical laws which we attempt to utilize; that in turn these statistical laws presuppose conditions pre-existing and perhaps unknown to us. But we may say, with more truth, that our incomplete understanding of dynamical laws causes us to assume statistical laws because it is a comfortable and convenient excuse; our danger here lies in practising empiricism because of our dependence upon statistical laws.
Certainly we know that we have a variable force with which to deal in treating the sick. On the other hand, we question whether we have not a variable force with which to deal in our remedies. If the impulse of a force is equal to the change of momentum produced by it, as we are told in physics, we prove the power of our potentized remedies after administration by the clinical evidence, in direct proportion to the production of symptoms on the healthy human being.
Perhaps it is unfortunate that we have no measurable record of sickness of health, *per se. There is no determinable level of health. Our imperfect senses are incapable of perfect registration or infallible translation of symptoms. Our probability of error is doubled when we deal with another, the sick individual. We review our results by the chemical formula: *The velocity of reaction is equal to the driving force divided by the resistance—unfortunately we cannot know with precision either the actual driving force or the resistance.
Yet within certain limited fields we begin to measure the reactibility of the substances–animal, vegetable, mineral– that form the basis of our potencies. Elementary work of this nature has been carried on, but it is far from having been perfected. It is enough to recognize that within the atom lies the solution to the problem of reaction of the various potencies. This is like stating that the atom is in structure much like the structure of the universe, and that the composition of the atom, like the universe, is made-up of a similar “solar system” with planetary revolutions in their orbits. We draw the analogy that the atom offers the solution to universal physics, and the universe itself offers aid in understanding our specific problems. Surely this is a phenomenological view of the homoeopathic field!
