BUCHANAN’S
JOURNAL OF MAN.

Psychometry: The Divine Science.

It is presumed that every reader of these pages has some knowledge
of this subject, either by reading the “Manual of Psychometry”
or otherwise, and has at least read the “Introduction to the Journal
of Man” on our cover pages.

It is not of the directly practical bearings of Psychometry that I
would speak at present, but of its imperial rank among sciences,
entitling it to the post of honor.

In all human affairs, that takes the highest rank which has the
greatest controlling and guiding power. The king, the statesman,
the hero, the saintly founder of a religion, the philosopher that
guides the course of human thought, and the scientist who gives us
a greater command of nature, are the men whom we honor as the
ministers of destiny.

When we speak of science, we accord the highest rank to that
which gives the greatest comprehension of the world as it is—of its
past and of its future. Geology and astronomy are the sciences
which reach out into the illimitable alike in the present and past.
Biology will do the same for the world of life when biology is
completed by a knowledge of the centre of all life, the brain. But
in its present acephalous condition it is but a fragment of science—a
headless corpse, unfit to rank among complete sciences. Theology
claims the highest rank of all, but based as it has been on the conceptions
current in the dark ages, it has become, in the light of
modern science, a crumbling ruin. Does psychometry compare with
astronomy and geology in its scientific rank, or does it compare with
the acephalous biology, which occupies all medical colleges?

It compares with neither. Like astronomy, it borders on the
limitless; like geology, it reaches into the vast, undefined past; and
like biology, it comprehends all life science; but unlike each, it has
no limitation to any sphere. It is equally at home with living forms
and with dead matter—equally at home in the humbler spheres of
human life and human infirmity, and in the higher spheres of the
spirit world, which we call heaven. It grasps all of biology, all of
history, all of geology and astronomy, and far more than
telescopes have revealed. It has no parallel in any science, for
sciences are limited and defined in their scope, while psychometry is
unlimited, transcending far all that collegians have called science,
and all that they have deemed the limits of human capacities, for in
 psychometry the divinity in man becomes apparent, and the intellectual
mastery of all things lifts human life to a higher plane than it
has ever known before.

Psychometry is therefore in its nature and scope not classifiable
among the sciences, since it reaches out above and beyond all, in a
higher and broader sphere, and hence may truly be called the
Divine science, for it is the expression of the Divine element in man.
Wherein is Divine above human knowledge? And wherein is human
above animal knowledge and understanding? The superiority
in each case consists in a deeper and more interior comprehension
of that which is, which realizes in the present the potentiality
of the future, enabling us to act for future results and accomplish
whatever is possible to our powers. That forecast, that comprehension
through the present of that which is to be, constitutes
foresight,—the essential element of wisdom; and in its grander
manifestations it appears as prophecy. Prophecy, then, is the
noblest aspect of psychometry; and if this prophetic power can be
cultivated to its maximum possibilities, there is no reason why it
should not become the guiding power of each individual life,
and the guiding power for the destiny of nations. Moreover,
in its prophetic role its superiority of rank is manifest, since it
is then the instructor of all hearers,—the revealer of that in which
they readily confess their ignorance.

Hence it was that St. Paul especially recommended the cultivation
of prophecy as the most sacred and Divine of all religious exercises,
saying, in 1 Corinthians xiv. 21-25: “If therefore the
whole church be come together into one place, and all speak
with tongues, and there come in those who are unlearned or
unbelievers, will they not say ye are mad? But if all prophesy,
and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned,
he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the
secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his
face, he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.”
This is a description of a congregation in which all are developed up
to a psychometric and spiritual condition in which the truths of religion
and the ministry of angels may have full power.

Wherever the highest order of religious sentiment is in active
operation, prophecy becomes one of its results. It was so in
Jewish history, and has been so in many eventful periods since.

George Fox had the most exalted religious sentiment of his time,
and he had an eminently prophetic mind. All nations have had
prophetic minds and well-attested prophecies. Egypt and India,
Greece, Rome, France, England, and America, have their recorded
prophecies, and in the height of ancient civilization prophecy commanded
sufficient respect to influence the course of public events.
Cicero expressed the general intelligence of the ancients in recognizing
prophecy as a power of the human soul.

Modern materialism has ignored all this, and one of the noblest
works to-day for a man of genius whose mind is sufficiently vigorous
to throw off the trammels of collegiate ignorance and fashionable
 conservatism, would be to produce a volume upon prophecy, in
which its vast historic development should be sketched.

The limitations of the Journal of Man do not permit me to
introduce this historic matter which would be sufficient to exclude
everything else from its pages, and I would merely refer to an
almost forgotten example of the intuitive and prescient faculty
connected with the introduction of Universalism into this country.

A worthy and pious farmer on the seacoast of Delaware, named
Potter, built a church at his own expense, but having an advanced
idea of the Divine benevolence, he could never find any preacher
whose doctrines suited him. Nevertheless he was profoundly convinced
that such a preacher would be sent to realize his hopes, and
was not discouraged by the disbelief of his neighbors. His anticipation
was strangely fulfilled. Rev. John Murray, almost crazed by
the death of his wife, sailed from England for America in 1770,
intending to abandon the pulpit entirely. The vessel put in at
Philadelphia instead of New York, and as the stage for New York
had left, Mr. Murray concluded to remain on the vessel and go to
New York that way. But on the voyage they got lost in the fog,
and got into Cranberry Inlet in a dangerous position. They went
ashore, being out of provisions, and found a country tavern. Mr.
Murray strolled along the coast, intending to get fish for the crew,
and fell into company with Farmer Potter, who had a supply, and
who at once told him, to his astonishment, that he was glad to meet
him, and had been looking for him a long time. Potter decided at
once that this was the minister he had been looking for, and of whom
he had often spoken when telling his neighbors, “God will send me
a preacher of a very different stamp from those who have heretofore
preached in my house; that God who has put it into my heart to
build this house will send one who shall deliver to me His own truth,
who shall speak of Jesus Christ and His salvation.” Potter
briefly sketched his own life and said:

“The moment I beheld your vessel on shore, it seemed as if a
voice had suddenly sounded in my ears: ‘There, Potter, in that
vessel cast away on that shore is the preacher you have been so long
expecting.’ I heard the voice and I believed the report; and when
you came up to my door and asked for the fish, the same voice
seemed to repeat, ‘Potter, this is the man, this is the person whom I
have sent to preach in your house.’”

Murray says: “I was astonished, immeasurably astonished at Mr.
Potter’s narrative, but yet I had not the smallest idea that it could
ever be realized. I requested to know what he could discover in my
appearance which could lead him to mistake me for a preacher.”
“What,” said he, “could I discover when you were in the vessel that
could induce this conclusion? No sir, it is not what I saw or see,
but what I feel, which produces in my mind a full conviction.”
“But, my dear sir, you are deceived, indeed you are deceived. I
shall never preach in this place nor anywhere else.”

Potter maintained that he had preached and that he would preach
in his church, and that the wind would not allow him to leave until
 he had. To shorten the story, Murray at last yielded and preached
in that church, of which we have a picture in his biography. He
had a great fear of giving out the doctrine of universal salvation,
expecting universal denunciation of himself by the clergy and their
followers, but he went on from this beginning and established
Universalism in America.

In this instance it is evident that Potter was of a spiritual
temperament, and was indebted to a spirit influence for his impressions
and convictions. But whatever is possible to the disembodied
spirit in the intellectual way is also possible to the embodied spirit
which has not lost its material body, if the interior faculties are well
developed and prophecy does not require supernal aid. In innumerable
cases mesmeric subjects, in their somniloquent condition,
have made most accurate predictions in reference to their own cases
and others, which have been accurately verified. There is probably
no good clairvoyant physician who has not often made successful
predictions concerning patients.

In the daily practice of psychometry, Mrs. Buchanan, of whose
powers the “Manual of Psychometry” gives a fair idea, is accustomed
in speaking of the present to feel impressions of the past and
the future. In reference to public men she has spoken in advance of
their election or defeat, their policy and their death. She spoke
prophetically of the election of Cleveland and the defeat of Blaine,
of the deaths of Disraeli and Garibaldi, of the career of Gladstone
and his becoming “the best friend of Ireland;” and when Ireland
was believed to be on the brink of a bloody revolution or rebellion,
she announced that no such outbreak would occur, but that at the
end of two years Ireland would be pacified and quiet. At the end
of two years this was verified, for the magistrates commented on the
fact at that time that there were fewer crimes of violence before
them than had been customary.

I have learned to rely on this prescience, and in reference to public
men and public affairs, when they interested me, have satisfied
my curiosity by the psychometric method.

For twelve months past the newspaper press and the statesmen of
Europe and America have been continually agitated by apprehensions
of a great European war, and have made numerous estimates
of the power of belligerents and the result of the contest. France
and Germany have been expected to engage in a fatal conflict, and
even a noted public medium has fallen in with these ideas and predicted
a coming war this year.

I have kept the record of public opinion, and from time to time
have invoked the aid of psychometry, which has dissipated every fear
and contradicted all the pessimistic notions of politicians and newspaper
correspondents down to the present time.

On the 26th of January I recorded the psychometric impressions,
again in February, and again on the 11th of March. The psychometer
answers questions or discusses subjects by impression alone, not
knowing what is under her hand, but expressing what arises in her
mind. The first impression, January 26, was as follows:

 “It looks misty, but the finale looks bright. The result of this,
whatever it is, will be a grand success or achievement—good will
result. There is a dissatisfaction or rivalry on a very large scale—very
momentous—is it war? There is agitation and blustering.”

Q.—How will it be in the summer?

“There will not be war. There is a growing contention, like
growling, angry dogs; they may keep up growling for a year, but it
will be nothing; there will be good coming out of it—a better
understanding; this experience will elevate the views of the people;
they will see the folly, and not be so belligerent. There will be no war
this summer.”

What was the drift of opinion, however, as shown by the press?
The correspondent of the New York Sun said: “Everybody talks
of war as a sure thing which must soon appear somewhere. The
work of getting ready for the fray, of which I have often sent
details, goes steadily on.” M. Thibaudin “hopes for peace, as do all
other diplomats trained and admired for their ability to say what they
don’t think; and finally he announces that France is ready to fight
whenever the time comes.” January 29 he writes: “The Daily
News war scare which shook us up early in the week seems not to
have exhausted its disquieting influence yet.” “France and Germany
are looked upon as certain to lead off the ball, and Germany,
it is generally thought, will be found at the head of the set and take
the initiative. Preparations for a big fight continue in every direction.”
“Russia, if we can believe the tales from that unreliable country,
is quietly making preparations on a tremendous scale to have
her paw fall heavily on somebody.”

The French Revue des Deux Mondes said about this time that a
war between France and Germany would almost inevitably lead to
a general European war, on a scale such as the world has never
before seen.

The Russian Viedomosti of February 5 said: “No compromise is
possible between Russia and Austria concerning Eastern affairs, without
detriment to Russia and the Eastern races. German intervention
is useless, and will only create hostility between Russia and Germany.”

The Boston Herald correspondent of February 5, said of France
and Germany: “Now both are counted as among the most civilized
and most humanitarian on the face of the globe, and yet the certainty
of war between the two hereditary enemies on either side of the
Rhine is as certain as anything can be. When it comes, be it sooner
or later, one of the two adversaries is inevitably condemned, if not to
total annihilation, at least to such a crushing punishment that for
many long years the defeated power will be little more than a geographical
expression on modern maps.” His letter concluded with
an elaborate statement of the military resources and condition of the
two nations, which approximate an equality in the aggregate.

A Paris dispatch of the same date said that “Prince Bismarck has
succeeded in establishing a coalition between Austria, England, and
Italy against Russia. Germany will join the coalition if France
supports Russia.”

 The New York Sun of February 7, said: “We suppose there is no
subject which just now is more earnestly discussed among intelligent
Americans than the probable result of the war between France and
Germany which is believed to be approaching. France ought by
this time to have outstripped her enemy in point of military efficiency.
She has laid out since 1871 nearly twice as much on her
permanent armament, and she devotes nearly twice as much to the
current military expenses of each year. She has maintained a larger
peace establishment, and she should have it in her power to bring to
the field a larger number of soldiers who have served under the colors.”

February 10 the Paris correspondent of the Berlin Post said that
General Boulanger was growing in popularity, and “is regarded by
the masses as the long-expected liberator. The whole country is
anxious for revanche [revenge], and is arming silently, but with the
evident belief that the hour is coming.” To add to the growing hostility,
the Post quotes from the Paris Figaro an article imputing the
grossest immorality to German women.

At the same date, the Buda Pesth Journal urged Austria to attack
Russia before the latter has completed her preparations on the lower
Danube. It said: “War is inevitable, and it is better to begin fighting
before the Balkan states have been Russianized.”

Senor Castillo, the Spanish minister of the interior, said that Spain
had taken steps to augment her defences and protect her colonies,
in view of the possible European war.

February 12 a despatch to the London News from St. Petersburg said:
“Ominous fears of a European war prevail here. It is announced
that German colonists in the Caucasus have been notified to hold
themselves in readiness to return to Germany and join the reserves.”

At the same date the North German Gazette said that since
General Boulanger had assumed charge of the French war office not
a day had passed without measures being taken to augment the
offensive strength of the army, and there were constant movements
of troops upon the frontiers.

February 19 the news was still more alarming at Berlin. Work
was going on night and day on the fortifications at Verdun and
Belfort. “All commerce has been suspended at Metz, excepting in
food. The inhabitants are storing their houses from cellar to garret.”
A Russian paper of that date said, “Existing circumstances admit of
no delay.”

At Vienna, February 18, it was announced that “a semi-official
letter from St. Petersburg represents that Russia is waiting for a
Franco-German conflict, which she considers inevitable, to realize her
own Balkan projects. Russia would consider it to be to her own
interest not to allow Germany to be victorious.”

February 19 Senator Beck at Washington referred to an extract
from a late speech of Count von Moltke before the German Reichstag,
to show that war is inevitable.

February 27 the London despatch to the Boston Herald said:
“Within the last forty-eight hours confidence in the maintenance of
peace has visibly lessened.”

 About the same time in Russian government circles the conviction
was said to be gaining ground that a Franco-German war was inevitable,
and that it would be for the interest of Russia to save France
from disaster.

March 6 the North German Gazette said that the Alsace elections
had strengthened the war party in France. War seems to have
been the general anticipation of military men. General Wolseley
(February 26) is reported to have said: “I feel sure that a vast,
appalling war is certainly in the near future; but this, indeed,
everybody may be said to know.”

But “everybody” is as liable to be mistaken on questions of
futurity as on questions of philosophy and religion, on which the
multitude called “everybody” has been largely mistaken ever since
the earliest periods known to history. “Everybody” is generally
pessimistic, apt to be superstitious, and never philosophic. A single
good psychometric perception is worth much more than Mr. Everybody’s
opinion, whether upon national policy, personal character, historical
truth, or medical science.

The psychometric opinion is the opposite of that of General
Wolseley and Senator Beck, for the psychometric soul is in the
calm sphere of truth, in which the passions have no deceiving power.
I have already published in the “Manual of Psychometry” the prediction
of universal peace at the end of five years from the prophecy,
and I now repeat the statement that great Franco-German war
is but the fantasy of passion and fear. The last psychometric
expression, March 11, confirms the uniform statements heretofore.
Upon the question “What of the war in Europe?” this was the
impression:

“This seems a question of occurrences. I seem to disagree with
other people on this question. It does not seem to me that it will
occur. If there are any prognostications, they are intensified. The
result will not be what is predicted. There is something like a foreshadowing
that might cause a prediction, but it will pass over.
There is a good deal of agitation and concern, but nothing will occur
this year as apprehended. I feel that it will all subside, and a picture
of brightness and a clear sky appears. The fire will burn out;
the boiling caldron which sends up steam will be quiet; a peaceful
time is coming.”

When the Journal shall have a little more space, for it must be
enlarged, and psychometry is a little better understood, I propose to
establish a prophetic department, and speak to my readers of coming
events.

(From the Pall Mall Gazette, London, Jan. 12.)

A Modern Miracle Worker.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MR. GEORGE MILNER STEPHEN.

Every one knows Sir James Fitzjames Stephen; most people
have heard of Mr. Leslie Stephen—the two most distinguished
members of the Stephen family resident in this country. The
 Stephen clan, however, is widespread, and there are eminent Stephens
scattered all over the world. “Any Stephen,” said Mr. Froude in
his “Oceanea,” “could not fail to be interesting.” Sir Alfred Stephen,
the deputy governor of New South Wales, is declared by Mr.
Froude to be regarded as the greatest Australian, by nine out of
every ten of the people of Sydney. But the judicial renown of Fitzjames,
the literary fame of Leslie, and the colonial reputation of Sir
Alfred, all pale their ineffectual fires before the marvellous claims of
George Milner Stephen, across whom Mr. Froude stumbled in New
Zealand, and who has now turned up unexpectedly in London. He
is, as Mr. Froude said, a very noticeable person. In fact, he is a
thaumaturgist of the first order. While his relatives in the old
country have devoted all the energy of their intellect to demonstrate
the absurdity of all the superstitions built upon any arbitrary interference
with the invariable laws of nature, their kinsman George
Milner suddenly displays at the antipodes a gift of healing which,
if the veracious records of colonial and American newspapers can be
relied upon, rivals the most famous exploits of apostolic times.
Not, indeed, that George Milner has yet raised the dead to life.
That is beyond his powers. But all the minor marvels, such as
making the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and
the lame to walk, are accomplished by him in the ordinary course of
his daily practice. Although this miracle-working Stephen is a
physician whose patients are healed by the touch, he is nevertheless
a physician practising the healing art like other eminent authorities—for
the prescribed fee of the ordinary medical practitioners. The
only difference is that whereas the ordinary physician attends his
patient daily for weeks and sometimes months, Mr. Stephen’s course,
if a course at all, ends at the latest in three visits, and the charges,
therefore, are correspondingly low. Two guineas for consultation
fee, one guinea each subsequent visit, or four guineas at the outside,
are to be regarded as his retaining fee; but in those cases—and
they are said to constitute a large proportion of those submitted to
him—in which he effects a complete cure he naturally expects to be
remembered by the grateful patient whom he has restored to health.
This, however, by the way. In response to an invitation to the Pall
Mall Gazette office, Mr. George Milner Stephen described to a member
of our staff with much detail the nature of his work. It is a
sufficiently marvelous story to arouse attention, even on the part of
the incredulous; and the unbelieving authorities owe it to the
public to institute a series of investigations into their relative’s
claims, in order that he may either be claimed as the master healer of
his age, or summarily prosecuted as a rogue and vagabond, who is
obtaining money under false pretences. It is monstrous that a gentleman
of his rank and position should be allowed to go at large,
making such enormous claims of quasi-supernatural powers, without
having them promptly brought to the most rigorous of scientific
tests.

Mr. George Milner Stephen is a man of wide and varied culture,
of great experience in affairs, and has spent his life in public service
 of the most varied kind. Brought up to the bar, he has been a
trained lawyer all his life. He has been acting-governor of South
Australia; he refused the colonial secretaryship of New Zealand;
he has been official draftsman for the colony of Victoria; he has held
the balance of power in more than one colony; and in the colony of
New South Wales, at the time when he suddenly discovered his
miraculous powers, he was leading counsel on circuit, and in receipt
of one of the largest professional incomes of any lawyer at the
antipodes. Nor was his training solely colonial. He had repeatedly
visited England, and had been called to our bar. He takes a
keen interest in mineralogical science, and in the course of his career
has exhibited on more than one occasion great personal bravery and
indomitable nerve. That such a man, so highly connected, so carefully
trained, with the intellect of a lawyer and the experience of a
statesman, should be in our midst claiming to be endowed with the
gift of healing spoken of in the New Testament as vouchsafed to the
Christians of apostolic times, is a portent indeed, and one well
worthy of the attentive consideration of the most sceptical among us.

“It was six and a half years ago,” said Mr. Stephen in reply to a
question, “that I first discovered that I possessed this gift of healing—it
was by pure accident. A friend who suffered from deafness
jokingly appealed to me to give him back his hearing. I, also in
joke, made some passes over his head, when to my utter astonishment
I discovered that his deafness disappeared. One experiment
of this kind led to another, and in a short time I found myself overwhelmed
with patients of high and low degree, begging me to heal
them of their diseases. For three months after the discovery of my
gift the sudden influx of patients who would not be denied left me
no time to attend to my practice; and, willy nilly, I was compelled
to give up the law and take to medicine—if you may call by the
name of medicine a profession in which no medicine is given.”

“Then do you use no medicine at all?”

“None whatever. The nearest approach to medicine that I ever
gave to a patient is a little magnetized ointment—that is, camphorated
lard, and a little magnetized oil. But it is only occasionally
that I use these. Neither do I use passes, although it was by the
use of passes that I first discovered that I possessed this gift.”

“But how do you proceed?”

“Variously. Sometimes I lay my hand upon the part affected;
at other times I breathe into the eye, ear, or mouth of the patient.
Then, again, on other occasions I am able to banish the disease by a
mere word or gesture.”

“Are you a mesmerist or a magnetic healer?”

“Mesmerist I am not; for mesmerism implies the throwing of
the patient into a mesmeric sleep. Neither am I a magnetist, properly
so called, for there is no outgoing of magnetism from my body
when I am healing. The ordinary magnetist admits that he cannot
cure more than four persons per diem; I have cured as many as
thirty, and beyond the weariness caused by standing, I have been no
worse at the end than at beginning.”

 “How do you explain these miracles?”

“I don’t call them miracles. They are marvels, and I cannot explain
them. All that I know is that I have gone through the Australian
colonies, New Zealand, and many of the States in America,
and that wherever I have gone the same effect followed. At my
touch, diseases and defects declared incurable by the first physicians
of the faculty, disappear. I remember well healing Sir James Martin,
the chief justice of New South Wales. Six years ago he was
given up by the doctors and declared to be dying, breathing with
great difficulty, and hardly able to speak without pain. I laid my
hand upon his chest, and in a few minutes all difficulty of breathing
disappeared, he was able to speak freely, and in a short time he had
completely recovered. He resumed his seat upon the bench, and
remained a hale, active man till his death, which occurred just the
other day. That is only one case out of many.”

“How many?”

“I think I have been the means of healing about 30,000 patients
in the six and a half years during which I have devoted my time to
the work. Of course many of those patients were suffering from
diseases which might have been cured by ordinary means. Others
were declared to be incurable.”

“Declared to be incurable by whom?”

“By the chief physicians in the colonies. I have in my pocket”—producing
the papers as he spoke—“certificates signed by the
witnesses, attested sometimes by magistrates, and at other times by
ministers of religion and colonial ministers, that the person named
in the certificate has received instantaneous relief by my touch.
Here is one in which a person stone-blind from birth received sight
when I blew into his eyes.”

“Then do you cure all diseases?”

“Certainly not. There are many things which I cannot do. I
cannot raise the dead, nor can I restore an arm which has been cut
off, a joint which has been excised, or an eye which has been destroyed.
When there has been complete destruction of any important organ I
cannot effect a cure; but when destruction of the organ has not
been complete, I am frequently able to effect a cure in cases which
the regular faculty have given up as utterly hopeless.”

“Take cancer, for instance: can you cure that?”

“I have treated some cases with remarkable success; but of
course I can do so only when the cancer has not eaten too far into
the vital organism of the sufferer. I have treated some thirty cancer
cases, the cure in all being complete. The treatment was that
of laying my hands over the part affected, anointing with a little
magnetized ointment, and sometimes the injection of magnetized oil.
Beyond that I do nothing. I have here records of ten cures of cancer
in all parts of the body. If you will glance over the accounts,
described by the newspapers at the time when they occurred, or
copies of the certificates which I leave with you, you will see that
there is almost no limit to the variety of the cures which I have
been able to effect.”

 “That is all very well, Mr. Stephen, but you will not make converts
by newspaper extracts. The point is this: Will you consent
to submit your gift to a practical test?”

“Certainly,” said he; “I have already written to Sir Baldwin
Leighton, asking him if he can place me in communication with the
governors of deaf, dumb, and blind asylums, in order that I may be
able to try my powers upon the patients of those institutions. I am
quite satisfied that if I am allowed a fair opportunity of trying the
effect of my healing touch, ten out of every hundred of the inmates
of these asylums will receive their sight, or regain their speech and
hearing. I ask for no payment: I simply request that in these institutions
which are maintained by the public charity for the relief of
helpless sufferers, and where, therefore, there can be no collusion or
any suspicion of trickery or fraud, I should be allowed to lay my
hands upon the eyes or the ears of the inmates. I can do them no
harm; and I am perfectly sure that in at least ten per cent of the
cases I shall be able to give great if not entire relief.”

“This is all very well; but before you can expect the governors
of public institutions to allow you to touch their inmates there must
be a preliminary illustration of your power. Otherwise they would
say justly that they would be over-run with quacks, all of whom
might wish to try a patent nostrum upon the unfortunate ‘inmates
of public institutions.’”

“Very well,” said Mr. Stephen, “I am willing to submit my gift
to the most stringent test which your scientific sceptics can suggest.
I am willing to give an exhibition of my power under any test, in
the presence of any picked number of sceptics whom you may nominate,
and you may bring there half a dozen cases of disease certified
by the faculty as incurable. Of course you will not bring sufferers
whose complaints are manifestly beyond my power to cure. As I
said before, I make no claim to restore organs that are destroyed,
but there is a sufficiently wide category in the complaints ‘that flesh
is heir to’ to afford you an ample choice of half a dozen typical incurable
cases. When the deaf, dumb, lame, and otherwise suffering
persons whom you wish experimented on have been brought and are
in the presence of those whom you shall name, I will undertake to
effect an immediate improvement in the condition of, say, four
out of the six. It will probably become a complete cure on the
second or third visit. I seldom or never see a patient more than
thrice.”

“Well, that seems fair. You have no objection to my publishing
this offer in the Pall Mall Gazette?”

“None. I make no profession to any skill. I can only exercise
a power which I discovered quite accidentally was vested in
me. The limits of that I can ascertain only by experience. I
am perfectly willing to have that power subjected to the severest
tests which you can suggest, and I have no doubt at all, from the
invariable experience of the last six years, that cures will be
effected for which no existing scientific hypothesis can adequately
account.”

 The Gazette says in another column:—“We commend the challenge
of Mr. George Milner Stephen, which we publish in another
column, to the special attention of all interested in the exposure of
popular delusion. Here is an educated English barrister of unimpeachable
character, who has rendered no little service to the state,
informing all the faculty that he can heal patients whom they have
dismissed as incurable, by merely breathing on them or touching
them. In an ordinary, unknown, vulgar charlatan this challenge
might have passed unnoticed. In the case of the Australian cousin
of Mr. Justice Fitzjames Stephen it must be treated more seriously.
We invite communications from our scientific readers as to the best
way of putting our visitor to the test.”

Scores of American healers do similar works to those of Dr. G. M.
Stephen, but the fashionable press ignores them because they have
not wealth and social position. The Journal of Man will endeavor
to do them justice. In all such cases, in which the healing
power is inexhaustible, we know that it is replenished from spiritual
sources. Dr. Stephen exercises a little policy in not mentioning the
spiritual source of his power. Godless science and dead sectarianism
recoil from spirit life. No human constitution contains an inexhaustible
fountain of life—the fountain is above, and fortunate are
they who can reach it.

Human Longevity.

The possibility of long life, illustrated in the first number of this
Journal, may easily be corroborated by referring to numerous
examples; but the fact that the nobler qualities of human nature are
the most efficient promoters of longevity is our most important
lesson, and it is illustrated by the superior longevity of women. He
is a misanthrope who does not recognize their superior virtue, and
he is a poor statesman who does not wish to see that virtue imparted
to our political life, and who does not recognize the importance of
giving to woman the most perfect intellectual and industrial
education, that she may be self supporting. The British census
show that there are 948,000 more women than men in Great Britain.
The St. James Gazette says:—

“Prof. Humphry of Cambridge has prepared a series of tables
which contain some interesting information about centenarians. Of
52 persons whom he mentions, at least 11—2 males and 9 females—actually
attained the age of 100. Others attained very nearly to
the hundred years. Only one of the persons reached 108 years,
while one died at the alleged age of 106. Of the 52 persons, 36
were women and 16 men. Out of the 36 women 26 had been
married, and 11 had borne large families. Of the 26 who had
been wives, 8 had married before they were 20, 1 at 16, and 2
at 17.

“Twelve of the fifty-two centenarians were discovered to have
been the eldest children of their parents. This fact, adds Dr.
 Humphry, does not agree with popular notions that first children
inherit a feebleness of constitution, nor with the opinion of racing
stables, which is decidedly against the idea that ‘firstlings’ are to
be depended on for good performances on the course. The centenarians
generally regarded were of spare build. Gout and rheumatism
were as a rule, absent. ‘It seems,’ says Prof. Humphry, ‘that
the frame which is destined to great age needs no such prophylactics,
and engenders none of the peccant humors for which the finger
joints (as in gout) may find a vent.’

“Of the fifty-two aged people, twenty-four only had no teeth, the
average number of teeth remaining being four or five. Long hours
of sleep were notable among these old people, the period of repose
averaging nine hours; while out-of-door exercise in plenty and
early rising are to be noted among the factors of a prolonged life.
One of the centenarians ‘drank to excess on festive occasions:’
another was a ‘free beer drinker,’ and ‘drank like a fish during
his whole life.’ Twelve had been total abstainers for life or nearly
so, and mostly all were ‘small meat eaters.’”

The oldest woman in Austria at this time is Magdalene Ponza,
who is 112. “She was born at Wittingau, Bohemia, in 1775, when
Maria Theresa sat on the Austrian throne. George III. had then
been but 15 years King of England, Louis XVI. who had ruled a
little more than a twelvemonth in France, was still in the heyday of
power, the Independence of the United States of America had not
yet been declared, Napoleon and Arthur Wellesley were as yet but
six years old. Magdalene Ponza retains full possession of her mental
faculties. Unfortunately she can only speak the Czech language, and
she can neither read nor write. However, she answers questions briskly
enough through the youngest of her surviving grandchildren, herself
a woman of 60. Magdalene Ponza’s age is authenticated by the
outdoor relief certificate of the Viennese Municipality.”

Of American centenarians we have a number, some of whom are
still living. Harrisonville, New Jersey, has two, Michael Potter and
Bartholomew Coles. Polly Wilcox of Hope Valley, R. I., celebrated
her centennial last year; so did Jane Wilcox of Edgecomb, Maine,
while she had a sister 94, and a daughter 81. Old Auntie Scroggins,
of Forsyth Co., Georgia, is now 104 years old, and is still one of the
most effective shouters of the Methodist Church to which she has
belonged 94 years.

Miss Phebe Harrod, of Newburyport, Mass., celebrated her
centennial last year. She still takes a lively interest in passing events.

Grandmother Sarah Drew, at Halifax, celebrated her centennial a
year ago. Her constant companion is an old Bible which has been
in the Drew family for 250 years.

Mrs. Triphene Bevans, of Danbury, Mass., held a lively centennial
reception in the parlors of the West Street Church, April 14, 1886.
Her health, hearing and speech were good, and her step brisk. She
attributes her age and good health to good habits and allowing
nothing to trouble or worry her. She has always been a strict
church member.

 William Waterman, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is said to be 109
years old. It is said he “is a Methodist, uses liquor and tobacco,
and finds no fault with the world.”

Joseph O’Neal of Barnesville, Georgia, might have been living
still if he had not been frozen to death last winter, at the age of 107,
in a sudden blizzard. He was a negro, and had over 200 descendants.

Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, of Reading, Penn., who had lived a century,
might be still living if she had not been killed last year, while
walking on the railroad track.

Of those who overrun the century, we might mention further,
Simon Harras, who died in Putnam Co., Indiana, last January,
aged 109. His memory was good to the last.

Mrs. Elizabeth Small, relict of Dr. Samuel Small, at
Lewiston, Maine, had passed her hundredth birthday a few
weeks, when she died of apoplexy; and Mrs. Susan Phillips,
of Wilson Creek, N. C., died last year just as she finished her
century.

Nathan, formerly slave of Benj. W. Bodie, died last year in
Mississippi, Talbot Co., aged 107.

Christopher Mann, of Independence, Missouri, died last year, aged
111.

The oldest of all, and probably the oldest minister in the
world, is Rev. Thos. Tenant, of Vineyard Township, Arkansas,
an itinerant Methodist preacher, born in 1771, now in his 116th
year.

Mr. Edward Gentry told a more remarkable story at Indianapolis,
last July. He was at the governor’s office, and gentlemen were
guessing at his age. None supposed him over fifty; but he said he
had a son fifty-two years old, and was himself seventy-eight. He
added: “My doctor has given me a fifty years’ longer lease on my life,
barring accidents. My father is 128 and is still living. My mother
died at the age of 117, and her mother lived to the same age.” Mr.
Gentry is of English birth.

Perhaps the best specimen of family health is that of the Atkinson
family of Gloucester, Mass. Nine children were born, and all lived.
The first death in the family was a few weeks ago, when John
Atkinson died, aged eighty-four. When he died the ages of the nine
amounted to 703 years.

Aunt Dinah John, the oldest Indian at the Onondaga reservation
died in May, 1884, aged 109.

About ten years ago, when Governor Seymour was about to make
an address at an Indian fair on the Onondaga reservation, Aunt
Dinah walked upon the platform and asked to be introduced to him.

Mr. Gardner said, “Governor Seymour, this is Aunt Dinah, who
wants to become acquainted with you.”

“Oh, no; him get acquainted with me,” Aunt Dinah explained.
“Me know him before he know anybody. Many years ago me go
to Pompey Hill, his father’s grocery. Governor’s father say: ‘My
squaw very sick.’ I ask, ‘What matter?’ His father say, ‘Go in
 and see for yourself.’ He go into a room; see a little pappoose
about a foot long.” Then moving toward Governor Seymour, and
pointing her finger at him, she said: “That pappoose was you,
Governor Seymour, born that night.”

Aunt Dinah called frequently at Mr. Seymour’s and took especial
delight in rocking the cradle and showering caresses in her native
fashion upon the future Governor of the State.

About three years ago she became blind, and has since been kept
at her home on the Onondaga reservation. She retained her faculties
to the last. Her husband died thirty years ago. Her dying
request was that the pagan ceremony be first observed and afterward
the Christian ritual.

What are we to reckon, says the Home Journal, as the declining
period of man’s existence? The point at which old age taps us on
the shoulder, and says it comes to keep us company, varies with
every individual. It depends a great deal on circumstances, which
are hardly the same in any two cases. Some writers have said that
a man is old at forty-five, others have set down seventy as the
normal standard. Dr. John Gardner, who has written on “Longevity,”
remarks: “Long observation has convinced me that sixty-three
is an age at which the majority of persons may be termed old,
and as a general rule we may adopt this as the epoch of the commencing
decline of life.”

Suppose then we agree to call no man old till he is past sixty-three.
Let us set down the names of some of the illustrious people
of the world who have prolonged their days of usefulness after that
age. We shall make a table of them, and begin it with those who
have died at seventy,—that is to say, with those in whom the
springs of life have not stood still till they have had at least seven
years of old age. It will be found, however, to be far from exhaustive,
and every reader may find pleasure in adding to it from
his own stock of information:

It may be said that they were exceptional in living so long, but if
what the best authorities say be true, the exceptions ought to be the
 people who died young, and not those who prolong their lives and
carry on their work till they are old. Few of us may find ourselves,
like Lord Palmerston, in our greatest vigor at seventy, or be able,
like Thiers, to rule France at eighty, or have any spirit for playing
the author, like Goethe and Victor Hugo, when over eighty; or for
playing the musician, like Handel and Haydn, when over seventy;
but by good management we may do wonders.

The wisest men and the best have been conspicuous for working
to the end, not taking the least advantage of the leisure to which
one might think they were entitled. They have found their joy in
pursuing labors which they believed useful either to themselves or
to others. John Locke began a “Fourth Letter on Toleration”
only a few weeks before he died, and “the few pages in the posthumous
volume, ending in an unfinished sentence, seem to have exhausted
his remaining strength.” The fire of Galileo’s genius burned
to the very end. He was engaged in dictating to two of his disciples
his latest theories on a favorite subject, when the slow fever seized
him that brought him to the grave. Sir Edward Coke spent the
last six years of his life in revising and improving the works upon
which his fame now rests. John Wesley only the year before he died
wrote: “I am now an old man, decayed from head to foot….
However, blessed be God! I do not slack my labors; I can preach
and write still.” Arnauld, one of the greatest of French theologians
and philosophers, retained, says Disraeli, “the vigor of his genius
and the command of his pen to his last day, and at the age of eighty-two
was still the great Arnauld.” It was he who, when urged in
his old age to rest from his labors, exclaimed, “Rest! Shall we
not have the whole of eternity to rest in?”

A healthy old age cannot be reached without the exercise of many
virtues. There must have been prudence, self-denial, and temperance
at the very least. According to the proverb, he that would be
long an old man must begin early to be one, and the beginning early
just means taking a great many precautions commonly neglected till
it is too late. More people would be found completing their pilgrimage
at a late date if it were not that, as a French writer puts it,
“Men do not usually die; they kill themselves.” It is carelessness
about the most ordinary rules of healthy living.

The enjoyment of old age may be looked on then as a reward, and
the aged may pride themselves on being heirs to a rich inheritance,
assigned to forethought and common sense. Many years are an
honor. They are an honor even in the case of the worldly, and a
great deal more so when life has been regulated by motives higher
than any the world can show. “The hoary head,” says Solomon,
“is a crown of glory;” but he adds this qualification, “if it be found
in the way of righteousness.” Old people form a natural aristocracy,
and to be ranked among them may be recommended to all who have
an ambition to close their lives well up in the world.

For a picture of an old man in this enviable state of mind take
Cornaro. In his eighty-third year we find him congratulating himself
that in all probability he “had still a series of years to live in
 health and spirits and to enjoy this beautiful world, which is indeed
beautiful to those who know how to make it so.” Even at ninety-five
he wrote of himself as “sound and hearty, contented and cheerful.”
“At this age,” he says, “I enjoy at once two lives: one terrestrial,
which I possess in fact; the other celestial, which I possess
in thought; and this thought is equal to actual enjoyment, when
founded on things we are sure to attain, as I am sure to attain that
celestial life, through the infinite mercy and goodness of God.”

Jeremy Bentham, who lived to be eighty-five, retained to the last
the fresh and cheerful temperament of a boy. John Wesley, who died
when he was eighty-eight, also had a happy disposition. “I feel and
grieve,” he says, “but by the grace of God I fret at nothing.”
Goethe, who reached his eighty-third year, is another good example.
Then there is Boerhaave, one of the most celebrated physicians of
modern times, who held that decent mirth is the salt of life. Indeed
in the case of most old people, we believe it will be found that cheerfulness
is one of their leading characteristics.

The recent death of Mr. Beecher, who with his splendid constitution
ought to have lived twenty years longer, illustrates the principles
of hygiene which he blindly disregarded. For years he was
threatened with the form of death that seized him, and came near a
fatal attack some years ago in Chicago while delivering a lecture.
Men of a strong animal nature, hearty eaters, and restless workers,
making great use of the brain, are liable to such attacks. If Mr.
Beecher had observed ordinary prudence, and had a little scientific magnetic
treatment, he would never have had an apoplectic attack;
but he was commonplace in thought. He went the old way, and died
as short-sighted men die. He had read my “Anthropology,” and told
me he kept it in his library, but its thought did not enter into his life.

Justice to the Indians.

BY JOHN BEESON.

President Grant placed them under control of the churches,
making them responsible for all their Indian agents, whom the
churches were to nominate. But as fraud and war have been more
or less as rampant as ever, it seems that the first thing should be, to
relieve the Indians from church rule, and recognize at once the
Indian’s inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,”
the same as we claim for ourselves; so long as they do not
disturb the peace or violate the rights of their white neighbors, we
have no right to interfere with either their religion or laws upon
their reserves. It is this meddlesome injustice which makes all
the trouble; it would make trouble with any other community, if
another religious sect should be allowed to dominate over them in
 all their affairs. It is not Indian, but human, nature, to do so, the
world over. Dr. Bland, editor of The Council Fire, says:

“I have been long and intimately acquainted with many tribes. I find that they
are not savages, but the peers of white men, with great self-respect, a high sense of
honor, and love of truth.”

Even the civilized tribes still retain their mutual confidence.
Hence, they use no locks, no bolts nor bars, when absent from their
homes; a stake in the ground, about three feet from the door, is a
sufficient guarantee from intrusion. It would be deemed a reflection
upon neighborly honor to lock a door in the Indian Territory. I
was there when they built their first prison; they now number sixty
thousand, most of whom have lived there forty years, and then,
they said,

“The new railroad brought so many white renegades among us that we had to
build a prison for them.”

I asked, “What do you do when one Indian kills another?” They
answered: “We have a trial, and if the killing was without great
cause, we sentence the guilty one to be killed by the near of kin to
his victim; we appoint the time and the place, and we have never
known an Indian to fail to come voluntarily in time for his own
execution.”

They believe that the Great Spirit will give all the hell or all
the heaven that each deserves; that there is no possibility of escape
from a just penalty and no danger of losing a deserved heaven, but
to them it is unjust to hope for anything on the merits of another.
H. W. Beecher said in his first lecture after his return from the
Pacific Coast:

“I made special inquiry of those who are posted on Indian affairs, as to their
moral status, and was always told that when fairly treated they are quite reliable.”

Gen. Crookes said of the Apaches, that while they were protected
on their reserves from outside aggression they were as well behaved
and orderly as any community of people in the United States.

It is true, they killed Generals Canby and Custer, but the first
had, contrary to preliminary agreement, moved his soldiers twenty-five
miles, and placed them in two companies on each side of the
place where the treaty was to be made. The first demand of the
Modoc chief was, to take back the soldiers, and it was not until a
long delay, and a firm refusal on the part of Canby, that the Modoc
chief fired the fatal shot.

And as for Custer and his men, they fell while ignobly, and without
right or authority, invading the peaceful home of Sitting Bull
and his people.

General Harney says:

“I have lived fifty years on the frontier, and I have never known an Indian war
in which they were not in the right.”

Dr. McLaughlin said:

“I have been fifty-three years an Indian trader, and more than fifty years superintendent
of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, and in all that time, I have never seen
an occasion to shed the blood of an Indian. The American people suppose that
their revenge is proof of savagery. But that is a mistake. It is their sense of
justice, and whatever they do is but an echo of what has been done to them.
They believe as Moses taught, blood for blood, life for life.”

 Gen. Fremont said:

“I lived two years among the Indians with only one white woman, and was
never more kindly treated. I lost nothing, although all I had was accessible to
them.”

Surely, testimony like this, in connection with their healing
magnetism so freely given to Spiritualism, should awaken sympathy
if not gratitude in their behalf.—New Thought.

Talent, Oregon, Jan. 19, 1887.

Miscellaneous Intelligence.

 Chapter II—Structure of the Brain.

Man a triple being—Materialists and illusionists misconceive him—Relation
of the soul to the brain and body—The nervous system;
illustration—Embryonic condition—Anatomical descriptions unsatisfactory
and the phrenological school incorrect—Exterior view
of the brain in the head, illustrated and described—The cerebrum,
cerebellum, and tentorium—Interior view of the base of the skull—Bones
of the head illustrated—Division of the brain into lobes
and convolutions, with illustration—Frontal, middle, parietal,
tempero-sphenoidal, and occipital—Anatomical plan or grouping of
convolutions differs from their actual appearance—View of the superior
surface illustrated—Difference between the irregular convolutions
and the angular maps—View of the inferior surface of the
brain—Illustration and description of the parts—Interior view of
section on the median line—Divided and undivided surfaces-Corpus
callosum explained—The two brains and their diagonal
relations to the body—Penetrating and describing the lateral
ventricles—The serum in the brain—Variations of serum and
blood—Variations in hydrocephalus and insanity—Our power to
modify the brain and change our destiny—Power of education—Responsibility
of society—The lateral ventricles the centre of the
brain—Base of the ventricles, the great inferior ganglia of the
brain, corpora striata, and thalami—Their radiating fibres inclosing
a cavity—The thalami and their commissure and third ventricle—The
medulla oblongata, cerebellum, and arbor vitæ—The pons
Varolii and crura of the brain—the corpora quadrigemina, pineal
gland, fourth ventricle, and calamus scriptorius.

Man is essentially a triple organization, consisting of the permanent
psychic being, intangible to our external senses, but nevertheless
so distinctly recognized internally by consciousness and externally
or in others, by intuition and understanding, that the psychic is
as well understood and known as the physical being. This being
is the eternal man—the material body being its temporary associate.

The physical being, or material form, consists of the portion
directly and entirely occupied by the psychic existence—which is
called the brain or encephalon, and is in life also beyond the reach
of our senses in the interior of the cranium—and the non-psychic
structure, the body, which, though not the residence of the soul, has
so intimate and complete a connection with the entire brain that
during active life it feels as if it were the actual residence of the
soul, so far as sensation and action are concerned.

The soul, or psychic being, has external and internal perceptions
(for which it has cerebral organs). When the former predominate
too greatly, the human body and all external objects are realized
most vividly, and the reality of psychic life is not so well realized
or understood. Hence persons so organized are disposed to
 materialism, and either doubt the existence of their psychic being, or
are indifferent to it.

On the other hand, those in whom the interior faculties predominate
too greatly vividly realize their psychic life, but have more
vague and feeble conceptions of material objects, including their
own bodies, and attach undue importance to the imaginary and subjective
in preference to the objective. The materialists and the
illusionists, however, are not entirely composed of these two classes
of subjective and objective thinkers. The majority consists of
persons of moderate reasoning capacity, who simply follow their
leaders.

In making a critical distinction between the psycho-organic
brain and non-psychic body, the former may be confined
strictly within the cranium, leaving the exterior portions of the head
as a part of the non-psychic body; but as they are more intimately
associated with the brain than any part below the neck, this
distinction is not important; and if the whole head, as the environment
of the psychic brain, be grouped with it, it may not lead to
any material error. The brain is intimately associated with the
entire physical person by twelve pairs of cranial or cerebral nerves,
and by the spinal cord, which descends from the base of the brain
through a great foramen or opening midway between the ears, and
while passing down the spinal column gives off thirty pairs of
nerves.

The cranial nerves are all for the head, except the pneumogastric
or lung-stomach nerve, which belongs to the organs of respiration,
voice, and digestion; and the spinal nerves are all for the body,
except a few which ramify in the neck and in the scalp.

The entire nervous system is so instantaneously prompt in conveying
to the brain the impressions which originate feeling, and in conveying
from the brain the nervous energies that produce voluntary
motion and modify all the processes of life, that we feel as if we had
sensation and volition in every part of the body; or, in other words,
that our conscious existence was in the body; but we rationally
know that the sensation and volition occur in the brain, for neither
sensation nor voluntary motion can occur if the nervous connection
with the brain is interrupted by compression and section, or if the
brain itself be sufficiently compressed. When the brain is exposed
by an injury of the cranium, the pressure of a finger suspends all
consciousness and volition, making a blank in the life of the individual.

Animal life resides in the nervous system alone, and its character
is proportioned to the development thereof, of which the brain is the
principal mass. A subordinate portion of the general life, however,
is in the nervous system of the body, and in proportion as the brain
declines in development the relative amount of psychic energy in
the body is greater. Thus the body of the alligator after decapitation
is capable of sensation and voluntary acts, such as pushing
away an offending body with its foot. The character of the life in
the body is explained by physiology and sarcognomy. Its universal
 presence is due to the universal diffusion of the nervous system,
of which the accompanying figure, showing the location of the spinal
cord and spinal nerves, will give a proper conception. In this figure
the spinal cord, with its thirty pairs of nerves, eight cervical at the
neck, twelve dorsal in the back, five lumbar in the loins, and five or
six in the sacrum (between the hips), is seen descending from the
base of the brain below the cerebellum (which is rather too large in
engraving), and proceeding throughout the body until lost in fine
ramifications which the microscope can scarcely trace, but which
quickly inform us if they are touched or disturbed.

It cannot properly be said that the spinal cord proceeds from the
brain, nor on the other hand that the brain proceeds from the spinal
cord, for they originate simultaneously in a soft, jelly-like condition
 in which the microscope cannot detect the latent structure, not as
they are in the adult, but as they are in the fœtus in which they
first appear, with a structure similar to that of the lowest class of
vertebrate animals, the fishes.

From this embryonic condition, in which there is very little
resemblance to the adult brain, its progress has been carefully traced
by many observers, but chiefly by Tiedemann, through all the
stages of life before birth into the soft, infantile form of the human
brain. Some knowledge of this embryonic growth is necessary to a
correct understanding of the adult brain, its essential plan, its
growth, and the correct estimate of its development.

I have not found in our anatomical works what I consider a
satisfactory exposition of this subject. Beginning as a student with
Spurzheim’s anatomy of the brain, which ought to have been the
clearest and most complete of all, I found it so obscure and unsatisfactory
that until I had made many dissections I had no very clear
understanding. I have never found any pleasure in the writings of
Spurzheim. In more recent authors the anatomical details are very
abundant indeed, and sufficient to tax the memory heavily, but without
that system and philosophy which appeal to the understanding
and make our conceptions satisfactory, as I hope to make them to
my readers, who must have very incorrect conceptions of the plan
of the brain, if they have relied upon the writings of Mr. Combe
and his successors of the phrenological school, none of whom, so far
as I am aware, have really understood cerebral anatomy.

Let us approach the subject by taking an exterior and general
view, then by tracing the embryonic growth of the brain, and the
interior connections of its fibres, until we are fully prepared to judge
of its development as it lies in the skull, and to understand the
relation of each organ to all other portions. Then we can study its
functions with a clear understanding of the relations of the organs
to each other, which is the material basis of psychic science, and
with full confidence in our ability to judge and compare living heads
and skulls of man and animals.

Let us take an exterior view by
removing one half of the skull from
the right side of the head. This
enables us to see that the front
portion of the brain rests above the
sockets of the eyes, coming down in
the centre as low as the root of the
nose, but a little higher exteriorly.
When we touch the forehead just
over the root of the nose, our finger
touches the lowest level of the front
lobe, the seat of the intellect; but
when we touch the external angle of
the brow on the same level, we
touch a process of bone, and our finger is fully half an inch below
the level of the brain.

 In the posterior view we see that
below the great mass of brain which
is called the cerebrum there lies a
smaller body, shaped much like a
small turnip, called the cerebellum
or little brain, separated from the
cerebrum by a firm, horizontal membrane
called the tentorium (covering
the cerebellum), on which the cerebrum
rests.

The position of the tentorium can
easily be ascertained in your own
head by the fact that where it crosses
the median line there is a little projection
of bone called the occipital knob, very prominent on some
persons, barely perceptible on others. After locating the occipital
knob, a horizontal line forward will give us the portion of the tentorium.
When we carry this line forward just over the cavity of the
ear, thus locating the tentorium, we easily recognize below it the
rounded prominence on each side in which the two hemispheres or
halves of the cerebellum lie, with a depression between them on the
median line. To make these and other observations on the head
(which no one should neglect), the hand should be placed firmly on
the scalp, so that as it slides on the bone we feel the form of the
skull beneath. In most persons a distinct depression will be felt
along the line of the tentorium, separating the cerebrum and cerebellum—the
cerebellum being located at the summit of the neck,
and extending down about as low as the end of the mastoid process,
which is the large, long prominence just behind the cavity of the
ear.

The cerebellum may be regarded as the physiological and the
cerebrum as the psychic brain, for the cerebellum is void of intelligence
and volition, but has important influences on the body. It
may be considered, like the spinal cord, an intermediate structure
between the controlling and conscious brain and the corporeal
organs.

The tentorium does not entirely separate it from the cerebrum,
for anteriorly it is open to permit the passage of the fibres which
connect the cerebrum with the spinal cord and the cerebellum,—fibres
which pass up midway between the right and left ear, so that
a bullet fired horizontally through from ear to ear would sever
the connection of the cerebrum with the bodily organs, producing
instant death. This will be understood by looking at the profile of
the interior of the right hemisphere, on which we see the position of
the pons and the medulla and their relation to the cerebrum by their
ascending fibres. As these ascending fibres correspond to a position
just above the cavity of the ear, and as they are the channels of all
muscular impulses, the reader will perceive that breadth of head immediately
above the cavity of the ear must be associated with muscular
impulsiveness.

 The position of the cerebrum in the cranium may be best understood
by sawing the head in two horizontally, taking out the brain,
and looking down into the base of
the skull, in which we see anteriorly
a shelf for the front lobes, behind
which are the cavities for the middle
lobes, and behind that the rounded
cavities for the cerebellum.

Thus the front lobe occupies the
highest plane, resting on the vault
of the sockets of the eyes, and
extending back as far as the sockets.
The middle lobe lies behind the
sockets of the eyes and above the
cavities of the ears, its base being as
low as the bottom of the sockets of
the eyes and corresponding nearly with the upper edge of the cheekbone,
as it extends from the sockets to the side of the head just in
front of the ears. In the posterior base of the skull, the reader will
observe an opening (foramen magnum or large foramen) through
which the spinal cord ascends. The spinal cord is exposed in the
neck below the foramen.

Going back, we find the middle lobe rises higher, ascending over
the cavity of the ear and resting upon the ridge of bone in which
the apparatus of hearing is situated, thus reaching the level of the
tentorium, on which the occipital lobe rests.

The bones of the cranium seen by looking down into the basis of
the skull, as above, are the frontal bone over the eyes, the sphenoid
bone, behind the sockets of the eyes, extending from the right to the
left temple, the temporal bones, forming the ridge that holds the
apparatus of hearing, and extending up about two inches on the side
head, and the occipital bone at the back, between the two temporals,
meeting the sphenoid bone in the centre of the base. The cerebellum
rests in the deep double concavities of the occipital bone, and
the spinal cord ascends through the large opening (foramen magnum)
in the middle of its base, assuming the form called the
medulla oblongata.

When we fully understand this
view of the base of the skull, let
us look at it in profile, and observe
the frontal bone connected by the
coronal suture to the parietal and
the parietal by the squamous or
scaly suture to the temporal, and
by the lambdoid suture to the
occipital. The sphenoid or bat-wing
bone appears in the temples by its
wing, between the frontal and temporal,
while in the centre of the
base its solid body is between the
frontal and occipital.

 The sphenoid bone is in contact with organs of sensitive delicacy,
refinement, and inspiration, the occipital with organs of vital force,
the temporal with organs of appetite, excitement, and force, the
frontal with organs of intellect and refined benevolence, the parietal
with the organs of virtue, amiability, self control, and general
strength of character, which make a superior person.

Modern anatomists do not divide the brain into front, middle, and
occipital lobes as would seem most natural, by erecting vertical lines
from their bases, but follow up the oblique courses of the convolutions
so as to extend the front lobe into the upper surface of the
brain, and extend the middle lobe from the middle of the upper
surface backward into the region of Self Confidence, giving the name
of temporo-sphenoidal to its lower portion behind the sockets of the
eyes and over the ears, which name is taken from the temporal bone,
that contains the apparatus of hearing, forming the middle of the
basis of the skull, and the sphenoid bone, which lies just back of
the sockets of the eyes, supporting the front end of the lower
portion of the middle lobe, called temporo-sphenoidal.

The sphenoid bone thus sustains the region of Sensibility, while
the temporal bone lodges the organs of the most sensual, selfish, and
violent impulses, the action of which is downward into the muscular
 and visceral organs of the body. The sphenoid bone as it extends
up touches the base of the front lobe and of the Ideal region, where
it assumes the name of Somnolence. (See the profile view of the
cranium.)

The upper portion of the middle lobe has been given the name of
parietal, as it has a general correspondence with the parietal bones,
while the occipital lobe has a general correspondence in position
with the occipital bone, as will be seen by comparing the plan of the
brain seen in profile with the engraving of the cranium.

The plan of the brain is given, instead of an engraving of the
actual convoluted surface, to simplify the study to the learner. An
examination of the brain itself or of a good model offers at first sight
such a vague and irregular mass of convolutions, differing so much
in different brains, that any systematic arrangement would seem
impossible. But by studying the subject more extensively and
considering the structure of the simpler brains of animals, in which
the complexity of the human brain is reduced to simpler forms, a
mode of grouping and classifying the convolutions has been adopted
by anatomists which is illustrated by the engraving, in which we
see, not the numerous convolutions of a well developed human brain,
but the groups in which they have been arranged by the aid of
comparative anatomy.

The front lobe is grouped into the superior, middle, and inferior
convolutions, or groups of convolutions, and the ascending frontal;
but the inspection of a brain would show an irregularity of forms in
which a casual observer would be puzzled to trace this arrangement.

The appearance of the brain, divested of its membranes, when we
look upon its superior surface, is shown in the annexed engraving,
in which it is presented as it lies in
the head when the cranium and membranes
are removed which form the
rim of the figure. The front lobe is
the upper portion, and the outline of
the nose is just visible. In the full
exposition of this subject hereafter
in a larger work, I propose to show
the exact seats of the various functions
in the convolutions, which are
much more irregular than the angular
figures we make on the surface of the
head to show the average positions of
organs. Of course no intelligent
person supposes the psychological maps and busts of the organs to
be representations of the brain, or anything more than approximations
to the true interior organology, which, however, do not lead
to any great error, as adjacent portions of convolutions have very
analogous functions.

When we place the brain on its upper surface and inspect the
bottom, we observe at the back the cerebellum, which dips into the
 neck, the middle lobe, which is over the ears and the side face, and
the front lobe, which rests over the eyes.

We observe posteriorly the medulla oblongata, on the face of which
we may observe the crossing of the fibres, and on the side of which
we observe the origins of many nerves. Above the medulla we
observe the pons Varolii, just above which we observe the fibres
ascending to each hemisphere under the name of crus cerebri, or
thigh of the cerebrum. Next we see the optic nerves crossing on
the median line, the olfactory nerve, running under the front lobe,
which is separated by the fissure of Sylvius from the middle lobe.
There is also a glimpse of the corpus callosum at its anterior end,
obtained by pulling the front lobes apart at the median line.

Let us next cut through the head exactly on the median line,
dividing the right and left hemispheres, and look at the inner face
of the right hemisphere. We observe that it has convolutions, just
like the exterior surface, which do not join across the median line, but
are separated from those of the left hemisphere by a firm membrane
 (an extension of the dura mater or principal investing membrane)
called the falx, which is removed, leaving the convolutions in view.

The reader will observe that it is only in the lower portion of the
engraving that he sees any surfaces produced by cutting to separate
the right and left halves of the brain. It is by these structures
which are here divided that the right and left halves are connected,
so that the whole brain is adapted to acting in a unitary manner.

The first section we encounter as we pass down is that of the
corpus callosum, a body of white fibre firmer than the external surface
of the brain, and therefore called the corpus callosum or callous
body, which consists of white nerve fibres gathered in from nearly
all parts of the brain on each side and crossing the median line.
We may regard it as a mass of representative fibres rooted in the
soft substance of the convolutions or gray matter of the brain
generally, and thus connecting across the median line the corresponding
parts of the right and left brain.

It must be borne in mind that the brain like the body is double, and
that every organ is fully developed in each brain, so that no amount
of injury or paralysis of organs would deprive us of any faculty,
unless corresponding parts were destroyed in each hemisphere.

The left brain governs the right half of the body, and the right
brain governs the left half, the connecting fibres having their crossing
(called decussation) in the spinal cord. Hence the left brain is
usually more fully developed in the occipital and basilar regions than
the right, in right handed people, as may frequently be detected by
 a careful examination of the head, or an inspection of the interior
the skull. The left brain, also, seems to have a general ascendency
over the right; so that paralysis of speech is most generally produced
by disease in the region of language on the left side.

Whatever occurs on one side of the body is in relation to the
opposite side of the head. Paralysis, if not dependent on the spinal
cord, is dependent on the basilar region of the opposite side of they
brain; and conditions of the right eye affect the lower margin of the
left front lobe, in which the perceptive organs are situated.

If we thrust our fingers into the brain immediately under the
corpus callosum, pushing away the delicate little structure called
the septum lucidum (or translucent septum), and pressing down
fornix (which is a thin, horizontal nerve membrane) we find that
our fingers enter a cavity by pressing its walls apart, of which the
corpus callosum is the vault or roof,—a cavity which may be explored
back and forth, far into the interior of the occipital lobe
within an inch of the surface, and far into the front lobe, near the
surface of the frontal convolutions, as well as downwards and forwards
into the bottom of the middle lobe (the part called temporo-sphenoidal).
These extensions of this great cavity or ventricle are
called the anterior and posterior horns (cornua) and the descending
horn (cornu).

Their importance arises from the fact that in these ventricles of
the right and left sides of the brain a watery fluid, effused from the
blood, called serum, exists, which also extends downward along the
spinal cord, and which has to do with the pressure and equilibrium
of the various parts. When there is a strong pressure of blood to
the brain on account of its unusual activity, especially in the activity
of the emotions, the serum of the ventricles and also in the substance
of the brain is absorbed, and the brain acquires a more
compact texture, which is found in all persons of strong mentality,
the brain being hardened by exercise, as well as the muscles. But
when the action of the brain is feeble, and the blood in an impoverished
condition, there is a greater tendency to the exudation of
fluid; the substance of the brain is thereby softened, and serum, to
the extent of one or more ounces, is frequently found in the ventricles,
especially when the brain is much impaired by disease of its
substance. In some cases of hydrocephalus pints of serum are
effused, distending the brain and head enormously, and in many
cases of insanity the ventricles and membranes of the brain are
distended with serum. “Pritchard on Insanity” speaks of this
distention of the ventricles, which were “very full of serum” in
twenty-nine out of a hundred cases, and “in twenty-three ready to
burst,” and “in ten among twenty-four melancholies astonishingly
distended.” Dr. Spurzheim dissected a case of hydrocephalus,
child of eighteen months, with two and a half pounds of water in
the membranes of the brain; and James Cardinal, who died at the
age of thirty years in London, had a pint of water in the lateral
ventricles, and about nine pints between the brain and its membranes.