Mind you, I don't mean to say that men and women in the world, around us are wallowing in mortal sin: they haven't got the constitution for it.—Mr Frank Sheed, .addressing the Boseo Conference. Edinburgh, 1947.

Mr Sheed (Man the Forgotten) and Mr Alexis Carrel (Man the Unknown) both chose to write a book about Man. The Catholic wrote didactically, emphasising the known truths about man and his divine origin and destiny. The scientist came very near in many ways to the Catholic position. Both entered a protest against the materialistic trends that would move man from his central and unique place in the universe and regard him simply as another species and subordinate his individuality to the laws that govern masses. These two authors, however, differed, as far as my present subject is concerned, in that the Catholic tended to look backwards while the scientist took cognisance of something that the other decided to ignore, the possibility that man is still undergoing evolutionary change.

Fundamentally, it goes without saying, man does not change. If the concept man differs from the man whom the psalmist sang of and Christ provided for and St Thomas considered in his cosmic and eternal setting then not only philosophy but also theology are challenged. Terms, above all the major term in all our syllogisms about man, have changed their meaning and we are wandering in the jungles of incertitude again.

It is obviously impossible in a brief article to discuss the relation between the corpus of Catholic belief, tradition, and their pastoral applications on the one hand, and the enormous mass of half-digested material which is modern psychology, on the other. I have chosen to throw out a few hints as to the kind of problems which agitate the mind of anyone who is concerned with the subject. I am dealing with two terms of a discussion which to many Catholics appear to be irreconcilable.

I hope that those who keep their Blackfriars back-numbers, or can get hold of them, will re-read a long and searching article, by Father Victor White in the number for August 1945 entitled ‘Psychotherapy and Ethics’, for these notes are prompted largely by that essay, and the long interval of time is a measure of its vivid effect upon my thought. I will doubtless appear to have overstressed the difference between us, which is probably far more one of theory than of practice. I may thereby also give some wrong impressions by overstating the case for psychology; this is perhaps inevitable in any debate.

I do however regard the reconciliation and synthesis of religion and psychology as of far greater importance than that between ‘religion and science’ which agitated a previous generation.

Forty years ago an unassuming old lady dressed in grey travelled up and down England with the novel purpose of interesting Catholic young women in a medical career so that they might devote themselves to the women of India, who could not be treated by men doctors. All doors were open to her since her family was well known. Her father, Duncan McLaren, had been a member of Parliament for Scotland; her stepmother, Priscilla, was the sister of John Bright ; her home, from her earliest infancy, was a rendezvous of men and women earnestly interested in social problems. In her youth the Ragged Schools of Dr Guthrie occupied much of her time. Later she became an active member of the suffragette movement. The white slave trade was to her not something to be deplored as a necessary evil; she took active steps campaigning against it,, even so far as to interview the Queen of Spain on behalf of its abolition.

Already well on in the thirties, she became an active sympathiser and friend of Elizabeth Blackwell and her companions in their endeavour to study medicine and obtain degrees. With a natural aptitude for the care of the sick frequently seen in her family circle and her great desire to help suffering humanity, she herself decided to study medicine. As the licensing in degrees in medicine for women had not yet been sanctioned by Parliament, she went to France to study. She was the first and only woman at the Medical Faculty of Montpellier, but was treated with respect and consideration. In 1876 she graduated. In order to be able to practise in her own country, she took an examination in Dublin, then the only medical school in Great Britain to grant medical degrees to women.