NEW PERSPECTIVES IN VIEWING AN OLD TECHNIQUE


NEW PERSPECTIVES IN VIEWING AN OLD TECHNIQUE. A state of health is a state of stable equilibrium. If disturbed, it restores itself very soon. An acute disease is an unstable state, and seeks a state of equilibrium. Chromic disease represents an unstable state of equilibrium. A minor disturbance results in large changes in state. The laws of thermodynamics tell us what chances can take place in these states.


As the thinning ranks of the Hahnemannians reveal to us the desperate plight of a highly developed skill that lacks training facilities, we repeat the history of other declining cultures, by an attempt to develop our philosophy in accord with the truths revealed to us through the researches and theory evolved by the keenest brains of science to-day. Among these brilliant minds, there has been none keener or more distinguished than Max Planck. On the solid foundation of his labours rests the entire superstructure of nuclear physics with all its fruits, good or bad.

Others have indeed contributed heavily; but without the quantum theory there could be no nuclear physics. Therefore I am selecting for this paper an autobiography of Planck, for study and review. The book to which I refer is The Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers by Max Planck published in 1949 by the Philosophical Library, Inc. of New York. I shall first quote the Philosophical Library, Inc., has kindly consented to the use of the quotations cited in this article-Ed.

If we seek a foundation for the edifice of exact science which is capable of withstanding every criticism, we must first of all tone down our demands considerably….We must be satisfied to discover initially some form of truth which no scepticism can attack. In other words we must set our sights not on what we would like to know, but first on what we do know with certainly.

Now then among all the facts that we do know and can report to each other, which is the one that is absolutely the most certain, the one that is not open even to the most minute doubts? This question admits of but one answer: That which we experience with out own body.

If we call the sum total of sensory impressions the world, we may state briefly that exact science issues from the sense world. The sense world is that which , so to speak, furnishes science with the raw material for its labours.

Therefore the content of the sensory impressions is the most suitable and only unassailable foundation on which to build the structure of exact science…..The sensations produced by objects are private, and vary from one individual to an other; but the world picture, the world of objects, is the same for all human beings and therefore called the real world. The real world of exact science, the scientific world picture, evolved from the real world of practical life. But this world picture is not final. It changes all the time, step by step, with every advance in technique.

Such a stage of development is represented by the scientific world to-day which we are accustomed to call “classical.” In our own day, scientific research, fructified by the theory of relativity and the quantum theory, stands ready to mould a new world picture for itself. The real elements of this coming world picture are no longer atoms or molecules, but electrons and protons whose mutual interactions are governed by the velocity of light and by the elementary quantum of action. From to-days point of view therefore we must regard the real world of the classical picture as naive.

The continual displacement of one world picture by another is inevitable whenever scientific inquiry hits upon a new fact in nature such as the velocity of light in empty space or the part played by the elementary quantum of action in the regular occurrence of all atomic processes. The old laws of classical mechanics be considered as infinite and the quantum of action infinitely small.

The fact that although we feel inevitably compelled to postulate the existence of a real world, in the absolute sense, we can never fully comprehend its nature, constitutes the irrational element which exact science can never shake off, and the proud name, exact science, must not be permitted to cause anyone to underestimate the significance of the element of irrationality. But the real world of metaphysics is not the starting point, but the goal of all scientific endeavor.

So, here in the written philosophy of the man who ranks to day as one of the greatest physicists of our and, perhaps, all time, in his last writings in fact, we have to our hand two fundamental criteria on which to base our judgment of the lasting value of the writings of our own master teacher, Samuel Hahnemann. First, a difference in goal. For it is not the goal of homoeopathic practitioners to erect a world picture of reality, metaphysically speaking. They may diverge right at the start from the scientists in their purpose, which is, and must ever be, to cure the sick as quickly, completely and pleasantly as possible. This fundamental distinction was made in the opening statement of the Organon, clear and concise.

If, in the confusion of our times, when the progress of mass productive methods has invaded the sick-room as well as the factory, where nearly all the masters of old techniques have been deprived of an honorable livelihood ad forced more or less to resort to union policies of retaliation by padding pay-rolls, let us never forget that the excuse given for tortuous, roundabout, expensive medical research applied to the sick and helpless does not constitute progress, though it may fill a gap in employment of surplus white collar workers temporarily. The time may be near when the sick, like the victims of highjackers, will hand over their fortunes, begging only to be spared the torture involved in medical research methods.

Second, the acceptable criteria on which to base all knowledge is and must be that which alone we can know and honestly report to one another.

That which we can certainly know, the sensations perceived, a reliable report of pure, unassailable experience, such as comprise the irreplaceable literature of the homoeopathic drug provings, are the only foundation on which to base an exact science of medicine. Here we find perfect accord of the greatest scientist of our own day with the clearly, explicitly stated tenets of the Organon, on which we base our practice. We find this greatest of the modern scientists and the equally great Hahnemann spending like effort to stress the importance of defining this indispensable criterion of the truth above this foundation of the sense world on which the superstructure of all logic must rest.

Thus the new scientific discoveries of this our day seem so far to establish our position even more firmly rather than to shake it, so long as we stick to our provings. New drugs there may be to prove, which may or may not achieve some heretofore impossible cures, but the sound methods of Homoeopathy are hardly disturbed by the millions of mice and dollars sacrificed in the name of progress as compared to the genuine value of the drug provings on the healthy human subject.

We need only repeat the urgent warning of Hahnemann himself to mistrust any deviation from experience to mere speculation as to the way in which a drug would behave once it entered the body. This has been the pitfall into which many a mongrel homoeopath has fallen in his meanderings away from pure Homoeopathy, which he usually justified as being more scientific.

To judge the value of such science, let us repeat the limitations of classical scientific theory, named above by Planck: “The old laws of classical mechanics hold satisfactorily for all processes in which the velocity of light may be considered infinitely large and the quantum of action infinitely small.” The first half of this condition seems obvious. But the second half is not obvious, and is now definitely proven to be a quantity of the same order of magnitude as those which our senses perceive.

In Scientific Monthly for March, 1951, volume 72, pages 139-47, is an article by L,.J., Milne and M.J., Milne, “The Quantum and Life,” in which they clearly demonstrate that the optic nerve responds to and transmits stimulus along a single nerve fibre from a single photon of light, meaning an elementary quantum of action of the proper frequency range to affect the sense of sight. Therefore, in the matter of vision at least, the single quantum of action is not of a different order of magnitude from the recipient organ, the single nerve cell.

And on this single finding, much, if not most, of the theory of scientific medicine to date must collapse. Wherever they have applied classical theory outside of its proper limitations, their logic fails from a false premise.

How does this affect our homoeopathic philosophy? Well, it just sets us on solid facts for a foundation. For here we see the emergent explanation of the mystery of high potency action. There need be put one elementary quantum of action available in the solution, if that quantum be of the proper frequency, nerve response is then possible. But, an elementary quantum of action is a very small thing indeed, so small that the magnitude of the elementary quantum of action is indeed infinitely small. So the inconsistency of attempting to apply classical mechanics of solutions to the action of the high potency remedy stands revealed in all its naked shame. What hours of argument have gone to waste on this phantom problem.

Marion Belle Rood