Chapter XVII
The Development of Hahnemannian Philosophy in the Sixth Edition of “The Organon”Dr Samuel Hahnemann
When it was announced that the
long-awaited Sixth Edition of Hahnemann’s “Organon” was at last available and
about to be published, there was great curiosity on the part of his present-day followers to
see what changes, additions or developments were embodied in it.What subjects had most interested and
occupied the mind of the Old Master during the last years of his long life? What subjects
did he regard as the most important and as most needing further elucidation? Had he changed
his mind in regard to any of the fundamental principles of his philosophy? Had he formed any
new theories? Had he changed his method of applying the principles which he had laid down in
former editions?Speculation on these questions was rife.
There were some, like the writer, who believed that few changes would be found in the
practical rules and methods which had stood the test of more than a century of experience
and proved their permanent value in the cure of innumerable cases of disease. They expected
that the changes would consist of a further development and elucidation of those theories
and concepts which constituted the latest former additions to his system-abstruse subjects
which did not appear or were only lightly touched upon in the early editions; subjects., for
example, like those of vitality, dynamism and potentiation, which were the last to be
developed and introduced into the “Organon.”This conjecture turned out to be correct,
and it is well for the medical world that it did. Never was there greater need than now that
the medical profession should be reminded, as by a voice from the celestial world, that
there is something more vital and more important for them and for suffering humanity than
matter and materialism; than germs and germicides; than serums and vaccines; than mechanics
and mechanisms; than pathological processes and products.That “Something” is a fuller
knowledge and realization of the spiritual nature of life or mind in organism; of life or
mind as a spiritual, entitative power or principle manifesting itself in and through the
physical organisms of which it is the architect and builder as well as the tenant.Whatever tends to throw light upon the
connection between mind and body; whatever enlarges or clarifies our conceptions of what
Life is and how it builds its house, or performs its functions; whatever enlarges our
knowledge of the relations between the various organs and systems of organs of the physical
body; whatever tends to show how the living organism acts and reacts under the influence of
external or internal agencies – mental, psychical or physical; that is important, and
important in the highest degree, because the medical profession as a whole has largely
neglected or ignored these phases of the subject and has regarded man merely as a mechanism
actuated solely by physical forces-and treated him accordingly. From this misconception
arise the most glaring errors, the most flagrant abuses and the most tragical results in the
medical and surgical treatment of today.Hahnemann, in his later life, with
marvelous insight and striking prescience, fixed his attention principally upon the
spiritual and dynamical aspects of the subject of medicine. Hence we find that the changes,
additions and developments in the Sixth Edition of “The Organon” deal principally
with these subjects. These remained longest in his mind. To them he gave his deepest and
most mature thought. Evidently he regarded the results of his thought as sufficiently
important to justify a new, and, as he termed it “most likely the last” edition of
his immortal masterpiece, “THE ORGANON.”Dynamism, The Vital Force, Potentiation and
the Infinitesimal Dose: Around these three subjects have centered the hottest controversies
and most mordant criticisms in the history of :homœopathy; and these are the newly treated
subjects in the Sixth Edition of “The Organon.” For more than a century the battle
between the “dynamists” and the “materialists” has been fought-the
“dynamists” always in the minority, but unconquerable. Their heads are
“bloody but unbowed.” The “long, thin line” is unbroken. Their trenches
are deep and well protected. Their supplier of ammunition are constantly being replenished
and their weapons improved by the latest findings and conclusions of modern science, the
whole trend of which is toward the confirmation of the dynamical conclusions arrived at by
Hahnemann.The invention of the telegraph, telephone,
electric dynamo X ray machine, phonograph, telegraphone, “radio,” the discovery of
radium, etc.; the advances made in the study and utilization of electronic and ionic
machines, and of colloids and solutions in general-The New Dynamism-these have all been
brought about in physical science through the application of the identical dynamical
principles which Hahnemann was among the first to recognize in their general application,
and the first to apply in modern medicine and therapeutics.To Hahnemann belongs the honor of having
been the first physician to connect biology and psychology with physics in a practical
system of medicinal therapeutics, and to give an impulse to studies in biodynamics which has
gained momentum continuously ever since.When Hahnemann, after formulating his
principal concepts of Life or Mind in its relation to the physical organism, began to
experiment with the action of drugs upon healthy human subjects. Observing the subjective as
well as the objective phenomena, he opened up a new field of research and laid the
foundation for a true science and art of medicine and psychology. Prom that time forward,
and for the first time, man could be studied and treated scientifically as an individual, in
all his personal and peculiar actions and reactions.The philosophy of Hahnemann is based upon
and includes not only the physiological and pathological actions and reactions of man as a
physical organism, but of man as spiritual and psychical being; for it includes and utilizes
the mental, the subjective and the functional phenomena as they are developed under the
influence of hygeopoietic and pathogenetic agencies. In this respect homœopathy differs
radically from and is infinitely superior to all other systems of therapeutics; and this is
solely because it recognizes Life or Mind as an entity; as the primary, spiritual power or
principle which creates and sustains the physical organism and is the primary cause of all
its actions and reactions. Its working principle is the universal Law of Reciprocal Action,
otherwise known as the law of balance, compensation, rhythm, polarity, vibration, or action
and reaction, all of which signify a principle operative alike in the physical, mental and
spiritual realms. In its out-working it is essentially the Law of Love, for it is always
beneficient, always creative, always harmonizing. Hence, the consistent practitioner of
homœopathy never uses, and has no need to use, any irritating, weakening, depressing,
infecting, intoxicating or injurious agent of any kind in the treatment of the sick, nor to
violate the integrity of the body by forcibly introducing medicinal agents by other than the
natural orifices and channels.Homœopathy achieves its ends and
accomplishes its purposes by the use of single, simple, pure drugs; refined and deprived of
their injurious properties and enhanced in curative power by the pharmacodynamical processes
of mechanical comminution, trituration, solution and dilution according to, scale; in
minimum or infinitesimal doses, administered by the mouth; the-remedy having been selected
by comparison of the symptoms of the sick with the symptoms of drugs produced by tests in
healthy human subjects; under the principle of symptom-similarity, as enunciated in the
maxims, “Similia, Similibus Curantur.-Simplex, Simile, Minimum.”This is homœopathy in a nutshell. It is a
shell which some find hard to crack, but when cracked it is found to be packed full of sweet
and wholesome meat, with no worms in it.
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