Title: Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2
Author: Buchanan, Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes), 1814-1899 [Editor]
Language: English
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               BUCHANAN'S
             JOURNAL OF MAN.

VOL. I.        MARCH, 1887.       NO. 2.



CONTENTS OF JOURNAL OF MAN.


  Archtypal Literature for the future.
  Chapter 1. General Plan of Brain, Synopsis of Cerebral Science
  Superficial Criticisms, a reply to Miss Phelps
  Spiritual Phenomenon, Abram James, Eglinton, Spirit writing
  Mind reading Amusement and Temperance
  MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE--Pigmies in Africa; A Human
    Phenomenon; Surviving Superstition; Spiritual test of Death; A
    Jewish Theological Seminary; National Death Rates; Religious
    Mediævalism in America; Craniology and Crime; Morphiomania in
    France; Montana Bachelors; Relief for Children; The Land and the
    People; Christianity in Japan; The Hell Fire Business; Sam Jones
    and Boston Theology; Psychometry; The American Psychical
    Society; Progress of Spiritualism; The Folly of Competition;
    Insanities of War; The Sinaloa Colony; Medical Despotism; Mind
    in Nature
  Physiological Discoveries in the College of Therapeutics
  Business Department, College of Therapeutics



THE ARCHETYPAL LITERATURE FOR THE FUTURE.


If the science of man, the being in whom the spiritual and material
worlds are fully represented, and in whom both can be studied in their
relations, has been fully (though not completely or finally) developed
by the revelation through experiments, of the functions of the brain,
then from the establishment of anthropology there necessarily begins a
literary revolution, which not only changes all philosophy, but
extends through all the realms of literature. There is no realm which
can escape the modifying influence of ideas which are at the basis of
all conceptions of man, of society, of duty, of religion, of art, of
social institutions, of the healing art, education, and government,
and the new light which psychometric illumination throws upon all
sciences.

The literature of the future will therefore differ widely from the
literature of the past, and millions of volumes which still hold their
places on the shelves of libraries will in the next century take their
proper place in the mouldering mass which interests the antiquarian
alone,--the mouldering mass which universities still cherish, and
which helps to deaden the rising intelligence of the western world.
Let us, as Tennyson says,

  "Hope the best, but hold the Present
  Fatal daughter of the Past."

It is self-evident that the farther back we go for intelligence the
deeper we plunge in the darkness of ignorance; and even though
intuitional and moral truths may be found in the old writings, they
belong to a literature imbedded in an ignorance which necessarily
darkens all that comes down from such periods.

The benumbing influence of antiquity--or rather of that extended
period which may be called the Aristotelian age, the age in which all
philosophic thought was utterly benumbed by the Greek literature--has
not yet passed away. American writers are just beginning to get rid of
their absolute subserviency to foreign models in all things, and in
this partial independence they are still subservient to the
fundamental philosophic and ethical ideas of the past. The change that
is taking place is only in minor matters.

Even so graceful and able a writer as Longfellow illustrates fully the
truth of these suggestions. Mr. Charles F. Johnson, in a well-written
essay on Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne, says:

"Most people feel that national temper is of slow evolution; that many
heterogeneous elements must be fused and blended here; that we too
must have a past, and that the spirit of our past must be taken up and
transmitted before a new type is realized in a new art and a new
literature. We can see that Longfellow was essentially a scholar--a
receiver of impressions from books; that he was like an Æolian harp,
blown upon by many winds, so that his music was in many regards
necessarily a melodious echo of what was 'whispered by world-wandering
winds.' And we can see, too, that he came into American literary life
just as it was passing from the germ to the plant, and that every year
he became more distinctive."

There is nothing profound in this view, but it expresses well the
average thought of the period,--that Americanism in literature must be
the very gradual growth of new circumstances, experience, and
associations, which may superficially modify the unbroken mass of
thought which has been transplanted from Europe, just as vines and
flowers take on their modifications in a new soil and climate.

Far different from this is the view that anthropology gives us. The
foreign plant, it is true, will gradually change, but a native plant
will ultimately take its place by the law of the "survival of the
fittest." The exotic must die out, for it was but a hothouse plant,
reared in universities and cathedrals.

The thought, the science, the philosophy, and even the forms of
literary expression, for this continent, will be those which spring
from the bosom of nature, fresh and strong, imbued with the spiritual
element of immortality, the element of luminous originality.

How and whence is this to come? It will come by the complete
emancipation of the American mind from the thraldom of the false
philosophies, the false theologies, and the debasingly narrow
conceptions of science which have been transplanted into American
colleges. When the strong American intellect shall realize that in the
science of man and in the cultivation of psychometry there is more of
enlightenment, of wisdom, and of actual knowledge than in all that
colleges cherish to-day, we shall have such a flood of original
thought and immensely valuable knowledge as would seem impossible to
the literati who now have the public ear.

Even the narrowest dogmatists of science are beginning to have a
glimpse of the nobler knowledge of the future. Prof. Huxley, the most
dogmatic of British sceptics, has recently said:

"The growth of science, not merely of physical science, but of all
science, means the demonstration of order and natural causation among
phenomena which had not previously been brought under those
conceptions. Nobody who is acquainted with the progress of scientific
thinking in every department of human knowledge, in the course of the
last two centuries, will be disposed to deny that immense provinces
have been added to the realm of science, or to doubt that the next two
centuries will be witnesses of a vastly greater annexation. More
particularly in the region of the physiology of the nervous system is
it justifiable to conclude from the progress that has been made in
analyzing the relations between material and psychical phenomena that
vast further advances will be made, and that sooner or later all the
so-called spontaneous operations of the mind will have, not only their
relations to one another, but their relations to physical phenomena,
connected in natural series of causes and effects, strictly defined.
In other words, while at present we know only the nearer moiety of the
chain of causes and effects by which the phenomena we call material
give rise to those which we call mental, hereafter we shall get to the
further end of the series."

The "further end of the series," however, is vastly different from
anything within the mental range of the distinguished professor, whose
ultra materialism led him to revamp the old Cartesian doctrine that
animals were only machines, like clocks or mills, running
automatically, and destitute of sensation, and intelligence.

The science and philosophy of the future will be distinguished by
their mastery of the realm of mind, and the closer approximation of
the human to the Divine, not only in intelligence, but in ethics.

The JOURNAL OF MAN, as the first periodical organ of the new
philosophy, will attempt gradually to initiate the archetypal forms of
thought of the coming period, in which the disappearance of old
philosophy and ethics shall leave room for growth.

Not that all ethics shall be changed among the civilized races, for
there are simple primary and true conceptions which are universally
recognized, and are embalmed in all religions. Yet these few universal
ideas are but the rudiments of ethics, and no more constitute an
ethical system worthy of the name, than the four primary processes of
arithmetic constitute a system of mathematical science. The future is
to evolve the true ethics, and therewith the educational system that
will bring the true ethics into all spheres of human life.

In all past time there has been no ethical system competent to
establish a perfectly harmonious social state, and no system of
education competent to lift society to a _higher_ life. Education as
it has been brightens life with literature and art, but does not
_elevate_ it. The same old element of poverty, misery, disease, crime,
and insanity marches on, hand in hand with the college and the church,
as it formerly went hand in hand with the hunting and warring
barbarians of the forest. And the dull, blunted conscience of the
time, lulled by the softly solemn platitudes of the pulpit and the
soulless system of education, rebels not against the old social order.
In full view of the past twenty-five centuries, may we not exclaim
with Shakespeare's Macbeth:

  "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
  Creeps on this petty pace from day to day,
  To the last syllable of recorded time;
  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
  The dusty way to death."

But not to the end of time shall it be. The nineteenth century has
seen the glimmering dawn of the true civilization. How it came, what
it is, and what it is destined to realize, the JOURNAL OF MAN will
attempt to show.



SYNOPSIS OF CEREBRAL SCIENCE.[1]

    [1] Copyrighted, 1887, by Joseph Rodes Buchanan.


CHAPTER I.

GENERAL PLAN OF THE BRAIN.

    The brain the centre of life--Its organs not distinctly
    separated--Its double functions and degrees of
    energy--Difficulty of nomenclature, chiefly basilar--The
    pathognomic law--Its application to the brain--The four
    cardinal directions and four divisions, the coronal, basilar,
    anterior, and occipital--Their effects on the character and
    constitution--The method of locating organs--The four
    groups--The law of antagonism--Its certainty and
    necessity--Difficulty of expressing it--Correspondence of the
    English language and the brain--Its limits--Radiating groups
    of organs--Contrasts of development.


The details of cerebral science will be much more easily understood if
we begin with a comprehensive view of the entire plan of the functions
and structure.

The brain is distinguished from all other organs by being the source
of commands which all other organs obey, and being the immediate seat
of the soul, which has no knowledge of anything occurring in the body,
until a message or impression has reached it through nervous channels.
The compression of all the nerves before they enter the cranium and
connect with the brain would deprive us of all knowledge of the body,
and of all sensations or perceptions; and the compression of the brain
itself would render us totally unconscious, as if dead,--incapable of
either thought or action. Manifestly, therefore, all the powers of the
soul are lodged in and exercised through the brain; and as all
distinct nerve structures have essentially different functions, and
every different function requires a different structure, it is obvious
that the vast variety of our psychic faculties, intellectual,
emotional, sensitive, passional, and physiological, requires a
corresponding multiplicity in the nervous apparatus; and this
incalculably great multiplicity we find in the brain.

The crude, mechanical idea that all the organs of the brain should be
distinctly marked and separated by membranous walls or obvious changes
of structure, is very unscientific; for even in the spinal cord, which
is more easily studied, we do not find such separation between the
widely distinct functions of sensibility and motility. Their nerve
fibres run together undistinguished, and it is only by the study of
pathological changes that we have been able to distinguish the course
of the motor fibres, which to the most careful inspection are
indistinguishable from the sensitive.

Moreover, the functions of the brain are not like those of the spinal
cord, of a widely distinct and opposite character in adjacent fibres,
but exhibit a gradual variation, like the blending colors of the
rainbow. The sensitive or psychic individual who touches any part of
the head and feels an impression of the emotional, intellectual, or
impulsive function in the subjacent convolution of the brain, will
find the impression gradually changing as he moves his finger along
the surface, until, after passing half around the cerebrum, he will
feel an influence exactly opposite to that with which he started.

As there are many millions of sensitive persons who are capable of
receiving these impressions from the brain, we cannot but wonder at
the unanimous _indifference_ (which some may hereafter call stupidity)
which hinders the medical profession and scientists generally from
becoming acquainted with such facts, which I have proclaimed and
demonstrated until I have grown weary of attempting to instruct wilful
ignorance. Not only does the nervaura, direct from the brain convey
such impressions of organic action, but almost any substance held for
a few moments in contact with any part of the head will absorb enough
of the local nervaura to convey a distinct impression to a sensitive,
similar to that derived directly from the head.

Although the organs of the brain are thus distinct, they are not
distinct like the spokes of a wheel, each totally independent of the
other and fixed or invariable in its own simple character; for all
organs have double functions, and a great variety in their degree of
manifestation.

The double function is psychic and physiological, or physical. When
the action of the brain is confined within the cranium, its action is
purely psychic; but when its influence passes into the body, it
produces physiological effects. As the brain is the seat of the soul,
its action is essentially and primarily psychic; but as it is the
commander of the body, and the source of its spiritual vitality, all
its conditions or actions affect the body; and hence every organ has
its dual action, psychic and physiological. Cerebral physiology and
sarcognomy explain in detail how the brain and the mental conditions
affect the body; cerebral psychology shows how the brain and soul are
correlated. The purpose of this treatise is to show how the brain is
correlated with both soul and body, giving the principal attention to
the former.

If cerebral organs all have this double function, it is manifestly
exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to find any words competent
to express the double functions, and it will be necessary to adapt our
nomenclature to expressing the psychic function, leaving the
physiological to be expressed otherwise. As the basilar organs act
more directly upon the body, their nomenclature will be more
suggestive of physiological effects. The organ, for example, of
alimentiveness or appetite will suggest by its name its relation to
the stomach.

The difficulty of arranging a satisfactory nomenclature for a certain
portion of the brain, in consequence of the varying energy of organic
action, is very great, and must be met by using the word which will
express in a general manner the organic tendency, leaving to the
intelligence of the reader to imagine the variations of intensity. In
the greatest energy of organic action the opposite faculty is entirely
overcome, and the conduct becomes abnormal, for normal action implies
the harmonious co-operation of all parts of the brain. Nevertheless,
it is in this abnormal or excessive action that we get the true,
isolated tendency or function in its naked expression.

For example, if we refer to that portion of the brain near the mastoid
process, which in its excessive action produces murder, we perceive
that as murder is an abnormal action, such a term is not a suitable
name for an organ, as it would convey the impression that every human
being has a constant murderous impulse, and that the faculty is kept
inactive when murder is not committed; from which we might infer that
the human constitution is badly planned.

Still, it is not to be concealed that murderous violence is the
ultimate result of this organ when unrestrained,--that it is the most
conspicuous faculty in carnivorous animals, and alas! that it has a
terrible and at times predominant action in the masculine portion of
the human race. Throughout the greater part of ancient history the
murderous violence of this faculty has been as conspicuous in the
human race as in the wild beasts. Even to-day, after centuries of
so-called civilization and religion, no man's life would be safe if
not protected by policemen; and the civilized nations, with a skilful
ferocity, devote the major part of their governmental revenues to
preparations for international homicide as a defence against the
murderous impulse in their neighbors, and to watching or controlling
the murderers within their own limits; whose homicidal propensities,
however, are not restrained from _mutual homicide_, by agreement, in
the warlike form of the duel, which is considered a proper institution
to cultivate a martial spirit and promote the efficiency of the
army,--ay, and even tolerated in the German system of education,
provided that life is not actually sacrificed.

Murder is therefore not an improper term to express the consummate
energy of this basilar organ, if we at the same time understand its
gentler manifestations; and Dr. Gall was a faithful student of nature
when he called this faculty the "carnivorous instinct, or disposition
to murder," for that is the way that it exhibits in animals, and,
unfortunately, in mankind also.

Yet as an element of character, and an organ in the brain, this
faculty needs a more general and comprehensive term than murder to
express its ordinary action. It operates as an impelling and modifying
influence in our daily life, giving a certain kind of energy to
physical and mental action, as our fruits have a certain degree of
sweetness in their juices which is not due to crystals of sugar,
though if the sweetening element were extracted it would appear in
that solid form. Thus the violent impulsive energy which appears in
our vigorous language, emphatic gestures, ultra sentiments, and
threatening expressions, if it could be isolated from its psychic
combination, would appear in its isolated purity as an impulse to the
destruction of life and everything else that stands before us.

Hence the term Destructiveness has been very properly applied to this
organ by Spurzheim. Yet even this term expresses too much for its
average daily action, and Violence, Impulsiveness, or Vehemence would
come nearer to expressing its ordinary manifestation.

The reader will now perceive that the psychic functions of certain
organs can seldom be adequately expressed by one word, and that three
words are required to express fully the moderate, the active, and the
abnormal manifestations. Fortunately, however, this difficulty of
nomenclature applies only to that portion of the brain which tends to
the abnormal. Man's nobler faculties belonging to the upper region of
the brain are essentially good and normal. The abnormal difficulty
does not come into their description.

[Illustration]

Its operation is limited to the region lying around the ears, the
basilar region, the tendency of which is to exhaust the spiritual
vitality of the brain in ministering to the body. This will be clearly
understood when we understand the fundamental law of all cerebral
action, the law of direction, or


PATHOGNOMIC LAW.

This law is the grandest generalization of science that was ever
conceived. It is the fundamental law of the relations of the two
worlds, the psychic and the physical. The spiritual and material
worlds unite in man, in whom the eternal spirit is combined with a
transitory material body, and the law of their interaction is _the law
of the universe_.

In its application to man, the law is simply this, that all organs of
the brain act in accordance with their position,--in accordance with
their _pathognomic line_, or line of action, which is the line of
their central fibres, the tendency of which is toward the surface of
the brain, where they reach the interior of the cranium. It will be a
sufficient approximation to the mathematical truth if for the present
we say that the pathognomic line may be indicated by a perpendicular
to the surface of the cranium where the organ is located.

When we establish the pathognomic line, we establish a perfect
criterion of the organic action, for the action is always in
accordance with the line; and this fundamental law gives a key to all
psychology, and gives it a geometrical simplicity.

In accordance with this law, the frontal or intellectual organs act
toward the front, and maintain our relations with that which is before
us. Acting in that manner, they throw out or expend the vital forces,
and exhaust the energies which belong to the posterior part of the
brain and posterior part of the body. The posterior half of the brain
acts in the opposite direction, and thus draws in, acquires, and
energizes. The posterior action impels the body to advance, as the
anterior portion checks our progress and causes us to yield. Hence if
we erect a perpendicular from the ear, we shall find all the energetic
impelling faculties behind it, and all that moderates, checks, and
enlightens before it. Thus the occipital development makes a powerful,
domineering, conquering character, as the frontal makes a passive,
unselfish, yielding one.

Hence all organs in proportion to their energy are located nearer to
the posterior region of the brain, and in proportion to their delicacy
or weakness have a more anterior location.

[Illustration]

There are four classes of pathognomic lines, as there are four aspects
of the brain, which may be represented on a plane surface, and which
are sufficient for this incomplete introductory statement--the
anterior and posterior--the superior or upward, and the inferior or
downward. The anterior and posterior tendencies may be separated by
the vertical line through the ear. The superior and inferior, or
upward and downward, may be separated by a nearly horizontal line from
the forehead backward, which nearly coincides with the lateral
ventricles that separate the superior and inferior convolutions. The
lateral ventricles (cavities the walls of which are in contact,) are
the central region of the brain around which the convolutions are
formed. Dividing the brain thus into superior and inferior halves, we
find that the major portion of the superior has an upward line which
is fully expressed at the upper surface of the brain, while the lower
half has downward lines which are most fully expressed on the basilar
surface of the brain, which is covered by the face and neck.

Intermediate between these coronal and basilar surfaces are lateral
organs which participate in the upward or downward tendency as they
approach the highest and lowest surfaces.

The tendency of the coronal region is upward, that of the basilar
downward. The latter operates downward upon the body, rousing the
muscles and viscera to activity, but exhausting the brain and the
spiritual life. Hence, while they vitalize the body, they are the
source of all that is sensual, violent, beastly, and criminal,--all
that degrades human nature,--when they become the controlling power,
which is an abnormal condition.

The coronal organs tend upward; they withdraw excitement from the
body, quiet the muscles, and diminish the energy of the appetites and
passions, while they originate all noble and lofty impulses. Their
tendency is toward heaven, toward the highest possible condition of
humanity, the performance of every duty, the enjoyment of happiness
and health, the perfection of love and fidelity. They make the life on
earth resemble the life in heaven, and consequently bring us into
sympathy with all holy influences. They make religion a reality, and
produce a character which we cannot but admire and love. Their
tendency is to draw life upward from the body to the head and the
upper part of the chest, and thereby to energize the soul, which has
its home in the brain, and which is the essential seat and source of
life, and is in interior connection with the infinite source of life.
Hence the coronal half of the brain is the home of spiritual life, the
antagonist of disease, the promoter of longevity, by which the
harmonious love of the upper world is realized on earth, and that
divine quality of the soul which frees it from disease and death is to
a limited extent imparted to the human body.

The excessive action of the basilar region exhausts the brain,
degrades the soul, and thereby impairing the fountain of life and
health, introduces disease and death. Gluttony, drunkenness,
sensuality, passion, and violent exertion are the processes that
exhaust the soul power. Excessive and prolonged muscular exertion
without rest exhausts the brain. But the normal action of the basilar
organs is essential to all the processes of life, and maintains the
union of soul and body. Hence their good development is necessary to
longevity.

On the other hand, excessive predominance of the coronal region,
although it heightens the spiritual nature, withdraws life from the
body, and culminates in trance, ending in death by the ascension of
the soul from the body. But so long as the basilar organs have
sufficient energy to maintain the connection of the soul with the
body, the most powerful action of the coronal region increases the
power of the brain, the brilliance of the mind, the perfection of the
health, and the moral greatness and power of the person.

These statements are essentially different from the physiological and
phrenological ideas heretofore current, but they are sustained by
universal experience, which recognizes the power of heroism, hope,
religion, and love to exalt our powers of endurance and achievement,
whether intellectual or physical; and they are sustained by the
records of pathology, which show that softening or ulceration of the
superior regions of the brain impairs, paralyzes, or destroys all our
powers. Moreover, all that I teach on these subjects is but an
expression of the formulated results of many thousand experiments
during the last forty-five years.

The simplicity and applicability of these pathognomic laws which
pervade all psychic phenomena are such that they are easily mastered,
and a single evening devoted to the subject enables my students to
locate with approximate correctness nearly all the organs of the
brain. The multiplicity of the cerebral organs is somewhat
discouraging to a student at first, but all embarrassment is removed
when the simplicity of the Divine plan is shown.

In illustrating these principles, we take up a number of faculties
successively, and determine by their nature what should be their
latitude and longitude upon the map. Thus, for example, if Modesty is
mentioned, students would say it should be above the horizontal line,
but not so high as the virtues, and that it should be not among the
energies, but among the moderating faculties of the front half of the
head. Hence they usually ascertain its true location. If Avarice or
Acquisitiveness should be considered, they would recognize it as
entitled to a place below the horizontal line, and also behind the
vertical line, but neither the lowest nor the most posterior. If
Firmness is mentioned, they recognize it as entitled to a high place,
but behind the vertical line; and thus they seldom make any great
error in determining the location of an organ.

[Illustration]

If we thus go through the catalogue of psychic powers or qualities, we
observe finally that the organs are grouped as follows; and this
grouping should be impressed upon the memory, as it is easily learned,
and serves as a basis for the further study of organology. The organs
in this drawing are not arranged to show their antagonism, but
antagonism is the most important fundamental principle of cerebral
psychology.


THE LAW OF ANTAGONISM.

Antagonism or opposition is the universal condition of all that we
know. Up suggests down; inward, outward; forward, backward; advance,
recession; motion, rest; elevation, degradation; abundance,
deficiency; heat, cold; light, darkness; strength, weakness. The same
antagonism exists in the psychic nature, as in love, hate; hope,
despair; courage, cowardice; pride, humility, etc.; and equally in the
physiological, as we see in the action of flexor and extensor muscles,
their antagonism being a necessity. If we had only flexor muscles, one
motion would exhaust the muscular capacity; when the limb is flexed it
can do nothing more; but when the extensor muscle moves it back,
flexion can be again performed. Thus all vital voluntary action is a
play of opposing forces,--the existence of one force rendering
possible the existence of its opposite. The coronal organs, carrying
the soul above the body, would bring the end of terrestrial life, and
the basilar organs exhausting the brain would bring to a more
disastrous end; but the joint action of the two, like that of flexor
and extensor muscles, produces the infinite variety of life, which
moves on like pendulums, in continual alternation.

Man would be utterly unfit for the sphere that he occupies, if he had
not the opposite capacities required by innumerable opposite
conditions. Physiologically, he requires calorific powers to fit him
for cold climates, and cooling capacities to fit him for the torrid
zone. Morally, he requires warlike powers to meet enemies and dangers,
as well as affections for the sphere of domestic love. He requires the
conscious intellect to call forth and guide his powers in exertion,
and a faculty for repose and recuperation in sleep. He requires self
respect to sustain him in elevated positions, and humility to fit him
for humble duties and positions. We can conceive no faculty which has
not its opposite,--no faculty which would not terminate its own
operation, like a flexor muscle, if there were no antagonist.
Benevolence would exhaust the purse and be unable to give, if
Acquisitiveness did not replenish it; and Avarice unrestrained would
lose all financial capacity in the sordid stupidity of the miser. Each
faculty alone, without its antagonist, carries us to a helpless
extreme.

The antagonism of faculties is so self evident a law of nature that if
Dr. Gall had pre-arranged a psychic philosophy in his mind, instead of
being a simple observer of facts, he might have given a very different
aspect to the science. But he arranged no psychic philosophy, and he
did not carry his observations far enough to lead him into the law of
antagonism, and hence left a rude system, lacking in the symmetry and
completeness necessary to give it the position of a complete
philosophy.

But while the law of antagonism should control our psychic studies, it
is not always convenient to express this antagonism in our
nomenclature, or to group the functions of all regions of the brain in
such a manner that each group or organ shall exactly correspond to an
antagonism in another organ; for in expressing the functions of parts
of the brain we are limited by the structure of the English language,
and have to make such groups as will be conveniently expressed by
familiar English words,--the words of a language that has grown up in
a confused manner, and was not organized to express the faculties of
sub-divisions of the brain. Hence, for want of a pre-arranged
language, with words of accurate definition and exact antagonism, we
can only approximate a perfect nomenclature, and must rely more upon
description than upon classification and technical terms.

Technicality, however, is to be avoided as far as possible.
Anthropology may need, like other new sciences, new terms for its new
ideas, but the old words of plain English express all the very
important elements of human nature. To the master of anthropology it
is easy to take any word expressive of an element of human character
or capacity and show from what convolution, what group of
convolutions, or what part of a convolution the quality or faculty
arises which that word expresses. An evening might be profitably spent
with a class of students in tracing English words to their cerebral
source.

In expressing the functions of the brain by nomenclature, we are
entering upon an illimitable science, and must hold back to keep
within the limits of the practicable and useful. The innumerable
millions of fibres and ganglion globules in the brain are beyond
calculation, and their varieties of function are beyond all
descriptive power. Geography does not attempt to describe every square
mile of the earth's surface, nor does astronomy presume to know all
the stars. In reference to the brain, psychic students will hereafter
send forth ponderous volumes of descriptive detail, for which there is
no demand at present. I willingly resign that task to my successors. A
description which portrays the general character of an inch of
convolution, or of a half inch square of the finer intellectual
organs, is sufficiently minute for the purposes of a student. Acting
upon these views, the following catalogue of psychic functions has
been prepared, which is offered now not for the reader's study, as the
multiplicity of detail would be embarrassing, but merely to give a
general conception of the scope of cerebral psychology, and to show
how extensive and apparently intricate a system may, by proper
explanation of its principles, be made intelligible to all.

[Illustration]

Instead of attempting to master this catalogue and the psychic busts
which are to be shown hereafter, the reader should approach the
subject by familiarizing himself with the profile grouping here
presented, leaving the catalogue and busts for future exposition.

If radiating lines are drawn outward from the ear, the _general
character_ of the groups thus formed is indicated in the drawing. The
department marked Inspiration extends from the median line as shown to
the interior of the hemispheres on the median line. The region of the
appetites is marked as Sensual Selfishness, the tendency of which is
antagonistic to that of the region marked Duty.


CATALOGUE OF CEREBRAL ORGANS.

1. INTELLECTUAL.

    UNDERSTANDING.--Intuition, Consciousness, Foresight, Sagacity,
    Judgment, Wit, Reason, Ingenuity, Scheming, Imagination,
    Invention, Composition, Calculation, Somnolence.

    RECOLLECTION.--Memory (recent and remote), Time, System.

    PERCEPTION.--Clairvoyance, Phenomena, Form, Size, Distance,
    Weight, Color, Light, Shade, Order, Tune, Language, Sense of
    Force, Sensibility.

    SEMI-INTELLECTUAL.--Liberality, Sympathy, Expression, Sincerity,
    Humor, Pliability, Imitation, Admiration, Spirituality,
    Marvelousness, Ideality.

2. ETHICAL OR MORAL ORGANS.

    Benevolence, Devotion, Faith, Politeness, Friendship, Love, Hope,
    Kindness or Philanthropy, Religion, Patience or Serenity,
    Integrity or Conscientiousness, Patriotism or Love of Country,
    Cheerfulness, Energy, Fortitude, Heroism, Health, Sanity, Caution,
    Sublimity, Reverence, Modesty.

3. SOCIAL ENERGY.

    Self-respect or Dignity, Self-confidence, Love of Power,
    Ostentation, Ambition, Business Energy, Adhesiveness,
    Self-sufficiency, Playfulness, Approbativeness, Oratory, Honor,
    Magnanimity, Repose, Chastity, Coolness.

4. SELFISH FORCES.

    Arrogance, Familiarity, Fascination, Command, Dogmatism,
    Combativeness, Aggressiveness, Secretiveness, Avarice, Stolidity,
    Force, Rivalry, Profligacy, or Lawless Impulse, Irritability,
    Baseness, Destructiveness, Hatred, Disgust, Animalism, Turbulence,
    Virility.

5. SENSITIVE AND ENFEEBLING ELEMENTS.

    Interior Sensibility or Disease, Appetite, Relaxation, Melancholy
    or Sullenness, Insanity, Idiocy, Rashness and Carelessness,
    Expression.

The reader should be careful not to attach too much importance to
classification or nomenclature. The special descriptions of organs are
necessary to a correct understanding.


CONTRASTS OF DEVELOPMENT

The contrast of intellectual development is seen in comparing the
world-renowned philosopher Humboldt and the idiot figured by
Spurzheim. The contrast of coronal and basilar development is seen in
comparing the benevolent negro Eustace, who received the Monthyon
prize for virtue in France with the skull of the cannibal Carib, as
figured by Lawrence. As to the coronal or upward development of the
brain, there is always a great contrast between untamable wild
animals, such as the lion and the eagle, and those of gentle and
lovely nature, such as the gazelle and the dove.

[Illustration: HUMBOLDT    IDIOT
               EUSTACE     CARIB
               GAZELLE     LION
               DOVE        EAGLE]



SUPERFICIAL CRITICISM.


A RESPONSE TO MISS ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

    The publication in the Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ of two columns of
    sharp criticism on the spiritual movement by Miss Phelps,
    which were widely republished, induced the editor to send the
    following reply to the _Inter-Ocean_, which was duly
    published.


                                           BOSTON, MASS., Jan. 23.

The rhetorically eloquent essay of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps on
spiritualism has been read by the undersigned with that peculiar
pleasure with which we witness an intellectual or psychic _tour de
force_ which produces singular results. It is quite an able
production, for the ability of an advocate is measured by his capacity
to make that which is obviously absurd appear quite rational, and to
give to that which is intrinsically small or mean an air of refined
dignity. Divested of its dignified and delusive rhetoric, what does
the lady say or mean in plain, homely English?

She says that "cultivated thought" has a "slippery surface" on which
spiritualism has made "a clutch," and that it has lately made an
"encroachment upon scientific attention," so that psychical societies
of distinguished men are "busying themselves;" also that spiritualism
must be "made subject to the laws of common sense" and controlled by
"common integrity," and if this truth "is at last materializing before
the consciousness of the believers in spiritualistic phenomena some
good may come of it."

That a certain style of "cultivated thought" familiar in Boston has a
"slippery surface" on which neither religion nor philosophy makes much
impression, cannot be denied, and that it is only lately (as she says)
that psychical societies of more or less distinguished men have
allowed spiritual science to encroach on their attention, is very
true. It has always been so. Societies of distinguished men have
always been behind the progress of undistinguished men. Neither Harvey
nor Galvani was honored by societies of distinguished men until the
"slippery surface" of their "cultivated thought" was clutched and
crushed by the power of a widely diffused truth. As a general rule,
the last place in which to find the foremost thought of the age is in
the societies of distinguished men, whether they be politicians,
theologians, or scientists. Hence it is that phenomena as old as
history itself and of late as thoroughly investigated as any branch of
positive science have just begun to encroach upon the attention of the
societies to which the lady desires us to surrender our judgment. No
doubt they have resisted such encroachments as long as decency would
permit, and some very able writers think a great deal longer.

As to the insinuation that "believers in spiritualistic phenomena have
only of late begun to appreciate common sense and common honesty,"
when these believers count by millions, and include many more eminent
men than her infallible psychic societies, the lady has permission to
withdraw the charge, for it is obviously only the _lapsus linguæ_ of a
too fluent tongue.

Again she says: "Which of us would not lay down life itself to know
that he had spoken yesterday with the darling of our souls dead years
ago?" Not one of you! The expression is rather hysterical in its
intensity. The majority of your ultra-sceptical class would not even
spend a day or an hour in the pursuit, for you have neglected the
opportunities which have been open to all the world. You might have
held a pair of slates in your own hands, secured in any manner, with
no pencil between them; might have heard the writing in progress, then
opened them and recognized the message of your own darling--perhaps
the handwriting also. Thousands of modest, honest seekers of truth
have done these things. But the Pharisees who talk of heaven and then
fly from its approach have "religiously shunned" them; that is the way
they express it, and you are their apologist. But what is your
apology?

You give a graphic description of a cheap style of dishonest
mediumship with vulgar surroundings, in which, nevertheless, there are
wonderful revelations, "the golden thread of a truth that is worth
having," and you suggest that the truth must now be "garnered" by a
psychical research society, intimating that if they do not garner it,
it will cease to be recognized as truth, and that the mediums must
bring it all to them for sanction, or cease to be respected by
honorable people. Was ever a more unfair and delusive statement made
by a hired attorney? The grandeur of the theme has not inspired a
spirit of fairness or justice. The question lies between the eternal
and holy verities of spiritual science or religious science and the
conscience of the inquirer. The poor, illiterate, and obscure people
who exhibit for a living whatever capacity they may have, have nothing
to do with it. Would our lady critic select a cheap sign painter to
represent the beauty and glory of art, or the exhibitors of laughing
gas to illustrate the science of Sir Humphrey Davy, or the
performances of an illiterate quack to illustrate the dignity of the
medical profession? Is our critic so profoundly ignorant of the
progress of psychic science as to think such representations fair or
allowable?

A science is represented by its leaders, its authors, its teachers,
not its camp followers. Examine the writings of Alfred Russell
Wallace, Professor Crookes of London, Epes Sargent, William Howitt,
Professor Hare--of Swedenborg, Kerner, Ennemoser, Du Prel, Hellenbach,
Fichte, Varley, Ashburner, Flammarion, Aksakoff, and a score of others
of the highest rank, and criticize if you can the magnificent
philosophy of these and of many an ancient writer. Consider the well
attested facts and sublime religion that you will find in them, and
observe that the facts are a hundred times better attested and a
thousand times more critically observed than any of those upon which
the world's great religions rest, before which our critic reverently
bows.

[NOTE.--Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is reported to have said in 1860: "The
physiology, the anthropology of the Bible, is highly odic, and must be
studied as such. As such it will be found to harmonize with the
general principles of human experience in such matters in all ages. If
a theory be adopted everywhere else but in the Bible, excluding
spiritual intervention _in toto_, and accounting for everything
physically, then will the covers of the Bible prove but pasteboard
barriers. Such a theory will sweep its way through the Bible and its
authority, and its inspirations will be annihilated. On the other
hand, if the theory of spiritual intervention be accepted in the
Bible, it cannot be shut up there, but must sweep its way through the
wide domain of 'popular superstitions,' as they are called, separating
the element of truth on which they are based, and asserting its own
authoritative supremacy."]

Then if you must for a partisan purpose ignore all this, and select
obscure people to represent the other side of the question, it would
be very easy to find mediumship of a pure and honorable
character--mediums whom no one visits without carrying away a sweet,
refining influence, a stronger faith, and a brighter realization of
heavenly truths. And there are mediums, too, from whose lips distil a
lofty eloquence and a remarkable wisdom upon any or all subjects
proposed, with a flow of extemporaneous poetry or of heavenly music
which has never been equaled under such circumstances by uninspired
mortals.

But, forsooth, they must come to a psychic society that the world may
learn from their papal infallibility if anything exists at all worthy
of notice. This is indeed seriously proposed! Well, if a group of
clergymen in synod assembled should summon all geologists and
astronomers to come before them and show if there was anything in
their scientific teachings, their heretical, astronomical, and
geological doctrines, would any one have responded to the presumptuous
demand? Would Airy, Lyell, Miller, Darwin, or the poorest country
school master have taken any notice of such a demand?

The majority of the American Psychical Research Society know vastly
less of psychic science than clergymen know of geology and astronomy.
They have been not inquirers, but obstructionists, assailing those who
dare to inquire, and the subject, as their friend says, has only
lately encroached on their attention. The admirable scientific
experiments of Professor Hare and Professor Crookes have long since
settled the questions which they now propose to take up, and when,
over forty years ago, I published in my JOURNAL OF MAN the
incontestable facts then established, and gave their rationale, the
psychic researchers of to-day were as ignorant as sucking babes of the
whole subject. This ignorance is the very _raison d'etre_ of the
society. They don't know if there is anything to be discovered, and
they propose to look out. Their failure so far is considered by
Colonel Higginson a proof of their superior wisdom, which means that
they are looking for a mare's nest, and have shown their wisdom by not
finding it!

Let those who are seeking to enter the freshman class in psychic
science assume a little appearance of modesty, and not attempt to set
themselves above the old graduates and professors of the university,
at which they have heretofore been throwing stones like an
unrestrained mob. This is plain speech, but it is just. Let them begin
their operations by an act of justice--by building a monument to
Professor Hare, the noblest of American scientists, and the object of
their persecution.

"The time has come," says our lady critic, "for mystery to work hand
in hand with scientific study or to lay aside its claims to scientific
respect." Very true, very true, indeed, except your chronology; the
time has long since gone by. Science has grappled with mystery long
since. I can point out, if you wish to see it, the very anatomical
structures, the special fibres in connection with which the spiritual
phenomena are developed. The _modus operandi_ is understood, and the
facts have been known some thirty, some a hundred, some several
thousand years. Among advanced thinkers psychic science is no more a
debatable question than the rotundity of the earth or the principles
of astronomy.

Finally, dear, eloquent lady, your exhortations in behalf of honesty
are very admirable, indeed, and would be much more admirable if the
exhortation itself were more fair and honest--if you did not seem to
sprinkle the reproach of dishonesty over multitudes of honest people
more gifted than yourself, with the power to find and clasp the
holiest truths. If the inferior and less honorable class of mediums
are now before the public, why is it? It is due solely, dear lady, to
such people as yourself and your psychic society men, and "fellows of
a baser sort," who follow your lead--to those whose censorious and
sometimes scurrilous hostility against spiritual phenomena has driven
into retirement or kept in concealment the most beautiful and holy
phenomena that were ever known on earth. Angels do not confront the
hissing mob. But their visits to-day are neither few nor far between.
In every bower of perfect spiritual purity they come. Let but this
brutal opposition of men and fluent scorn of women cease, and the
universal air will be fragrant as the spiritual beauty now hidden
shall become a part of our social life, and even the fastidious Miss
Phelps will be satisfied and delighted.

[NOTE.--Miss Phelps, if she had due respect for her grandfather, the
Rev. Dr. Phelps of Stratford, Conn., ought to be an earnest champion
of spiritualism, for it was at his house that the most wonderful
phenomena were realized, when invisible spirits carried on their
pranks with the furniture like human beings. Dr. Phelps was a thorough
spiritualist, and introduced the spiritual doctrine into his sermons,
though exercising the worldly wisdom of not using the word
_spiritualism_.]



SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA.


ABRAM JAMES--MAN AND MEDIUM.

It was in the summer of 1863 that I first met this marvelous medium,
one of the very best in the way of intellectual development that I
ever saw. James was born in Pennsylvania, of Quaker parentage. He
inherited the simplicity, candor, and truthfulness of the sect. He had
absolutely no guile in his nature. He had had but six months' common
school education, but, possessing considerable natural ability, he had
to some degree remedied his deficiencies in this particular. He wrote
a fair hand, spelled well and conversed with some facility on ordinary
topics, but was absolutely ignorant of any language but his native
English, and had no knowledge whatever of scientific subjects; this I
know to be a fact. James was above the medium height, very thin and
spare, blonde complexion, light hair and blue eyes--a natural negative
organization. When I first made his acquaintance he was employed in
the yards of one of the railroad companies in Chicago, making up
trains, or some employment of that character.

Of James's original development as a medium I know nothing, as I first
knew him in his abnormal character, in which he was truly marvelous,
being perfectly familiar with all languages, living and dead, and with
all subjects--religion, science, philosophy, and ethics.

I have heard this man speak and deliver long discourses in German,
Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, Greek, and other tongues which I did
not know. I have taken scholarly linguists in his presence and to them
he demonstrated that he spoke in foreign tongues.

I have heard him deliver lectures on a great variety of scientific
subjects,--on political economy, theology, and natural philosophy. His
thought and method of treatment were of the very highest types of
intellectual ability. Of course James did not profess to do this of
himself; he was in fact, wholly unconscious of doing anything. When
entranced, the controlling spirit would say, for example: "The Baron
von Humboldt will address you this afternoon on the Cosmos." Then in a
discourse or lecture of an hour's duration he would give a condensed
history of the origin and development of the world. I remember on one
occasion he took up the nebular or La Place theory, adopted it as the
true one, and traced the rise and progress of the earth through the
evolution of matter to its present condition, in a most comprehensive
and masterly manner. At another time it was said: "John Quincy Adams
will speak to you to-day on the political condition of your country,"
and with all the grace, dignity, and eloquence of the famous old
Senator from Massachusetts when addressing the Senate of the United
States, this medium delivered a speech of which Adams himself would
not have been ashamed. It was in the war times, and fully embodied the
sentiments which we know were predominant in Mr. Adams's mind--the
permanency of the Union and liberty for the slave. It was before the
emancipation proclamation, but the speaker assured his hearers that
the day was close at hand when the oppressed and abused slave should
walk out in freedom before all the world.

I remember one very remarkable occurrence. James was entranced by the
spirit of Michael Angelo, and a lady medium present was controlled by
Raphael, and these two, partly in Italian and partly in English,
discoursed upon art, painting, architecture, and sculpture in a manner
calculated to produce a lasting impression upon the minds of those who
were so fortunate as to be witnesses of the scene. The spirits were
evidently fearful of losing control of the medium, and in their hasty
desire to speak constantly interrupted each other, but they referred
to the great works in which they had been engaged while on the earth,
and the monuments they had left behind them. I remember Raphael
particularly speaking of his last great painting of the
Transfiguration, which he declared he had left in an unfinished
condition in Rome, and which he desired to complete if he only had the
opportunity. I regret that I am not able at this distant time to give
full details of these, their marvelous revelations. I had shorthand
notes taken which were afterwards written out, but unfortunately they
were all destroyed in the great Chicago fire, in 1871.

James was also a drawing medium, and as such he executed many fine
pictures. His method of work in this direction was quite beyond the
capacity of any human being. He operated with six pencils, three in
each hand, each pencil doing a separate part of the work at the same
time; the consequent rapidity of execution was something wonderful.
James once drew a colossal picture of Lincoln, which measured seven
and one half feet in length. The sheet of paper was laid upon the
floor, and upon it, without any outline or measurements, he first made
an eye, and then in its proper relative position a boot. When the
outlines were completed, these came into their proper places. The
picture was a fair likeness of Lincoln, and represented him in the act
of reading the emancipation proclamation. The pictorial heading of
your paper, with its name in the letters as they now stand,
RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, all finished and complete as it is, was
done by James in the manner above stated. The engraver who reproduced
it has not altered one line or mark; yet this man in his natural
condition could not draw the outline of a barn.

James located the first artesian well which was bored in Chicago. He
declared by his clairvoyant sight that a stream of water could be
found many hundreds of feet beneath the surface. The boring was done
and the water found, and this well was the originator of the numerous
other wells which now supply our parks and factories. James afterward
went to the oil regions of Pennsylvania, where he was successful in
locating productive oil wells. Since 1869, I have lost sight of him,
but wherever he may be he is a marvelous, intellectual medium, and as
honest and truthful as the sunlight.

                GEO. A. SHUFELDT, _Religio-Philosophical Journal_.


MR. EGLINTON'S MEDIUMSHIP.--A correspondent of the _London Medium_
describes an interview with Mr. Eglinton, in which the following
occurred. They are not extraordinary to those familiar with spiritual
facts. I have held a slate in my own hand in the presence of a medium,
and received messages on the slate in which every letter was written
in double marks, as if written with two different colored pencils,
although _no pencil was furnished_ or seen.

    "Three small pieces of writing-pencil--green, red, and
    white--were put upon the perfectly clean school slate, and
    placed under the table as before, with this difference: that
    G.'s left hand held the slate with Mr. Eglinton, his left
    being above the table. The slate was now thoroughly rolled
    about so as to completely displace the pieces of pencil from
    their previous relations. G. asked aloud that 200 might be put
    down in _red_; I called for 69 in _green_; and Mr. Eglinton
    requested that they be added up in _white_. Upon examining the
    slate, this was found correctly executed. I then took a book
    at random from a case containing perhaps 300 or 400 volumes.
    G. wrote down upon the school slate the number of a page, a
    line, and of a word, which she desired to be transcribed. The
    slate was turned over, and I placed the book, which had not
    been opened, across it, resting upon the frame. Under the book
    I placed a morsel of pencil. The slate, with the book upon it,
    was then passed under and pressed against the table-top as
    before. No one but G. was cognizant of what she had written,
    and, of course, as the book was never out of my possession
    from the time I took it from its fellows in the case until it
    was placed with the slate under the table-top, there was no
    possibility of its pages being scanned. The sound of writing
    soon occurred, and upon its ceasing we examined the slate,
    when we found 'P. 7, L. 18, W. 6, Llanwrst.' The other side of
    the slate contained 'P. 7, L. 18, W. 6,' as written by G. I
    now and for the first time opened the book, which was 'The
    Irish Educational Guide and Scholastic Directory,' for 1883
    and 1884, published by John Mara, 17 Crow Street, Dublin; and
    upon turning to page 7, line 18, and word 6, the word there
    printed was 'Llanwrst.'"


SPIRIT WRITING.--The world is full of spiritual phenomena which are
suppressed or concealed in consequence of the prejudices instilled
into all minds by education and perpetuated by the dogmatism of the
college, the pulpit, the press, and the votaries of Mammon. The _St.
Louis Globe_ gives a recent example, as follows:

    "I have known of a great many astonishing things that I can
    account for in no other way than by supposing that they were
    brought about by some influence outside of human agency [said
    a believer in Spiritualism the other day to a St. Louis Globe
    reporter]. I know a lady--a church member--who makes no
    pretensions as a fortune teller, clairvoyant, or medium, and
    who would indignantly resent being called a Spiritualist. This
    lady takes a pencil in her hand and writes rapidly and
    legibly, with her arm extended, without looking at the paper
    or pencil, and gazing in an opposite direction from the work.
    And this is done in a way that shows no control of her arms in
    the operation. She writes answers to questions she could not
    possibly have any knowledge of in a correct and thoroughly
    truthful way. Even when she is separated from the questioner
    by a closed door she readily writes out the correct answer to
    a mental question with no effort of her own. This woman could
    not be induced to do so for any compensation. I have seen all
    the performances of the mediums in the way of musical
    instruments floating around the room in the air, but these are
    open to doubt. In the case of the lady I speak of, all is done
    by daylight without any thought of compensation or notoriety.
    It is a natural endowment, a spiritual control, an unseen
    influence, and a power outside of our ability to account for."



MIND-READING AMUSEMENT.


TO THE EDITOR OF THE TRANSCRIPT:

This amusement may possibly help to attract the indifferent public
toward the higher branches of science, which are so much neglected.
Probably not one in a thousand of those who are attracted to this
subject by curiosity has given any attention to that department of
science to which mind-reading belongs.

Americans are not distinguished for reverence. They often rush into
the consideration and discussion of subjects with which they have no
familiarity, without pausing to learn whether any investigations have
already been made. In matters of mechanical invention attempts are
continually making to achieve what investigation has proved
impossible, and a great deal of labor and money are wasted in finding
by costly experience what is already known, and might have been
learned by an hour's attention to recorded science.

The dabbler in science and invention often fancies himself a
discoverer, asserts his claims, and receives recognition from those
who are still more ignorant of the subject than himself. Under this
head come the performances of Mr. Bishop and other sciolists who are
exercising similar powers with similar success.

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," said Pope; for the sciolist
is continually blundering in the false and superficial theories which
belong to the first stage of investigation, through which the patient
student of nature has made his way to a full understanding of the
subject.

The sympathetic transference of thought from one mind to another, and
the acquisition of knowledge of things either present or remote,
without the aid of the external senses, are phenomena known as far
back as history has any records. Such phenomena are wonderful and
mysterious, but not more so than the generation of animal life or the
appearance of a rainbow in the sky--subjects from which science has
removed much of the mystery.

Trans-corporeal or non-sensual perception has also been investigated,
its laws established, its anatomical and physiological foundation
explained, its range of power determined, its vast powers and
utilities illustrated, and its method of development and culture made
known. But of all this the mind-reading sciolists know nothing and
have not attempted to learn anything. They are attitudinizing on the
outer steps of the temple of science, before the gazing multitude,
instead of penetrating the interior of the temple, where the multitude
do not follow.

The exhibiting mind-readers start with the assumption that matter does
all, and that the ample literature in which the powers of the soul are
recorded, demonstrated, and explained is unworthy of notice. Thus they
place themselves in sympathy with the prevalent ignorance on such
subjects, and the dogmatism of a certain class of scientists.

The dogmatism of this hypothesis cannot be maintained by any careful
and conscientious inquirer, who knows how to conduct an investigation.
When the psychic faculties are well developed, as they certainly are
in Mr. Bishop, the inquirer cannot fail to realize that ideas are
developed by transference in the mind without the slightest
opportunity of being instructed by muscular movements. Hence Mr.
Bishop finally admits the direct transference of thought from mind to
mind; but instead of presenting it boldly as a positive and thousand
times demonstrated act, he still leans upon the letter of Dr.
Carpenter, which represents him as learning the thoughts of others, by
"careful study of the indications unconsciously given by the subject."

He confesses that he once stood upon the strictly material hypothesis,
from which he has advanced to the psychic doctrine he now maintains,
and adds, "Where I am may be only a stopping, not an abiding, place."
Very true; the remark is honorable to his candor. He should advance a
great deal farther; but he would not have stopped at either position
if he had taken pains to learn what was already known and published a
quarter of a century, or even what was known several centuries, before
he began.

If he would even now read Professor Gregory's "Letters on Animal
Magnetism" and the "Manual of Psychometry," published in Boston, he
might make a new departure, might understand the vast extent of his
own powers, which he has not yet developed, and show to those whom he
has already astonished that there is much more in the mysteries of
earth and heaven than their mechanical philosophy has even suspected.

"Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring," was the suggestion of
Pope; and if Mr. Bishop or any of those who have been sipping at this
fountain of knowledge would call upon me (at 6 James Street, Franklin
Square) I would take pleasure in showing them the unsuspected extent
of their own powers, and showing how thoroughly the questions they are
interested in were investigated over forty years ago, to scatter the
mystery and bring the wonderful and almost incredible powers of the
mind into correlation with biology and anatomy.

I might show them, too, that mind-readers are not such extraordinary
persons as they are commonly supposed. There are many millions in the
world who can exercise the class of faculties to which mind-reading
belongs--a class of faculties long neglected by superficial
scientists, from the cultivation of which more may be expected for the
future intellectual progress of mankind than from anything else now
known to the universities.

I mean no disrespect in styling Mr. Bishop a sciolist (or undeveloped
scientist). That very sciolism brought him into sympathy with Dr.
Carpenter and other distinguished gentlemen who would not have
listened to him if he had come in any nobler manner, and enabled him
to open their eyes. Perhaps if he will take another step in advance he
can lead the majority of his pupils to a higher position, and thus
render a signal service to society. I hope he will have the candor and
courage to advance far beyond his present position.

                                              JOS. RODES BUCHANAN.

Since Mr. Bishop's exhibitions have been so successful and profitable,
several others have repeated his performances of telling the number of
a bank note, finding hidden articles, and going through any
performance that was enacted during his absence from the hall. Mr.
Montague, an editor of the _Globe_, Mr. George, Mr. Wilder, and
several others have shown the same powers. A dispatch from St. John,
New Brunswick, to the _Herald_ describes a remarkable performance at
that place as follows:

    "ST. JOHN, N. B., Jan. 17, 1887. In a 'mind reading'
    performance Saturday night, after several examples indoors,
    the 'reader,' a young man who belongs to this city, asked for
    an outdoor test. The party separated, one remaining with the
    reader, and hid a pin in the side of a little house used by
    the switchman of the New Brunswick railway at Mill Street. In
    their travels they went over the new railway trestle, a most
    difficult journey. The reader was blindfolded, and one took
    his wrist, but at the trestle hesitated, fearing to venture,
    and was told by the reader to let go his wrist and place his
    hand on his head. The subject did so, and the reader went upon
    the trestle. Some of the party suggested that the bandage
    should be removed, but he told them not to mind, and, the
    subject again taking his wrist, he went on over the icy and
    snow-covered sleepers. With a firm step he crossed to the long
    wharf, went over as far as the mill gates, then quickly
    turned, retraced his steps and went back to the corner of Mill
    Street. Here he rested a moment, then again took the subject's
    hand, and in less than five minutes afterward found the pin.
    At the conclusion of the test, the reader inquired what the
    matter had been when they first reached the trestle. It was
    easily explained. The storm had covered the sleepers with
    snow, and it was thought dangerous even for a man not
    blindfolded to cross them. The subject felt anxious for the
    reader's safety, and hesitated about going across. The tests
    were most satisfactory."

       *       *       *       *       *

TEMPERANCE.--"There has not been a liquor saloon in Hancock County, W.
Va., for forty years. This accounts for the fact that there is not a
prisoner in the county jail, and the grand jury failed to find a
single indictment."



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.


PIGMIES.--A while ago, says the _Sun_, Mr. Grenfell of the Congo
Mission encountered on the Bosari River, south of the Congo, the Batwa
dwarfs whom Stanley mentions in "The Dark Continent," though Stanley
did not see them. Grenfell says these little people exist over a large
extent of country, their villages being scattered here and there among
other tribes. Wissmann and Pogge also met them a few years ago in
their journey to Nyangwe.

It was long supposed that the story of Herodotus about the pigmies of
Africa was mythical, but within the past twenty years abundant
evidence has accumulated of the existence of a number of tribes of
curious little folks in equatorial Africa. The chief among these
tribes are the Akka, whom Schweinfurth found northwest of Albert
Nyassa; the Obongo, discovered by DuChaillu in west Africa, southwest
of Gaboon; and the Batwa, south of Congo.

These little people range in height from 4 feet 2 inches to about 4
feet 8 inches. They are intellectually as well as physically inferior
to the other tribes of Africa. They are perhaps nearer the brute
kingdom than any other human beings. The Obongo, for instance, wear no
semblance of clothing: make no huts except to bend over and fasten to
the ground the tops of three or four young trees, which they cover
with leaves; possess no arts except the making of bows and arrows, and
do not till the soil. They live on the smaller game of the forest and
on nuts and berries. They regard the leopard, which now and then makes
a meal of one of them, as their deadliest enemy. They live only a few
days or weeks in one place.

When Schweinfurth first met the Akka dwarfs he found himself
surrounded by what he supposed was a crowd of impudent boys. There
were several hundred of them, and he soon found that they were
veritable dwarfs, and that their tribe probably numbered several
thousand souls. One of these dwarfs was taken to Italy a few years
ago, was taught to read, and excited much interest among scientific
men. There are other tribes of dwarfs in Abyssinia and also in
Somaliland.

It is believed that all these people, including the Bushmen of South
Africa, are the remains of an aboriginal population that is now
becoming extinct. In the migrations and subjugations that have been in
progress for many centuries among powerful tribes, the dwarf tribe of
Africa has been scattered, and its isolated fragments are still found
in widely separated parts of the continent.


A HUMAN PHENOMENON.--M. de Quatrefages, the naturalist, has examined a
real phenomenon, a Provençal of thirty, named Simeon Aiguier, who had
been presented by Dr. Trenes. Aiguier, thanks to his peculiar system
of muscles and nerves, can transform himself in most wondrous fashion.
He has very properly dubbed himself "L'Homme-Protee." At one moment,
assuming the rigidity of a statue, his body may be struck sharply, the
blows falling as on a block of stone. At another he moves his
intestines from above and below and right to left into the form of a
large football, and projects it forward, which gives him the
appearance of a colossally stout personage. He then withdraws it into
the thorax opening like a cage, and the hollow look of his body
immediately reminds one of a skeleton. Aiguier successfully imitates a
man subjected to the tortures of the rack, as also a man hanging
himself, and assumes a strikingly cadaveric look. What most astonished
M. de Quatrefages was the stoppage of the circulation of the blood,
now on the left and now on the right side, which was effected by
muscular contraction.--_Boston Transcript_.


SURVIVING SUPERSTITIONS.--The once flourishing and wealthy colony of
German Rappites, or Harmonists, who sold out New Harmony, Indiana, to
old Robert Owen sixty years ago, (where Owen's grand fiasco occurred,)
and removed to Economy, Pa., held their annual festival on the 15th of
February in the usual solemn manner. Father Rapp is dead long ago, and
of the thousand energetic religious and industrious enthusiasts who
have been so prosperous in worldly matters, scarcely fifty remain as
feeble old men, and their pastor, Father Henrici, is over 83 years
old; but the honest and worthy old enthusiasts are still waiting for
the personal coming of Christ, who, they believe, is to come before
their society dies out, establish his kingdom with his throne on Mount
Sinai, and judge and rule the world. They believe that their beloved
Father Henrici will never die, but will lead them to the presence of
their Divine Master on Mount Sinai; and he proposes to lead them to
Palestine, when they have signs of the Lord's approach, that they may
be ready to meet him.

There is a solemn beauty and grandeur in these weird old superstitions
of good people; but, alas! the Rappites must soon pass away, as the
Girlingites have expired in England, when Mother Girling could not be
immortal.


A SPIRITUAL TEST OF DEATH.--John R. Fowler, an old steamboat man, who
died at Louisville, in January, 1887, made his wife promise to keep
his body three days to see if he would not recover consciousness. On
the third day after his death, the doctor and coroner pronounced him
dead, but his wife sent for a medium, and through her the deceased
husband stated that he was dead, and the happiness of spirit life was
so great that he had no desire to return, but would wait patiently
until his wife joined him.

The most perfect test of death is by Faradic electricity. As a general
rule, three hours after death, the muscles entirely fail to respond to
the Faradic current. When the muscles cannot be affected, death is
established.


A JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.--The community at large is interested
in a new movement to establish in this city a Jewish theological
seminary. The objects of investigation contemplated by the projected
institution are the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, the part
played by the Jews in ancient, mediæval, and modern history, and the
influence exerted upon thought and research by Jewish philosophers.
The current knowledge of these subjects is almost wholly derived from
the conclusions and opinions of non-Jewish inquirers, and may
therefore be presumed to be more or less affected by prejudice. A rôle
of such capital importance in civilization as that of the Hebrew
people ought to be examined from all sides, and the friends of truth
will welcome a systematic study of it from the Hebrew point of
view.--_N. Y. Sun_.


NATIONAL DEATH RATES.--In France, 48 per cent of the deaths are of
persons over fifty years of age; and what is more remarkable, 25 per
cent are of persons over seventy years of age. The French present the
best showing, except, perhaps, the Irish, of any nation as regards
long life. Only about 26 per cent of their deaths are of children
under five years. About 6 per cent only are of persons from five to
twenty years.

No nation of Europe is supposed to be more oblivious of sanitary
science than the Irish, and yet a far greater percentage of the people
of Ireland than of any other people, except the French, live to and
beyond the age of seventy years. Nearly five in 100 of the deaths are
of persons over eighty-five years of age! Only about 35 per cent of
the deaths are of persons under twenty years of age. About 42 per cent
of the deaths are of persons over fifty-five years. One half almost of
the deaths are of persons over forty-five years. In England and Wales
only 33 per cent of the deaths are of persons over forty-five years,
while in the United States only 30 per cent are of persons over forty
years of age.--T. S. Sozinksey, M. D., in _Scientific American_.


RELIGIOUS MEDIÆVALISM IN AMERICA.--Twelve miles from Dubuque, Ia.,
there stands in grim isolation, upon a blackened and desolate prairie,
a monastery of the fifteenth century pattern. Every morning at 2
o'clock the monks who occupy this lugubrious dwelling-place arise from
the hard planks which serve them in lieu of beds, and pray in wooden
stalls, so constructed as to compel them either to stand or kneel.
Their devotions completed, the next duty is for each to go into the
yard and dig a part of his own grave, and when they have it once
completed, they fill it up again, and repeat the operation
indefinitely throughout their lives. They are not permitted to speak
to each other except by special dispensation, which is very rarely
given except at the close of a meal, when each one says to the other
"Memento mori"--remember that you are to die. The system resembles, in
all essential respects, that of the Indian fakirs and other religious
enthusiasts who believe that the only way to please God is to make
one's self as miserable as possible.--_Herald_.


BUDDHISM IN AMERICA.--A high caste Brahmin, Mohini Mohun Chatterjee,
has arrived in the United States at New York, who has been teaching in
England and on the continent. He has the approval of the brotherhood
in Thibet, and has a high intellectual reputation. The JOURNAL will
endeavor to discuss this subject hereafter. Buddhism is much nearer
than Christianity to modern agnosticism, but it embodies fine moral
teaching, and is free from intolerance. Mohini represents, it is said,
"that his visit to this country is simply in the capacity of an agent,
sent by the divine Mahatmas to enlighten a materialistic barbarism
with the spiritual wisdom--religion of the East. He represents a
movement which has for its object the uniting of the East and West in
the acceptance of a universal faith. An attempt was at first made to
interest people in the subject by laying some stress upon the minor
phenomena of occult science. Unfortunately, such wonders attracted
disciples who cared more for thaumaturgy than for doctrine, and these
fell away as soon as they discovered that the object in view was not
the production of marvels. The new world has riches, and the old world
has ideas. It would be to the advantage of both if an exchange could
be effected. The Asiatic philosophers teach that all religions are the
expressions of the Eternal Verity. Life is ephemeral, they say, its
chief value consisting in the opportunities it affords of doing good
and making others happy."


CRANIOLOGY AND CRIME.--The _British Medical Journal_ presents at some
length the results arrived at by Prof. Benedict, in his examination of
the brains of criminals--some sixteen in all. Every one of these, in
comparison with the healthy brain, proved to be abnormal. Not only,
too, has he found that these brains deviate from the normal type, and
approach that of lower animals, but he has been able to classify them,
and with them the skulls in which they were contained, in three
categories.

First, absence of symmetry between the two halves of the brain;
Second, an obliquity of the interior part of the brain or skull--in
fact, a continuation upward of what is usually termed a sloping
forehead; third, a distinct lessening of the posterior cerebral lobes,
so that, as in the lower animals, they are not large enough to hide
the cerebellum. In all these peculiarities, the criminal's brain and
skull are distinctly of a lower type than those of normal men.

That a diminution of the posterior lobes should be recognized as a
mark of inferiority, does not harmonize with the old ideas of
phrenology. Nevertheless, it is true that a good development of the
posterior part of the brain is essential to the superiority of man
over animals.


MORPHIOMANIA IN FRANCE.--In the course of the last few years the
disease which the doctors call morphiomania has made formidable
headway all over France. In the capital its victims almost rival those
of alcoholism. At Bellevue a great hospital has been opened for the
care, and, if possible, for the cure of these patients. The disease in
its present form is necessarily but of recent origin. Morphia itself
was only discovered in the year 1816. The cure of it is very rare. It
is found that both the use and the deprivation of the drug lead the
victims almost inevitably to suicide, and at Bellevue there are
cushioned rooms for some of the patients and a constant watch kept on
all. One is not surprised to hear that the chief sufferers are women.
After women come doctors. Very many Parisian women carry about with
them a small ivory syringe. In this delicate toy is contained morphia,
and it may often be remarked how ladies at convenient opportunities
take out this little trinket and give themselves a prick in the arm or
wrist with it. But ere long these little pricks no longer suffice to
stimulate the nerves of the votaries of the habit--the dose is too
small. Then it is necessary to have recourse to recently established
morphine institutes, where old women, under the name of
"morphineuses," carry on their profession, and give the Parisian dames
pricks in the arm and breast, according to all the rules of the art.


MONTANA BACHELORS.--There are no less than 30,000 bachelors in
Montana, and every single one of them is in need of and anxious to get
a wife, writes a correspondent of the _New York Times_. These
entertaining young fellows and would-be benedicts have no time to go
courting themselves, and so, much of that thing is done by proxy. They
are entirely too busy amassing fortunes, either at sheep herding,
cattle growing, or mining, in which at least fifty per cent of them
are bound to become millionaires sooner or later. There is the
greatest possible need in Montana for young girls and maidens, old
women, and old maids, too, for that matter, each and every one of whom
would fill a long-felt want. Domestics are in high demand. As servant
girls they can command wages here that would give them comfortable
competences in a short time, with very little offered in return. But
the trouble with the girls who come out in this way looking for a job
is that none of them remain in service for any length of time. They
are soon gobbled up by young fellows in search of a wife.


RELIEF FOR CHILDREN.--A very beneficent action is now required by law
in Germany and Switzerland, by which holidays are obligatory in all
public and private schools when the temperature reaches a certain
height. These heat-holidays are called _hitzlenien_, and are worthy of
adoption in other schools. In Basle new regulations have just been
issued concerning heat-holidays. When the temperature rises to
seventy-seven degrees in the shade at ten o'clock in the morning,
holiday is to be proclaimed to the scholars until the afternoon. Two
such holidays were proclaimed during a recent hot week, to the no
small delight of the boys and girls. It would be equally beneficent to
dismiss the schools whenever, for any reason, the temperature of the
schoolroom could not be kept up to sixty-five degrees.


"THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE."--The atrocities of landlordism in Ireland,
evicting the poor in midwinter, tearing down their cabins, and burning
their roofs to drive them out, have excited horror in England, and
sympathy for the Irish.


CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.--The Rev. Mr. Harris has expressed the opinion
that in ten or twenty years Christianity might become the national
religion of Japan, as the heathen temples are going into decay. If it
does, Christianity will be as much benefited by it as the Japanese.
The cast iron theology of the Anglo-Saxon race will not suit the
Japanese. The works of agnostic scientists and liberals have already a
strong hold on the Japanese. The Christianity of the past will have to
be reformed and ameliorated to suit Japan. They will never appreciate
the theology of the Andover creed, which has been versified as follows
by _Puck_:

  "There is a place of endless terror
  Prepared for those who fall in error,
  Where fire and death and torture never
  Cease their work, but rule forever;
  To this dark cave, for Adam's sin,
  Must all his children enter in.
  But the all-merciful Creator
  Took pity on the fallen traitor,
  Prepared a narrow path of pardon
  That led to heaven's happy garden;
  And, lest mankind prefer to sin,
  _Predestined some_ to walk therein.
  But millions still in error languish,
  Doomed to death and future anguish,
  Who ne'er had heard of Adam's sin,
  Nor of the peril they are in;
  Who know not of the way of pardon,
  Nor of the fall in Eden's garden.

  "This, my friends, is the Andover creed;
  Put it aside for the time of need!
  In the hour of grief and sorrow
  From it consolation borrow;
  When your dearest friends are dying,
  Read it to the mourners crying;
  Teach it to the tender maiden,
  To the man with sorrow laden;
  Teach it to the timid child,
  Watch its look of horror wild,
  Note the half-defiant fear,
  Flushing cheek and pitying tear;
  Teach it to the broken hearted,
  From their loved ones newly parted;
  Show them that their pride and beauty--
  Type of love and filial duty--
  This, their darling, whom they cherished,
  Has in hell forever perished,
  All because of Adam's folly!
  'Twill drive away your melancholy.
  A wonderful thing is the Andover creed,
  Put it aside for the hour of need!"


THE HELLFIRE BUSINESS.--This expression is homely English, and such
language is best in describing _horrible realities_. The managers of
the American Board (sturdy champions of hell) have been compelled by
public opinion to let Mr. Hume go back to India as a missionary,
though he will not agree to send all the heathen to hell. To keep up
their dignity, however, they represented Mr. Hume as having backed
down, and compelled him to show that he had not. Since passing Mr.
Hume they have refused to allow Mr. Morse to go on the same terms,
because he will not insist on the absolute _certainty_ that the
heathen are all in hell. The _Boston Herald_ says the Board's moral
obliquity is a puzzle to honest people.


REV. SAM JONES AND BOSTON THEOLOGY.--The _Herald_ says: "Brother Sam
Jones and Brother Sam Small do chiefly limit themselves to the simple
things of the gospel, and have less theology to the square inch than
the average of ministers, as Brother Sam Jones would express it. But
they are hardly fitted for this field, we should say."

Perhaps the following extracts from Rev. Samuel's sermons explain his
relations to Boston. Before an audience of 7,500 he said, "There are
100,000 people in twenty different states praying that I may succeed
in arousing Boston to a sense of her moral and spiritual degradation.

    "I love to live in the world, but not to be troubled with
    creeds. I know I am on dangerous ground here in Boston when I
    am on creeds, for a fellow could get up a fight here on that
    question quicker than he could on stealing."

    "Whiskey is the worst enemy God or man ever had, and the best
    friend the devil ever had."

    "We have got sentiment enough to put whiskey out of Boston."

    "You have enough church members in Boston to vote the whiskey
    out of Boston any morning before breakfast."

    "It is every preacher's duty to denounce the things of hell
    just as much as it is to preach the beauty of Christ."

    "I know you denounce drunkenness, but how few pulpits pull out
    their dagger and stab it."

    "God has not lost his power, but the pulpit has lost its
    voice."

    "Boston had a fire once, but that does not hurt you half as
    much as the fire of damnation that is smouldering in the
    hearts of people of this town."

    "I don't know what will become of my converts if I leave them
    in Boston."

The greatest religious work that has been done in Boston, is that of
Jones and Small. Every hall they occupied was crowded, and at mid-day
in the week they filled Fanueil Hall.


PSYCHOMETRY.--The entire pages of the JOURNAL OF MAN would be
insufficient for the presentation which this subject demands, and for
the present readers must be content with the "Manual of Psychometry."
The article designed for this number must be postponed until April,
after which it will receive more attention.


THE AMERICAN PSYCHICAL SOCIETY, poor thing, is in a bad way. It needs
nourishment, warmth, and interested attention, to prevent it from
dying of a compilation of infantile maladies which arise from bad
nursing. The chief nurse, Professor Newcomb (president), gave the
bantling an _ice-bath_ in January (his presidential address), and this
practically puts the thing in its coffin. We have never had high
anticipations of the usefulness or continued existence of this
organization. It is a queer proceeding to throw a new-born baby on a
rubbish-heap, and leave it there, while its parents walk around _on
stilts_ to look at it. The British society is glowing with warmth
compared with the state of its American cousin. It is clear that the
psychical knowledge which the society desires to obtain will never
come to it under its present management; indeed, we are inclined to
think no society under any management can obtain satisfactory
knowledge of the kind which is sought. It must be obtained in
_private_, under conditions far different from any which can be
secured in organizations, where men act together with diverse views
and opinions.--_Pop. Sci. News_.


PROGRESS OF SPIRITUALISM.--In all European countries, Spiritualism is
making rapid progress. In England, the eloquent and distinguished
lecturer, Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, says in a recent letter to the
_London Medium_ that "Spiritualism in England is not only on the
increase, but has already take too deep and earnest a hold of the
public heart, up here in the north, to be uprooted by imbecile
antagonism, or even marred by the petty shams of imposture. In places
where I have been told it was recently difficult to collect together a
score of people to listen to spiritual lectures, the largest halls are
often found insufficient to accommodate my Sunday evening audiences,
and the spoken blessings and thanks that follow me, as well as the
floods of inquiring letters that besiege me, bear ample testimony to
the fact, that the seed sown has not all fallen on stony places."

Its progress is rapid in Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, and Russia,
and is steadily onward in France and Germany. On our Pacific Coast,
the _Golden Gate_ says, "it is advancing with grand strides." In the
Eastern States it is obtaining a much needed purification by
discussing the genuineness of the phenomena.


THE FOLLY OF COMPETITION.--We live under a ruinous system of
_competition_ instead of _co-operation_, in which the weakest sink
into poverty, beggary, disease, crime, and suicide. Every day the
horrors of our social system are recognized and commented on, but how
little is done, and how little thought for its amendment. According to
_Bradstreet_, during the first six weeks of this year the loss of
wages by strikers has amounted to _three millions of dollars_. This
damage falls on those who cannot afford it, the most of whom find
themselves in a worse and more hopeless condition in consequence of
the strike, if not entirely out of employment. It has been a matter of
comparatively little importance to the parties against whom the
strikes were made. The JOURNAL will pay some attention to the remedial
measures which are being introduced.


INSANITIES OF WAR.--Senator Vest recently stated to the Senate that
"there was not in the history of the civilized world a page of
maladministration equal to that of the Navy Department of the United
States since 1865.... There had been expended for naval purposes since
the close of the war over $419,000,000." Query: How much over
$5,000,000 would it all bring if sold out to-day? Would it bring that
much?


THE SINALOA COLONY has had too great an influx already, and Mr. Owen
positively prohibits any more arrivals. If any more come they will not
be received until due preparation has been made. The colony has a
splendid harbor in a delightful climate, and large tracts of fertile
land, capable of producing everything belonging to semi-tropical and
temperate climates.

Other attempts by societies to solve the great social question are
beginning. A society with the same objects and principles as the
Sinaloa colony is now organizing to found a colony in Florida on the
margin of a beautiful harbor.

Another scheme has been proposed by a company of Chicago Knights of
Labor, who "have gone to Tennessee to found a co-operative colony. The
purpose is the establishment of a manufacturing community in which the
rule shall be 'eight hours and fair wages,' and the spot chosen is
represented as a salubrious table land of 120,000 acres, 2,000 feet
above sea level, abounding in iron, timber, and limestone. Here it is
intended to set up an iron furnace, a nail factory, and the sash,
door, and blind industry, to build 200 houses within 30 days, put up a
city hall, public school and engine house at once, and secure
incorporation as a city within two weeks. They have begun to sell
choice locations at $7 to $10 per acre."


MEDICAL DESPOTISM. The bill which has been introduced into the Rhode
Island Legislature for the suppression of independent physicians by
confining all practice to those licensed by a medical board, is so
great an outrage on common sense and justice, that it meets with
strenuous opposition. The editor of the JOURNAL made an address in
opposition to the bill in the hall of the House of Representatives on
the sixteenth of February, occupying about an hour and a half, showing
that the proposed legislation was more despotic and unjust than the
laws under European despotisms. The _Providence Star_, in reporting
the address, spoke of it as the most eloquent ever delivered in the
House on any subject.


"MIND IN NATURE," the best monthly publication of its kind in the
world and the nearest approach in its character to the JOURNAL OF MAN,
has just expired at Chicago after issuing two volumes. A few bound
copies may be obtained at $1.25 per single volume, or $2.25 for two
volumes, by addressing the editor, J. E. Woodhead, Chicago.



PHYSIOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN THE COLLEGE OF THERAPEUTICS.


The resolutions of my most recent class in Boston are the same in
spirit as have been expressed during forty years, and will no doubt be
expressed again by my students in May, 1887. They not only know the
truth of the science but recognize sarcognomy as "the most important
addition ever made to physiological science by any individual," and
their testimony was based on their own personal experience. To the
students of sarcognomy this is a familiar idea, but to others some
explanation may be necessary.

What are the greatest discoveries in physiology? Common opinion would
mention as the foremost the action of the heart in circulating the
blood,--a discovery not originated but consummated by Harvey; and yet
the discovery is of so simple and obvious a nature that we wonder now,
not so much at the ability manifested in the discovery, as at the
stupidity which permitted it to remain so long unknown, and even to be
denied and ridiculed when published. Harvey's work on the generation
of animals entitled him to a higher rank as a pioneer in science than
his theory of the circulation.

A far greater discovery was that of Dr. Gall, which embraced not only
the anatomy but the functions of the brain as a mental organ--a
discovery twenty times as great, whether we consider the superior
importance of the brain, or the greater investigating genius necessary
to the discovery. It easily ranks at the head of the physiological
discoveries of the past centuries.

Next comes the discovery of the motor and sensory roots of the spinal
nerves by Majendie and Bell, which did not, as commonly supposed,
include the motor and sensory of the spinal cord. This was a small
discovery compared to Gall's, but not inferior to Harvey's discovery
of the cardiac function.

A fourth discovery, perhaps of equal rank, was the discovery by
Harvey's contemporary, Aselli, of the lacteals that absorb the chyle.

A fifth discovery or discoveries of importance was that of the
corpuscles of the blood, and the Malpighian bodies of the kidneys, by
Malpighi.

A sixth discovery, considered more important and occupying a larger
space in medical literature, is the cell doctrine of Schwann, a
doctrine still under discussion and by no means a finality.

Anatomical science has few first class discoveries. Anatomy has been a
growth of observation and description--not discovery. Vesalius and
Eustachius may be considered the fathers of modern anatomy, and the
name of the latter is immortalized by the Eustachian tube, which he
first recognized and described. But the Fallopian tubes, named after
Fallopius, were not his discovery. They had been described long before
by Herophilus and others. Eustachius was nearly two centuries ahead of
his age in anatomy, and should be gratefully remembered as a
struggling scientist. His valuable anatomical works, which he was too
poor to publish, were published one hundred and forty years after his
death, by Lancisi.

From this brief glance at the discoveries of Eustachius, Harvey,
Aselli, Malpighi, Gall, Majendie, and Schwann, it is apparent that but
one physiological discovery on record is sufficiently important in its
nature and scope to be compared with sarcognomy, which comprehends the
relations of soul, brain, and body. What is their relative value?
Gall's discovery embraced about one half of the psychic functions of
the brain, with nothing of its physiological functions. Sarcognomy, on
the contrary, embraces the entire mass of cerebral functions to
connect them with corresponding functions in the body. It presents in
one complete view the psychic powers in the soul operating in the
brain, and extending their influence into the body; and on the other
hand, the physiological powers of the body, operating through the
brain, and by definite, intelligible laws acting upon the soul--a vast
system of science, based on anatomical facts, but evolved by
experiment, to which no single volume could do justice. Its medical
applications alone, concisely presented in thirty lectures, would make
a volume of four hundred pages.

It is not, like the phrenological system of Gall, a mental doctrine
only, but, combining psychology, physiology, and pathology, goes to
the foundations of medical science, of health, disease, and cure, as
well as the foundations of all spiritual science, and originates new
systems of magnetic and electric practice. It is manifest, therefore,
that no biological discovery now on record occupies more than a
fraction of the vast area occupied by Sarcognomy, and being a
demonstrated science, in the opinion of all who are acquainted with
it, it needs only sufficient time to circulate the works upon the
subject now in preparation (the first edition of "Therapeutic
Sarcognomy" having been speedily exhausted), and sufficient time to
overcome the mental inertia and moral torpor that hinder all progress,
and even war against the million times repeated facts of spiritual
science. The warfare against all new truth will be continued until the
people demand that our colleges, the castles of antiquated error,
shall conform to the spirit of progressive science.



BUSINESS DEPARTMENT.


The BUSINESS DEPARTMENT of the Journal deserves the attention of all
its readers, as it will be devoted to matters of general interest and
real value. The treatment of the opium habit by Dr. Hoffman is
original and successful. Dr. Hoffman is one of the most gifted members
of the medical profession. The electric apparatus of D. H. Fitch is
that which I have found the most useful and satisfactory in my own
practice. Bovinine I regard as occupying the first rank among the food
remedies which are now so extensively used. The old drug house of B.
O. & G. C. Wilson needs no commendation; it is the house upon which I
chiefly rely for good medicines, and does a very large business with
skill and fidelity. The _American Spectator_, edited by Dr. B. O.
Flower, is conducted with ability and good taste, making an
interesting family paper, containing valuable hygienic and medical
instruction, at a remarkably low price. It is destined to have a very
extensive circulation. I have written several essays in commendation
of the treatment of disease by oxygen gas, and its three compounds,
nitrous oxide, per-oxide and ozone. What is needed for its general
introduction is a convenient portable apparatus. This is now furnished
by Dr. B. M. Lawrence, at Hartford, Connecticut. A line addressed to
him will procure the necessary information in his pamphlet on that
subject. He can be consulted free of charge.


Dr. W. F. Richardson of 875 Washington Street is one of the most
successful practitioners we have, as any one will realize who employs
him. Without specifying his numerous cases I would merely mention that
he has recently cured in a single treatment an obstinate case of
chronic disease which had baffled the best physicians of Boston and
Lowell.


Dr. K. MEYENBERG, who is the Boston agent for Oxygen Treatment, is a
most honorable, modest, and unselfish gentleman, whose superior
natural powers as a magnetic healer have been demonstrated during
eighteen years' practice in Washington City. Some of his cures have
been truly marvelous. He has recently located in Boston as a magnetic
physician.

       *       *       *       *       *


College of Therapeutics.

The large amount of scientific and therapeutic knowledge developed by
recent discoveries, but not yet admitted into the slow-moving medical
colleges, renders it important to all young men of liberal minds--to
all who aim at the highest rank in their profession--to all who are
strictly conscientious and faithful in the discharge of their duties
to patients under their care, to have an institution in which their
education can be completed by a preliminary or a post-graduate course
of instruction.

The amount of practically useful knowledge of the healing art which is
absolutely excluded from the curriculum of old style medical colleges
is greater than all they teach--not greater than the adjunct sciences
and learning of a medical course which burden the mind to the
exclusion of much useful therapeutic knowledge, but greater than all
the curative resources embodied in their instruction.

The most important of these therapeutic resources which have sometimes
been partially applied by untrained persons are now presented in the
College of Therapeutics, in which is taught not the knowledge which is
now represented by the degree of M. D., but a more profound knowledge
which gives its pupils immense advantages over the common graduate in
medicine.

Therapeutic Sarcognomy, a science often demonstrated and endorsed by
able physicians, gives the anatomy not of the physical structure, but
of the vital forces of the body and soul as located in every portion
of the constitution--a science vastly more important than physical
anatomy, as the anatomy of life is more important than the anatomy of
death. Sarcognomy is the true basis of medical practice, while anatomy
is the basis only of operative surgery and obstetrics.

Indeed, every magnetic or electric practitioner ought to attend such a
course of instruction to become entirely skilful in the correct
treatment of disease.

In addition to the above instruction, special attention will be given
to the science and art of Psychometry--the most important addition in
modern times to the practice of medicine, as it gives the physician
the most perfect diagnosis of disease that is attainable, and the
power of extending his practice successfully to patients at any
distance. The methods of treatment used by spiritual mediums and "mind
cure" practitioners will also be philosophically explained.

The course of instruction will begin on Monday, the 2d of May, and
continue six weeks. The fee for attendance on the course will be $25.
To students who have attended heretofore the fee will be $15. For
further information address the president,

        JOSEPH RODES BUCHANAN, M. D.
                6 JAMES ST., BOSTON.

The sentiments of those who have attended these courses of instruction
during the last eight years were concisely expressed in the following
statement, which was unanimously signed and presented to Dr. Buchanan
by those attending his last course in Boston.

"The undersigned, attendant upon the seventh session of the College of
Therapeutics, have been delighted with the profound and wonderful
instructions received, and as it is the duty of all who become
acquainted with new truths of great importance to the world, to assist
in their diffusion, we offer our free and grateful testimony in the
following resolutions:

"_Resolved_, That the lectures and experiments of Prof. Buchanan have
not only clearly taught, but absolutely demonstrated, the science of
Sarcognomy, by experiments in which we were personally engaged, and in
which we cannot possibly have been mistaken.

"_Resolved_, That we regard Sarcognomy as the most important addition
ever made to physiological science by any individual, and as the basis
of the only possible scientific system of Electro-Therapeutics, the
system which we have seen demonstrated in all its details by Prof.
Buchanan, producing results which we could not have believed without
witnessing the demonstration.

"_Resolved_, That Therapeutic Sarcognomy is a system of science of the
highest importance, alike to the magnetic healer, to the
electro-therapeutist, and to the medical practitioner,--giving great
advantages to those who thoroughly understand it, and destined to
carry the fame of its discoverer to the remotest future ages."


       *       *       *       *       *

            The "Chlorine" Galvanic and Faradic Batteries.

                       APPARATUS AND MATERIALS.

  Description, Prices, and Testimonials Mailed Free, on Application.


                     6 JAMES ST., BOSTON, MASS., February 8, 1886.

D. H. FITCH, Cazenovia, N. Y.:

DEAR SIR: Your last letter has a valuable suggestion. Your
Carbon Electrodes ARE the very best now in use, and Metallic
Electrodes are objectionable from the metallic influence they impart,
even if no metal can be chemically traced into the patient.

                                             J. R. BUCHANAN, M. D.


                                      AURORA, ILL., Dec. 24, 1886.

D. H. FITCH, Cazenovia, N. Y.:

I am very glad to inform you that the battery which I purchased from
you seven months ago is better than you represented it, and works as
well to-day as it did on the first day.

The cells have not been looked at since they were first placed in the
cabinet. The battery is always ready and has never disappointed me.

                                           Resp'y yours,
                                                H. G. GABEL, M. D.


                                  WORCESTER, MASS., Aug. 10, 1886.

D. H. FITCH, Cazenovia, N. Y.:

DEAR SIR: Over a year ago, as you will remember, I bought of
you one of your "Chlorine Batteries" of twenty-five cells. This I
placed in the cellar and connected with my office table for use there.
It has been in almost daily use since without ever having to do the
first thing to it, not even refilling, and now, after a year's
service, I cannot see but that it runs just as well as it did the
first day I used it, and the battery is just as clean as when put in,
nor the least particle of corroding. This is a better record than any
other battery can furnish with which I am acquainted. I can only say I
am more than pleased with it, as every man must be who knows anything
about electricity and has occasion to use a battery for medicinal
purposes.

                                               J. K. WARREN, M. D.


                                WHITESTOWN, N. Y., April 15, 1886.

D. H. FITCH, ESQ.:

DEAR SIR: The "Chlorine Battery" is simply admirable, complete, just
the thing.

                                                SMITH BAKER, M. D.
                                President Oneida Co. Med. Society.


                                       TYLER, TEX., Feb. 11, 1886.

D. H. FITCH, ESQ., Cazenovia, N. Y.:

I am so well pleased with your "Chlorine Faradic Machine" that I now
use it in preference to any other. The current is so smooth and
regular that patients like it and seem to derive more benefit from it
than from the same strength of current from any other battery that I
have used. I would not be without it for many times its cost.

                                              S. F. STARLEY, M. D.


                             D. H. FITCH,

                P.O. Box 75.         Cazenovia, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

                    Religio-Philosophical Journal.

                          ESTABLISHED 1865.

                         PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT

                     92 La Salle Street, Chicago,

                          BY JOHN C. BUNDY,

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION IN ADVANCE:

One copy, one year   $2.50

Single copies, 5 cents. Specimen copy free.

All letters and communications should be addressed, and all
remittances made payable to

                     JOHN C. BUNDY, Chicago, Ill.

A Paper for all who Sincerely and Intelligently Seek Truth without
regard to Sect or Party.

Press, Pulpit, and People Proclaim its Merits.

_Concurrent Commendations from Widely Opposite Sources._

Is the ablest Spiritualist paper in America.... Mr. Bundy has earned
the respect of all lovers of the truth, by his sincerity and
courage.--_Boston Evening Transcript._

I have a most thorough respect for the JOURNAL, and believe its editor
and proprietor is disposed to treat the whole subject of spiritualism
fairly.--_Rev. M. J. Savage (Unitarian) Boston._

I wish you the fullest success in your courageous course.--_R. Heber
Newton, D. D._

Your course has made spiritualism respected by the secular press as it
never has been before, and compelled an honorable
recognition.--_Hudson Tuttle, Author and Lecturer._

I read your paper every week with great interest.--_H. W. Thomas, D. D.,
Chicago._

I congratulate you on the management of the paper.... I indorse your
position as to the investigation of the phenomena.--_Samuel Watson, D. D.,
Memphis, Tenn._

       *       *       *       *       *


                          W. F. RICHARDSON,

                         MAGNETIC PHYSICIAN,

                    875 Washington Street, Boston.

Having had several years' practice, in which his powers as a healer
have been tested, and been surprising to himself and friends, and
having been thoroughly instructed in the science of Sarcognomy, offers
his services to the public with entire confidence that he will be able
to relieve or cure all who apply.

For his professional success he refers to Prof. Buchanan, and to
numerous citizens whose testimonials he can show.

       *       *       *       *       *

                         LIGHT FOR THINKERS.

             THE PIONEER SPIRITUAL JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH.

                 Issued Weekly at Chattanooga, Tenn.

                A. C. LADD           Publisher.
                G. W. KATES          Editor.

              Assisted by a large corps of able writers.

                        Terms of Subscription:

        One copy, one year                             $1.50
        One copy, six months                             .75
        One copy, three months                           .40
        Five copies, one year, one address              6.00
        Ten or more, one year, to one address, each     1.00
              Single copy, 5 cents. Specimen copy free.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                FACTS,

                         A MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

                              DEVOTED TO

                   Mental and Spiritual Phenomena,


                              INCLUDING

            Dreams, Mesmerism, Psychometry, Clairvoyance,
           Clairaudience, Inspiration, Trance, and Physical
                Mediumship; Prayer, Mind, and Magnetic
                Healing; and all classes of Psychical
                               Effects.

               Single Copies, 10 Cents; $1.00 per year.

                             PUBLISHED BY

                      Facts Publishing Company,

                     (Drawer 5323,) BOSTON, MASS.

                      _L. L. WHITLOCK, Editor._


             For Sale by COLBY & RICH, 9 Bosworth Street.

       *       *       *       *       *

                           COMPOUND OXYGEN.

                            [Illustration]

Dr. B. M. LAWRENCE & CO. invite correspondence with all persons
interested in their rational method of treatment for chronic diseases.
Complete outfits furnished to physicians and patients at moderate
cost. Local agents wanted. Address

                      DR. B. M. LAWRENCE & CO.,
                            CHENEY BLOCK,
                                                 _HARTFORD, CONN._


Dr. K. MEYENBERG, No. 6 James Street, Boston, is the local agent for
the above oxygen treatment, and invites patients and all interested in
the subject to call at his office and learn its value. Dr. M. has had
many years' experience in magnetic treatment at Washington City, which
combines most successfully with the oxygen remedy.

       *       *       *       *       *

                           BANNER OF LIGHT,

                   THE OLDEST JOURNAL IN THE WORLD
                            DEVOTED TO THE

                        SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.

                            ISSUED WEEKLY

          At 9 Bosworth Street (formerly Montgomery Place),
                corner Province Street, Boston, Mass.

                            COLBY & RICH,

                     Publishers and Proprietors.

                ISAAC B. RICH       BUSINESS MANAGER.
                LUTHER COLBY        EDITOR.
                JOHN W. DAY         ASSISTANT EDITOR.

              _Aided by a large corps of able writers._

THE BANNER is a first-class Family Newspaper of EIGHT
PAGES--containing FORTY COLUMNS OF INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE
READING--embracing

  A LITERARY DEPARTMENT.
  REPORTS OF SPIRITUAL LECTURES.
  ORIGINAL ESSAYS--Upon Spiritual, Philosophical and Scientific Subjects.
  EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
  SPIRIT-MESSAGE DEPARTMENT, and
  CONTRIBUTIONS by the most talented writers in the world, etc., etc.

                  TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, IN ADVANCE:

                     Per Year             $3.00
                     Six Months            1.50
                     Three Months           .75

                            Postage Free.

In remitting by mail, a post-office money order on Boston, or a draft
on a bank or banking house in Boston or New York City, payable to the
order of COLBY & RICH, is preferable to bank notes. _Our patrons can
remit us the fractional part of a dollar in postage stamps--ones and
twos preferred._

ADVERTISEMENTS published at twenty cents per line for the first, and
fifteen cents per line for each subsequent insertion.

Subscriptions discontinued at the expiration of the time paid for.

[Hand Pointing Right] _Specimen copies sent free._


                            COLBY & RICH

Publish and keep for sale at Wholesale and Retail a complete
assortment of

                 Spiritual, Progressive, Reformatory,
                       and Miscellaneous Books.

Any book published in England or America, not out of print, will be
sent by mail or express.

[Hand Pointing Right] Catalogues of books published and for sale by
Colby & Rich, sent free.

       *       *       *       *       *

                         OPIUM and MORPHINE
                                   HABITS
                                   EASILY CURED BY
                                   A NEW METHOD.

                          DR. J. C. HOFFMAN,

                      _JEFFERSON ... WISCONSIN._

       *       *       *       *       *

                          OXYGEN TREATMENT.

                         LOCAL AGENTS WANTED.

                          For terms, address

                 DR. B. M. LAWRENCE, Hartford, Conn.


    Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents was copied from
    the index to the volume.





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