BUCHANAN’S
JOURNAL OF MAN.

Creation’s Mysteries

Dr. B. Cyriax, editor of the Spiritualistische Blätter, published at
Liepsic, Ger., has given in the issue of March 31st the following
communications from Dr. Hahnemann and Dr. Spurzheim, delivered
through a trance medium. They are valuable essays, whatever may
be their source, and the reader will not fail to observe their general
coincidence with the doctrine presented by myself in the May number
of the Journal of Man in the article on the “Genesis of the
Brain.”

Wishing to have a psychometric test, I placed in the hands of Mrs.
Buchanan a portion of the manuscript of Spurzheim, who died fifty-five
years ago, to see if her conception of his thought would coincide
with the report from the trance medium. Her nervous system being
somewhat disturbed at the time, she was unable to go as far as I
wished, but she gave the following impressions:

“This has been written sixty or seventy years ago, written by a
person of very broad, elevated mind, progressive, a teacher or writer—perhaps
both. He had a great deal of will power, strong, and decisive,
was very independent, not afraid to give his views, but had a
great deal of opposition to his sentiments. He was of a scientific
cast of mind, was acquainted with medical science, and was more interested
in the brain than anything else. He would talk, lecture,
and write about the brain, and had very correct views in advance of
others. He is in spirit life now. There is a warmth and nearness in
the impression as though he would be attracted to the science you
are engaged in. His mind broadens out into different lines of
thought in spirit life—things appertaining to what he was interested
in here, and kindred subjects. He thinks you are developing in the
right direction. I think he has communicated with you. I think
he has an overshadowing approval of your work. He feels that you
are in an original line of thought, not dominated by any other minds.
There seems an overshadowing influence that stimulates you.”

As to his having communicated with me, it is true that over thirty
years ago I received some remarkable communications from him,
through a rapping medium, the messages being spelled out by the
alphabet, and his suggestions entirely in consonance with my teachings.

I then asked, “What views does he have of the process of creation
and development of life on the globe?” Which was answered
“His views are such as have been expressed by the believers in evolution,
 from the lower to the higher orders of creation. I feel a pressure
of intellectual conceptions, but my nervous system is not in a
state to express it.”

I then read through the statement of Spurzheim’s views (his name
being still unknown to Mrs. B.), and asked how they coincided
with the sentiments she perceived in the person she described. She
replied, “I think he accepts or approves it generally. He would
certainly sanction such ideas. I think he has communicated, and
that he would, in control of a medium, express such ideas.”

The messages of Hahnemann and Spurzheim have been so well
translated by a correspondent of the Golden Gate, that I reproduce
them as given in that journal, as follows:

“If you consider the high development of the Caucasian race,
it is repulsive to your sentiments to believe that man belongs to the
animal kingdom as its highest link, and springs from this kingdom.
Yet this feeling is false, and must be destroyed, since it originates
only in self-conceit and it is not so very difficult to arrive at a juster
view. Only go back to the time of Charlemagne or to that of
Augustus, and observe the great mass of your forefathers, and you
will find so great a difference, that you will be as much alarmed as
if in the presence of Indians, when such a tribe of Germans is
brought before you. Then go still further back into the pre-historic
times, and form an image of the pile-builders and their mode of life,
and of the cave-dwellers and their imperfect weapons and tools, and
you will have to confess that these are separated from the present
Europeans by a greater gap than are the uncultured inhabitants of
the earth of to-day. And yet these cave-dwellers and pile-builders
had already reached a high degree of culture in comparison with
those who had preceded them by thousands of years; and if we
thus join link to link in the chain backwards, we must come to the
conclusion that the original men were but little distinguished in
form and bodily structure, as well as in intellectual capacity, and at
first hardly at all, from the animals standing next them, the four-handed
ones.

“The assumption that God has created man perfect, i. e., in body,
but without power of judgment, and that he obtained this only by
transgressing a command and a prohibition, and thus by a crime,
so that he first began to degenerate upon the awakening in him of
the divine intellect and reason, we leave wholly one side as absolutely
contradicted by positive science, and only inquire, how, then,
did man originate in so low a form? There are but two answers to
this question. The one is, that man was placed upon the earth by
an outside power in full size, rudeness and stupidity, in order to be left
to his fate there in an unknown land, and to struggle for his existence
with unknown animals. Or, on the other hand, that man was
developed in a quite natural way, according to the law of evolution,
out of the class of animals standing next below him. You are
aware that we do not favor the first view, but so much the more
earnestly embrace the latter. According to the law of evolution
and adaptation the talents and capacities of animals were steadily
 changed in the course of thousands of years, following the changed
relations of climate and soil, so as to fit themselves for the new
conditions of sustenance and existence. In proportion as all nature
became changed, so that at the end of a so-called geological period
no comparison could be made with the beginning of the next preceding
one, in that same proportion and measure the plants and
animals had also changed, so that scarcely any more resemblance
existed between these and those from which they originated. It is
self-evident that amid such changes only those specimens continued
to exist, which had adapted themselves in their progressive development
in their organs and capacities in the best way to the new
conditions of their existence. All those which had not thus changed
lost the conditions of their existence and died out. But where did
these organs and capacities, fitted to the newer relations, gain their
form and development? In the mother-pouch of the female, undoubtedly!
And of course this improvement advanced with each
succeeding generation, so that animals which originally only lived
in water, through gradual efforts to go on dry land also, to which,
perhaps, they were forced to preserve their species, thereby changed
the original fins into legs and later into web-feet by which they
were adapted to live in water as well as on land (amphibia).

“Now likewise there was developed in the gigantic four-handed
Saurians such a change in the mother-pouch of the female animals
as the ever finer organized brain created, so that in the course of
thousands of years, a creature was gradually developed which overstepped
the last stage of the sense-developed understanding and
comprehension, and was in a position, through the putting into activity
of the upper and front brain, to distinguish evil from good and to
think independently. Of these creatures, likewise, only those survive
that had in themselves the capacity for further development,
while the rest perished. The survivors were the original men;
those that perished formed the intermediate link between man and the
brute. Thus, out of the infinite efforts of nature to create a finer
organized species from the four-handed Saurians, came forth not
only men, but the failures, the apes. So man does not descend from
the ape, but both have only one stock, which is the four-handed animals
sprung from the flesh-devouring Saurians.

“Thus we can settle whence man comes and how he arose, but that
does not solve the problem whence comes life or how it arose, yet
on this point I will give place to friend Spurzheim.

“Dr. Spurzheim then took control and spoke over half an hour in
his peculiarly striking, logical and convincing way, yet it is quite
impossible to repeat this discourse as it was given. It ran about as
follows:

“Worthy friends, friend Hahnemann has just given you an explanation
of the origin of man to which I have nothing to add. The
question whether the egg existed before the hen or the hen before
the egg has often been called an idle one, and yet it obtrudes itself
upon everybody. Our eyesight teaches that the egg comes from
the hen, but at the same time also that the hen is developed from
 the egg, and if we go farther back we are lost in infinity. The theological
view that God put into the world all that exists, all animals
from the smallest seen by the microscope to the largest gigantic
creatures in pairs and fully grown, seems to solve the problem of
the egg and the hen, but has long since been refuted by science, so
that we need not further meddle with it, and so much the less as
thereby the question of the origin of life is not even touched. Let
us now make a violent leap from man out into infinite space and
back millions of years before the origin of man upon the earth.
What do we see there? Unnumbered worlds, all which, like the
sun, have brought forth other worlds dependent on them, and these
by their development taking place according to like uniform laws in
their infinite differences in size and specific gravity, yet ever striving
after the same great end, the production of beings endowed with
reason, offer the most glorious picture of Godlike power and harmony.
The worlds born of these suns (planets) all originated in
like manner, since the parts lying along the circumference of the
suns, by their motion in space cooled off the sooner, broke away in
irregular masses, and while contracting into globular shapes and
revolving upon their own axis, yet by the force of attraction and
their original motion bound to the bodies, whirl around these and
with these move on in space. And though these balls of glowing
gas, as the earth for example in its origin, in contrast with the
mother-body (sun) are somewhat cooled off, yet is the heat of the
same still so great (some reckoning it at two or six thousand degrees
while others hold it incomputable) that absolutely no life can exist
within such balls of fire. But after the more solid parts are formed
(granite, porphyry, etc.,) gradually by cooling off and contracting,
and these are fused together into larger masses, then begin the ribs
of the earth-structure, the rocky foundations of the super-structure,
and as soon as the development of the earth is so far advanced that
oxygen and hydrogen can be formed into water, which falls down in
frightful masses upon the hot rocks and dissolves them on the
surface, then begins the condition productive of cells and carbon
entering into the connection, and the first plants are brought forth;
the algæ first, then the lichens and ferns, which are developed into
gigantic dimensions. Prior to and simultaneous with the formation
of cells went on the production of crystals and the mineral as well
as the vegetable kingdoms were further and further developed.
Contemporary with the first plant-cells the conditions were plainly
offered for the formation of the first life-cells. And now the question
arises, What is life? Whence comes it? Although it is certain
that in the process of development of the earth after its separation
from the sun no life was present.

“It is asserted that life is motion and is an attribute of matter; yet
that is something wholly different from what is understood by the
term. Thus far science has pointed out no distinction between dead
and living protoplasm, and the affirmation that the primordial cells
are the source of life is not tenable, since the cell is an organization
that presupposes life, and so, at most, the original cell could be designated
 as but the first expression of life. For a short time it was
assumed that life came to the earth through meteors or parts of
worlds that had gone to pieces, but this idea was soon given up,
because neither the manifold nature of life nor the origin of the
same could thereby be explained or determined, and thus the question
was only pushed farther back, since what was desired to be
known, was, how life originated on the world that was destroyed.

“When, and under what circumstances, life began on the earth can
not be accurately fixed, yet it is clear that at the time when the
ocean still covered nearly all the earth and was so hot that not a
single one of the now existing plants and living beings could then
exist, the life in that ocean and on its bottom was so infinitely grand
in its proportions that men can now form no adequate conception of
the same. The force of growth as well as of decay was immense,
and all that was grown or made by its decay only increased the mass
of life-producing substance.

“There are three theories as to the origin of living beings:

“1. God made all animals, including man, in pairs and of full size.

“2. The elements of physical nature and the forces dwelling in
matter by a lucky arrangement of atoms developing living organs
out of matter.

“3. An intelligent, intellectual force permeates matter, and
wherever this in its development attains the conditions for the
maintenance of life (and so a higher manifestation of force than in
the mineral) it brings forth the intellectual life in the protoplasmic
germ for the finest organism. Through the laws of inheritance, of
change, of the multiplication of progressive development, of natural
selection and of the persistence of the most gifted individuals, living
beings are developed through all classes and species up to man.

“With the first theory we need not concern ourselves further, as
we have already branded it as hostile to reason and knowledge,
although theologians have sought to maintain that Almighty God
has made the earth with all that is in it and upon it, just as it now
exists, and have even gone so far as to affirm in opposition to the
effect of geological discoveries, that God himself had created or
deposited the fossil remains of animals found under the bed of the
Euphrates (the spot where paradise is said to have been) exactly
there and in a petrified condition.

“The second theory seems more probable; it assumes that force
and matter are one and the same, matter possessing force as a quality;
but overlooks the fact that what is called matter first came
forth as a product out of the glowing mass of primary gas or world-material,
and hence that matter, or world-material, to which the
life-producing force is attached, is to be sought away back before the
time when began the formations of worlds in their incandescent
state, whereby it is, of course, conceded that life in the ordinary
sense was destroyed, if it really subsisted before the heating of the
particles of matter.

“Another objection to this theory is this, that if organizations spring
from the favorable union of atoms, this surrenders the rule to chance
 and excludes a unitary order of the world, while failing to explain
the origin of thinking, moral and reason-gifted beings; since, if thinking,
reason and moral sentiment spring from matter, they must be attributes
of the same; and since the product is always less than the
producer, it follows that intelligence, reason and ethics must be present
somewhere in matter in a concentrated form; and this reflection
brings us quite naturally to the third theory.

“The intellectual, divine principle penetrates matter as the positive
element, which under definite conditions steadily works upon the
negative element of the original substance and forces the same under
constant changing of form and combining parts, to realize definite,
universally similar ideas, and to attain definite aims; and wherever
matter in the process of development offers certain conditions, there
the intellectual element produces what is called life. And this takes
for granted that life may spring up spontaneously there where there
was no life before; and this fact has been established beyond all reasonable
doubt. The juice of mutton, beef and a mixture of gelatine
and sugar have been put in separate vessels, these made air-tight and
exposed for a long time to a heat of as much as three hundred degrees
of Fahrenheit, so as to be quite sure that all living germs were destroyed.
Yet after the lapse of weeks in some cases and of months
in others, living beings were developed in the vessels.

“Under the relation of the earth as existing to-day, life would again
be developed, if we were in a condition instantaneously to annihilate
all life; yet the same results would not be produced as in the original
period, because the needed materials are no longer present in the
mighty masses, nor in the requisite fluid and gaseous conditions to
attain so powerful effects, to which belong also as necessary conditions
the far higher temperature and the greater humidity of the atmosphere
of that epoch. In the first creative period the force as well
as the material were present in colossal measure and then arose those
gigantic plants and animals, which laid the foundation for all later
organisms. Without the colossal ferns and lichens and palm-like
growths of the early ages, the plants of to-day would have been impossible,
and without the monstrous giant creatures of old, which became
more and more refined through gradual adaptation to altered relations,
the modern animal kingdom could not have arisen. This
adaptation is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the history of
the development of the earth and is found as well in the realm of
plants as in that of animals. Originally there were only aquatic
animals, but as the relations changed so that it became necessary,
partly for the procuring of food and partly for the safety of the offspring,
that animals should go on land, their attempts constantly repeated
to do so, gradually produced a change in the limbs fitted for
motion, and so came about the transformation of fins into wings in
the creatures that wanted to rise out of the water into the air, which
then had far more carrying power than at the present day.

“Whatever may be said about the qualities of matter and the
force united with it (more truly the force manifesting itself therein),
it cannot be denied, that the plan of creation is a unitary one, moving
 on according to definite laws and striving towards definite final
results. This presupposes that a conscious idea lies at the basis of
the creative plan, and this implies an original consciousness which
we call God. God and nature are one, just as intellect and body
are one in man. Nature, i. e., substance, changes according to the
impulses that go out from God, but God remains unchanged. All
that possesses form, all organization must be destroyed in the incandescent
process of forming world-bodies, but the divine, the intellectual
principle is indestructible; and when matter under the impulses
that went forth from God, has reached the grade of development at
which organization is possible, then the divine principle steps into
force as the positive element, and that is life. This positive element
works on and on, steadily producing higher forms and higher organizations,
until in man it fashions itself into a self-recognizing, conscious
and individual essence, which, as derived from God, is indestructible,
and after the consummation of its earthly organism, is capable,
as an individual, intellectual being, of an infinitely progressive
development.

“So far man can attain by a chain of logical deductions; but to define
the idea that lies at the basis of the world-order is
impossible; just as also a man will never be in a condition
to find out or to comprehend how the working of the intellectual
element, upon the substance capable of change, is made
possible. Life is the self-manifested working of the intellectual element
upon matter. Man never understands the laws of life, though
he can understand the laws necessary for the preservation of life,
since he can deduce them from the outward manifestations of life.
Man must be contented with this; he can never understand God;
and since life is the expression of the divine activity, its origin must
ever remain a mystery to him.”

Though concurring generally in the foregoing views (which may
have been materially modified by their channel) I do not accept
them as a finality. That a brooding spiritual power has to do with
all development and progress I do not doubt. But this power is not
necessarily a monotonous and universal influence like gravitation or
caloric. There is no reason to forbid special acts of the creative
spiritual energy, for we observe to-day the production of plants and
of beautiful fabrics by spiritual power where the necessary conditions
exist. Moreover, the greatest potency of spiritual power is at the
beginnings in the most plasmic conditions of matter. It is in the
animal germ and the vegetable seed that the invisible world is most
potential, and I am inclined to think that naturalists have attached
too much importance to the exterior environment, and too little to
the interior conditions in which the higher potencies of organization
are to be found, and in which alone we may find the entrance
of life from the true world of life.

The hasty conclusions of naturalists as to evolution do not
explain the evolution and the vast variety of the vegetable kingdom.
To attribute this to any power of modification by environment, when
 we see how little environment can do to make any essential change
in vegetation, would require more credulity than I would consider
justifiable in the pursuit of scientific truths. So in the evolution of
the animal kingdom, I believe the power of the physical environment
has been greatly overrated.

A True Poet—the Poetry of Peace and the Practice of War.

It is nearly thirty years since I met the English poet, Charles
Mackay, at Louisville, on his travels in America. At that time he
gave me the following poem suggested by our conversation. I do
not think that he has ever published it:

It is the function of the poet to realize and revere the mystery,
but it is the duty of philosophy to explore and dissipate it, as far as
possible, for mystery is the foe of human progress.

Mackay, though not the poet of psychic science, is profoundly the
poet of practical, humanitarian progress, as was shown in his sublime
poem, beginning,

The psychometric impression from the manuscript of the foregoing
poem was as follows:

“This seems like a poetical influence. I think the person who
wrote this, was adapted to intellectual pursuits,—a man of fine
powers of mind, but not fully progressed in thought. As far as he
knew, at the time of this writing, he was appreciative of your suggestions,
and of scientific progress. He was a cool-headed man,—not
a light or superficial thinker, but thought on deep subjects. He
was a brain worker; it makes my brain tired. I think he published
books—poems. I think he was more a poet than a prose writer.
He was not like Tom Moore—there was nothing light or superficial—his
 poetry was grand, solid, deep, stirring. He could write upon
warlike scenes, vividly and descriptively, but was not in favor of
war. He would deplore any appearance of war, but he had a
patriotic spirit, a proud spirit, and would defend the right and assail
the wrong.”

This description was verified in his numerous volumes of poetry,
such as “Legends of the Islands,” “Poetry of the English Lakes,”
“The Battle,” “Town Lyrics,” etc. He also published three
volumes of “Memoirs of Popular Delusions,” edited the London
Review, and was the war correspondent of the London Times from
this country during the rebellion.

His opposition to war is shown in the following admirable poem,
the reading of which revived my recollection of its author.

FREEDOM’S WARFARE. By Charles Mackay.

This poem expresses the sentiment and policy of the Journal of
Man. But, ah, how utterly antagonistic to these noble sentiments is
the way of the world at present, and the policy of the world’s strong
governments, upheld as they are by the so-called church of Christ,
which is not the church of Christ but the church of Athanasius.

Everywhere men are trained with skill and perseverance for the
work of homicide, as if murder were the most glorious work in
which man could be employed.

Every Frenchman in his twenty-first year is held by the government
(with very few exceptions) to five years service in the active
army, four years in the reserve of the active army, five years in the
territorial army, and four in the reserve of the territorial army—eighteen
years altogether! Could his Satanic Majesty have devised
any better plan for destroying the moral distinction between men
and carnivorous beasts? The only mitigation of this horror is that
college students are allowed to pass by one year’s service, and a lottery
of long and short terms allows a large number to escape with
terms of abridged length.

Germany, like France, forces everybody through the army, and it is
but five months since the continental governments were buying in
England millions of cartridges for the expected war which psychometry
pronounced a terrible delusion.

All governments are busy in preparing the deadliest possible
weapons. European nations have generally adopted magazine guns
for their soldiers. France has adopted the Kropatochek magazine
rifle, Germany the Manser rifle, Austria the Mannlicher magazine
rifle, Italy the Bertoldo magazine rifle, Russia the Berdan breechloader,
Turkey the American rifle. The magazine guns seem to have
almost unlimited capacities—firing 30 to 50 shots per minute which
are fatal at a mile distance. The only mitigation of these horrors
is that of a German chemist’s invention—an anæsthetic bullet
which is claimed to produce complete insensibility, lasting for
hours.

Explosive shells of melinite are the leading idea in France. It is
manufactured at Bourges and is said to be a hundred times as powerful
as gunpowder, or ten times nitroglycerine, and reduces what it
strikes to a fine powder. They have also a new rifle powder which
explodes without smoke.

Russia has a new explosive, fifteen times as strong as any gunpowder,
which produces no smoke.

America is not behind in explosives. Lieut. Graydon has been
giving exhibitions near Washington of a new patent shell said to be
seven times more powerful than dynamite, and yet so safe that it
can be fired with powder from a common gun. Mr. Bernard Fannon
of Westboro, Mass., has invented and patented a shell of terrific
power. It is made of iron, three inches thick, and weighs 540 pounds.
 The effects of its explosion in a swamp near Westboro were wonderful.
It is also said to be perfectly safe.

The rivalry of cannon and armor plates is going on, the development
of torpedoes and shells is reaching its maximum, and the
power of taking a nation to the edge of starvation, for the building
of monster ships, costing each millions of dollars, is the study of
Christian (!!) governments.

Thirty years ago, the largest British cannon was a sixty-eight
pounder, costing $561, which might be fired for $275. Now they
have a 110-ton gun costing $97,500 to manufacture, and $935 to fire
once.

The British government has gone into such matters deeply, paying
Mr. Brennan over half a million dollars for his torpedo invention.

The British ship “Victoria” uses 900 pounds of powder to one of
its 110-ton guns which send a missile of 1,800 pounds.

Nelson’s flag ship “Victory” used no larger powder charge than
eight pounds, and its heaviest shot was only sixty-eight pounds. A
broadside upon the “Victoria” consumes 3,000 pounds of powder. Its
110-ton gun is moved by hydraulic machinery. Such a metallic
monster would seem almost incredible, but Krupp has constructed
a still larger gun for Italy, 46 feet long and weighing over 118
tons.

It could not be sent overland by railway, but was sent to Antwerp
for shipping on a specially constructed carriage 105 feet long,
running on 32 wheels.

The American steel cruiser “Atlanta” has two guns of eight-inch
bore, 24 feet long, sending out a projectile of 300 pounds which
explodes on striking,—firing correctly five miles. It costs $150 to
to fire once.

Lieut. Zalinski is using a light steel tube, sixty feet long and one
foot in diameter, to fire explosive shells by air pressure. Great
results are expected from it, and it would save us from the enormous
cost of modern cannon.

Fortunately, America, being out of the great maelstrom of war,
can cultivate humane sentiments and abolish the barbarism of dueling,
which still holds its ground in France and Germany in the highest
ranks of society.

We have had one terrible war to demoralize our nation, but now
peace is secure and the old Federal and Confederate soldiers are
active in exchanging visits and generous hospitalities North and
South in a permanent and peaceful Union.

A re-established Union saves us from the wars and the military
despotism in which other republics have perished, and all can unite
now in the following beautiful tribute to the dead heroes:

The Gospel of Peace has been illustrated in a Chattanooga Journal
by a beautiful incident, the meeting of the blue and gray in
church, during the war as follows:

“At the bar banquet given Saturday night in honor of Judges Key
and Trewhitt, Mr. Templeton of Knoxville related an incident
which occurred during the war at a revival service held by his father
in North Georgia.

“About the time that Sherman was driving Johnson toward
Atlanta,” said he, “some time in the early part of August, 1864, my
father was conducting a revival at a little house called Pine Log
Creek Church, about ten miles from Calhoun. The times were most
terrible about then; murder, robbery and rapine were of daily occurrence,
and the whole country was subject to visitations by marauding
parties from both armies. One day the old gentleman was preaching
a sermon of unusual power, and before he had gotten well under way
a gang of Confederate soldiers rode up, and, dismounting out back of
 the church, asked if they might be admitted to the church. Of
course they were cordially invited in, and took prominent seats in the
church.

“Not long afterward a cloud of dust was seen in the road from the
opposite direction to what the rebels had come, and pretty soon the
tramp of horses’ hoofs was heard, and it was soon discovered that it
was a squad of Federal troops, and before the Confederates in the
church could be apprised of the approach, they had ridden up to the
door. Perceiving that religious services were being held, they alighted
and asked to be admitted. They were told that there were Confederate
soldiers in the church, but they insisted on going in, and
they were admitted.

“Naturally the strange spectacle created some consternation in
the congregation, and for a time it seemed as if the confusion would
break up the meeting. But my father raised his voice and began
most fervently to plead a better life, beseeching his soldier hearers
to become religious and abandon their sins. He preached with unusual
force and power, the strange scene lending him inspiration.
When he had concluded his sermon, as was the custom then, he
invited those who were converted to come forward to the mourner’s
bench and pray and talk with him on the all-important subject.

“Then it was that one of the grandest sights ever witnessed
occurred. Those soldiers, enemies to each other, engaged in a bloody
war, arose as one man, friend and foe together, and marched to the
front of the church and kneeled together, Confederate by Federal,
their muskets joining and crossing each other; their revolvers touching
each other as they kneeled; their heads bowed upon the same
altar, and their tears mingling almost in their deep contrition and
profound feeling. All animosities were forgotten, all strife forgotten—they
were together as brothers around a common altar.

“After the service they met on the outside of the church, shook
hands, pledged fraternity, and each party went off, taking opposite
directions. They had been looking for each other, perhaps with
murderous intent. They found each other, but they separated with
love instead of hate, friendly instead of angry.”

The Volapük Language.

In the attempt to form a universal language, no one has proceeded
more philosophically than the late Stephen Pearl Andrews, who
attempted to construct a language in which all the sounds should be
selected in accordance with nature, being such as are naturally
associated with the ideas they are used to express.

Mr. Andrews, by his personal amiability, enthusiasm, and lucid
intelligence, interested a number of disciples who have studied his
language called the Alwato, and it may be hoped will not allow it to
disappear with the life of its highly gifted and philosophic teacher.

The Volapük language which has no such pretention to philosophic
construction, is coming into such prominence as to deserve
 the attention of the readers of this Journal, hence I present the
following sketch which has been abridged from an article in the
American Magazine for June, written by Richard Walker:

“Volapük is the invention of the Rev. Father Johann Martin
Schleyer, of Constance, Baden, Germany. He is an accomplished
linguist, having for forty-six years been interested in
the study of language. He can speak and write twenty-eight
tongues, including the Chinese and three African languages, and is
also eminent as a priest, hymnologist and religious editor. He
invented his universal language in 1878, announced it in 1879, and
had so far perfected it in 1881 as to publish in that year a small
book, entitled “Entwurf einer Weltsprache für alle gebildte
Erdbewohner” (“Plan of a Universal Language for all the Civilized
Inhabitants of the Earth”). Thus the name, Volapük; vola meaning
of the world, and pük language.

“Schleyer does not propose that Volapük shall supercede any living
language. He has attempted to make it so scientific and natural,
so regular in all the rules of construction, and therefore so easy
to learn, that every educated person will acquire it next after the
mother tongue; and he hopes that it will thus become the accepted
medium for all international communications. With this end in
view, he has formed it on the general model of the Aryan family
of languages; that is, its signs represent letters and words, and not
ideas; and the root words of which it is constructed, instead of
being arbitrary sounds and signs, as in Bishop Wilkin’s philosophical
language, or sounds that have a real or fancied natural meaning, as
in Stephen Pearl Andrews’ “Alwato,” are taken principally from
living languages, the English being more largely drawn upon than
any other.

“The alphabet employed is the Roman with some of the German
dotted letters added, and the continental sounds are given to the
letters. All words are phonetically spelled, so that there are none
of the difficulties of orthography and pronunciation to be encountered
which are so formidable in most natural languages.”

In making his Volapük vocabulary, Father Schleyer has sought
first for the simplest words now in use. If such words are to be
found in the English language, he has adopted them; if not, then he
has drawn upon the Latin, German, French, and Spanish languages
in the order named. For example, the word man in English, is a
sufficiently simple root, and, therefore, man, with the same spelling
and the continental pronunciation, is made to signify a man, or the
man in Volapük—for the articles a and the are discarded. But
house in English is inconveniently long and ends with a silent letter,
and therefore the word dom, from the Latin word domus, is taken. In
some instances neither of the languages named contains a root sufficiently
simple, and then the inventor constructs a new one. But, so
rich is the English language in simple Anglo-Saxon roots, that more
than one-half of the words in Volapük are derived from them, and
 the number of new words whose roots are not to be found in any
living language is comparatively very small.

To the suggestion that, if the English language was to be drawn
upon so largely it would have been better to have adopted that, and
induce all educated persons to learn it, the advocates of Volapük
reply, first, that its irregularities of construction, orthography, and
pronunciation make it too difficult to acquire; and secondly, international
prejudice would prevent it from being universally adopted.
The use of so many English roots, however, makes Volapük much
easier to learn by one whose mother tongue is English, and thus
bring it within reach of the largest number of people speaking a common
language, while it eliminates irregularities and does not arouse
national prejudices.

The names of the cardinal numbers follow the vowels in their regular
order, a denoting the first, e the second, etc. Thus: Bal, 1;
tel, 2; kil, 3; fol, 4; lul, 5; mäl, 6; vel, 7; jöl, 8; zül, 9; bals, 10;
tels, 20; kils, 30; tum, 100; mil, 1,000, etc. The year 1887, written
out in Volapük, is Balmil jöltum jölsevel. The Arabic numerals
are used as in English.

S added to any word forms the plural, which is never formed in
any other way. The first three vowels (a, e, i) added to any noun,
form respectively its genitive, dative, and accusative; s added to
these forms makes the plurals of the same cases. Man is therefore
declined as follows:

Every noun in the language is declined in the same way, so that
all declensions may be learned in one minute.

The verbs in Volapük are all regular, and there is only one conjunction.
The tenses are denoted by the vowels a, ä, e, i, o, u, placed
before the verbs. When these vowels are preceded by p, it shows
that the verb is in the passive voice. The personal pronouns are:
ob, I; ol, thou; om, he; of, she; os, it; ok, one’s self. S added
makes the plurals. Löf, meaning love, löfób, means I love; löfól,
thou lovest, etc.; älöfób, I loved; ilöfóm, he had loved; ulöfós, it will
have loved, etc.; palöfóms, they are loved; pulöfófs, they will have
been loved, etc. As it is only necessary to remember the few particulars
named, all conjugation may be acquired in five minutes.

Enough has been given—and there is very little more of it—to
show the extreme simplicity of the Volapük grammar. It can be
learned in an hour, and, as the variations of the nouns and verbs are
indicated by the vowels taken in their regular order, they are not
easily forgotten. The principal labor necessary to acquire the language
consists, therefore, in memorizing the vocabulary. Since more
than one-half the roots are English, a person speaking that language
can naturally acquire the new one in less than one-half the time
 required for any foreign language, and the better knowledge he has of
Latin, French and Spanish, the faster will be his progress.

After Father Schleyer published his first book, in 1881, he was
soon able to interest a few persons in Germany in Volapük. It
next got a foothold in Switzerland, and then in Paris. English
linguists are just beginning to give attention to it, the only publication
in English until very recently having been a bad adaptation of
an abridged grammar. But on the Continent it has gained in popularity
very rapidly during the last two or three years, so that there
are now at least ten thousand persons who are familiar with and use
it. More than three hundred and fifty have received diplomas as
adepts. There are eight monthly periodicals printed wholly in Volapük,
or partly in Volapük and partly in other languages.

In the United States not more than twenty persons have studied
Volapük, and only about half a dozen can read and write it. Mr.
Charles E. Sprague, of New York, who holds the diploma of Volapükatidel,
reads and writes it with ease, and to him I am under obligations
for assistance in preparing this article. There are no Volapükese
clubs or periodicals published in the language or in its interest
either in this country or in England. A large number of books
in Volapük, or about it, have appeared in Germany, including grammars
in eighteen languages, a German-Volapük dictionary containing
twelve thousand words, a biography of the inventor, Father
Schleyer, pamphlets, etc.

Progress of the Marvellous.

Mrs. L. C. Moulton, London correspondent of the Boston Herald, sends
the following, published July 17:

“Like every body else, in London they are interested in hypnotism, spiritualism,
etc.—interested, I mean, as inquirers, not as believers, and I saw
a table move round briskly under the pretty fingers of Mrs. Hunt and a
young lady cousin of hers.

“The latest feminine sensation is Miss Ramsey, the Girton girl of twenty,
who beat all the men at Cambridge this year in Greek; and what makes
her success still more triumphant, is that the pretty little creature had only
learned her Greek alphabet four years ago, while the men had all been pegging
away at the language for ten years.

“Prof. Stainton-Moses of University College, London, is certainly a trained
scientist, and a man accustomed to weigh evidence, and tells me that with
him spiritualism is not a matter of mere belief, but of actual, personal knowledge.
A great deal of spiritual writing has been done through his own
hand; not professionally, but for his own satisfaction. Holding Zoroaster
or Aristotle in his left hand, and reading attentively, he has written out
most extraordinary things with his right. For instance, one day—in
answer, he thinks to a wish on his part for an especially strong test—his
hand wrote of the death of a woman of whom he had never heard, giving
her name and the time and manner of her passing away, etc. ‘But,’ he
said, as he read it over, ‘I don’t see that this is a test. I could find it in a
newspaper; I may have read it, and unconsciously remembered it.’ Instantly
it was written, ‘No, that cannot be; she died but an hour ago, and
when you see it in the paper you will have had your test.’ The next day
 he searched the papers in vain, but on the second morning, there, in the
death column, he found the announcement of the death, corresponding with
what had been written through him, in every particular of name, date, and
disease. Also he has seen spirits in friendly converse—entertained them
at his own fireside.

“I went, by invitation of Prof. Stainton-Moses, to a festal reunion of the
‘Spiritual Alliance,’ of which he is president, and I am bound to say that
I met there men and women who seemed to me as sincere and earnest, and
intelligent as one finds anywhere. Oh, and I saw Eglinton—the medium
who is now what Home was—though he told me last night he meant soon
to get out of the professional part of spiritualism. He is a singularly agreeable
man, handsome, and with a look in his dark eyes as if they might easily
see visions. I am told that he has lately married a very rich wife, and this
may account for his intention to withdraw from spiritualism as a profession.”

Mr. Eglinton has published in the London Medium a very interesting
narrative of his seances with the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the royal
family and nobility. In the first royal seance, the Grand Duchess Vladimir
proved to be a medium, and was lifted in the air, screaming the while.
‘As she continued to ascend,’ says Mr. Eglinton, ‘I was compelled to leave
her hand, and on returning to her seat, she declared that she had been
floated over the table without anything having been in contact with her.’

The Grand Duke Vladimir brought a new bank-note in an envelope to
have its number told, which he did not know. The number was correctly
written by the spirits, between slates, 716,990.

At the seance with the emperor there were present a party of ten, the
empress, Grand Duke and Duchess of Oldenburg, Grand Duke and Duchess
Sergius, Grand Duke Vladimir, Prince Alexander, and Gen. Richter. All
hands being joined, a spirit voice conversed with the empress in Russian.
A female form materialized near the Princess Oldenburg. A music-box
weighing about forty pounds, was carried around and placed on the emperor’s
hand. Other phenomena occurred, but the chief incident was the levitation.
Mr. Eglinton was lifted in the air, the empress and Prince
Oldenburg holding his hands and standing on their chairs, until his feet
rested on the shoulders of the emperor and the Grand Duke Oldenburg.

Mr. Eglinton was overwhelmed with invitations from the nobility and
professors. M. de Giers the great Foreign Minister and his two sons
(mediums) were spiritualists of many years standing.

The Journal could not contain half the marvellous things that are happening.

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that in Bracken County, Ky., (on
the Ohio river, between Louisville and Cincinnati):

“Excitement is at fever heat in the Milford neighborhood, in the southern
portion of this county, over the mysterious appearance of the most wonderful
faces and figures upon the window glass of the houses in that section. The
first appearance of these singular and most extraordinary pictures on the
glass was at the residence of William Showalter, where the window panes
all at once showed the colors of the rainbow, on which two days later the heads
of people and animals were clearly visible. On the glass of another house a head
and face resembling President Lincoln’s were to be seen. On another the
form of a young girl bending over an infant, the body of a lion, the figures
twenty-two, and a landscape were all visible, as distinctly outlined as any
artist could have drawn them. Some of the most striking pictures are on
the windows of the Milford Baptist Church, which are protected with shutters
that are kept tightly closed. The people of Bracken county have not in years
been more worked up over anything than they now are over these pictures.”

 Glances Round the World.

The contempt with which Comte and many other philosophizers
have treated the press which tells of the progress of mankind is an
example for all good men to avoid. If we recognize the brotherhood
of humanity, we cannot be indifferent to the passing lives, the joys
and misfortunes of our brothers. Let pedants and philosophasters
bury themselves in the writings of the dead, the good man prefers
to know something of the living, and he finds it in the daily, weekly,
and monthly press.

At our first outward glance, we are struck with the elevation of
our standpoint. This great republic has attained an elevation in
intelligence, wealth, and power, which enables it to look down on the
lands that are overshadowed by the darkness of the past, and to anticipate
the time when American pre-eminence shall be universally
acknowledged. The condition already attained was eloquently
stated by Chauncey M. Depew, in a recent address at New York,
which gave a startling view of

AMERICAN PROGRESS.

“Last summer I stood upon the White Hill at Prague, in Bohemia,
where the thirty years war began and ended. There is no more
suggestive spot in Europe. It recalled a picture of the horrors and
desolation of war unequalled in history. The contest began when
the continent was dominated by the German empire, and ended with
the magnificent creation of Charles V. broken into numberless petty
principalities. Like the contest of the 17th century, ours was both
a civil and religious war. But the country came out of the conflict
not like the old German empire, but a mighty nation.

“Vapid sentimentalists and timid souls deprecate these annual reunions,
fearing they may arouse old strifes and sectional animosities.
But a war in which 500,000 men were killed, and 2,000,000 were
wounded, in which states were devastated and money spent equal to
twice England’s gigantic debt, has a meaning, a lesson and results
which are to the people a liberal education. We cheerfully admit
that the Confederate, equally with the Federal soldier, believed he
was fighting for the right, and maintained his faith with a valor
which fully sustained the reputation of Americans for courage and
constancy. The best and bravest thinkers of the South gladly proclaim
that the superb development which has been the outgrowth of
their defeat is worth all its losses, its sacrifices, and humiliations.

“In 1860 the developed and assessable property of the United
States was valued at $16,000,000,000. One-half of this enormous
sum was destroyed by the civil war, and yet so prodigious has been
the growth of wealth that the estimate now surpasses the imperial
figure of $60,000,000,000, and the growth at the rate of nearly
$7,000,000 a day. Our wealth approximates one-half of that of all
Europe.

“These unparalleled results can be protected and continued only by
the spirit of patriotism. This is a republic, and neither Mammon
 nor anarchy shall be king. The ranks of anarchy and riot number
no Americans.”

We realize more fully the future magnitude of our country, when
we look at the wealth of its soil and mines, already developed, and
the magnitude of its still untouched resources. According to the estimates
of Dr. A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, as laid before
the American Statistical Association at their last meeting in the Boston
Institute of Technology, the total territory of the United States
contains 3,501,409 square miles. Of this entire amount Dr. Hart believes
there remains unsold in the hands of the government, public
lands amounting to 1,616,101 square miles, or 1,034,330,842 acres,
which is almost one-half of our entire territory. Such a realm as we
have could comfortably sustain between two and three thousand millions
of inhabitants, while the entire population of the globe is at
present less than fifteen hundred millions.

Our present population is over 60,000,000, and if it goes on duplicating
every thirty years, it will be in 1917, 120,000,000; in 1947,
240,000,000; in 1977, 480,000,000; in 2,007, 960,000,000; in 2,037,
1,920,000,000; 2,067, 3,840,000,000. Thus in 180 years we shall
have reached the limit where population, being over 1,000 to the
square mile, must emigrate or be arrested by the difficulty of obtaining
food, and the absolute necessity of reducing to a small number
our stock of horses, cattle, and hogs, that human beings may have
food,—vegetarian diet thus becoming a necessity, and bringing
with it a great diminution of intemperance, and the crimes produced
by the animal passions; for it is well established that vegetarianism
restrains intemperance.

BRIGHT PROSPECTS.

Among the bright indications for the future are the increase of
industrial education, the beginning of cooperation between capitalists
and employes, the increasing intelligence and combined strength
of the laboring class, which give assurance of good wages, and the
subdivision of the land into smaller farms, which substitutes an independent
yeomanry for the landlord and tenant relation. Thus, in
the thirteen States, formerly slave-holding, the average size of farms
in 1860 was 346 acres, but in 1880 it was 146.

We have vast mineral resources as yet untouched, of coal, iron,
and other metals far exceeding all that has yet been reached in the
old as well as new regions. The marbles of Inyo, California, are
more than twice as strong as the best marbles of Italy.

“Astonishing as the statement may appear,” says the Denver News,
“it is nevertheless a fact that there are here, within the borders of
Colorado, the wealth in coal of two or even three States like Pennsylvania.
For the vast trans-Missouri country, eastward, even to the
valley of the Mississippi, Colorado is the great present and future
storehouse of the fuel which the demands and necessities of its varied
commercial and industrial life will require. Many generations
hence, when Colorado shall have become an old State, when the
frontier days shall have been forgotten, when gold and silver mining
 shall have ceased to be profitable, even then will the coal fields of
Colorado be yielding their hidden treasures of fuel to supply the
demand.”

We have no territory which sanitary science may not render a
healthful home, and we have millions of acres of elevated territory,
where the highest conditions of human health and happiness may be
attained in connection with the highest spiritual development. But
these regions are not on the Eastern coast, chilled by the icy currents
from the North. “Westward the star of empire wends its
way,” and the Pacific Coast is destined to witness the development
of the highest civilization on the globe. Of the health and beauty of
California all its residents can speak, but physicians can give decisive
facts. Dr. King, of Banning, Cal., says, “Out here we scarcely
know what storms are. All winter long my front yard has been
green and beautiful—roses blooming in January, and callas in
March. During three and a half years there have been but two
cases of acute disease of the chest within six miles of my office. I
do not know of any death having occurred in this village or vicinity
from an acute disease, since I came here nearly four years ago.”
What are the lauded climates of Italy and Greece compared to such
a record as this?

DARK CLOUDS.

But what are the clouds that dim the brightness of our coming
glory, and already overshadow us? The greatest of all is the curse
of intemperance. Secretary Windom said, in his address at the
Cooper Union meeting in New York, (May 25):

“I do not think I overstate the case when I say that the 200,000
saloons in this country have been instrumental in destroying more
human life in the last five years than the 2,000,000 of armed men
during the four years of the Rebellion. There is an irrepressible
conflict upon us. This nation cannot endure half drunk and half
sober any more than it could endure half slave and half free.”

Gov. St. John, late candidate for the presidency, said, in his New,
York address:

“There are about 215,000 retail liquor houses in this nation. Allowing
20 feet to each, it gives us an unbroken liquor front of about
781 miles. Just think of it! Seven hundred and eighty-one miles
of profanity and vulgarity. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of
Sabbath-breaking. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of drunkard-making.
Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of filth, debauchery,
anarchy, dynamite and bombs. [Applause]. Seven hundred and
eighty-one miles of political corruption; seven hundred and eighty-one
miles of hot-beds for the propagation of counterfeiters, wife-beaters,
gamblers, thieves, and murderers.

“In the High License City of Chicago, in the great Republican
State of Illinois, there are, within five blocks of Halstead Street
Mission, 325 saloons, 129 bawdy houses, 100 other houses of doubtful
repute, theatres, museums and bad hotels, and only two places
for the worship of Almighty God. (Cries of ‘Shame!’)”

 St. John should have added that intemperance was the most
powerful agency for the propagation of intellectual and moral idiocy
in offspring.

The increase of insanity in spite of our defective systems of
education is universally recognized. The New York Sun says:

“The very rapid increase of insanity in the United States during
the last two or three decades continues to be the subject of much
discussion among alienists, and all those who are concerned in
public charities. That a prime cause of this alarming state of
things is the shipment to our shores of the enfeebled and defective
of other countries, is now beginning to be understood, and both our
own State Board of Charities and the National Conference of
Charities and Correction have called on Congress to protect our
society against the introduction of these depraved specimens of
humanity, who speedily become a charge on the public, or transmit
their weakness to their posterity.

“The statistics of insanity show that, in general, the proportion of
the insane is greatest in the older States, where the foreign population
is most numerous, and it is least where the communities are
new, as, for instance, in the pioneer counties of Wisconsin. The
South, which has drawn comparatively little from immigration,
suffers from insanity to a much less extent than New England and
New York; and it is an established fact that the Negro race is much
less liable to insanity than the white. The average of insanity in
New England is 1 to every 359 of the population; in New York,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 1 to every 424; while in the extreme
Southern States the average is only 1 to 935.

“The West, like the South, is more free from insanity than the
Northern seaboard States, the average being 1 to every 610 in the
interior States, and 1 to 750 for the Northwestern States. In the
far Western States and Territories it is only 1 out of 1,263, they
being settled by a picked population, whose energy and soundness
make them pioneers. It is note-worthy, however, that insanity is
as frequent in the Pacific States as in New England, the explanation
being that vice and indulgence prevail to an exceptional extent
among the population drawn to the Pacific by the mania for gold.
The average in Massachusetts, for instance, is 1 to 348; in
California 1 to 345. It is also remarkable that the ratio of insanity
decreases as we go west and south of New England, as these averages
will show: New England, 1 to 359; Middle States, 1 to 424;
interior States, 1 to 610; Northwestern States, 1 to 750; Southern
States 1 to 629.

“The State where the proportion is highest is Vermont, 1 to 327;
and New Hampshire comes next, with 1 to 329. We are at a loss to
understand why insanity is so frequent in the District of Columbia,
the average given being 1 to 189; but perhaps the large average in
Vermont and New Hampshire may, in part, be due to the circumstance
that those States receive the refuse of Canadian poor-houses, they
having a much better organized system of charitable relief than the
Dominion can boast of; and it is undeniable that some of the very
 worst of our immigration comes from over the Canadian border.
That immigration, too, is now great, and there are factory towns in
New England where the population is largely made up of French
Canadians.”

There is a disturbing element in the influx of a foreign population
reared under very unfavorable social conditions. In 1882 the
immigration was 800,000. On a single day, in May last, nearly ten
thousand arrived in Castle Garden. The steamships are overburdened,
and the Cunard and White Star lines employ extra ships to
accommodate the emigrants. Oppression in Ireland, and oppression
all over Europe, drives the people into emigration; but a large
portion of the emigration consists of a substantial population; yet
we have enough of the turbulent and debased element to make a
serious danger in our large cities, and a formidable competition
with native American labor. The more laborers, and the fewer
employers, the worse it is for labor. But perhaps American wealth
and enterprise will find something satisfactory for all to do.

DEFECTIVE EDUCATION.

But there is nothing more unsatisfactory to the philanthropist
than our meagre and inadequate system of education,—a system
which aims to cram the memory with acquired knowledge, which
does not develop original thought, and which does not elevate the
moral nature. Such a system will never elevate society, will never
repress any vice or crime, will never make the educated generation
any happier for being educated. In short, it utterly fails in that
which should be its chief end and aim, and simply leads society on
as heretofore in the path of increasing intelligence, increasing misery,
increasing crime, increasing insanity. What a commentary on
our education and civilization is the common estimate that Europe,
now, with the most complete educational system ever known, has
50,000 suicides a year. In this, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin take the
lead.

(To be continued.)

Miscellaneous Intelligence.

 CRANIOSCOPY.

(Continued from page 32.)

I would not say that Napoleon’s brain was to any great degree
abnormal, but I am satisfied that criminal’s brains are generally
abnormal, for there are many criminals whose heads do not, by
their exterior form, indicate their depravity, but wherever I have
examined the interior of the skull I have found the basilar
organs active, growing and imprinted upon the interior table of
the skull, while the superior region reveals the decline of the moral
nature by the increased thickness of the bone which is growing
inward and has not the digital impressions of the convolutions
which are marked wherever the brain is in an active growing
condition. The criminal’s skull must be studied by post mortem
examination, and the most effective method is by placing a taper
through the foramen magnum at the bottom of the skull which
will reveal the more active organs by the translucency and thinness
of the bones, while the inactive organs are indicated by their
opacity and thickness, as in the following convict skull.

A REBELLIOUS CONVICT.

The sketch here presented exhibits the degrees of translucency
and opacity in a skull which I obtained at Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
about fifty years ago. It was the skull of a convict killed in the
penitentiary while leading a rebellion in a desperate effort to escape.

The man was of a respectable family, son of the sheriff of Warren
County, Ky. He fell into bad company and bad habits at New Orleans,
 drinking and gaming, until for an act of highway robbery he was
sent to the penitentiary. The reader will observe the general
activity of the intellect and the adjacent social sentiments indicated
by the translucency, and the general torpor, indicated by the opacity
in the regions of Religion, Hope, Reverence, Love, Conscientiousness,
Industry, Cheerfulness, Love of Approbation, Sense of Honor,
and Self-respect. Secretiveness shows opacity, while Combativeness
shows intense activity which extends into Adhesiveness and
cautiousness.

The translucency at Firmness, Irritability, and Combativeness,
which were active to the last moments of his life, is quite characteristic.
Upon the whole, the test by the inner light inserted at the
foramen magnum in the base of the skull indicates a very low, lawless,
desperate and unprincipled character, with enough of adhesiveness
to give him comrades in crime, and enough of intelligence to
give him some success.

The most extraordinary instance of this was in the skull of
a negro woman which I examined in Alabama, which had only
a slight translucency at Firmness, while the rest of the upper
surface of the skull was so abnormally thick that in lifting it
one was reminded of the weight of a block of wood. She had, in a fit
of temper, murdered her own child in the field, chopping it down
with an axe.

Chapter VII.—Practical Utility of Anthropology in its Psychic Department.

All science should be useful—Anthropology has the supreme utility—Importance
of self-knowledge and its rarity—Almost impossible
without the aid of Anthropology—Its absence in the college—Immense
waste of labor in abortive self-culture—Anthropology
an exact guide—The selfish do not want it—Mistakes in education—Unbalanced
characters described—Possibility of reform—Conjugal
reform most important—The powerful agencies of Anthropology.

Before commencing the study of the organs of the brain and faculties
of the soul, it is well to look to its results, its practical
utilities; for the pursuit of science merely to gratify an intellectual
curiosity is not the noblest employment of our time, although
it has been a favorite indulgence of the literary class, and was
regarded by the ancient philosopher, Empedocles, as the noblest occupation
of man. From this opinion I decidedly dissent, regarding
the lawless and excessive indulgence of the intellectual faculties as
a species of erratic dissipation, injurious to the manhood of the
individual, and pernicious to society by the misleading influence of a
bad example.

Not only does this extreme intellectual indulgence, in a life the
primary purpose of which is not meditation, but action, impair the
 individual as to his normal usefulness, and thus diffuse by example
a deteriorating influence upon the young, and misleading influence
upon all, but it actually leads to false views of life, and an
unsound philosophy such as transcendental idealism, pessimism, indolence,
and the pursuit of visionary falsehoods which a well-balanced
mind would intuitively reject. These follies are cultivated by a
pedantic system of education, and by the accumulated literature
which such education in the past has developed, feeble and faulty in
style, superficial in conception, and sadly misleading as to the principles
and purposes of life.

Though tempted to such indulgence by the ceaseless activity of
my own mind, I can say that I have never pursued any course of
investigation, or study, without a positive certainty of its beneficence
and value. No other course would be compatible with the
demands of duty; but it is obvious on the face of a large portion
of our literature that the ethical sentiments were dormant when it
was written. Pre-eminent above all other studies in practical
value is the science of Anthropology, so long neglected and
unknown; a science which places biology on a new basis, rectifies
therapeutics, reforms education, develops ethics or religion, and
illuminates all spheres of knowledge by psychometry.

The psychic department of Anthropology in which we are
now entering the study of the faculties of the soul, the organs of
the brain, and the effects of their varying development upon the
characters of men and animals, is rich in very practical instruction
for the guidance of life, and the attainment not only of spiritual
and physical health and success in this life, but of that nobler and
greater success, which is chiefly realized in the coming centuries, in
which a grander realm is opened for our expanded powers in the
higher life.

One of the most essential things for success in life is a correct
self-knowledge. A strong, well-balanced organization with a clear
intuitive intellect, generally gives this knowledge, and leads to
a correct course in life. But how few are really well developed
and well balanced, with intuitive clearness of perception, and
again how many are there who, in the unrestrained indulgence of
all their passions and propensities, care not whether their lives are
right or wrong, according to a correct standard. This class
desire no admonition, no explanation of their peculiarities, and the
causes of their failures or misfortunes.

Selfish and narrow-minded men charge all their failures and misfortunes
either to inevitable destiny, or to the faults and misconduct of
others. But the truth which science enforces is that we should
charge all our failures to ourselves. Other men have succeeded
splendidly in life, winning wealth, power, renown and friendship.
If we have not, it must be because we have not exercised the same
faculties which made them successful, and we should study most
diligently to learn wherein, or how, we have failed.

Nearly all are disqualified for this task of self-inspection either by
a selfish bias which is unwilling to recognize a fault, or by the fault
 itself which biases the judgment. The faculty, or passion, which
misleads one becomes a part of his judging faculty, and cannot
condemn itself. The miser cannot realize the baseness of his
avarice, nor the mercenary soldier the enormity of war. Nor can
a defective faculty assist in realizing the defect. The color-blind
cannot appreciate painting, the thief cannot appreciate integrity,
the brutal wife-beater cannot appreciate love, and a Napoleon cannot
appreciate disinterested friendship.

Nor do they who fail to comprehend their own faults learn much
from the admonition of friends, for they are too desirous of maintaining
a friendly relation to give entirely candid advice, and the
criticisms of those who are not friends excite suspicion and anger.
Fortunate is the man who can profit by the criticisms of his enemies.

How many are there who go through life with glaring defects of
character, injurious to their welfare, who are never warned, either by
kind friends or by conscience, and never realize the necessity of any
higher wisdom than their own, or the necessity of self-culture.

Hence the imperative necessity of psychic science, not that barren
abstraction called psychology in colleges, but a science which, like a
faithful mirror, reveals to us that which we cannot see. As the
gymnastic teacher reveals by a system of measurement (anthropometry)
the defective muscles that need development, so should
the psychologist discover in the conformation of the brain the
special culture needed by defective faculties.

There is nothing of this kind in the universities at present. Glaring
faults are seen everywhere, working out their disastrous results,
with no preventive method. We have orthopedic and orthopraxic
institutions, and gymnastic halls to correct the defects of the body,
but no attempt to recognize or correct the far more important
defects and deformities of the soul. The orthopneumatic institution
for the soul has not yet been conceived. The school or college
should be such an institution, and in The New Education I
have endeavored to show how it may perform this duty. The
pulpit should be a similar institution; but, alas, the pulpit itself,
has no adequate system of ethics—its theology has starved its
ethics, and it lifts its followers, in the main, no higher than the
level of exterior respectability. The task remains for some able
critic to show how many of the important duties of life, though
plainly implied by the fundamental law of Christianity, are
ignored by the pulpit.

Anthropology alone reveals the ethical fulness and symmetry
of character, which all should seek; and when science shall be
advanced far beyond the barriers that circumscribe it at present,
men and women will seek the profound and intuitive anthropologist
for consultation, as they now seek the physician for the
attainment of health.

It has been for the attainment of a possible superiority that millions
have submitted to the discipline of collegiate education, while
others with nobler aims have sought in meditation, in prayer, and in
imitation of the illustrious, for the ennoblement of their own lives.
 No book has sold more largely than the Imitation of Christ. But
was it not often a blind struggle in the dark, an attempt to reach a
goal never clearly seen. Wandering in a labyrinth of fanaticism,
agonizing in the effort to distort nature, the biographical record of
religious aspiration serves to show how nearly multitudes may
approach the boundary line of insanity in their protracted periods of
causeless mental agony and in their fierce hostility to heresy and to
science. Alike in Brahmin, Buddhist, Mohammedan, and Christian
nations have we seen the vast expenditure of spiritual energy in
the blind struggle of aspiring souls.

To all this, Anthropology will put an end, for it will give to each
a definite conception of the full normal development of humanity,
and of the organization or brain development by what it is sustained.
To those who fall far short of that development, it gives the means
of a definite measurement of the defect, and shows by cranioscopy
and psychometry what is to be done in self-culture, as clearly as we
learn in the gymnasium what muscles need greater development.

The desire for such improvement is often absent when it is most
needed. A vast multitude of inferior people are perfectly content
with themselves in a selfish life, wholly absorbed in providing for
their own wants, or, if possessed of wealth, using it only in selfishness
and ostentation,—content in believing themselves as good as
their neighbors, doing nothing to benefit society, unless under the
coercion of public opinion, leading such lives that the world is
certainly no better, and perhaps a little worse, for their advent.

A very different class, who are more apt to profit by anthropology
is composed of those in whom there is a decided predominance
of good. In some cases they are deficient in selfish and
combative energy, do not know how to assert their rights, are credulous
and confiding. Children of that character if reared by timid
and over-fond parents, are deprived of the rough contact with society
that is necessary to their development. There are many whom the
lack of self-confidence, the lack of ambition, and lack of business
energy condemn to an obscure life, when their intellectual capacities
would fit them for an influential position. A kind but mistaken
system of training confirms the defect, and dooms them to an
inefficient life, or a stern system of repression deprives them of all self-confidence
and energy. Millions of good women are victimized in this
manner. This amiable class are amenable to instruction, but are
often by their easy credulity, induced to yield to unworthy teachers,
or to the guidance of unsound but pretentious or delusive
literature. They lack in the energy of criticism which might
protect them from error.

Throughout the whole course of education, from infancy to manhood,
Anthropology may be an ever-present monitor, warning against
excesses, against failures, against errors of opinion, while urging the
cultivation of our feebler faculties as the gymnastic teacher urges
the cultivation of the feebler muscles.

Unaware of their errors, many would resent all such criticism,
but the science which cannot help them, because they will have
 none of it, will enable us to understand them correctly and know
how to deal with them.

There is an intense curiosity in the young to know their capacities,
their adaptation to various pursuits, their merits and defects of character,
to know what to cultivate, what to repress, and what estimate
to put upon themselves. In the age of adolescence such knowledge
is very valuable, and is generally willingly received. Moreover, it is
very interesting to parents and guardians to know what estimate to form
of their charge. The thorough Psychologist (I prefer this word to
Phrenologist, which has a more limited meaning) is therefore one of the
most useful scientists, and may render invaluable service in the period
from ten to twenty years of age, when a guiding wisdom is needed.

That wisdom, though seldom sought later in life, is nevertheless a
wisdom which all men need, and especially for this reason, that, with
few exceptions,

NO MAN IS COMPETENT TO BE HIS OWN CRITIC.

Unless he is a profound Anthropologist he has no standard of humanity,
no absolute standard with which to compare himself, and if he
should attempt to form such a standard, his personal defects would
vitiate the result.

I never go into society without witnessing examples of those
who need earnest psychic admonition. For example, among public
speakers, I would mention certain defects: A., with a broad forehead
and richly endowed intellect, has not sufficient development of the
highest regions of the brain to give him moral dignity or to enable
him to discriminate well between the noble upright and the cunning
selfish. His superior intellect is shown not by impressive eloquence,
but by energetic loquacity, and hence fails to receive full recognition.
B. has the dignity and power in which A. is deficient, but
lacking in the organs of love, sympathy and liberality, he becomes
harsh, censorious and bitterly controversial, making many enemies
and leading a wretched home-life. C. has a grand oratorical energy
and dignity, but lacking in the organs of reverence and humility,
he overrates himself and becomes famous for his vanity. D. has the
intellect, wit, humor, and social qualities to shine in company, but from
lack of the organ of self-respect, he fails to maintain the dignity of
a gentleman and command proper respect in society. E. had the
power and genius to rank among the most eloquent and distinguished
men of the nation, but the too broad base of his brain overcame all
his nobler qualities, and, after becoming an object of general contempt,
he ended his life a worthless sot. F. had an intellectual
genius of the highest order, and ought to have left a name among
the great scientists of the age, but the regions of moral energy,
cheerfulness, and adhesiveness were lacking in his brain, and hence
he never attained any great success or retained any satisfactory position.
His life ran down into pessimism, failure, and premature decay.
G. had another splendid intellect and made his mark on the times,
but lacking in the region of dignity and self-control, he failed to
reach his just position in political life and fell into premature mental
decay from over-excitement. H., with much less of intellectual
 capacity, but a better balanced organization rose to the highest rank
in the esteem of his countrymen. I., with an intellect adapted to the
exploration of the mysteries of science, of which he gave good evidence,
but lacking in all the elements of strength of character lead a
life of uniform failure, obscurity and poverty, and yet I felt assured
that a different education in youth which would have developed his
manhood and ambition and would have carried him to eminence. J. is
a man of superior intellect, benevolence and strength of character,
but the organ of love is singularly defective in his head and his
domestic life is therefore void of happiness.

Neither the men nor the women in whom I have observed the deficiency
of the faculty of love, ever seemed to be aware of the fact or
to suspect that their intense antipathies were the product of a
faulty organization, and their discords chargeable to themselves.

K. and L. are two gentlemen richly endowed in intellect and in
the other virtues, but not in conscientiousness, in which they are
strangely deficient. This is the only defective region in their heads
and it is fully borne out in their lives, which are void of integrity
and truth, though they have escaped the condemnation of the law.

M. was a lady of intense ambition in whom the regions of love
and religion were deficient. Aspiring to be a leader in philanthropic
reform she had a limited following in an erratic course,
but ended her labors by obtaining a snug position for herself and
repudiating all she had done. N. was another would-be leader in
philanthropic reforms, who was at one time quite conspicuous, but
while he had the ideal speculative intellect to appreciate theories,
he was lacking in love and religion. His philanthropy did not
pay, and he abandoned it entirely for a life of selfish self-indulgence.

I might enumerate many more, with whose organic development
I was familiar, whose lives displayed conspicuously their
organic defects of brain, but who never seemed to understand
their own deficiencies or make any effort to correct them. Could
they have been corrected in adult life? Much might have been done
if they had understood and been admonished by Anthropology. I
know of one in whom an organic defect was pointed out, in his
first manhood, who, by persistent effort, so far overcame it as to
modify the form of his head, and increase its fulness in the moral
regions. But, as the world goes, men are not admonished, and
they cherish their defects, refusing to believe that they are faults.

It is in childhood and youth that the work of reformation is to be accomplished,
when parents and teachers shall have learned the methods.

But reformation must begin farther back, with parents. It
must begin in the most faithful care and systematic loving culture
during the nine months of unborn life, which may do more than
all subsequent education.

And it must begin still farther back, in the refusal to propagate
evil, in the selection of mothers who are worthy and competent
to bear good children, and the selection of fathers whose
characters are worth reproducing, leaving an unchosen remnant
to whom marriage should be denied.