This illustrates perfectly, according to Hahnemann, how infections diseases like smallpox or measles are communicated to a susceptible healthy person, that is, by infection at a distance (it may be an infinitesimal distance) without anything material passing from one to the other.
Substances are medicinal, Hahnemann says, “only in so far as they possess each its own specific energy to alter the health of man through dynamic, conceptual influence, by means of the living sensory fiber upon the conceptual, controlling principle of life.” In other words, the medicinal property of any substance is simply its specific form of energy as related dynamically to the energy of the living organism. Medicines act “wholly without communication of material parts of the medicinal substance,” or dynamically, as by infection at a distance, Hahnemann thinks, otherwise, how could an infinitesimal dose carry so much more healing energy in a given case than a larger dose?.
“Is it then so utterly impossible,” he asks, “for our age to think of dynamic energy as something non-corporeal; since we see daily phenomena which cannot be explained in any other manner? If one looks upon something nauseous and becomes inclined to vomit, did a material emetic come into his stomach which compels him to his antiperistaltic movement? Was it not solely the dynamic effect of the nauseating aspect upon his imagination? And if one raises his arm, does it occur through a material instrument? a lever? Is it not solely the conceptual dynamic energy of his will which raises it?”.
Will is an attribute and function of mind, and mind is life, and life is energy plus intelligence.
Frank recognition of the existence and being of the Life Principle and qualified acceptance of the suggestion that the “Energy” of physical science may be identical with it is seen, for example, in “Matter and Energy” by Frederick Soddy, M.A., F.R.S., lecturer in Physical Chemistry and Radioactivity, University of Glasgow.
Professor Soddy says: “One can hardly emerge from such thoughts without an intuition that, in spite of all, the universal Life Principle, which makes this world a teeming hive, may not be at the sport of every physical condition, may not be entirely confined to a temperature between freezing and boiling point, to our oxygen atmosphere, to the most favorably situated planet of a sun at the right degree of incandescence as we are almost forced by our experience of life to conclude. Possible the Great Organizer can operate under conditions where we could not for an instant survive, to produce beings we should not, without a special education, recognize as being alive like ourselves”.
Twenty-five paragraphs (6 to 31) of the “Organon” are devoted to setting forth the dynamical theory of life in its two- fold conditions of health and disease. In these pregnant paragraphs Hahnemann builds up solidly, step by step, an argument which as a whole no man has ever been able successfully to controvert, although many have tried. In view of the whole trend of modern biological, physical, chemical and electrical science toward the dynamical conclusions at which Hahnemann was among the first to arrive, we may be confident that his theory will continue to stand.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.