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BUCHANAN'S
JOURNAL OF MAN.
VOL. I. MARCH, 1887. NO. 2.
CONTENTS OF JOURNAL OF MAN.
Archtypal Literature for the future.
Chapter 1. General Plan of Brain, Synopsis of Cerebral Science
Superficial Criticisms, a reply to Miss Phelps
Spiritual Phenomenon, Abram James, Eglinton, Spirit writing
Mind reading Amusement and Temperance
MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE--Pigmies in Africa; A Human
Phenomenon; Surviving Superstition; Spiritual test of Death; A
Jewish Theological Seminary; National Death Rates; Religious
Mediaevalism in America; Craniology and Crime; Morphiomania in
France; Montana Bachelors; Relief for Children; The Land and the
People; Christianity in Japan; The Hell Fire Business; Sam Jones
and Boston Theology; Psychometry; The American Psychical
Society; Progress of Spiritualism; The Folly of Competition;
Insanities of War; The Sinaloa Colony; Medical Despotism; Mind
in Nature
Physiological Discoveries in the College of Therapeutics
Business Department, College of Therapeutics
THE ARCHETYPAL LITERATURE FOR THE FUTURE.
If the science of man, the being in whom the spiritual and material
worlds are fully represented, and in whom both can be studied in their
relations, has been fully (though not completely or finally) developed
by the revelation through experiments, of the functions of the brain,
then from the establishment of anthropology there necessarily begins a
literary revolution, which not only changes all philosophy, but
extends through all the realms of literature. There is no realm which
can escape the modifying influence of ideas which are at the basis of
all conceptions of man, of society, of duty, of religion, of art, of
social institutions, of the healing art, education, and government,
and the new light which psychometric illumination throws upon all
sciences.
The literature of the future will therefore differ widely from the
literature of the past, and millions of volumes which still hold their
places on the shelves of libraries will in the next century take their
proper place in the mouldering mass which interests the antiquarian
alone,--the mouldering mass which universities still cherish, and
which helps to deaden the rising intelligence of the western world.
Let us, as Tennyson says,
"Hope the best, but hold the Present
Fatal daughter of the Past."
It is self-evident that the farther back we go for intelligence the
deeper we plunge in the darkness of ignorance; and even though
intuitional and moral truths may be found in the old writings, they
belong to a literature imbedded in an ignorance which necessarily
darkens all that comes down from such periods.
The benumbing influence of antiquity--or rather of that extended
period which may be called the Aristotelian age, the age in which all
philosophic thought was utterly benumbed by the Greek literature--has
not yet passed away. American writers are just beginning to get rid of
their absolute subserviency to foreign models in all things, and in
this partial independence they are still subservient to the
fundamental philosophic and ethical ideas of the past. The change that
is taking place is only in minor matters.
Even so graceful and able a writer as Longfellow illustrates fully the
truth of these suggestions. Mr. Charles F. Johnson, in a well-written
essay on Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne, says:
"Most people feel that national temper is of slow evolution; that many
heterogeneous elements must be fused and blended here; that we too
must have a past, and that the spirit of our past must be taken up and
transmitted before a new type is realized in a new art and a new
literature. We can see that Longfellow was essentially a scholar--a
receiver of impressions from books; that he was like an AEolian harp,
blown upon by many winds, so that his music was in many regards
necessarily a melodious echo of what was 'whispered by world-wandering
winds.' And we can see, too, that he came into American literary life
just as it was passing from the germ to the plant, and that every year
he became more distinctive."
There is nothing profound in this view, but it expresses well the
average thought of the period,--that Americanism in literature must be
the very gradual growth of new circumstances, experience, and
associations, which may superficially modify the unbroken mass of
thought which has been transplanted from Europe, just as vines and
flowers take on their modifications in a new soil and climate.
Far different from this is the view that anthropology gives us. The
foreign plant, it is true, will gradually change, but a native plant
will ultimately take its place by the law of the "survival of the
fittest." The exotic must die out, for it was but a hothouse plant,
reared in universities and cathedrals.
The thought, the science, the philosophy, and even the forms of
literary expression, for this continent, will be those which spring
from the bosom of nature, fresh and strong, imbued with the spiritual
element of immortality, the element of luminous originality.
How and whence is this to come? It will come by the complete
emancipation of the American mind from the thraldom of the false
philosophies, the false theologies, and the debasingly narrow
conceptions of science which have been transplanted into American
colleges. When the strong American intellect shall realize that in the
science of man and in the cultivation of psychometry there is more of
enlightenment, of wisdom, and of actual knowledge than in all that
colleges cherish to-day, we shall have such a flood of original
thought and immensely valuable knowledge as would seem impossible to
the literati who now have the public ear.
Even the narrowest dogmatists of science are beginning to have a
glimpse of the nobler knowledge of the future. Prof. Huxley, the most
dogmatic of British sceptics, has recently said:
"The growth of science, not merely of physical science, but of all
science, means the demonstration of order and natural causation among
phenomena which had not previously been brought under those
conceptions. Nobody who is acquainted with the progress of scientific
thinking in every department of human knowledge, in the course of the
last two centuries, will be disposed to deny that immense provinces
have been added to the realm of science, or to doubt that the next two
centuries will be witnesses of a vastly greater annexation. More
particularly in the region of the physiology of the nervous system is
it justifiable to conclude from the progress that has been made in
analyzing the relations between material and psychical phenomena that
vast further advances will be made, and that sooner or later all the
so-called spontaneous operations of the mind will have, not only their
relations to one another, but their relations to physical phenomena,
connected in natural series of causes and effects, strictly defined.
In other words, while at present we know only the nearer moiety of the
chain of causes and effects by which the phenomena we call material
give rise to those which we call mental, hereafter we shall get to the
further end of the series."
The "further end of the series," however, is vastly different from
anything within the mental range of the distinguished professor, whose
ultra materialism led him to revamp the old Cartesian doctrine that
animals were only machines, like clocks or mills, running
automatically, and destitute of sensation, and intelligence.
The science and philosophy of the future will be distinguished by
their mastery of the realm of mind, and the closer approximation of
the human to the Divine, not only in intelligence, but in ethics.
The JOURNAL OF MAN, as the first periodical organ of the new
philosophy, will attempt gradually to initiate the archetypal forms of
thought of the coming period, in which the disappearance of old
philosophy and ethics shall leave room for growth.
Not that all ethics shall be changed among the civilized races, for
there are simple primary and true conceptions which are universally
recognized, and are embalmed in all religions. Yet these few universal
ideas are but the rudiments of ethics, and no more constitute an
ethical system worthy of the name, than the four primary processes of
arithmetic constitute a system of mathematical science. The future is
to evolve the true ethics, and therewith the educational system that
will bring the true ethics into all spheres of human life.
In all past time there has been no ethical system competent to
establish a perfectly harmonious social state, and no system of
education competent to lift society to a _higher_ life. Education as
it has been brightens life with literature and art, but does not
_elevate_ it. The same old element of poverty, misery, disease, crime,
and insanity marches on, hand in hand with the college and the church,
as it formerly went hand in hand with the hunting and warring
barbarians of the forest. And the dull, blunted conscience of the
time, lulled by the softly solemn platitudes of the pulpit and the
soulless system of education, rebels not against the old social order.
In full view of the past twenty-five centuries, may we not exclaim
with Shakespeare's Macbeth:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps on this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The dusty way to death."
But not to the end of time shall it be. The nineteenth century has
seen the glimmering dawn of the true civilization. How it came, what
it is, and what it is destined to realize, the JOURNAL OF MAN will
attempt to show.
SYNOPSIS OF CEREBRAL SCIENCE.[1]
[1] Copyrighted, 1887, by Joseph Rodes Buchanan.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL PLAN OF THE BRAIN.
The brain the centre of life--Its organs not distinctly
separated--Its double functions and degrees of
energy--Difficulty of nomenclature, chiefly basilar--The
pathognomic law--Its application to the brain--The four
cardinal directions and four divisions, the coronal, basilar,
anterior, and occipital--Their effects on the character and
constitution--The method of locating organs--The four
groups--The law of antagonism--Its certainty and
necessity--Difficulty of expressing it--Correspondence of the
English language and the brain--Its limits--Radiating groups
of organs--Contrasts of development.
The details of cerebral science will be much more easily understood if
we begin with a comprehensive view of the entire plan of the functions
and structure.
The brain is distinguished from all other organs by being the source
of commands which all other organs obey, and being the immediate seat
of the soul, which has no knowledge of anything occurring in the body,
until a message or impression has reached it through nervous channels.
The compression of all the nerves before they enter the cranium and
connect with the brain would deprive us of all knowledge of the body,
and of all sensations or perceptions; and the compression of the brain
itself would render us totally unconscious, as if dead,--incapable of
either thought or action. Manifestly, therefore, all the powers of the
soul are lodged in and exercised through the brain; and as all
distinct nerve structures have essentially different functions, and
every different function requires a different structure, it is obvious
that the vast variety of our psychic faculties, intellectual,
emotional, sensitive, passional, and physiological, requires a
corresponding multiplicity in the nervous apparatus; and this
incalculably great multiplicity we find in the brain.
The crude, mechanical idea that all the organs of the brain should be
distinctly marked and separated by membranous walls or obvious changes
of structure, is very unscientific; for even in the spinal cord, which
is more easily studied, we do not find such separation between the
widely distinct functions of sensibility and motility. Their nerve
fibres run together undistinguished, and it is only by the study of
pathological changes that we have been able to distinguish the course
of the motor fibres, which to the most careful inspection are
indistinguishable from the sensitive.
Moreover, the functions of the brain are not like those of the spinal
cord, of a widely distinct and opposite character in adjacent fibres,
but exhibit a gradual variation, like the blending colors of the
rainbow. The sensitive or psychic individual who touches any part of
the head and feels an impression of the emotional, intellectual, or
impulsive function in the subjacent convolution of the brain, will
find the impression gradually changing as he moves his finger along
the surface, until, after passing half around the cerebrum, he will
feel an influence exactly opposite to that with which he started.
As there are many millions of sensitive persons who are capable of
receiving these impressions from the brain, we cannot but wonder at
the unanimous _indifference_ (which some may hereafter call stupidity)
which hinders the medical profession and scientists generally from
becoming acquainted with such facts, which I have proclaimed and
demonstrated until I have grown weary of attempting to instruct wilful
ignorance. Not only does the nervaura, direct from the brain convey
such impressions of organic action, but almost any substance held for
a few moments in contact with any part of the head will absorb enough
of the local nervaura to convey a distinct impression to a sensitive,
similar to that derived directly from the head.
Although the organs of the brain are thus distinct, they are not
distinct like the spokes of a wheel, each totally independent of the
other and fixed or invariable in its own simple character; for all
organs have double functions, and a great variety in their degree of
manifestation.
The double function is psychic and physiological, or physical. When
the action of the brain is confined within the cranium, its action is
purely psychic; but when its influence passes into the body, it
produces physiological effects. As the brain is the seat of the soul,
its action is essentially and primarily psychic; but as it is the
commander of the body, and the source of its spiritual vitality, all
its conditions or actions affect the body; and hence every organ has
its dual action, psychic and physiological. Cerebral physiology and
sarcognomy explain in detail how the brain and the mental conditions
affect the body; cerebral psychology shows how the brain and soul are
correlated. The purpose of this treatise is to show how the brain is
correlated with both soul and body, giving the principal attention to
the former.
If cerebral organs all have this double function, it is manifestly
exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to find any words competent
to express the double functions, and it will be necessary to adapt our
nomenclature to expressing the psychic function, leaving the
physiological to be expressed otherwise. As the basilar organs act
more directly upon the body, their nomenclature will be more
suggestive of physiological effects. The organ, for example, of
alimentiveness or appetite will suggest by its name its relation to
the stomach.
The difficulty of arranging a satisfactory nomenclature for a certain
portion of the brain, in consequence of the varying energy of organic
action, is very great, and must be met by using the word which will
express in a general manner the organic tendency, leaving to the
intelligence of the reader to imagine the variations of intensity. In
the greatest energy of organic action the opposite faculty is entirely
overcome, and the conduct becomes abnormal, for normal action implies
the harmonious co-operation of all parts of the brain. Nevertheless,
it is in this abnormal or excessive action that we get the true,
isolated tendency or function in its naked expression.
For example, if we refer to that portion of the brain near the mastoid
process, which in its excessive action produces murder, we perceive
that as murder is an abnormal action, such a term is not a suitable
name for an organ, as it would convey the impression that every human
being has a constant murderous impulse, and that the faculty is kept
inactive when murder is not committed; from which we might infer that
the human constitution is badly planned.
Still, it is not to be concealed that murderous violence is the
ultimate result of this organ when unrestrained,--that it is the most
conspicuous faculty in carnivorous animals, and alas! that it has a
terrible and at times predominant action in the masculine portion of
the human race. Throughout the greater part of ancient history the
murderous violence of this faculty has been as conspicuous in the
human race as in the wild beasts. Even to-day, after centuries of
so-called civilization and religion, no man's life would be safe if
not protected by policemen; and the civilized nations, with a skilful
ferocity, devote the major part of their governmental revenues to
preparations for international homicide as a defence against the
murderous impulse in their neighbors, and to watching or controlling
the murderers within their own limits; whose homicidal propensities,
however, are not restrained from _mutual homicide_, by agreement, in
the warlike form of the duel, which is considered a proper institution
to cultivate a martial spirit and promote the efficiency of the
army,--ay, and even tolerated in the German system of education,
provided that life is not actually sacrificed.
Murder is therefore not an improper term to express the consummate
energy of this basilar organ, if we at the same time understand its
gentler manifestations; and Dr. Gall was a faithful student of nature
when he called this faculty the "carnivorous instinct, or disposition
to murder," for that is the way that it exhibits in animals, and,
unfortunately, in mankind also.
Yet as an element of character, and an organ in the brain, this
faculty needs a more general and comprehensive term than murder to
express its ordinary action. It operates as an impelling and modifying
influence in our daily life, giving a certain kind of energy to
physical and mental action, as our fruits have a certain degree of
sweetness in their juices which is not due to crystals of sugar,
though if the sweetening element were extracted it would appear in
that solid form. Thus the violent impulsive energy which appears in
our vigorous language, emphatic gestures, ultra sentiments, and
threatening expressions, if it could be isolated from its psychic
combination, would appear in its isolated purity as an impulse to the
destruction of life and everything else that stands before us.
Hence the term Destructiveness has been very properly applied to this
organ by Spurzheim. Yet even this term expresses too much for its
average daily action, and Violence, Impulsiveness, or Vehemence would
come nearer to expressing its ordinary manifestation.
The reader will now perceive that the psychic functions of certain
organs can seldom be adequately expressed by one word, and that three
words are required to express fully the moderate, the active, and the
abnormal manifestations. Fortunately, however, this difficulty of
nomenclature applies only to that portion of the brain which tends to
the abnormal. Man's nobler faculties belonging to the upper region of
the brain are essentially good and normal. The abnormal difficulty
does not come into their description.
[Illustration]
Its operation is limited to the region lying around the ears, the
basilar region, the tendency of which is to exhaust the spiritual
vitality of the brain in ministering to the body. This will be clearly
understood when we understand the fundamental law of all cerebral
action, the law of direction, or
PATHOGNOMIC LAW.
This law is the grandest generalization of science that was ever
conceived. It is the fundamental law of the relations of the two
worlds, the psychic and the physical. The spiritual and material
worlds unite in man, in whom the eternal spirit is combined with a
transitory material body, and the law of their interaction is _the law
of the universe_.
In its application to man, the law is simply this, that all organs of
the brain act in accordance with their position,--in accordance with
their _pathognomic line_, or line of action, which is the line of
their central fibres, the tendency of which is toward the surface of
the brain, where they reach the interior of the cranium. It will be a
sufficient approximation to the mathematical truth if for the present
we say that the pathognomic line may be indicated by a perpendicular
to the surface of the cranium where the organ is located.
When we establish the pathognomic line, we establish a perfect
criterion of the organic action, for the action is always in
accordance with the line; and this fundamental law gives a key to all
psychology, and gives it a geometrical simplicity.
In accordance with this law, the frontal or intellectual organs act
toward the front, and maintain our relations with that which is before
us. Acting in that manner, they throw out or expend the vital forces,
and exhaust the energies which belong to the posterior part of the
brain and posterior part of the body. The posterior half of the brain
acts in the opposite direction, and thus draws in, acquires, and
energizes. The posterior action impels the body to advance, as the
anterior portion checks our progress and causes us to yield. Hence if
we erect a perpendicular from the ear, we shall find all the energetic
impelling faculties behind it, and all that moderates, checks, and
enlightens before it. Thus the occipital development makes a powerful,
domineering, conquering character, as the frontal makes a passive,
unselfish, yielding one.
Hence all organs in proportion to their energy are located nearer to
the posterior region of the brain, and in proportion to their delicacy
or weakness have a more anterior location.
[Illustration]
There are four classes of pathognomic lines, as there are four aspects
of the brain, which may be represented on a plane surface, and which
are sufficient for this incomplete introductory statement--the
anterior and posterior--the superior or upward, and the inferior or
downward. The anterior and posterior tendencies may be separated by
the vertical line through the ear. The superior and inferior, or
upward and downward, may be separated by a nearly horizontal line from
the forehead backward, which nearly coincides with the lateral
ventricles that separate the superior and inferior convolutions. The
lateral ventricles (cavities the walls of which are in contact,) are
the central region of the brain around which the convolutions are
formed. Dividing the brain thus into superior and inferior halves, we
find that the major portion of the superior has an upward line which
is fully expressed at the upper surface of the brain, while the lower
half has downward lines which are most fully expressed on the basilar
surface of the brain, which is covered by the face and neck.
Intermediate between these coronal and basilar surfaces are lateral
organs which participate in the upward or downward tendency as they
approach the highest and lowest surfaces.
The tendency of the coronal region is upward, that of the basilar
downward. The latter operates downward upon the body, rousing the
muscles and viscera to activity, but exhausting the brain and the
spiritual life. Hence, while they vitalize the body, they are the
source of all that is sensual, violent, beastly, and criminal,--all
that degrades human nature,--when they become the controlling power,
which is an abnormal condition.
The coronal organs tend upward; they withdraw excitement from the
body, quiet the muscles, and diminish the energy of the appetites and
passions, while they originate all noble and lofty impulses. Their
tendency is toward heaven, toward the highest possible condition of
humanity, the performance of every duty, the enjoyment of happiness
and health, the perfection of love and fidelity. They make the life on
earth resemble the life in heaven, and consequently bring us into
sympathy with all holy influences. They make religion a reality, and
produce a character which we cannot but admire and love. Their
tendency is to draw life upward from the body to the head and the
upper part of the chest, and thereby to energize the soul, which has
its home in the brain, and which is the essential seat and source of
life, and is in interior connection with the infinite source of life.
Hence the coronal half of the brain is the home of spiritual life, the
antagonist of disease, the promoter of longevity, by which the
harmonious love of the upper world is realized on earth, and that
divine quality of the soul which frees it from disease and death is to
a limited extent imparted to the human body.
The excessive action of the basilar region exhausts the brain,
degrades the soul, and thereby impairing the fountain of life and
health, introduces disease and death. Gluttony, drunkenness,
sensuality, passion, and violent exertion are the processes that
exhaust the soul power. Excessive and prolonged muscular exertion
without rest exhausts the brain. But the normal action of the basilar
organs is essential to all the processes of life, and maintains the
union of soul and body. Hence their good development is necessary to
longevity.
On the other hand, excessive predominance of the coronal region,
although it heightens the spiritual nature, withdraws life from the
body, and culminates in trance, ending in death by the ascension of
the soul from the body. But so long as the basilar organs have
sufficient energy to maintain the connection of the soul with the
body, the most powerful action of the coronal region increases the
power of the brain, the brilliance of the mind, the perfection of the
health, and the moral greatness and power of the person.
These statements are essentially different from the physiological and
phrenological ideas heretofore current, but they are sustained by
universal experience, which recognizes the power of heroism, hope,
religion, and love to exalt our powers of endurance and achievement,
whether intellectual or physical; and they are sustained by the
records of pathology, which show that softening or ulceration of the
superior regions of the brain impairs, paralyzes, or destroys all our
powers. Moreover, all that I teach on these subjects is but an
expression of the formulated results of many thousand experiments
during the last forty-five years.
The simplicity and applicability of these pathognomic laws which
pervade all psychic phenomena are such that they are easily mastered,
and a single evening devoted to the subject enables my students to
locate with approximate correctness nearly all the organs of the
brain. The multiplicity of the cerebral organs is somewhat
discouraging to a student at first, but all embarrassment is removed
when the simplicity of the Divine plan is shown.
In illustrating these principles, we take up a number of faculties
successively, and determine by their nature what should be their
latitude and longitude upon the map. Thus, for example, if Modesty is
mentioned, students would say it should be above the horizontal line,
but not so high as the virtues, and that it should be not among the
energies, but among the moderating faculties of the front half of the
head. Hence they usually ascertain its true location. If Avarice or
Acquisitiveness should be considered, they would recognize it as
entitled to a place below the horizontal line, and also behind the
vertical line, but neither the lowest nor the most posterior. If
Firmness is mentioned, they recognize it as entitled to a high place,
but behind the vertical line; and thus they seldom make any great
error in determining the location of an organ.
[Illustration]
If we thus go through the catalogue of psychic powers or qualities, we
observe finally that the organs are grouped as follows; and this
grouping should be impressed upon the memory, as it is easily learned,
and serves as a basis for the further study of organology. The organs
in this drawing are not arranged to show their antagonism, but
antagonism is the most important fundamental principle of cerebral
psychology.
THE LAW OF ANTAGONISM.
Antagonism or opposition is the universal condition of all that we
know. Up suggests down; inward, outward; forward, backward; advance,
recession; motion, rest; elevation, degradation; abundance,
deficiency; heat, cold; light, darkness; strength, weakness. The same
antagonism exists in the psychic nature, as in love, hate; hope,
despair; courage, cowardice; pride, humility, etc.; and equally in the
physiological, as we see in the action of flexor and extensor muscles,
their antagonism being a necessity. If we had only flexor muscles, one
motion would exhaust the muscular capacity; when the limb is flexed it
can do nothing more; but when the extensor muscle moves it back,
flexion can be again performed. Thus all vital voluntary action is a
play of opposing forces,--the existence of one force rendering
possible the existence of its opposite. The coronal organs, carrying
the soul above the body, would bring the end of terrestrial life, and
the basilar organs exhausting the brain would bring to a more
disastrous end; but the joint action of the two, like that of flexor
and extensor muscles, produces the infinite variety of life, which
moves on like pendulums, in continual alternation.
Man would be utterly unfit for the sphere that he occupies, if he had
not the opposite capacities required by innumerable opposite
conditions. Physiologically, he requires calorific powers to fit him
for cold climates, and cooling capacities to fit him for the torrid
zone. Morally, he requires warlike powers to meet enemies and dangers,
as well as affections for the sphere of domestic love. He requires the
conscious intellect to call forth and guide his powers in exertion,
and a faculty for repose and recuperation in sleep. He requires self
respect to sustain him in elevated positions, and humility to fit him
for humble duties and positions. We can conceive no faculty which has
not its opposite,--no faculty which would not terminate its own
operation, like a flexor muscle, if there were no antagonist.
Benevolence would exhaust the purse and be unable to give, if
Acquisitiveness did not replenish it; and Avarice unrestrained would
lose all financial capacity in the sordid stupidity of the miser. Each
faculty alone, without its antagonist, carries us to a helpless
extreme.
The antagonism of faculties is so self evident a law of nature that if
Dr. Gall had pre-arranged a psychic philosophy in his mind, instead of
being a simple observer of facts, he might have given a very different
aspect to the science. But he arranged no psychic philosophy, and he
did not carry his observations far enough to lead him into the law of
antagonism, and hence left a rude system, lacking in the symmetry and
completeness necessary to give it the position of a complete
philosophy.
But while the law of antagonism should control our psychic studies, it
is not always convenient to express this antagonism in our
nomenclature, or to group the functions of all regions of the brain in
such a manner that each group or organ shall exactly correspond to an
antagonism in another organ; for in expressing the functions of parts
of the brain we are limited by the structure of the English language,
and have to make such groups as will be conveniently expressed by
familiar English words,--the words of a language that has grown up in
a confused manner, and was not organized to express the faculties of
sub-divisions of the brain. Hence, for want of a pre-arranged
language, with words of accurate definition and exact antagonism, we
can only approximate a perfect nomenclature, and must rely more upon
description than upon classification and technical terms.
Technicality, however, is to be avoided as far as possible.
Anthropology may need, like other new sciences, new terms for its new
ideas, but the old words of plain English express all the very
important elements of human nature. To the master of anthropology it
is easy to take any word expressive of an element of human character
or capacity and show from what convolution, what group of
convolutions, or what part of a convolution the quality or faculty
arises which that word expresses. An evening might be profitably spent
with a class of students in tracing English words to their cerebral
source.
In expressing the functions of the brain by nomenclature, we are
entering upon an illimitable science, and must hold back to keep
within the limits of the practicable and useful. The innumerable
millions of fibres and ganglion globules in the brain are beyond
calculation, and their varieties of function are beyond all
descriptive power. Geography does not attempt to describe every square
mile of the earth's surface, nor does astronomy presume to know all
the stars. In reference to the brain, psychic students will hereafter
send forth ponderous volumes of descriptive detail, for which there is
no demand at present. I willingly resign that task to my successors. A
description which portrays the general character of an inch of
convolution, or of a half inch square of the finer intellectual
organs, is sufficiently minute for the purposes of a student. Acting
upon these views, the following catalogue of psychic functions has
been prepared, which is offered now not for the reader's study, as the
multiplicity of detail would be embarrassing, but merely to give a
general conception of the scope of cerebral psychology, and to show
how extensive and apparently intricate a system may, by proper
explanation of its principles, be made intelligible to all.
[Illustration]
Instead of attempting to master this catalogue and the psychic busts
which are to be shown hereafter, the reader should approach the
subject by familiarizing himself with the profile grouping here
presented, leaving the catalogue and busts for future exposition.
If radiating lines are drawn outward from the ear, the _general
character_ of the groups thus formed is indicated in the drawing. The
department marked Inspiration extends from the median line as shown to
the interior of the hemispheres on the median line. The region of the
appetites is marked as Sensual Selfishness, the tendency of which is
antagonistic to that of the region marked Duty.
CATALOGUE OF CEREBRAL ORGANS.
1. INTELLECTUAL.
UNDERSTANDING.--Intuition, Consciousness, Foresight, Sagacity,
Judgment, Wit, Reason, Ingenuity, Scheming, Imagination,
Invention, Composition, Calculation, Somnolence.
RECOLLECTION.--Memory (recent and remote), Time, System.
PERCEPTION.--Clairvoyance, Phenomena, Form, Size, Distance,
Weight, Color, Light, Shade, Order, Tune, Language, Sense of
Force, Sensibility.
SEMI-INTELLECTUAL.--Liberality, Sympathy, Expression, Sincerity,
Humor, Pliability, Imitation, Admiration, Spirituality,
Marvelousness, Ideality.
2. ETHICAL OR MORAL ORGANS.
Benevolence, Devotion, Faith, Politeness, Friendship, Love, Hope,
Kindness or Philanthropy, Religion, Patience or Serenity,
Integrity or Conscientiousness, Patriotism or Love of Country,
Cheerfulness, Energy, Fortitude, Heroism, Health, Sanity, Caution,
Sublimity, Reverence, Modesty.
3. SOCIAL ENERGY.
Self-respect or Dignity, Self-confidence, Love of Power,
Ostentation, Ambition, Business Energy, Adhesiveness,
Self-sufficiency, Playfulness, Approbativeness, Oratory, Honor,
Magnanimity, Repose, Chastity, Coolness.
4. SELFISH FORCES.
Arrogance, Familiarity, Fascination, Command, Dogmatism,
Combativeness, Aggressiveness, Secretiveness, Avarice, Stolidity,
Force, Rivalry, Profligacy, or Lawless Impulse, Irritability,
Baseness, Destructiveness, Hatred, Disgust, Animalism, Turbulence,
Virility.
5. SENSITIVE AND ENFEEBLING ELEMENTS.
Interior Sensibility or Disease, Appetite, Relaxation, Melancholy
or Sullenness, Insanity, Idiocy, Rashness and Carelessness,
Expression.
The reader should be careful not to attach too much importance to
classification or nomenclature. The special descriptions of organs are
necessary to a correct understanding.
CONTRASTS OF DEVELOPMENT
The contrast of intellectual development is seen in comparing the
world-renowned philosopher Humboldt and the idiot figured by
Spurzheim. The contrast of coronal and basilar development is seen in
comparing the benevolent negro Eustace, who received the Monthyon
prize for virtue in France with the skull of the cannibal Carib, as
figured by Lawrence. As to the coronal or upward development of the
brain, there is always a great contrast between untamable wild
animals, such as the lion and the eagle, and those of gentle and
lovely nature, such as the gazelle and the dove.
[Illustration: HUMBOLDT IDIOT
EUSTACE CARIB
GAZELLE LION
DOVE EAGLE]
SUPERFICIAL CRITICISM.
A RESPONSE TO MISS ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.
The publication in the Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ of two columns of
sharp criticism on the spiritual movement by Miss Phelps,
which were widely republished, induced the editor to send the
following reply to the _Inter-Ocean_, which was duly
published.
BOSTON, MASS., Jan. 23.
The rhetorically eloquent essay of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps on
spiritualism has been read by the undersigned with that peculiar
pleasure with which we witness an intellectual or psychic _tour de
force_ which produces singular results. It is quite an able
production, for the ability of an advocate is measured by his capacity
to make that which is obviously absurd appear quite rational, and to
give to that which is intrinsically small or mean an air of refined
dignity. Divested of its dignified and delusive rhetoric, what does
the lady say or mean in plain, homely English?
She says that "cultivated thought" has a "slippery surface" on which
spiritualism has made "a clutch," and that it has lately made an
"encroachment upon scientific attention," so that psychical societies
of distinguished men are "busying themselves;" also that spiritualism
must be "made subject to the laws of common sense" and controlled by
"common integrity," and if this truth "is at last materializing before
the consciousness of the believers in spiritualistic phenomena some
good may come of it."
That a certain style of "cultivated thought" familiar in Boston has a
"slippery surface" on which neither religion nor philosophy makes much
impression, cannot be denied, and that it is only lately (as she says)
that psychical societies of more or less distinguished men have
allowed spiritual science to encroach on their attention, is very
true. It has always been so. Societies of distinguished men have
always been behind the progress of undistinguished men. Neither Harvey
nor Galvani was honored by societies of distinguished men until the
"slippery surface" of their "cultivated thought" was clutched and
crushed by the power of a widely diffused truth. As a general rule,
the last place in which to find the foremost thought of the age is in
the societies of distinguished men, whether they be politicians,
theologians, or scientists. Hence it is that phenomena as old as
history itself and of late as thoroughly investigated as any branch of
positive science have just begun to encroach upon the attention of the
societies to which the lady desires us to surrender our judgment. No
doubt they have resisted such encroachments as long as decency would
permit, and some very able writers think a great deal longer.
As to the insinuation that "believers in spiritualistic phenomena have
only of late begun to appreciate common sense and common honesty,"
when these believers count by millions, and include many more eminent
men than her infallible psychic societies, the lady has permission to
withdraw the charge, for it is obviously only the _lapsus linguae_ of a
too fluent tongue.
Again she says: "Which of us would not lay down life itself to know
that he had spoken yesterday with the darling of our souls dead years
ago?" Not one of you! The expression is rather hysterical in its
intensity. The majority of your ultra-sceptical class would not even
spend a day or an hour in the pursuit, for you have neglected the
opportunities which have been open to all the world. You might have
held a pair of slates in your own hands, secured in any manner, with
no pencil between them; might have heard the writing in progress, then
opened them and recognized the message of your own darling--perhaps
the handwriting also. Thousands of modest, honest seekers of truth
have done these things. But the Pharisees who talk of heaven and then
fly from its approach have "religiously shunned" them; that is the way
they express it, and you are their apologist. But what is your
apology?
You give a graphic description of a cheap style of dishonest
mediumship with vulgar surroundings, in which, nevertheless, there are
wonderful revelations, "the golden thread of a truth that is worth
having," and you suggest that the truth must now be "garnered" by a
psychical research society, intimating that if they do not garner it,
it will cease to be recognized as truth, and that the mediums must
bring it all to them for sanction, or cease to be respected by
honorable people. Was ever a more unfair and delusive statement made
by a hired attorney? The grandeur of the theme has not inspired a
spirit of fairness or justice. The question lies between the eternal
and holy verities of spiritual science or religious science and the
conscience of the inquirer. The poor, illiterate, and obscure people
who exhibit for a living whatever capacity they may have, have nothing
to do with it. Would our lady critic select a cheap sign painter to
represent the beauty and glory of art, or the exhibitors of laughing
gas to illustrate the science of Sir Humphrey Davy, or the
performances of an illiterate quack to illustrate the dignity of the
medical profession? Is our critic so profoundly ignorant of the
progress of psychic science as to think such representations fair or
allowable?
A science is represented by its leaders, its authors, its teachers,
not its camp followers. Examine the writings of Alfred Russell
Wallace, Professor Crookes of London, Epes Sargent, William Howitt,
Professor Hare--of Swedenborg, Kerner, Ennemoser, Du Prel, Hellenbach,
Fichte, Varley, Ashburner, Flammarion, Aksakoff, and a score of others
of the highest rank, and criticize if you can the magnificent
philosophy of these and of many an ancient writer. Consider the well
attested facts and sublime religion that you will find in them, and
observe that the facts are a hundred times better attested and a
thousand times more critically observed than any of those upon which
the world's great religions rest, before which our critic reverently
bows.
[NOTE.--Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is reported to have said in 1860: "The
physiology, the anthropology of the Bible, is highly odic, and must be
studied as such. As such it will be found to harmonize with the
general principles of human experience in such matters in all ages. If
a theory be adopted everywhere else but in the Bible, excluding
spiritual intervention _in toto_, and accounting for everything
physically, then will the covers of the Bible prove but pasteboard
barriers. Such a theory will sweep its way through the Bible and its
authority, and its inspirations will be annihilated. On the other
hand, if the theory of spiritual intervention be accepted in the
Bible, it cannot be shut up there, but must sweep its way through the
wide domain of 'popular superstitions,' as they are called, separating
the element of truth on which they are based, and asserting its own
authoritative supremacy."]
Then if you must for a partisan purpose ignore all this, and select
obscure people to represent the other side of the question, it would
be very easy to find mediumship of a pure and honorable
character--mediums whom no one visits without carrying away a sweet,
refining influence, a stronger faith, and a brighter realization of
heavenly truths. And there are mediums, too, from whose lips distil a
lofty eloquence and a remarkable wisdom upon any or all subjects
proposed, with a flow of extemporaneous poetry or of heavenly music
which has never been equaled under such circumstances by uninspired
mortals.
But, forsooth, they must come to a psychic society that the world may
learn from their papal infallibility if anything exists at all worthy
of notice. This is indeed seriously proposed! Well, if a group of
clergymen in synod assembled should summon all geologists and
astronomers to come before them and show if there was anything in
their scientific teachings, their heretical, astronomical, and
geological doctrines, would any one have responded to the presumptuous
demand? Would Airy, Lyell, Miller, Darwin, or the poorest country
school master have taken any notice of such a demand?
The majority of the American Psychical Research Society know vastly
less of psychic science than clergymen know of geology and astronomy.
They have been not inquirers, but obstructionists, assailing those who
dare to inquire, and the subject, as their friend says, has only
lately encroached on their attention. The admirable scientific
experiments of Professor Hare and Professor Crookes have long since
settled the questions which they now propose to take up, and when,
over forty years ago, I published in my JOURNAL OF MAN the
incontestable facts then established, and gave their rationale, the
psychic researchers of to-day were as ignorant as sucking babes of the
whole subject. This ignorance is the very _raison d'etre_ of the
society. They don't know if there is anything to be discovered, and
they propose to look out. Their failure so far is considered by
Colonel Higginson a proof of their superior wisdom, which means that
they are looking for a mare's nest, and have shown their wisdom by not
finding it!
Let those who are seeking to enter the freshman class in psychic
science assume a little appearance of modesty, and not attempt to set
themselves above the old graduates and professors of the university,
at which they have heretofore been throwing stones like an
unrestrained mob. This is plain speech, but it is just. Let them begin
their operations by an act of justice--by building a monument to
Professor Hare, the noblest of American scientists, and the object of
their persecution.
"The time has come," says our lady critic, "for mystery to work hand
in hand with scientific study or to lay aside its claims to scientific
respect." Very true, very true, indeed, except your chronology; the
time has long since gone by. Science has grappled with mystery long
since. I can point out, if you wish to see it, the very anatomical
structures, the special fibres in connection with which the spiritual
phenomena are developed. The _modus operandi_ is understood, and the
facts have been known some thirty, some a hundred, some several
thousand years. Among advanced thinkers psychic science is no more a
debatable question than the rotundity of the earth or the principles
of astronomy.