Title: Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4
Author: Buchanan, Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes), 1814-1899 [Editor]
Language: English
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                             BUCHANAN'S
                           JOURNAL OF MAN.

              VOL. I.         MAY, 1887.        NO. 4.



CONTENTS OF JOURNAL OF MAN.


  The Prophetic Faculty: War and Peace
  Clearing away the Fog
  The Danger of living among Christians: A Question of peace or war
  Legislative Quackery, Ignorance, and Blindness to the Future
  Evils that need Attention
  What is Intellectual Greatness
  Spiritual Wonders--Slater's Tests; Spirit Pictures; Telegraphy;
    Music; Slate Writing; Fire Test
  MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE--Erratum; Co-operation; Emancipation;
    Inventors; Important Discovery; Saccharine; Sugar; Artificial
    Ivory; Paper Pianos; Social Degeneracy; Prevention of Cruelty;
    Value of Birds; House Plants; Largest Tunnel; Westward Empire
  Structure of the Brain
  Chapter III. Genesis of the Brain
  To the Readers of the Journal--College of Therapeutics
  Journal of Man--Language of Press and Readers



THE PROPHETIC FACULTY: WAR AND PEACE.


In our last issue, the psychometric faculty of prophecy was
illustrated by predictions of peace, while generals, statesmen, and
editors were promising a gigantic war. In this number the reader will
find a grand prediction of war, while statesmen and states were
anticipating peace, and a southern statesman, even upon the brink of
war, offered to drink all the blood that would be shed.

The strength of the warlike spirit and prediction at the time
psychometry was prophesying peace was conspicuous even as late as the
ninth of March, when the London correspondent of the _Sun_ wrote as
follows:

"An eminent Russian general with whom I have talked believes the plan
of Russian attack on Austria is fully developed. Galicia is to be the
battleground between the two countries. Russia will enter the province
without trouble, as there is nothing to hinder her. Then she will make
a dash to secure the important strategic railroad which runs parallel
with the Galician frontier, and seek to drive the Austrians over the
Carpathians.

"That Galicia will witness the first fighting is generally admitted, as
also that the possession of the strategic railroad, running as it does
just at the rear of the Austrian positions, would be the most vital
question. It may be interesting to say that military men of whatever
nationality look upon an early war as a certain thing. They are not
content to say they believe war is coming; they are absolutely positive
of it, and each little officer has his own personal way of conclusively
proving that this sort of peace cannot go on any longer.

 "Meanwhile there are lots of straws floating about this week, which
indicate that international winds are still blowing toward war. From
Russian Poland there is reported an interruption in all kinds of
business, owing to the war scare. Manufacturers refuse to accept orders
from private persons, and financial institutions have still further
weakened business by reducing their credit to a minimum. A letter from
St. Petersburg tells of the tremendous enthusiasm of the troops at the
review by the Czar on last Saturday, of the wild cheering for his
imperial Majesty, of the loud and strident whistles audible above the
roar of the cannon with which the officers command their men, and of the
general blending of barbaric fierceness and courage with modern
discipline and fighting improvements.

 "In Vienna the troops are hard at work practising with the Numannlicher
repeating rifle, with which all have been provided. The Sunday
observance act, usually rigorously enforced, has been suspended, that
the government orders for military supplies may be completed two weeks
earlier than contracted for.

 "The business of the Hotchkiss gun-making concern is shown to have
increased one hundred per cent with the war scare, and the eagerness to
secure the stock, which now stands at thirty per cent premium, shows a
conviction among monied men. The capital has been subscribed fifteen
times over."

The persistent prediction of peace was speedily fulfilled. March 12 my
statement was sent to the press, and March 22 Bismarck said to Prince
Rudolph of Austria that "_peace is assured to Europe for 1887_," and
newspaper correspondents announce that the war alarm is over. Mr.
Frederick Harrison, who is travelling on foot in France, writes that
he has found no one who desires war, and that the people are not even
thinking of it.

What is the popular judgment, or even the judgment of popular leaders
worth upon any great question? The masses of mankind have their
judgments enmeshed and inwoven in a web of mechanical habituality,
compelling them to believe that what is and has been must continue to
be in the future, thus limiting their conceptions to the commonplace.
Their leaders do not rise to nobler conceptions, for if they did not
sympathize with the popular, commonplace conceptions and prejudices
they would not be leaders.

"We deem it safe to assert," says Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten in her
most valuable and interesting "History of Modern Spiritualism," "from
opinions formed upon an extensive and intimate knowledge of both North
and South, and a general understanding of the politics and parties in
both sections, that any settlement of the questions between them by
the sword was never deliberately contemplated, and that the outbreak,
no less than the magnitude and length of the mighty struggle, was all,
humanly speaking, forced on by the logic of events, rather than
through the preconcerted action of either section of the country. We
say this much to demonstrate the truly prophetic character of many of
the visions and communications which circulated amongst the
Spiritualists prior to the opening of the war."

Not only was it prophesied by the Quaker Joseph Hoag thirty years in
advance, but more fully prophesied from the spirit world by the spirit
of Gen. Washington, and again most eloquently predicted through the
lips of Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten in 1860. Yet who among all the
leaders of the people knew anything of these warnings, or was
sufficiently enlightened to have paid them any respect? The petition
of 15,000 Spiritualists was treated with contemptuous ridicule by the
American Senate, and even the demonstrable invention of Morse was
subjected to ridicule in Congress. Congressmen stand on no higher
moral plane than the people who elect them, and it is the moral
faculties that elevate men into the atmosphere of pure truth.

But ah! could we have had a Congress and State Legislatures in 1860,
composed of men sufficiently elevated in sentiment to realize the
state of the nation and the terrible necessity of preserving the peace
by conciliatory statesmanship, that four years of bloody horror and
devastation might have been spared.

Will the time ever come when nations shall be guided by wisdom
sufficient to avoid convulsions and calamities? Not until there is
sufficient intelligence and wisdom to appreciate the _science of man_,
to understand the wondrous faculties of the human soul, to follow
their guidance, and to listen to the wisdom of our ancestors as they
speak to us from a higher world.

The prophecies to which I would call attention now, came from the
upper world, and came unheeded and unproclaimed! Great truths are
always buried in silence, if possible, when they first arrive. It is
probable that the grandest prophecies in their far-reaching scope will
always come from such sources, and the grandest seers will be
inspired. The grandest prophecy of the ultimate destiny and power of
"Anthropology" came to me direct from an exalted source in the spirit
world, and no human hand had aught to do with its production. But the
human psychometric faculty has the same prophetic power in a more
limited and more practical sphere. We have no reason to affirm that
the wonderful personal prophecies of Cazotte on the brink of the
French Revolution, stated in the "Manual of Psychometry," were at all
dependent on spiritual agency.

The prophecy of our great American calamity, which purports to have
come from the spirit of Gen. Washington, appears in a book published
by Josiah Brigham in 1859, of which few of my readers have any
knowledge. The messages were written by the hand of the famous medium,
Joseph D. Stiles, between 1854 and 1857, at the house of Josiah
Brigham in Quincy, Mass., and were published at Boston in 1859, in a
large volume of 459 pages, entitled "Messages from the Spirit of John
Quincy Adams." The medium was in an unconscious trance, and the
handwriting was a fac-simile of that of John Quincy Adams. But other
spirit communications are given, and that which purports to come from
Washington was in a handwriting like his own, though not of so bold
and intellectual a style. I quote the portion of his message which
relates to the war of secession, as follows:

"The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, when they had attained the summit of
imperial wickedness and licentiousness, as the Bible informs us, fell
from their high estate by the visitation of natural penalties, and the
righteous judgments of an overruling Providence. The fall of Rome and
other large cities proves to us that no individual or nation can disobey
the irrepealable enactments of the Infinite Father, and escape the fixed
penalties attached to such transgression!

"And can boasting, sinful America indulge in the flattering, delusive
hope, that the heavy judgments which fell upon those ancient cities will
be averted from her, whose guilt is equal, if not even greater than
theirs? Does she think that Cain-like, she can escape the vigilant,
sleepless eye of that Divine Parent,

  'Whose voice is heard in the rolling thunders,
  And whose might is seen in the forked lightnings,'

and that He will turn a deaf ear to the cry of 'mortal agony,' daily
borne on the 'four winds of Heaven' to His throne of justice, from the
almost broken hearts of His slavery-crushed children?

"Far from it; America can no more expect mercy in her prosperous
wickedness, from the hand of Deity, that can the most degraded child of
earth expect to enjoy equal happiness and bliss with the more refined
and exalted intelligences of heaven. The Parent of all cares not for the
unity or perpetuation of a family of States, where the prosperity or
welfare of a single child of His is concerned.

"God, the eternal Father, has commissioned us, His ministers of truth
and justice, to a great and important undertaking! He has invested us
with power and authority to influence and guide the actions of mankind,
and aid them in their struggles for right and truth. He has bade us arm
ourselves with the weapons of love and justice, and hasten to the rescue
of our struggling brother man. His call is imperative and binding, and
we _must_ and WILL obey!

"We are able to discern the period rapidly approximating when man will
take up arms against his fellow-man, and go forth to contend with the
enemies of Republican liberty, and to assert at the point of the bayonet
those rights of which so large a portion of their fellow-creatures are
deprived. Again will the soil of America be saturated with the blood of
freedom-loving children, and her noble monuments, those sublime
attestations of patriotic will and determination, will tremble, from
base to summit, with the heavy roar of artillery, and the thunder of
cannon. The trials of that internal war will far exceed those of the war
of the Revolution, while the cause contended for will equal, if not
excel, in sublimity and power, that for which the children of '76
fought.

"But when the battle-smoke shall disappear, and the cannon's fearful
tones are heard no more, then will mankind more fully realize the
blessings outflowing from the mighty struggle in which they so valiantly
contended! No longer will their eyes meet with those bound in the chains
of physical slavery, or their ears listen to the heavy sobs of the
oppressed child of God. But o'er a land dedicated to the principles of
impartial liberty the King of Day will rise and set, and hearts now
oppressed with care and sorrow will rejoice in the blessings of
uninterrupted freedom.

"In this eventful revolution, what the patriots of the past failed to
accomplish their descendants will perform, with the timely assistance of
invisible powers. By their sides the heavenly hosts will labor,
imparting courage and fortitude in each hour of despondency, and urging
them onward to a speedy and magnificent triumph. Deploring, as we do,
the existence of slavery, and the means to be employed to purge it from
America, yet our sympathies will culminate to the cause of right and
justice, and give strength to those who seek to set the captive free,
and crush the monster, Slavery. The picture which I have presented is,
indeed, a hideous one. You may think that I speak with too much
assurance when I thus boldly prophesy the dissolution of the American
Confederacy, and, through it, the destruction of that gigantic
structure, human slavery! But this knowledge was not the result of a
moment's or an hour's gleaning, but nearly half a century's existence in
the seraph life. I have carefully watched my country's rising progress,
and I am thoroughly convinced that it cannot always exist under the
present Federal Constitution, and the pressure of that most terrible
sin, slavery!"

Had the people of this country been sufficiently enlightened to
investigate these messages fairly, they would have seen that there was
sufficient evidence that this warning really came from Washington, and
the pulpit would have enforced its solemn truths. But our destiny was
fixed; Washington knew that his voice would not be heeded, and that
war could not be prevented.

Again came the warning in 1860, through the lips of a more
intellectual medium, more capable of expressing the bright thought of
the higher world. Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten tells the story in her
"History of American Spiritualism," pages 416-419. She refers to the
stupid and criminal action of the Legislature of Alabama; and a
similar piece of brutality has been recommended by a committee in the
Pennsylvania Legislature recently. The following is quoted from the
History.


THE ALABAMA LEGISLATURE AND THE SPIRITS--PROPHECY IN THE ALABAMA
LEGISLATIVE HALLS--RETRIBUTION.

Sometime about the month of January, 1860, the Legislature of Alabama
passed a bill declaring that any person or persons giving public
spiritual manifestations in Alabama should be subject to a penalty of
five hundred dollars.

We have given the substance, though not the exact wording of this
edict, which was met by considerable opposition, not only on the part
of great numbers of Spiritualists resident in the State, but also by
the governor himself, who refused to give his sanction to the bill.

Mr. George Redman, the celebrated physical test medium, had just
passed through the South, and remained long enough to create an
immense interest throughout its length and breadth.

The author was already engaged to deliver a course of lectures in
Mobile, and numerous invitations were sent to her from other parts of
the State.

As Mrs. Hardinge's visit was anticipated at the very time when the
bill above named was in agitation, its friends in the Legislature
considered themselves much aggrieved by the governor's refusal to
sanction its passage, and deeming either that he was suspiciously
favorable to the cause it was designed to destroy, or that their own
case would be aggravated by the advent of the expected lecturer, they
passed their bill over the governor's veto, just twenty-four hours
before the explosion anticipated on her arrival could take place.

On landing in Mobile, Mrs. Hardinge was greeted by a large and
enthusiastic body of friends, but found herself precluded, by
legislative wisdom, from expounding the sublime truths of immortality
in a city whose walls were placarded all over with bills announcing
the arrival of Madame Leon, the celebrated "seeress and business
clairvoyant, who would show the picture of your future husband, tell
the successful numbers in lotteries, and enable any despairing lover
to secure the affections of his heart's idol," etc. Side by side with
these creditable but legalized exhibitions, were flaming announcements
of "the humbug of Spiritualism exposed by Herr Marvel," with a long
list of all the astonishing feats which "this only genuine living
wizard" would display for the benefit of the pious State where angelic
ministry might not be spoken of.

Mrs. Hardinge passed through Mobile, leaving many warm hearts behind
her, who would fain have exchanged these profane caricatures for the
glad tidings which beloved spirit friends were ready to dispense to
the world.

In passing through the capital city, Montgomery, a detention occurred
of some hours, in forming a railway connection _en route_ for Macon,
Georgia, when Mrs. Hardinge and some friends travelling in her
company, were induced to while away the tedious time by visiting the
State House. The Legislature was not sitting that day, and one of the
party, a Spiritualist, remarked that they were even then standing in
the very chamber from which the recent obnoxious enactment against
their faith had issued.

The day was warm, soft, and clear. The sweet southern breeze stirred a
few solitary pines which waved on the capitol hill, and the scene from
the windows of the legislative hall was pleasant, tranquil, and
suggestive of calm but sluggish peace.

At that period--January, 1860--not an ominous murmur, not the faintest
whisper, even, that the war spirit was abroad, and the legions of
death and ruin were lighting their brands and sharpening their
relentless swords to be drenched in the life-blood of millions, had
made itself heard in the land.

The long cherished purposes of hate and fratricidal struggle were all
shrouded in the depths of profound secrecy, and the whole southern
country might have been represented in the scene of stillness and
tranquility that lay outstretched before the eyes of the watchers, who
stood in the State House of the capital city of Alabama, on that
pleasant January afternoon.

There were present six persons besides the author, namely: Mr. and
Mrs. Adams, of Tioga County, Pennsylvania; Mrs. Waters and her son, a
Scotch lady and gentleman from Aberdeen; Mr. Halford, of New York
City; and Mr. James, of Philadelphia. All but the mother and son from
Scotland were acquainted with the author, and more or less sympathetic
with her belief; all are now living, and willing to testify to what
follows.

Suddenly Mrs. Hardinge became entranced, when the whole scene, laying
outstretched before her eyes, appeared to become filled with long
lines of glittering horse and foot soldiers, who, in martial pomp and
military discipline, filed, rank after rank and regiment after
regiment, through the streets of Montgomery, and then passed off into
distance, and were lost to view.

Meantime the crash of military music seemed to thrill through the
clairvoyant's ears, at first merely marking the tramp of the vast
bodies of infantry with a joyous rhythm, but anon, as it died off in
their receding march, wild, agonizing shrieks commingled with its
tones, and the thundering roll of the drums seemed to be muffled by
deep, low, but heart-rending groans, as of human sufferers in their
last mortal agony.

At length all was still again; the last gleam of the muskets flashed
in the sunlight and melted away in the dim horizon; the last echo of
the strangely mingled music and agony ceased, and then, over the whole
radiant landscape, there stole an advancing army of clouds, like a
march of tall gray columns, reaching from earth to the skies, and
filling the air with such a dense and hideous gloom that the whole
scene became swallowed up in the thick, serried folds of mist. In the
midst of these cloudy legions, the eye of the seeress could discern
innumerable forms who seemed to shiver and bend, as if in the whirl of
a hidden tempest, and flitted restlessly hither and thither, aimless
and hopeless, apparently driven by some invisible power from nothing
to nowhere.

And these mystic shadows, flitting about in the thick grayness, were
unbodied souls; not like visitants from the bright summer land, nor
yet beings resembling the dark, undeveloped "dwellers on the
threshold," whom earthly crimes held bound near their former homes,
but they seemed as if they were misty emanations of unripe human
bodies, scarcely conscious of their state, yet living, actual
individualities, once resident in mortal tenements, but torn from
their sheltering envelope too soon, or too suddenly, to have acquired
the strength and consistency of a fresh existence. And yet the numbers
of these restless phantoms were legion, and their multitude seemed to
be ever increasing, when, lo! this weird phantasmagoria too passed
away, but not before the seeress had, with entranced lips, described
to the listeners every feature of the scene she had witnessed.

Then the influence seemed to deepen upon her, and she pronounced words
which the young Scotchman, Mr. Waters, a phonographic writer,
transcribed upon the spot to the following effect:

    "Woe, woe to thee, Alabama!

    "Fair land of rest, thy peace shall depart, thy glory be
    shorn, and the proud bigots, tyrants, and cowards, who have
    driven God's angels back from thy cities, even in this
    chamber, have sealed thy doom, and their own together.

    "Woe to thee, Alabama! Ere five drear years have fled, thou
    shalt sit as a widow, desolate.

    "The staff from thy husband's hand shall be broken, the crown
    plucked from his head, the sceptre rent from his grasp.

    "Thy sons shall be slain, thy legislators mocked and bound
    with the chains thou hast fastened on others.

    "The blind ones, who have proscribed the spirits of love and
    comfort from ministry in thy homes, shall be spirits
    themselves, and ere those five years be passed, more spirits
    than bodies shall wander in the streets of Alabama, homeless,
    restless, and unripe, torn from their earthly tenements, and
    unfit for their heavenly ones; until thy grass-grown streets
    and thy moss-covered dwellings shall be the haunts of legions
    of unbodied souls, whom thy crimes shall have violently thrust
    into eternity!"

When this involuntary prophecy of evil import was read by the young
scribe to the disenthralled medium, her own horror and regret at its
utterance far exceeded that of any of her aghast listeners, not one of
whom, any more than herself, attached to it any other meaning than an
impression produced by temporary excitement and the sphere of the
unholy legislative chamber.

How deeply significant this fearful prophecy became during the ensuing
five years, all who were witnesses to its utterance, and many others,
to whom it was communicated in that same year, can bear witness of.

Swept into the red gulf of all-consuming war, many of the unhappy
gentlemen who had legislated against "the spirits in Alabama," became,
during the ensuing five years, spirits themselves, and have doubtless
realized the inestimable privileges which the communion they so rashly
denounced on earth was calculated to afford to the inhabitants of the
spheres.

In other respects, the fatal prophecy has been too literally
fulfilled. Many a regiment of brave men have marched out of the city
streets of Alabama, only to return as unbodied souls, and to behold
the streets grass-grown and deserted, and the thresholds which their
mortal feet might never again cross, overspread with the moss of
corruption and decay.

Alabama has truly sat "as a widow, desolate." Her strength has been
shorn, her beauty gone. No State has sent forth a greater number of
brave and devoted victims to the war than Alabama; no Southern State
has suffered more fearfully. May God and kind angels lift the war
curse from her widowed head!

The following extract from a letter, written by Mr. Adams, one of the
witnesses of the above scene, to the author, in 1864, from New York,
during a temporary sojourn there, will carry its own comment on the
fulfilment of the fatal prophecy:

    "Now that my two poor boys are in daily danger of themselves
    becoming 'unbodied spirits,' Emma, I continually revert to
    that terrible prophecy of yours uttered in the assembly
    chamber at Montgomery. Heaven knows I was then so little
    prepared to expect war or any reasonable fulfilment of the
    doom, that I could only look to see some great pestilence,
    fire, or other sweeping calamity falling on poor Alabama. Last
    night, when I read in the _Herald_ of the sweeping
    extermination that had visited those two fine Alabama
    regiments, I could not help going to Mrs. Adams's desk, where
    she keeps the copy that young Waters made us of your prophecy,
    and reading it aloud to the whole company.

    "Our friend J. B., who was present, insisted upon seeing the
    date, and when he saw that it was January, 1860, they were all
    fairly aghast, and said if ever there was genuine prophecy it
    was contained in that paper."



CLEARING AWAY THE FOG.


An esteemed correspondent writes, "For several years I have been a
reader of some of the treatises you have published in the interest of
progressive thought, and have found much to admire and reread; yet an
occasional paragraph containing the formula of orthodox theology, with
its dogma of God and Jesus, interwoven into your sequences of
argument, mystifies and perplexes my reason and judgment, and I
indulge in much speculation regarding your exact position,--whether
Christianity is to be vitalized and conserved by the discoverer of
modern science, or the Bible dogmas and traditions reinterpreted to
coincide with scientific method."

I am not aware of having ever written anything that could make my
position at all doubtful, nor do I see how doubts could arise in any
one who attends carefully to my language, and does not indulge in
drawing inferences therefrom which my language does not warrant. Upon
this very question I have expressed myself fully in published
lectures. I have never manifested any sympathy with the theology of
the churches, have never failed to speak of it in terms of absolute
denunciation, and see no reason why any one should suspect me of
leaning in that direction.

As to the recognition of God to which my correspondent objects, I
think science, as I understand it, sanctions the idea that the basic
power of the universe is spiritual and not material; that spirit may
evolve, create, and modify matter, but matter never originates spirit,
though they have a continual interaction, which it is the function of
scientists to investigate, in which investigation, anthropology,
especially in its department of sarcognomy, is a long step of
progress. My investigations have given me some additional evidence as
to the Divine existence beyond what has been recorded, but do not
sanction the personal anthropological conceptions of Deity, which
bring the Divine within the conceptions of narrow and superstitious
minds.

Having discarded the whole scheme of Christian theology, there is no
reason why I should reject the fundamental principles of religion,
which are at the basis of all religions, and which are sanctioned by
the study of man's religious nature. The spirit of the Christian
religion as it appeared among the founders of Christianity appears to
me a more perfect expression of religion than I find in any other of
the world's religions, more spiritual, devoted, loving, and heroic,
more in accordance with the true religion which belongs to man's
noblest faculties.

As for Jesus, I think the general opinion of historians and scholars
as to his historic existence is correct, but whether the historic
accounts are reliable or not I am entirely certain of his existence
to-day as one of the most exalted beings in the spirit world,--the
spirit of the Teacher who appeared in Palestine, whose principles and
purposes are the same advocated by myself, and who like all the other
exalted and ancient spirits is profoundly interested in human welfare
and in the progress of spiritual science, and reformation of the
_so-called_ Christian Church. I have had sufficient psychometric
perception at times to realize the _present_ character of such beings
as Jesus, Moses, St. John, John the Baptist, St. Peter, Confucius,
Joan of Arc, and Gen. Washington, as well as many other admirable
beings whose influence falls like dews upon many sympathetic souls.

I realize most profoundly and sadly the absence from all the high
places of society of those nobler qualities which I recognize in the
higher world, but I labor in the hope that when mankind have advanced
into the light of anthropological science they shall become
enlightened enough to sympathize with the supernal life in reverent
love, and to organize a social condition here which will bring even
the lowest classes into so satisfactory a condition that
philosophizers will no longer have to wrestle with the problem of evil
and explain the great mystery that a universe so full of the marks of
a grandly benevolent purpose should still be marred and dishonored by
human misery and degradation. It would be an unsolvable problem to-day
did we not perceive through spiritual science the immense
preponderance of good in the glorious plan of life of which this world
shows only the beginning.

As an anthropologist, I cannot but esteem and cherish the religious
element of human nature. Sincere worship is simply the most exalted
love, and fills human life with nobility and benevolence; let those
who can, worship the divine; let those who shrink from the thought of
the Infinite, worship the most exalted beings they may conceive, and
let those who cannot quite reach the exalted beings of the spirit
world, worship their parents or children, or conjugal companions,--for
worship is but unlimited love,--and they who recoil from humanity may
perhaps find something to adore in the beauty and grandeur of nature
on this globe, which every summer arrays in beauty, and in the
grandeur of stellar worlds. From love and adoration come
obedience,--which is the perfect life, for it is not slavery, but
harmony and delight.

Profound science does not take away religion, as superficial or false
science does, but develops a far nobler, holier, and more beneficent
religion than any churches comprehend. It corresponds to that ideal
religion which belongs to the higher realms of the spirit world, and
which has sometimes appeared on earth in inspired mortals, and most
often in women whose souls were devoted to love. That this religious
sentiment appeared in the time of Jesus among inspired men, I believe,
and their lives and sentiments have been to me an inspiration,
enabling me to believe in the _practicability_ of that which
philosophy teaches concerning the religious life, which without those
illustrious examples might have seemed an unattainable excellence in
the present conditions of society.

I do not object to any worship of Jesus and his illustrious associate
reformers, for true worship will lead to the imitation of their heroic
lives. They were not divine, and were too heroically faithful to truth
to put forth any such false claims, nor could they in that dark age be
profound in science, or correct in all their opinions, as they are now
in a higher world. As they were on earth I honor them; as they are in
heaven to-day I honor them far more. They silently invite us to reach
that higher plane of life on which their beneficent influence and
inspiration may be felt. Fortunate are they reach that plane.



THE DANGER OF LIVING AMONG CHRISTIANS.

A QUESTION OF PEACE OR WAR.


It is seldom that any of the great questions of the time are treated
from an ethical standpoint. Old opinions and old usages furnish the
standpoint for our press writers, our politicians, and our clergy. The
question of national defence has been under discussion for years, and
Samuel J. Tilden, who was regarded by millions as the ablest of our
statesmen, gave his whole mental power to urging its consideration
upon the American people; but if this question has ever been seriously
discussed from the ethical standpoint it has escaped my notice. The
nearest approach to the ethical view was the suggestion of the _Boston
Herald_ that in putting on the full armor of national defence the
effect might be to stimulate the haughty and warlike impulses of our
people, and thus increase the danger of war, while a defenceless
seacoast would tend to inspire prudence and moderation in our national
government.

There is a great deal of truth in this view. We have a score of
prominent politicians whose sentiments on international questions are
too much like those of a bully in private life, and they have a
dangerous amount of influence in public affairs.

Turning aside from these popular discussions, the JOURNAL OF MAN
maintains the ethical standpoint for the consideration of such
subjects; and its first suggestion would be, Why should the people--of
this country spend $120,000,000 as a preparation for slaughtering our
brethren the Christian population of Europe, the only people from whom
any danger can be apprehended--our brethren in civilization and
Christianity, our brethren too by the ties of blood?

Do they not all maintain the Christian religion (at least nominally)
by all the power of their governments and public opinion? Would not
our good people in visiting them or they in visiting us be invited to
participate in the communion service which commemorates the martyred
Teacher of the law of love? Are they not our brethren, the neighbors
to whom the command applies, "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? Is this
our Christian love, to spend a hundred and twenty millions for the
assassination of our beloved brethren--avowedly for that purpose? It
is needless to object to the word _assassination_,--wholesale murder
by armies is substantially the same thing as separate murders by each
individual of the army.

But, it is urged, we are in danger of invasion, and the bombardment of
our cities. Does any one seriously believe that a powerful nation intent
on peace--the strongest power in the world, the friend of all mankind,
ready to submit any international question to arbitration--would be in
danger of an unjust, lawless, causeless assault from the Christian
nations of Europe, who have so much to lose and nothing to gain by
war, and who have already, in their groaning, tax-burdened people, a
sufficient reminder of the folly and criminality of war? They have not
money for another war, which would bring on the dangers of bankruptcy
and the revolt of the oppressed masses.

It must be that this is seriously apprehended, or else that it is
feared that the arrogant and bullying temper of our own people or our
politicians may originate and exasperate international irritation to
the insane extreme of war.

What a horrible theory is this! Is all the civilization,
statesmanship, and Christianity of the leading nations of the earth
incapable of withholding them from such gigantic crimes? Is
Christendom the only dangerous portion of the world, where an
honorable and peaceful nation cannot exist in safety?

The heathen nations are not a source of danger. If Christendom were
annihilated to-morrow, there would be no occasion to speak of
defending our coasts or building up a powerful navy. It is apparent,
then--it is confessed--that it is very dangerous to live among these
Christian nations, or in other words, it is very _dangerous to live
among Christians_, as they are called! But do our statesmen or our
clergy suggest this view? Do they recoil from war or inspire the
people with thoughts of peace? Never! One of the conspicuous clergymen
of England was the fiercest advocate of war with Russia. The
fundamental principle of the Christianity of Jesus is dead in the
so-called Christian church, except in that little fragment, the church
of the Quakers, who, for their fidelity to the fundamental principle,
were scourged and _hanged_ in Boston by the _pious_ predecessors of
our present churches, until they were forbidden by the unsanctified
monarch, Charles II. Has the old spirit died out? Look at the
hostility to Theodore Parker--to spiritual investigation, even. See
the scornful and hostile attitude of the descendant of Cotton Mather,
Col. Higginson.

It may be a shocking proposition to say that it is dangerous to live
among Christians, but it is a sober reality, to which I invite the
attention of clergymen and moralists who wish to live up to their
profession, and who have enough of the ethical faculty to realize the
central principle of true Christianity.

If our statesmanship, religion, and education cannot protect us
against such horrors, may we not justly say it is a false
statesmanship, a false religion, and a false education? Indeed, our
whole fabric of opinion and morals is fundamentally false, and the
JOURNAL OF MAN goes to record as an indictment at the bar of heaven
against the polished barbarism of modern society, against which we
hear only a feeble and almost inaudible protest.

Boston has a highly respectable and _immensely perfunctory_ Peace
Society, amply endowed with names and numbers, of which our late
postmaster was the president, and whose presidency was vastly more
inefficient than his postmastership.

A peace society might possibly be established in Boston, if its best
people could be roused, but the society that we have is little better
than a piece of ornamental nomenclature. When there is anything to be
done it understands how not to do it. When Mr. Gladstone had performed
the most glorious act of his life in the preservation of the peace of
Europe against the fierce opposition of the turbulent element in
England, an act which will make the brightest jewel in his crown of
honor, there was an opportunity of sustaining him by American
sympathy. The voice of Americans, if they cared aught for peace,
should have been heard in Europe in commanding tones,--the voice of
the people, the voice of Legislatures, the voice of the Federal
government. An effort was made by half a dozen or less of enlightened
gentlemen in Boston to have a fitting response emanate from this city.
Dr. Miner and Hon. Stephen M. Allen realized its importance when I
first suggested it, but on that occasion the Peace Society was a
lifeless corpse. The society might have been waked up if Mr. Lowell,
then returning from England, could have been induced to co-operate. He
was approached on the subject, but would not respond,--he only said
that he _desired rest_! Alas for the hollowness of American religion
and philanthropy!

There is a nobler religion than that of American churches, a nobler
statesmanship than that of Mr. Tilden (which is a good specimen of the
popular sort), a nobler education than that of our American schools
and colleges--an education, a statesmanship, and a religion which will
wash the blood from the sword, bury the sword in the earth, and
proclaim the fraternity of man in all the nations of the earth.

Ah! when shall the demand for the supremacy of the moral law be
anything more than "the voice of one crying in the wilderness"? Is it
not possible to have a protest against the barbarism of war from men
of influence, who have sufficient mental power and strength of
character to command the attention of the nation? When Elihu Burritt
and Robert Dale Owen were alive I thought it might be possible, but it
was not attempted. Is it possible now? Is all the genius and energy of
the American people bound in fidelity to the Moloch of war? I do not
believe it, and would invite correspondence from those who share this
belief and wish to co-operate in such a movement.

We have to-day a practical subject of discussion: Shall we, the people
of the United States, tax ourselves $120,000,000 at once and an
unknown amount hereafter, to place ourselves upon a par with the
homicidal nations of Europe, and sanction by our example the
infernalism in which they have lived from Cæsar to the Napoleonic
period, or shall we endeavor to introduce a true civilization, lay
aside the weapons of homicide, and urge by our powerful mediation the
disarmament of Europe, relieving the oppressed millions from
accumulating war debts, and from that infernalism of the soul which
makes the duel still an established institution in France and even in
German universities? Shall we move onward toward humane civilization,
or cling to a surviving barbarism?

The measure now proposed is an abandonment of Divine law, and a
practical pledge of this country to the infernalism of war. It is a
declaration that we do not believe peace attainable at all, and that
we indorse and seek to renew forever the blood-stained history of the
past.

Is there not among our politicians who sustained the Blair Education
bill some one whose voice may be heard in behalf of peace? Is Col.
Ingersoll too much of a pessimist to believe that American moral power
will be sufficient in time to calm the world's agitation? Let him
espouse this cause, and he will find it more practical by far than
riding down the ghosts of an effete theology. Let Henry George turn
his attention to this question, and he will find in it even more than
in the question of sovereignty over the land; for every acre on the
globe, if confiscated to-day, would pay but a portion of the boundless
cost of war. The blood alone that has incarnadined all lands is worth
vastly more than the dead soil into which it has been poured. Let Dr.
McGlynn, who has already entered on the perilous path of the reformer,
look at this question in the light of religion and philanthropy, and
he will find it more worthy of his attention than any other
practicable reform, for it is practicable now and here to roll back
the warlike policy from its approach to our national government.

Are not such questions as these worthy of the profound attention of
such men as Rev. Dr. Miner, Rev. M. J. Savage, Rev. J. K. Applebee,
and Rev. W. H. Thomas of Chicago? They are not theological dilettanti,
but earnest thinkers. Should not every Universalist and every Quaker
realize that it is time for them to stir when our nation's destiny is
under discussion, and that their voices should be heard at Washington?

The proposition is made and sustained by the influence of Mr. Tilden,
to place this country in the list of mail-clad warrior nations, and it
is rather a fascinating proposition to those who entertain pessimistic
ideas of man, and believe that all nations are ready to slay and rob
when they have a good opportunity.

Capt. F. V. Greene, late of the U. S. engineering corps, appears as
the advocate of American fortifications, and at the Massachusetts
Reform Club he presented his views substantially as follows: The
United States have 3,000 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coast, 2,200 on
the lakes, and 1,200 on the Pacific, and have cities on these coasts
aggregating a wealth of $6,000,000,000--all exposed to a hostile
fleet, which could in a short time destroy everything within
cannon-shot from the water, and drive five millions of people from
their city homes. The fortification board estimates $120,000,000 as
the sum necessary to supply cannon and forts for protection, which is
but two per cent upon the amount of property protected.

This is a very satisfactory statement of the case from the average
standpoint, which is not the ethical. But in the first place I
consider it morally sure that this country will never have a foreign
war if it models its national policy on the Divine law; and secondly,
whenever war is foreseen as probable in consequence of an intolerable
spirit of aggression and the refusal of the hostile party to submit to
arbitration, a sufficient number of cannon can be cast and placed on
floating batteries or behind iron walls to protect every endangered
point. It would be necessary only to know that our foundries were
adequate to the task; and the fact that such an armament was preparing
would be a sufficient warning to avert a hostile movement. Yet the
costly steel cannon, which require such enormous appropriations to
prepare for their manufacture on a large scale, are not absolutely
necessary. It has been shown by recent experiments that dynamite
shells of 150 pounds can be thrown two miles and a quarter by air
pressure or steam pressure from light, slender-built cannon, or steel
tubes of unusual length, which may be enlarged to compete with the
most formidable artillery. A single steel-clad vessel of the Monitor
type with such an armament could destroy a squadron.

But let arbitration be known as our fixed national policy--let us
secure also the co-operation of other nations pledged to the
arbitration policy, and war would be almost an impossibility.

Capt. Greene's exposition of the necessity of coast defence was clear
and forcible, but his concluding remarks gave a glimpse of peaceful
purposes. "He supplemented his speech by remarking that the United
States will probably be called on before long to be the arbitrator
between the nations of Europe. The latter cannot stand the financial
strain much longer, and inside of twenty years we shall probably be
the equal in population and wealth of any two, if not three, nations
of Europe, and to us will be referred all their disputes for
settlement. When we become the referees of the world we must have the
force behind us, so that when we give a decision we shall be able to
enforce it; and this can only be adequately effected by a perfect
system of coast defences."

Commander Burke of the U.S. Navy, who followed Capt. Greene "thought
that if the Irish question be settled satisfactorily, there will be no
danger of a war with England unless we desire war. He had been advised
that the English people, Great Britain and her colonies, look to the
Americans to assist them in case of war with any foreign powers, and
there is a strong sentiment of friendship for the American people for
that reason, if for no other. He believed that the use of high
explosives, by which war could be rendered more dangerous, would
result in reducing the probability of war."

Certainly if the United States would lead in a pacific policy, Great
Britain, under Gladstone, would unite in the movement, and arbitration
would ere long become the policy of the world, and would not long be
the established policy before disarmament would follow and the sword
be buried forever.



LEGISLATIVE QUACKERY, IGNORANCE, AND BLINDNESS TO THE FUTURE.


In Iowa, by the management of a medical clique, a law has been juggled
through the Legislature, under which the founders of Christianity
would have been criminals, and prolonged imprisonment might have been
as effective as crucifixion. That any class of men could have been
mean enough and shameless enough to ask for such a law is a sad
commentary on the demoralizing influence of medical schools, from
which they derived their inspiration; and that any legislative body
could have yielded to the demand is another illustration of the well
known corruption of political life.

The Iowa papers state that Mrs. Post, of McGregor, Iowa, has been
twice arrested, convicted, and fined fifty dollars and costs for
praying with the sick and curing them. European tyranny is eclipsed in
Iowa. The old world is freer than the new, if the medical clique are
allowed to rule. G. Milner Stephen performs his miraculous cures in
London with honor, and Dorothea Trudell had her house of cure by
prayer in Switzerland, which has been made famous in religious
literature. All over Europe the people enjoy a freedom in the choice
of their physicians which has been prohibited in Iowa.

The Legislature of Maine which adjourned March 17 was induced, by the
newspaper comments on two bogus institutions which had been chartered
some years ago, to depart from their settled policy and pass a law
prepared by the medical clique, but not quite as stringent as that of
Iowa. Gov. Bodwell, however, vetoed the bill, pointing out its
objectionable features, and the Senate, which had passed it
unanimously, after being enlightened by the governor rejected it by a
nearly two thirds majority, showing how thoughtlessly a great deal of
our legislation is effected.

Under the laws which the colleges and their clique seek to establish,
Priessnitz could never have introduced hydropathy, Pasteur could not
have inoculated for hydrophobia without danger of imprisonment, and
the great American Medical Reformation, which abolished the lancet and
mercurial practice, and which is now represented by seven colleges,
would have been strangled at its birth, for its primitive origin was
outside of college authority. There are other great ideas, great
discoveries, great reforms, not yet strong enough to be embodied in
colleges, which medical legislation is designed to suppress, to
enforce a creedal uniformity.

Another piece of legislative quackery is revealed in the action of
Congress as stated in the following paragraph concerning "a new
bureau."

"One of the acts of the retiring Congress has not been noted so far,
but, though not a large item in itself, it is the entering wedge of
subsequent legislation which will be of the highest importance to the
country. It is the item in the legislative appropriation bill which
allows of the expenditure of $10,000 by the bureau of labor "for the
collection of statistics of and relating to marriage and divorce in
the several states and territories, and in the District of Columbia."
This gives the opportunity, which has heretofore not existed, to
obtain reasonably accurate statistics of what is going on as concerns
the integrity of the family throughout the whole country. This will be
a department under Col. Wright, in the work of the bureau of labor,
and is one of the results of persistent work which the National
Divorce League has done, under the direction of its secretary, Rev. S.
W. Dike. Col. Wright has already formulated plans which are likely to
make this new branch of the labor bureau the channel for one of the
most valuable reports which have yet come from his hands. It will be
the gathering of facts whose study will suggest wise legislation in
the future."

It may not be absolutely unconstitutional for Congress to collect such
statistics, but it is contrary to the spirit of the constitution.
Congress has nothing whatever to do with such social questions, which
are exclusively matters of state legislation. It has allowed itself to
be made a cat's paw by the National Divorce League for its
retrogressive policy. The welfare of society is deeply concerned in
breaking up all unhappy, discordant marriages, which are simply
nurseries of misery and crime. Every generous sentiment should prompt
us to go to the relief of the large number of women who suffer in
secret from tyranny and brutality, while from poverty, timidity,
helplessness, and a dread of publicity or censure, they endure their
wrongs in silence, and continue to bear children cursed from their
conception with intemperance and brutality. And when they seek to
escape, a barbarian law comes in to give the brutal husband the
ownership of their offspring; and thus they are bound fast as galley
slaves in their unhappy position.

The Legislature of Massachusetts had the opportunity of redressing
this wrong at their present session; but, like other masculine
legislatures in the past, they were deaf to the voice of mercy, and
the press quietly reports (March 18) that "Inexpedient was reported
by the House judiciary committee on equalizing the respective rights
of husband and wife in relation to their minor children, and on
equalizing their interest in each other's property."

The ladies who are so active in behalf of woman suffrage might have
taken more interest in this vital question, which was so easily
disposed of. A great wrong remains unredressed.

The barbarous policy of the church of Rome, which has been finally
abolished even in Catholic France, where divorce is now permitted, our
clerical bigots would revive in this country, as if it were the
business of the state to encourage or compel the propagation of the
worthless and criminal classes!

It is not the interest of the state to encourage human multiplication
at all, for it is already too powerful and progressive. It is the
public interest to check all propagation but that of good citizens,
and to protect all women from enforced maternity, whether enforced
under legal powers or by the arts of seduction and libertinism.

Prostitution, in the light of political economy, is far less of an
evil than the enforced maternity of wretched and discordant families,
which becomes the fountain of an endless flow of crime, while
prostitution shows its evils only in the parties immediately
concerned, and effectually purifies society in time by arresting the
propagation of its most worthless members. In the same manner it may
be said that some epidemics are an advantage to society, by cutting
off the feeble and worthless constitutions so as to leave a better
race. Any one who recollects the history of the Jukes family, and the
number of criminals infesting society who were descendants of one
depraved pair, will not believe that such a propagation of crime
should be permitted. The worthless class should not be allowed to
marry, and the criminals whom the state finds it necessary to confine
in the penitentiary should be permanently deprived of the power of
parentage.

Few ever reflect upon the necessary consequences of the growth of
population. The great wars, famines, and pestilences as in the past
will not be able to keep down population, and where it has free course
under favorable circumstances it doubles in twenty-five or thirty
years. In two centuries more we shall begin to feel a terrible
pressure, and that pressure will be aggravated by the exhaustion of
coal mines, of petroleum, of gas, and of forests. In Great Britain
alone 120,000,000 tons of coal are annually mined.

It may be safely assumed that one thousand to the square mile is about
the limit of population of the world, a limit at which population must
be arrested. Massachusetts is already within less than a century of
its utmost possible limit. It has at this time about 250 to the square
mile, and at the American rate of growth it would reach its utmost
limit by the year 1950, and begin to realize the crush and crisis of a
crowded population, which must either cease to grow or encounter the
horrors of famine and social convulsions arising from the struggle for
life, or the calamities arising from unfortunate seasons which in
China and India have in our own time hurried millions into their
graves.

If Massachusetts is within sixty years of this collision with destiny,
other countries are still nearer the dead line of the coming century.
Italy is parallel with Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but Great
Britain and Ireland are considerably further advanced. British India
and the Netherlands are still further advanced, and half a century, if
they had the American ratio of growth, would bring them to their
limit, while Belgium's progress would be arrested in thirty years.

A wise statesmanship would not seek to hurry mankind on to this great
crisis, the results of which have never been foreseen or provided for,
but would realize that the greater the amount of inferior and
demoralized population the more terrible must that crisis be when it
comes--a crisis which can be safely borne only by elevating the entire
population to a higher condition than any nation has ever heretofore
attained.

Calculate as we may, the crisis must come, as certainly as death comes
to each individual; and whether our social system can bear the strain
of such conditions is beyond human ken. Look even two centuries ahead,
and what do we see? At that time the prolific energy of the people of
this republic, if continued as it has been in the past, will give us
more than twice the estimated population of the entire globe at
present--more than three thousand millions.

It is possible that our vast territory (including Alaska) of three
million, six hundred thousand square miles may, with the greatly
improved agriculture of the future, maintain such a population,
especially if relieved by overflow to the north and south.

If the evil elements at work to-day predominate in our population,
which retrogressive legislation would promote, it will be a time of
calamity and social convulsions; but if the benevolent and
enlightening influences now at work predominate (as we may hope), two
centuries hence will bring us to a consummation of prosperity,
enlightenment, and happiness, of which the pessimistic and sceptical
thinkers of to-day have no conception. A thorough comprehension of the
science of man will lead us in the path of enlightened progress.



EVILS THAT NEED ATTENTION.


The public mind has been greatly stirred upon the subject of
monopolies and legislative abuses; but there are some glaring evils,
which a short statute might suppress, that are flourishing unchecked.

Speculative dealers in the necessaries of life have learned how to
build colossal fortunes by extortion from the entire nation, and the
nation submits quietly because gambling competition is the fashion.
The late Charles Partridge endeavored to show up these evils and have
them suppressed. We need another Partridge to complete the work he
undertook.

A despatch to the _Boston Herald_, March 5, shows how the game has
been played in Chicago on the pork market:

"'Phil Armour must have been getting ready for this break for three
months,' said a member of the board of trade to-day. 'Since September
last he has visited nearly every large city in the country. He knows
from observation where all the pork is located, and, having cornered it,
his southern trip was a scheme to throw his enemies off the scent, and
enable his brokers to quietly strengthen the corner. His profits and
Plankinton's cannot be less than $3,000,000.'

"But if Armour and his old Milwaukee side partner have made money, so
have hundreds of others here. A messenger boy in the board of trade drew
$100 from a savings bank on Monday last at 11 o'clock and margined 100
barrels of pork. To-day the lad deposited $1,000, and has $300 for
speculation next week.

"Those poor snorts who are expecting to have pork to-day to make their
settlement, paid $21. Anything less was scouted. 'You will have to pay
$25 next Saturday night,' was all the comfort afforded.

"An advance of 2 cents a bushel in wheat was also scored by the bulls
to-day. The explanation is that the several big wheat syndicates
encouraged by the action of pork have made an alliance. The talk at the
hotels to-night is that Armour has started in to buy wheat."

We have laws that forbid boycotting, and they are enforced in New York
and New Haven by two recent decisions. Financial extortion is an equal
crime, and needs a law for its suppression. Why is the metropolitan
press silent? Have the syndicates too much influence? Will editors who
read these lines speak out?

In the last _North American Review_, James F. Hudson, in an essay on
"Modern Feudalism," says:--

"The conquest of all departments of industry by the power of combination
has just begun. But the mere beginning has imposed unwarrantable taxes
on the fuel, light, and food of the masses. It has built up vast
fortunes for the combining classes, drawn from the slender means of
millions. It has added an immense stimulant to the process, already too
active, of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The tendency in
this direction is shown by the arguments with which the press has teemed
for the past two months, that the process of combination is a necessary
feature of industrial growth, and that the competition which fixes the
profits of every ordinary trader, investor or mechanic, must be
abolished for the benefit of great corporations, while kept in full
force against the masses of producers and consumers, between whom the
barriers of these combinations are interposed."



WHAT IS INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS?


A large amount of that which the world calls greatness is nothing more
than vigorous and brilliant commonplace. Taine, who is the most
splendid writer upon Bonaparte, ascribes to him intellectual
greatness, but it was greatness on a common plane--the plane of animal
life. He had a grand comprehension of physical and social forces, of
everything upon the selfish plane, for he was absolutely selfish, but
of nothing that belongs to the higher life of man, to the civilization
of coming centuries. To him Fulton was a visionary and so was Gall. It
was not in his intellectual range to see the steamships that change
the world's commerce, and the cerebral discoveries that are destined
to revolutionize all philosophy.

The pulpit orator, Beecher, who has just passed away, was estimated by
many as intellectually great; but Mr. Beecher never took the position
of independence that any great thinker must have occupied. He never
moved beyond the sphere of popularity. He never led men but where they
were already disposed to go. Upon the great question of the return of
the spirit, one of the most important and fundamental of all religious
questions, Mr. Beecher was silent. That silence was infidelity to
truth, for Mr. Beecher was not ignorant of the truth he concealed. Nor
was he faithful to any true ideal of religion. With his princely
salary he accomplished less than other men, living upon a salary he
would have scorned. He lived for self--he spent thousands of dollars
on finger rings, and a hundred thousand on a fancy farm, but little if
anything to make the world better.

The _Boston Herald_ estimates very fairly his intellectual status,
saying: "He spoke easily. His stories were well told, his points well
put. He invested people with a new atmosphere, but he did not set them
to thinking, and can hardly be called a thinker himself. Much as he
has done to forward the vital interests of humanity, he has
contributed nothing to the vital thinking of his generation. The
secret of his power is the wonderful combination of animalism, with a
certain bright way of stating the thoughts which are more or less in
the minds of all men. Few preachers have lived with their eyes and
ears more open to the world, and few have better understood the art of
putting things. Mr. Beecher knew supremely well two persons--himself
and the man next to him. In interesting the man next to him he
interested the multitude. He had in a great degree the same qualities
which made Norman McLeod the foremost preacher of his day in the
Scotch pulpit. Such a man lives too much on the surface to exhaust
himself. He has only to keep within the sphere of commonplace to
interest people as long as he lives.... Mr. Beecher lived on the
surface of things. He never got far below the surface. If he ever was
profound it was only for a moment at a time.... His work was to
illustrate the ideas which were operative in the world at the time,
not to originate or formulate them."

This is a just estimate. Brilliant commonplace is not greatness, but
the man who is thoroughly commonplace in his conceptions, who
expresses well and forcibly what his hearers think, is the one to win
applause and popularity. Had Beecher been a great thinker, a church of
moderate size would have held his followers. But he was not and
thinkers knew it. The Rev. George L. Perin, of the Shawmut
Universalist Church, Boston, said of Beecher, "As we have tried to
analyze the influence of his address we have said to ourselves, 'There
was nothing new in that, for I have thought the same thing a thousand
times myself;' and yet at the same time everything _seemed_ new, and
we have gone away thinking better of ourselves because he taught us to
see what we were able to think but had not been able to express. He
had the remarkable faculty of dressing up the things that everybody
was thinking, and making us see that they were worth thinking. And
there was something contagious about his wonderful faith in human
nature. He believed in the divinity of man and made others believe in
it." In other words, he added much to the sentiment of his hearer, but
little to his thought. This was greatness of character and personal
power, but not intellectual greatness. Beecher was a great man, but
not a great thinker. The great thinker overwhelms his hearers with new
and strange thought. The multitude, fixed in habit, reject it all.
Clear and dispassionate thinkers feel that they cannot reject it, but
it is too new even to them to elicit their enthusiasm. They sympathize
with him only so far as they had previously cherished similar
thoughts.

Hence we see it is ordained that the teacher of great truths must
struggle against great opposition; and in proportion to his resistance
by his contemporaries is the grandeur of his reception by posterity;
in proportion to the power arrayed against him is the remoteness of
the century in which that power shall be extinct and his triumph
complete.



SPIRITUAL WONDERS.


SLATER'S WONDERFUL SPIRITUAL TESTS (described by a Brooklyn newspaper
correspondent).--"I have something to say to that gentlemen with the
black hair and high forehead," he continued, turning to another part
of the house; "you have a business engagement to-morrow morning at 10
o'clock with two men. I see you go up a flight of steps into a room
where there are two desks. In the second drawer of one of these are
the papers of the transaction which you had in your hand to-day. You
are going to invest $4,000. Is that all so?"

"Perfectly," said the man, in amazement.

"Well, now, these two men are sharpers, and if you want to save that
$4,000 keep out of that bargain. Legal advice is good, but mine is
better."

"I believe it," said the man, emphatically. His name was C. G. Bulmer,
and he lives at 229 Macon Street, Brooklyn. Your correspondent has
since verified the accuracy of the test.

"And don't you suffer with your limbs?" he inquired of a lady just in
front of him.

"Well, not now; I used to; I feel it now."

"Well, I am going to show you that I know all about your limbs. The
pain is here," he continued, touching the calf of his leg. "You have a
peculiar feeling of drowsiness and then sharp pains run through you,
right there. Is it true?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll tell you something else. You missed what your sister called a
big chance when you were seventeen years old, and she said you were a
great fool to let it go by. Is that so?"

"It is," said the lady reddening.

"There's a man in the hall," he continued, pacing restlessly up and
down with clasped hands. "He has been sitting here and saying to him
self, 'Well, this is all mind-reading. Now, if he will tell me
something that is going to happen I may believe something in
Spiritualism.' He has been rather scoffing me. Now, I want to know if
this is true. I am talking to you," pointing his long, thin finger at
a gray-haired man who sat on his left. "All correct?" The man bowed
his head. "Well, I tell you, that one Christmas day," he continued, so
solemnly that a hush fell on the audience--"I don't think the spirits
ought to tell these things, but I am forced to say that one Christmas
day a member of your family will die." A startled look passed over his
face, and a shiver ran through the audience at the uncanny message.
The man's name could not be learned, but on the succeeding Sunday your
correspondent heard two women get up in the audience and admit that
the young Spiritualist was correct.


SPIRIT PICTURES.--Henry Rogers, a slate writing and prescribing medium
of established reputation, recently located at 683 Tremont Street,
Boston, has wonderful powers in the production of spirit pictures of
the departed. His most recent success is certainly a fine work of art,
resembling a crayon portrait of a young lady. His previous pictures
are entitled to a high rank as works of art. They are purely spirit
productions, no human hand being concerned. San Francisco has similar
productions under the mediumship of Fred Evans, but the pictures have
not the artistic merit of those produced by Rogers, whose beautiful
pictures, however, require many sittings for their production; while
those of Duguid of Glasgow, and Mrs. De Bar of New York, are produced
in a few minutes and are also highly artistic. One of the very finest
works of art at San Francisco is the portrait of Mrs. Watson, made by
a medium, Mr. Briggs.

Our highest productions in art, music, poetry, philosophy, and
medicine, are destined yet to come from the co-operation of the spirit
world. We have no music at present superior to that of the medium
Jesse Shepard.


SPIRIT TELEGRAPHY.--In 1885 we were informed of the success of spirits
at Cleveland, Ohio, in communicating messages by the telegraphic
method in rapping, in which our millionaire friend, Mr. J. H. Wade,
has taken much interest. A little apparatus has been constructed, with
which the spirits give their communications in great variety. I have
repeatedly stated that the diagnoses and prescriptions of deceased
physicians have always proved in my experience more reliable than
those of the living. This has been verified at Cleveland. The late Dr.
Wells of Brooklyn has been giving diagnoses and prescriptions through
the telegraph. One of these published in the _Plain Dealer_ exhibits
the most profound and accurate medical knowledge. The full account of
these telegraphic developments in the Cleveland _Plain Dealer_ I
expected to republish, but my space was already occupied. It may be
found in the _Banner of Light_ of April 9. But we shall have other
reports hereafter.


SPIRITUAL MUSIC.--Maud Cook, a little blind girl nine years of age, at
Manchester, Tenn., is an inspired musical wonder,--a performer and
composer. She is said to equal Blind Tom, and the local newspapers
speak of her in the most enthusiastic terms. She needs a judicious and
wealthy friend to bring her before the public in the best manner.


SLATE WRITING.--Dr. D. J. Stansbury, of San Francisco, is very
successful in obtaining spiritual writing in public as well as in
private. The _Golden Gate_ says:--

"There came upon the slates at Dr. Stansbury's public seance, last
Sunday evening, the following message from Judge Wm. R. Thompson, father
of H. M. Thompson, of this city: 'The essential principles of primitive
Christianity and the precepts of Modern Spiritualism are essentially one
and the same, which, if practised, would lead to the highest standard of
morality and be the means of grace by which all might be saved.'"


THE FIRE TEST.--At the great spiritual convention held at Cincinnati
for several days at the end of March, (the spiritual anniversary) the
report states,--

"Mrs. Isa Wilson Porter, under control of an Oriental spirit, held her
bared hands and arms in the flames of a large coal oil lamp. She also
heated lamp chimneys and handled them as readily as she would in their
normal condition, and made several gentlemen cringe and some ladies
screech by slightly touching them with the hot glass. The test was made
under supervision of a committee of doctors and well known physicians,
who reported at the conclusion that previous to its commencement they
examined the lady's hands and arms, and that they were in their natural
condition, and that her pulse beat was seventy. While the test was in
progress the pulse indicated forty. After its conclusion the pulse beat
was sixty-five; the arms and hands were a little red, but unscorched,
and the hair upon them not even singed. This incident seems weak in the
description after witnessing the fact of tender flesh and blood held in
such a flame for several minutes."



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.


ERRATUM.--In the April number, the view of the upper surface of the
brain, by mistake of the printer, was turned upside down--see page 29.
The engraving on page 31 must be referred to, to illustrate the
description in this number.


CO-OPERATION is making great progress. A colony similar to that at
Topolobampo is to be established on 3,000 acres at Puget Sound.
Manufacturers are beginning to adopt the principle of giving a share
of profits to their employees, but space forbids details. Topolobampo
has 400 busy colonists, and is not ready yet for any more.


EMANCIPATION.--Brazil has about a million of slaves. Emancipation is
proceeding slowly. It may be thirty years before slavery shall be
entirely extinguished.


INVENTORS.--A correspondent remarks very justly that "Inventors have
rescued the race from primitive barbarism. They have transformed the
primeval curse into a blessing. True saviors they, whose every gift
has multiplied itself a thousand-fold by opening new fields of
industry, and scattering luxuries even among the poorest. To the
inventor, and not to the statesman, politician, or warrior, do we owe
our present prosperity."


IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.--"Tests were recently made at Louisville of a new
and not expensive process for hardening and tempering steel, by which
hardness and elasticity are carried forward in combination. A drill
made of the new steel penetrated in forty minutes a steel safe-plate
warranted to resist any burglar drill for twelve hours. A penknife
tempered by the process cut the stem of a steel key readily, and with
the same blade the inventor shaved the hairs on his arm. The inventor
is a young blacksmith. He has also a new process for converting iron
into steel."


SACCHARINE.--This new substance said to be 200 times as sweet as sugar
is manufactured from coal tar. It was discovered about six years ago
in the laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, by
Prof. Remsen and a student named Fahlberg, who has since taken out
patents upon it. It is greatly superior to sugar, as it is free from
fermentation and decomposition. A small quantity added to starch or
glucose will make a compound equal to sugar in sweetness. It is a
valuable antiseptic and has valuable medical properties.


SUGAR has been discovered to have great value as an addition to
mortar, as it has a solvent action on lime. An English builder wrote
an important letter to the authorities of Charleston, S. C., on this
subject, after that city had suffered from the earthquake.


ARTIFICIAL IVORY.--We shall no longer need the elephant for ivory.
Compounds of a celluloid character, made from cotton waste, can now be
made hard as ivory, or flexible or soft as we wish. White and
transparent, or brilliantly colored, it can be handled like wood cut
and carved, or applied as a varnish. An artificial ivory of creamy
whiteness and great hardness is now made from good potatoes washed in
diluted sulphuric acid, and then boiled in the same solution until
they become solid and dense. They are then washed free of the acid and
slowly dried. This ivory can be dyed and turned, and made useful in
many ways.


PAPER PIANOS.--Pianos have lately been made from paper in Germany,
instead of wood, with great improvement in the tone.


SOCIAL DEGENERACY OF THE WEALTHY.--The _Boston Herald_ says: "The
spirit of the age is censorious. There is no doubt of that, or that
with every new day the tendency toward pessimism increases. But even
taking these facts into consideration, there is no denying that the
young man about town of the nineteenth century is a blot upon our
boasted modern civilization. His is not a pleasant figure to
contemplate, though it is one that we all see very often and know very
well--clothed irreproachably in the most expensive raiment that London
tailors and unlimited credit can supply. He lives lazily and
luxuriously on his father's money and his wife's, and, being after his
natural term of days laid away in a tomb at Mt. Auburn, ends his
existence without making any more impression upon the world's history
than a falling rose leaf, or an August cricket's faintest chirp."


PREVENTION OF CRUELTY.--In Congress, Feb. 14, Mr. Collins, for the
judiciary committee, has given a favorable report on the bill and
memorial of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, asking the passage of a law to protect dumb animals in the
various territories from unnecessary cruelty. In the report Mr.
Collins says: "This body occupies the foremost place among the
organizations of men and women who in our time have done so much to
repress and punish human cruelty, abuse, and neglect in dealing with
dumb animals. In all the States, we believe, laws now exist to prevent
and punish unnecessary exposure, neglect, or cruel treatment of beasts
of burden and other animals. To bring the federal legislation into
co-operation and harmony with the laws of the States on the subject,
and provide a uniform rule for the District of Columbia and the
Territories, your committee recommend the passage of the bill."


VALUE OF BIRDS.--Maurice Thompson contends that the failure of
orchards in this country is largely or mainly due to the war upon
birds. The mocking bird he considers the most valuable of all. "No
Scuppernong vine," he says, "should be without its mocking bird to
defend it." Let ladies think of this who patronize cruelty by wearing
birds' plumage on their bonnets.


HOUSE PLANTS.--Dr. J. M. Anders has decided after eight years'
investigation that house plants are very sanitary agents, and even
thinks that they help to ward off consumption and other diseases.


THE LARGEST TUNNEL IN THE WORLD has been completed at Schemnitz in
Hungary. It was begun in 1782, and is ten and a quarter miles long,
nine feet ten inches high, and five feet three inches wide, costing
nearly $5,000,000. Its purpose is to drain the water of the Schemnitz
mines, which is worth $75,000 a year.


"WESTWARD THE STAR OF EMPIRE," ETC.--"The Fall River (Mass.,) iron
works, which have been in operation for fifty years, have shut down
permanently and all the hands have been discharged. It was found
impossible to compete with western works that are situated near the
base of natural gas and iron supplies."



STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN.

(_Continued from page 32._)


Nevertheless, in men and animals killed in full health there is very
little serum in any part of the brain, the blood requiring all the
space there is for fluids; and as the blood distends one part of the
brain more than another in consequence of local excitement, the other
portions of the brain, which are in a passive state, are compressed
and deprived of their full supply of blood, so that they are of less
nourished and their development declines.

Thus do we hold our destiny in our own hands. If we will cultivate the
faculties which are most in need of cultivation, their organs,
receiving more blood, will grow faster than any other portions of the
brain, while the organs that are kept in check and deprived of
activity will gradually decline in power and size, so that the
character will become essentially changed. It is in the power of every
individual who has the necessary determination to change essentially
his own nature for better or worse, as well as to modify and enlarge
his capacities, changing the structure of his brain; and this should
encourage every young man and woman to make for themselves a noble
destiny. Moreover, it is still more practicable to accomplish this by
means of education, with all proper appliances for the young; and this
should encourage philanthropists to struggle for that social
regeneration which is so clearly possible for all the world, as I have
shown in "The New Education." The study of the anatomy of the brain
and the innumerable experiments I have made on the brain, showing how
completely the brain of the impressible can be revolutionized in its
action in a few minutes, make it very apparent that society as a whole
is responsible for the continued existence of criminals, paupers, and
lunatics; for there should not be one, and would not be, if mankind
could be aroused from their criminal apathy and ignorance to the
performance of our duty in education. But alas! "the light shineth in
darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not."

The study of the brain continually leads us into grand philanthropic
conceptions by showing the splendid possibilities of humanity,--showing
how near we are to a nobler social state from which we are debarred by
ignorance, by moral apathy, by ignorant self sufficiency, by intolerant
bigotry, and by selfish animality,--qualities which, alas! pervade all
ranks to-day.

But returning from this digression to our study of the interior of the
brain: the great ventricles of which we have considered the position,
and which are called lateral ventricles, are interesting for another
reason, that they are the central region around which the cerebrum is
developed, as it folds over upon itself in its early growth, and
consequently must be borne in mind as its centre when we are studying
its comparative development in different heads. The basilar organs lie
below the ventricles and the coronal organs above.

If we have inserted a finger under the corpus callosum, the fibres of
which are above our finger, we may feel below, the structure which may
be called the bottom of the ventricle, and which is likewise the base
or trunk of the superincumbent parts from which they spring, as a tree
from its stump.

This structure is one mass, called anteriorly the corpus striatum, or
striated body, and posteriorly the optic thalamus or bed of the optic
nerve, though the optic nerve has its principal origin in another
part, called the optic lobes. The thalamus and corpus striatum are
called together, the _great inferior ganglion_ of the brain. They are
masses of gray substance, with white fibres from below passing through
them, and white fibres originating in them to ascend and spread, so
that their entire masses of fibres, ascending and spreading out like a
fan, constitute an extensive structure which folds together toward the
median line somewhat like a nervous sac, inclosing the cavity of the
ventricle and sending its representative fibres across the median
line,--which are called the corpus callosum. This will be more fully
explained when we consider the genesis of the brain as it grows in the
unborn infant.

As the reader now understands the principal parts around the
ventricles, let him look lower down to complete the survey and
understand the plan of the brain, though not its anatomical minutiæ.
The optic thalamus is indicated in the engraving, but the corpus
striatum, being more exterior and anterior, does not appear.
Practically they may be regarded as one body.

Where the thalami come together and touch or unite on the median line,
the junction is called a commissure (commiss. med.) and the space
between them where they do not touch is called the third ventricle
(ventric. III), which, like the lateral ventricles, may also hold a
little serum. It is unnecessary to consider the small parts above the
thalami, the choroid plexus of blood vessels, the fornix or strip of
nerve membrane, and the septum lucidum or delicate fibres under the
corpus callosum.

Beginning at the bottom of the figure, we observe the medulla
oblongata rising from the spinal cord to reach the cerebrum. Behind
this we see the cerebellum divided on the median line, and thus
presenting where it is divided the appearance called _arbor vitæ_,
from its resemblance to the leaf of that evergreen.

As the fibres of the medulla oblongata ascend they pass between the
cerebellum and the _pons Varolii_ (bridge of Varolius) mingling with
its substance. The pons or bridge (for if the brain were laid on its
upper surface the pons would appear like a bridge over the river
represented by the medulla oblongata) is the commissure or connecting
body of the cerebellum, as the corpus callosum is of the cerebrum.
When the head is held erect the fibres of the pons arch forward from
the interior of the cerebellum on one side across the median line to
the other side, so that a straight line through from the right to the
left ear would pierce its lower portion. It looks toward the front,
corresponding with the upper jaw, just below the nostrils, through
which region it may be reached for experiment.

My experiments upon the brain of man show that the pons on each side
of the median line is the commanding head of the respiratory impulse,
and in marking the organ of respiration on my busts, it is located
around the mouth from the nose to the chin. When this region
(especially its lower portion) is prominent it indicates active
respiration and a forcible voice. Hence there is a great contrast in
the vocal power of two such heads as are shown in the adjoining
figure. This discovery has been verified by the pathological
researches of Dr. J. B. Coste, published at Paris, 1857.

[Illustration]

Following the line of the ascending fibres, after passing through the
pons they continue expanding and plunge into the thalamus and corpus
striatum. Their first appearance above the pons (marked in the
engraving by the word _Pedunc._) is usually called the _crura_ or
thighs of the brain. The right crus, running through the thalamus,
expands by successive additions into the right hemisphere, and the
left crus into the left hemisphere, of the cerebrum, and the two
hemispheres unite together on the median line by the corpus callosum.

There is very little space for the crura (plural of crus) between the
pons and the thalamus, but if we look at the posterior surface of the
ascending fibres or crura we see a larger surface, on which we find a
quadruple elevation called the _corpora quadrigemina_ (the four
twins). This is an important intermediate structure between the
cerebrum and the cerebellum, and in fishes is the largest part of the
brain, but in man is the smallest portion, as will be explained
hereafter, and is the origin of the optic nerve, as well as a
commanding head for the spinal system, from which convulsions may be
produced.

The quadrigemina are distinguished also as the location of the pineal
gland, which rests upon them, to which we may ascribe important
psychic functions. The engraving shows the fibres connecting the
quadrigemina with the cerebellum, and a channel under them (aqueduct
of Sylvius) connecting the ventricles of the cerebrum with those of
the spinal cord. What is called the fourth ventricle is the small
space between the medulla oblongata and the cerebellum. At this spot
the posterior surface of the medulla oblongata, as it gives origin to
the pneumogastric nerve, which conveys the sensations of the lungs,
becomes the immediate source of the respiratory impulse on which
breathing depends, and hence is of the greatest importance to life. A
very slight injury at this spot with a lancet or point of a knife
would be fatal. It is recognized by converging fibres which look like
a pen, and are therefore called the _calamus scriptorius_, or writer's
pen.

If the reader has not fully mastered the intricacy of the brain
structure, he will find his difficulties removed by studying two more
skilful dissections. The following engraving presents the appearances
when we cut through the middle of the brain horizontally and reveal
the bottom of the ventricles, in which we see the great ganglion, or
optic thalamus and corpus striatum, and the three localities at which
the hemispheres are connected by fibres on the median line, called
anterior, middle, and posterior commissures. These commissures are of
no importance in our study; they assist the corpus callosum in
maintaining a close connection between the right and left hemispheres.

[Illustration]

Behind the thalami we see the quadrigemina, the posterior pair of
which is labelled _testes_, and resting upon them we have the pineal
gland, a centre of spiritual influx. Behind the thalami, the posterior
lobes are cut away that we may look down to the cerebellum, and the
middle of the cerebellum is also removed so that we may see the back
of the medulla oblongata and its fibres, called restiform bodies,
which give origin to the cerebellum. The fibres from the cerebellum to
the quadrigemina are shown, and the space at the back of the medulla,
called the fourth ventricle.

As the fibres of the medulla pass up through the pons to the great
inferior ganglion, and the fibres of the corpus striatum pass outward
and upward to form the cerebrum, this procession of the fibres is
shown in the annexed engraving, in which we see the restiform bodies
passing up to form the cerebellum, and the remainder of the medulla
fibres passing through the pons, and then, under the name crus cerebri
or thigh of the cerebrum, passing through the thalamus and striatum to
expand in the left hemisphere of the cerebrum. We see the quadrigemina
on the back of the ascending fibres and their connection by fibres
with the cerebellum behind, as they connect with the thalami in front.
This is as complete a statement of the structure of the brain as is
necessary, and further anatomical details would only embarrass the
memory.

[Illustration]

The engraving above represents not an actual dissection, but the plan
of the fibres as understood by the anatomist. The intricacy of the
cerebral structure is so great that it would require a vast number of
skilful dissections and engravings to make a correct portrait.
Fortunately, this is not necessary for the general reader, who
requires only to understand the position of the organs in the head,
and the direction of their growth, which is in all cases directly
outward from the central region or ventricles, so as to cause a
prominence of the cranium--not a "bump," but a general fulness of
contour. Bumps belong to the growth of bone--not that of the brain.

Let us next consider the genesis of the brain, which will give us a
more perfect understanding of its structure, by showing its origin,
the correct method of estimating its development.



CHAPTER III.--GENESIS OF THE BRAIN

    Beginning of the brain--Its correspondence to the animal
    kingdom and the law of evolution--Inadequacy of physical
    causes in evolution--The Divine influence and its human
    analogy--Probability of influx--Possible experimental
    proof--Potentiality of the microscopic germinal element and
    its invisible life--Is it a complete microcosm?--The cosmic
    teaching of Sarcognomy--The fish form of the brain--The triple
    form of the brain--Decline of the middle brain--Brains of the
    codfish, flounder, and roach--Embryo of twelve weeks--Lowest
    type of the brain--Measurement of the embryo brain--Structure
    of the convolutions--Unfolding of the brain--Forms of
    twenty-one weeks and seven months--Anatomy shows the central
    region--Its importance--Neglect of prior authors--Errors of
    the phrenological school explained--Misled by Mr. Combe into a
    false system of measurement--How I was led to detect the
    error--Form of the animal head and form of the noble
    character--Line of the ventricles--Coronal and basilar
    development--Its illustration in two heads and in the entire
    animal kingdom---Dulness of human observers--Anatomy shows the
    central region--Circular character of cerebral
    development--Accuracy of a true cerebral science, and errors
    of the Gallian system.


The brain begins in a human being in embryonic life, as it begins in
the animal kingdom, void of the convolutions which are seen in its
maturity,--beginning as a small outgrowth from the medulla oblongata,
which after the second month extends into three small sacs of nervous
membrane inclosing cavities, making a triple brain, such as exists in
fishes, which are the lowest type of vertebrated animals,--animals
that have a spinal column or backbone.

From this condition, the fishy condition of the nervous system of the
embryo human being at the end of the second month, there is a regular
growth which develops in the embryo the forms characteristic of higher
orders of animals in regular succession,--fishes, reptiles, birds, and
quadrupeds or mammalia, monkeys, and man.

This is the same order of succession which geologists assign to the
development of the animal kingdom, the higher species coming in after
the lower; and if every human being, instead of developing at once,
according to the human type, is compelled to pass through this regular
gradation of development, is it not apparent that the lower forms are
absolutely necessary as a basis for the higher, and that the higher
forms cannot arrive except by building up and giving additional
development to the lower? In other words, the present status of
humanity above the animal kingdom was attained not by a sudden burst
of creative power, making a distinct and isolated being, but by the
gradual and consecutive influx, which evolved new faculties and
organs,--a process called _evolution_. How slow or how rapid this
process may have been, science has not yet determined; but it would
require incalculable millions of years if nothing but the common
exciting effects of environment and necessity have been operative in
evolution; and science has utterly failed to discover any power which
could carry on development so effectively as to produce an entire
transformation of species, and overcome the vast differences between
the oyster and the bird, the fish and the elephant.

But as such transmutations of the nervous system do virtually occur in
man before birth, we cannot say that they are _impossible_, for that
which occurs in the womb under the influence of parental love may also
occur in the womb of nature under the influence of Divine love; for
love is the creative power, and as the maternal influx may determine
the noble development of humanity or the ignoble development of
monsters and animalized beings, it is obvious that the formative stage
of all beings is a plasmic condition in which the most subtle or
spiritual influences may totally change their destiny and development.

That such an influx may come to exalt or to modify the animal type is
by no means unreasonable, for human beings in vast numbers are liable
to such influences from the unseen, which exert a controlling
influence, and many animals are as accessible to invisible influences
as man, while their embryos are vastly more so than the parents. If
then we recognize the spiritual being in man, and the same spiritual
being disembodied as a potential existence,--if, moreover, we
recognize the illimitable and incomprehensible psychical power behind
the universe, of which man is one expression, we cannot fail to see
that the embryonic development of animals from a lower to a higher
form is entirely possible and probable; and in the absence of any
other practicable method of evolution to higher types we are compelled
to adopt this as the most rational.

What is difficult or utterly impossible when we rely on physical
causes alone, becomes facile enough when we introduce the spiritual,
and argue from what we see in the spiritual genesis of every human
being to the analogous processes of nature on the largest scale.

If a false and brutal superstition did not stand in the way, clothed
in pharisaical assumption and political power, experiments might be
made on human beings and animals sufficient to settle most positively
all doubt as to transmutation of species by the semi-creative power
from the invisible world, combined with visible agencies.

Indeed, the entire difficulty vanishes from the mind of a philosopher
when he refers to the fact that the potentiality of all being resides
in a microscopic germinal element containing within itself an
invisible spiritual energy, which determines for all time a continual
succession of animals of certain forms and characteristics which human
power has never been able to change.

Why is it that a simple speck of protoplasm void of visible
organization--a mere jelly to hold the invisible life power--carries
within itself in that invisible spiritual element the destiny of
myriads of animal beings, and according to the nature of that
invisible spiritual element it may develop into a Humboldt or an
oyster, an elephant, a humming-bird, or a serpent?



To the Readers of the Journal of Man.


The establishment of a new Journal is a hazardous and expensive
undertaking. Every reader of this volume receives what has cost more
than he pays for it, and in addition receives the product of months of
editorial, and many years of scientific, labor. May I not therefore
ask his aid in relieving me of this burden by increasing the
circulation of the Journal among his friends?

The establishment of the Journal was a duty. There was no other way
effectively to reach the people with its new sphere of knowledge.
Buckle has well said in his "History of Civilization," that "No great
political improvement, no great reform, either legislative or
executive, has ever been originated in any country by its ruling
class. The first suggestors of such steps have invariably been bold
and able thinkers, who discern the abuse, denounce it, and point out
the remedy."

This is equally true in science, philanthropy, and religion. When the
advance of knowledge and enlightenment of conscience render reform or
revolution necessary, the ruling powers of college, church,
government, capital, and the press, present a solid combined
resistance which the teachers of novel truth cannot overcome without
an appeal to the people. The grandly revolutionary science of
Anthropology, which offers in one department (Psychometry) "the dawn
of a new civilization," and in other departments an entire revolution
in social, ethical, educational, and medical philosophy, has
experienced the same fate as all other great scientific and
philanthropic innovations, in being compelled to sustain itself
against the mountain mass of established error by the power of truth
alone. The investigator whose life is devoted to the evolution of the
truth cannot become its propagandist. A whole century would be
necessary to the full development of these sciences to which I can
give but a portion of one life. Upon those to whom these truths are
given, who can intuitively perceive their value, rests the task of
sustaining and diffusing the truth.

The circulation of the Journal is necessarily limited to the sphere of
liberal minds and advanced thinkers, but among these it has had a more
warm and enthusiastic reception than was ever before given to any
periodical. There must be in the United States twenty or thirty
thousand of the class who would warmly appreciate the Journal, but
they are scattered so widely it will be years before half of them can
be reached without the active co-operation of my readers, which I most
earnestly request.

Prospectuses and specimen numbers will be furnished to those who will
use them, and those who have liberal friends not in their own vicinity
may confer a favor by sending their names that a prospectus or
specimen may be sent them. A liberal commission will be allowed to
those who canvas for subscribers.


Enlargement of the Journal.

The requests of readers for the enlargement of the Journal are already
coming in. It is a great disappointment to the editor to be compelled
each month to exclude so much of interesting matter, important to
human welfare, which would be gratifying to its readers. The second
volume therefore will be enlarged to 64 pages at $2 per annum.

[Hand pointing right] SEE NEXT PAGE.


BOOKS RECEIVED FOR NOTICE.--"Unanswerable Logic: Spiritual discourses
through the mediumship of Thomas Gales Forster," published by Colby
and Rich; $1.50. This is an able and scholarly discussion of spiritual
science. The style would not suggest mediumship as their source, but
rather study and research. There are several passages the Journal
would like to quote when space permits. Mr. Forster should be
remembered with gratitude as an able and fearless pioneer in the
diffusion of noble truths.


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 course in Boston, of which we present only the
concluding resolution.

"_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."

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.



                      Buchanan's Journal of Man.

                $1.00 PER ANNUM. SINGLE COPIES 10 CTS.

       PUBLISHED AT 6 JAMES ST., BOSTON, BY DR. J. R. BUCHANAN,

    AUTHOR OF SYSTEM OF ANTHROPOLOGY, THE NEW EDUCATION, MANUAL OF
        PSYCHOMETRY, AND THERAPEUTIC SARCOGNOMY. PROFESSOR OF
    PHYSIOLOGY AND INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE IN FOUR MEDICAL COLLEGES
    SUCCESSIVELY FROM 1845 TO 1881; AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF THE
         PARENT SCHOOL OF AMERICAN ECLECTICISM AT CINCINNATI.


                        LANGUAGE OF THE PRESS.

The reception of this JOURNAL by the press, when first issued from
1849 to 1856 was as unique as its own character. The following
quotations show the reputation of the JOURNAL thirty to thirty-seven
years ago.

Buchanan's JOURNAL OF MAN. "Perhaps no journal published in the world
is so far in advance of the age."--_Plain Dealer, Cleveland._

"His method is strictly scientific; he proceeds on the sure ground of
observation and experiment; he admits no phenomena as reality which he
has not thoroughly tested, and is evidently more desirous to arrive at
a correct understanding of nature than to establish a system.... We
rejoice that they are in the hands of one who is so well qualified as
the editor of the JOURNAL to do them justice, both by his indomitable
spirit of research, his cautious analysis of facts, and his power of
exact and vigorous expression."--_New York Tribune._

"This sterling publication is always welcome to our table. Many of its
articles evince marked ability and striking originality."--_National
Era, Washington City._

"It is truly refreshing to take up this monthly.... When we drop
anchor and sit down to commune with philosophy as taught by Buchanan,
the fogs and mists of the day clear up."--_Capital City Fact._

"This work is a pioneer in the progress of science."--_Louisville
Democrat._

"After a thorough perusal of its pages, we unhesitatingly pronounce it
one of the ablest publications in America."--_Brandon Post._

"To hear these subjects discussed by ordinary men, and then to read
Buchanan, there is as much difference as in listening to a novice
performing on a piano, and then to a Chevalier Gluck or a
Thalberg."--_Democrat Transcript._

"No person of common discernment who has read Dr. Buchanan's writings
or conversed with him in relation to the topics which they treat, can
have failed to recognize in him one of the very foremost thinkers of
the day. He is certainly one of the most charming and instructive
men to whom anybody with a thirst for high speculation ever
listened."--_Louisville Journal_ (_edited by PRENTICE and SHIPMAN_).

[Hand pointing right] The recent issue of the JOURNAL in Boston was
immediately hailed with the same appreciative cordiality by the press,
and by private correspondents.

"Dr. Buchanan's name has been so intimately associated with the
foremost moral, social, and political reforms which have agitated the
public mind for the last half century that the mention of it in
connection with the foregoing publication under the old-time name will
doubtless draw to it an extensive patronage."--_Hall's Journal of
Health, New York._

"It is a real pleasure to be able to turn to such a journal after, as
a matter of courtesy, skimming over so much trash as is thrown
broadcast.... He seems determined to reverse this order and use words
that will not only _express_ his ideas, but, at the same time, _sink
them in_ so they will stay."--_Nonconformist._

"This JOURNAL reaches our table as richly laden with thought as ever.
When we read it in the days of our boyhood it was at least thirty-one
years ahead of its time."--_New Thought._

"It was at that time one of the most original scientific journals of
the day, advancing ideas that had not then been heard of."--_Hartford
Times._

"For this work we know of no one so well adapted as Dr. Buchanan. He
stands at the head of the thinkers of this nation, and has given to
the topics with which he regales his readers his best
thoughts."--_Golden Gate, San Francisco._

"This publication is unique in its aims, and by pursuing almost
untrodden mental paths, leads the reader into new and heretofore
unexplored fields of thought."--_Herald Times, Gouverneur, N. Y._

"We have read with interest the varied contents of the present number,
and feel eager for more."--_The New Age._

"All will be profited by the candid and able presentation of the
various topics by the distinguished anthropologist
editor."--_Spiritual Offering._

"The complete volume will be worth twelve times the cost to
progressive people."--_Medical Liberator._

"Undoubtedly this will be a journal of rare merit, and much looked for
by all thinking minds, as its editor has established a reputation in
new scientific researches, not attained by any man on this continent
or any other."--_Eastern Star_.

"Several years ago, the _Advance_, in an article on pyschometry,
expressed the opinion that Dr. Buchanan was the greatest discoverer of
this age, if not of any age of the world. We regard the publication of
such a journal as an event of the century, greater than political
changes. Prof. Buchanan by his discoveries has laid the foundation for
the revolution of science."--_Worthington Advance, Minnesota_.

"It is designed to occupy the highest realm of knowledge attainable by
man, hence will not attract those who have no aspiration toward such
knowledge. No brief notice would convey a good idea of the worth of
this magazine."--_Richmond (Mo.) Democrat_.

"It is so full of valuable matter that to the thoughtful man it is a
mine of gold."--_Deutsche Zeitung, Charleston, S. C._

"His monthly is one of rare merits, as is everything that comes from
the pen of this advanced thinker....We never read an article from the
pen of this world-renowned thinker, but that we feel we are in the
presence of one whose shoes' latchet we are unworthy to
unloose."--_Rostrum, Vineland, N. J._

"We are more than pleased to know that Prof. Buchanan at his age of
life has taken upon himself such a broad, deep, beneficent task as
publishing the JOURNAL OF MAN. We welcome it as a harbinger of
knowledge that will send its light away down the corridors of time as
a beacon of the nineteenth century....We believe that its future pages
are destined to contain the vortex of questions, socially and morally,
which are whirling through the human mind, and their solution, in a
manner that will command the profound respect of philosophers,
scientists, professors, doctors, philanthropists, and all grades and
classes of thinkers....Every word is interesting and profitable to the
human family."--_Eastern Star, Maine_.

"The article on the "Phrenological doctrines of Gall, their past and
present status," is grand and masterly, and whets the appetite for
what is promised in continuation. We hope our readers will give
attention to this one article; it is worth the whole price of the
magazine."--_Medium and Daybreak, London, England_.


THE LANGUAGE OF THE READERS OF THIS JOURNAL has expressed in every
variety of style their generous and profound appreciation. One of its
most enlightened and distinguished friends said that language could
not fully express his pleasure, and in addition to his subscription
sent an extra dollar _to pay for the first number_, which he
considered was alone worth the subscription price. Another
distinguished friend writes: "It is a leader, and leads in the right
direction." Another whose celebrity fills England and America writes:
"I follow your noble work ever with deep interest."

The following quotations show the general drift of expression: "It is
a feast of good food for the soul."--A. C. D. "The Journal is a
literary feast of which I am more than proud to be a partaker."--W. S.
"Your "Moral Education" is one of the very best books ever written,
and one of the greatest as well. Your Journal charms me. You are
leading the leaders; lead on."--E. E. C. "I am much pleased with its
resurrected body, so bright and attractive."--DR. C. W. "As a reader
of the Journal more than thirty years ago who got his first weak
conceptions of the marvellous facts in man's spiritual nature, from
Dr. Buchanan's scientific discoveries, I hail the reappearance of the
Journal."--D. S. F. "Praying that your life may be prolonged to
complete the work you have planned, and fully accomplish the mission
appointed you by high Heaven, the elevation of the race to a higher
spiritual plane."--DR. E. D. "Your "New Education," a work destined to
play a mighty role in this world of social redemption,--we quote from
it and delight in it all the time."--M. H. "The truths that you so ably
set forth have been felt and known by me for the last six or seven
years, because I am unfortunately a victim of that one-sided
education, called literary, which dwarfs instead of developing true
and noble manhood."--L. I. G. of New Mexico. "The JOURNAL OF MAN
should startle the advanced medical man with transports of joy."--DR.
D. E. E. "I read it with great pleasure, as I do everything I can meet
that comes from your pen."--H. T. L. "If I were younger I should place
myself under your tuition."--W. B. "When I have read your thoughts I
have felt elevated, and have wanted to grasp you in body as I do
spiritually."--L. M. B. "I trust that you will be held in the form
years yet to come to carry out the important work."--J. L. (England.)
"I read every scrap of yours I can get my fingers over."--T. M. "I
feel thankful from the depths of my soul that in all this wide world
there is such a mind as your own."--P. C. M. "I do wish you could have
taken charge of our American Anthropological University."--W. W. B.
"Your method has been a much greater source of medical knowledge to me
than that I have gained here."--A STUDENT IN COLLEGE. "Sarcognomy has
been a source of wonderful aid to me; I cannot give in words my
estimation thereof."--G. P. B., M. D. "It seems that since our beloved
Denton's departure you are almost left alone to fight the great battle
of Psychometry. If you will make Psychometry the leading theme in your
JOURNAL, you will do more to hasten that dawn of a higher civilization
that your noble science is destined to usher in than all other
sciences combined."--DR. A. B. D. "I am delighted with it. I send for
ten more copies for friends."--DR. B. F.

FROM OHIO.--"My father used to take the Journal many years ago, from
which I tried my first experiments in psychology; and have practised
magnetism for cure of diseases in an amateur way with as much success
as any I have seen operate."--A. K.

FROM GERMANY.--"A journal of this kind would also be very much needed
in Germany, for here medical ignorance is equally strong. The people
on the whole have no comprehension for spiritual facts,--they are so
sunk into dogmatism and belief in authority."--DR. F. H. "As I myself
am a psychometer, your writings have a double interest for me. May God
protect you, dear, dear friend!"--COUNTESS A. V. W.

       *       *       *       *       *

                                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.

       *       *       *       *       *

                          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.

       *       *       *       *       *

                         OPIUM and MORPHINE
                                  HABITS
                               EASILY CURED BY
                                A NEW METHOD.

                          DR. J. C. HOFFMAN,

                      _JEFFERSON ... WISCONSIN._

       *       *       *       *       *

                    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._

       *       *       *       *       *

                       THE SPIRITUAL OFFERING,

     LARGE EIGHT-PAGE, WEEKLY JOURNAL, DEVOTED TO THE ADVOCACY OF
 SPIRITUALISM IN ITS RELIGIOUS, SCIENTIFIC, AND HUMANITARIAN ASPECTS.

                      COL. D. M. FOX, Publisher.

                 D. M. & NETTIE P. FOX .... EDITORS.


                       EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS.

Prof. Henry Kiddle, No. 7 East 130th St., New York City.

"Ouina," through her medium, Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond, 64 Union Park
Place, Chicago, Ill.

Among its contributors will be found our oldest and ablest writers. In
it will be found Lectures, Essays upon Scientific, Philosophical, and
Spiritual subjects, Spirit Communications and Messages.

A Young Folks' Department has recently been added, edited by _Ouina_,
through her medium, Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond; also a Department, "THE
OFFERING'S School for Young and Old," A. Danforth, of Boston, Mass.,
Principal.


TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: Per Year. $2.00; Six Months, $1.00; Three
Months, 50 cents.

Any person wanting the _Offering_, who is unable to pay more than
$1.50 per annum, and will so notify us, shall have it at that rate.
The price will be the same if ordered as a present to friends.

In remitting by mail, a Post-Office Money Order on Ottumwa, or Draft
on a Bank or Banking House in Chicago or New York City, payable to the
order of D. M. Fox, is preferable to Bank Notes. Single copies 5
cents; newsdealers 3 cents, payable in advance, monthly or quarterly.

RATES OF ADVERTISING.--Each line of nonpareil type, 15 cents for first
insertion and 10 cents for each subsequent insertion. Payment in
advance.

[Hand pointing right] The circulation of the OFFERING in every State
and Territory now makes it a very desirable paper for advertisers.
Address,

                  SPIRITUAL OFFERING, Ottumwa, Iowa

       *       *       *       *       *



    Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents came from the first
    issue of the volume. The article STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN is
    continued from the previous issue's page 32.





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