Organology of Gall and Spurzheim
10. NOVEMBER.--The Slow Triumph of Truth
Old Industrial Education
An Incomparable "Medical Outlaw"
Educational.--Educational Reform in England; Dead Languages
Vanishing; Higher Education of Women; Bad Sunday-School Books;
Our Barbarous Orthography
Critical.--European Barbarism; Boston Civilization; Monopoly;
Woman's Drudgery; Christian Civilization; Walt Whitman;
Temperance
Scientific.--Extension of Astronomy; A New Basis for Chemistry;
Chloroform in Hydrophobia; The Water Question; Progress of
Homoeopathy: Round the World Quickly
Glances Round the World (concluded from August)
Rectification of Cerebral Science (illustrated)
11. DECEMBER.--The World's Neglected or Forgotten Leaders and Pioneers
Social Conditions--Expenses at Harvard; European Wages; India as a
Wheat Producer; Increase of Insanity; Temperance; Flamboyant
Animalism
Transcendental Hash
Just Criticism
Progress of discovery and Improvement--Autotelegraphy; Edison's
Phonograph; Type-setting Eclipsed; Printing in Colors; Steam
Wagon; Fruit Preserving; Napoleon's Manuscript; Peace; Capital
Punishment; Antarctic Explorations; The Desert shall Blossom as
the Rose
Life and Death--Marvellous Examples
Outlines of Anthropology (continued) Chapter X.--The Law of
Location in Organology
12. JANUARY.--The Pursuit of Truth
Occultism defined
Psychic Phenomena
The Ancient Iberians
The Star Dust of the Universe
MISCELLANEOUS--Bright Literature; The Two Worlds; Foote's Health
Monthly; Psychic Theories; Twentieth Century Science, Dawning at
the end of the Nineteenth; Comparative Speed of Light and
Electricity; Wonderful Photography; Wooden Cloth; The
Phylloxera; Falling Rents; Boston Civilization; Psychic
Blundering; Beecher's Mediumship; A Scientific Cataract;
Obstreperous and Pragmatic Vulgarity; Hygiene; Quinine; Life and
Death; Dorothea L. Dix; The Drift of Catholicism, Juggernaut
The Principal Methods of Studying the Brain
Responses of Readers--Medical Orthodoxy
BUCHANAN'S
JOURNAL OF MAN.
VOL. I. FEBRUARY, 1887. NO. 1.
SALUTATORY.
Kind reader! Let me presume that you are in search of truth, and that
you have an intuition sufficient to tell you that this unending search
is the inspiring energy of the JOURNAL OF MAN Let us realize the
vastness of truth, the vastness of those realms of knowledge
heretofore unexplored by man, in which the JOURNAL is to perform its
work, and in realizing that, it will be very obvious that no single
number of the JOURNAL can be an adequate specimen to give a just
conception of what it is to be, how many hundred themes it will have
to consider, how many errors to analyze, how many new suggestions to
introduce, how many criticisms of the old, how many expositions of the
new. The present number of the JOURNAL is little more than a
promissory note for its future.
Even as a commentary on periodical literature, there will be a
countless number of the superficial theories of ignorance and haste
for it to examine, while there will be the more pleasing task of
noting the introduction of sound philosophy, the progress of careful
investigation, the uprising of common sense against hereditary
falsehood, and the gradual enlightenment of the clerical, medical, and
educational professions by the slow progress of new ideas, and the
unembarrassed progress of the physical sciences and inventions which
encounter no collegiate hindrance, excepting this, that the average
liberal education, as it is called, gives so little knowledge of
physical science, that the educated classes often fail to distinguish
between the real inventor and the deluded, or delusive, impostor.
The inventor is the emancipator of mankind from the oppressive burden
of toil, and hence the philanthropist should ever look with interest
to the progress of invention, should ever be ready to cooperate with
inventive genius. The JOURNAL should be the inventor's friend, and it
hopes to see the time when the national institution that I have
proposed shall be established, to bring blind, but all powerful,
capital into co-operation with the wise, but often powerless,
inventor.
Invention is the physical, as philosophy is the intellectual power, to
complete the emancipation of mankind from slavery and suffering. "No,"
would the theologian say, "your false philosophy ends in nothing. The
world has been full of philosophies from Democritus to Hegel, and they
have never lifted a single straw's weight from the burden that
oppresses all humanity. The real burden is sin, and religion alone can
remove that, and bring in the kingdom of heaven on earth."
Most true, Oh theologian, it is, that the false philosophies, from
Democritus to Hegel, have done nothing for mankind but to becloud,
bewilder, and enfeeble their intelligence, for the philosophies were
born of empty vanity, which essayed to conquer the universe by
cogitation without science, and not from any loving impulse to make
life wiser and better. But your theologies have been almost as false
as the philosophies. You have inverted the simple and pure religion of
Jesus. You have taught the world that its governing power was not an
infinite love, but an infinite hate, and that the chief purpose of
creation was to furnish an unlimited amount of human agony, in eternal
progress, to gratify the infinite tyrant, and, at the same time,
please a few humble vassals whom terror alone had driven into his
service. You have taught mankind, all too successfully, to imitate
this superhuman monster, by the banishment, imprisonment, murder, or
torture, of all who did not accept your insane and heartless
teachings; and the bloody drama, which has been in full progress for
at least fifteen centuries without one interval of pity or remorse, is
coming to its end now, Oh theologians, simply because your power has
waned, and mankind have partially outgrown their superstitious
ignorance. Tennyson in his last poem has expressed the truth:
"'Love your enemy, bless your haters,' said the Greatest of the great,
Christian love among the churches looked the twin of heathen hate.
From the golden alms of blessing, man had coined himself a curse;
Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter,--which was crueler, which was worse?"
You are beginning, Oh theologians, to be ashamed of the history of
your tribe, and to doubt in your own hearts the horrid creeds you are
still teaching; and a few have even thrown them off entirely and
joined in the movement of emancipation,--even Andover is uneasy
beneath its old yoke. But the chief problem of progress is still to
get rid of your creeds, and return to that simple, universal religion,
of which Jesus was the most powerful teacher,--a religion that had no
church, no creed, no intolerance, and which dealt only in that
universal love to which all human souls respond when they receive it.
Yet never has this simple religion of Jesus appeared, nor any effort
towards its imperfect realization, without provoking orthodox
hostility; and never has science taken one bold step in advance to
understand the Bible of creation, or the Divine wisdom embodied in the
constitution of man, without finding all orthodox power arrayed
against each step of progress, and your orthodox anathemas ready for
each fearless seeker of the truth.
Never had astronomy, never had geology, never had phrenology, never
had anthropology, one smile from the organized theological guardians
of the ancient falsehood called orthodoxy. Neither had political
liberty any better treatment than mental liberty. Neither the white
man, the red man, nor the black man found friendship or protection
until very recently in any orthodox church, for the church was
invariably the ally of the despot. Witness all European history,
witness the history of Mexico and South America,--witness the history
of the United States,--witness the present condition of Europe,
groaning under the mountain load of taxation to pay war debts, to
sustain the cannon foundries, forts, ships, barracks, and, in a word,
the _armament of hell_, for it is but a grand, prearranged plan for
further homicide and devastation; and all--all, alas! established and
sustained by a government inspired by the church, which falsely claims
to represent the principles of Christ in its terribly apostate career!
With a loathing and horror that words cannot express I turn from this
scene--in which, though latent at this moment, there lie all the
horrors of the Roman amphitheatre, and wars of the legions of Scipio,
Marius, Tiberius, Caesar, Nero, Severus, Decius, Valerianus, of Alaric,
Attila, and Genghis Khan--to the dawn of liberty, peace, and
enlightenment on the American continent, where, though old forms and
institutions may survive, their interior nature or life is
changed,--where the apostate church is slowly relinquishing its
apostacy and growing into harmony with modern liberty and progress.
The time is coming, I trust, when Christian churches in the United
States shall return to follow the sublime examples of the founders of
Christianity; shall practise and diffuse that spirit of love in which
is all freedom, all toleration and co-operation; shall welcome science
and philosophy, and become the centre of all cooperative efforts for
human amelioration.
The ameliorations of the last hundred years are so great that we may
well anticipate still greater changes in the coming century; for, as
Whittier says:
"Still the new transcends the old,
In signs and tokens manifold."
It is reasonable to anticipate this change, because the old battle
between religion and science, which placed each in a false position,
must come to an end. The battle is still in progress,--there is still
an antagonism; and scientists will object to the JOURNAL OF MAN
because its science is associated with religion; while theologians
will object to its religion because based on science; but the contest
now proceeds with diminishing rancor, and there have been minor
reconciliations or truces between scientists and theologians. But
finally the grand reconciliation must come from this, that when
science advances into the psychic realm,--when it demonstrates the
existence of the soul, and demonstrates that heaven is not a morbid
dream but a splendid reality,--the religious sentiment will recognize
such science as its friend; and when science goes farther, and
interprets the Divine laws as written by omnipotent wisdom in the
constitution of man, more plainly and far more fully than they have
ever been expressed in religious writings, then will religion perceive
that such science is the Divine messenger before whom it should bow in
reverence, and whose every utterance should be held sacred.
It is thus the mission of anthropology to enlighten religion, to
interpret the Divine law, and to reign in the kingdom of heaven, to
which it is to lead us; and it is the mission of the JOURNAL OF MAN to
present and keep before the enlightened few the guiding wisdom of
anthropology.
THE PHRENOLOGICAL DOCTRINES OF DR. GALL.
THEIR PAST AND PRESENT STATUS.
Science ought to emancipate mankind from the control of the animal
instincts, and in the purely physical and mathematical sciences it
does. In mathematics, dynamics, optics, acoustics, astronomy,
electricity, engineering, and mechanics, the dictates of pure
intellect are seldom interfered with by any blind impulse, attraction,
or prejudice. But it is very different in the realm of opinion--in
matters in which reason should be supreme, with as absolute authority
as number and form have in mathematics.
A thousand can measure and calculate, and can obey implicitly in
thought the mathematical laws, for one that can reason and obey
implicitly the dictates of pure reason. If an error is made in the
construction of a bridge, erection of a house, or financial report of
a bank, thousands may at once detect the error, and by clear
exposition compel its recognition. But in matters of opinion
controlled by reason, there is no such ready detection and recognition
of error, even by the best educated classes. The realm of opinion is
ever in chaos. Contradictory opinions are ever clashing; no supreme
arbiter is known; no law of reason, like the laws of mathematics,
comes in to dissipate error and delusion.
Why is this? Anthropology replies that reason is as positive, clear,
and imperative as mathematical principles, but that men have not been
educated to exercise and to obey the faculty of reason, as they have
been to measure and to count. In matters of opinion, feeling and
impulse are allowed to dominate over reason, and to hug the delusions
which reason would dispel. We have _no educational system_, no
college, in which the art of reasoning is properly taught, although
the shallow pedantry of Aristotelian logic has assumed to teach the
art of reasoning. The faculties themselves of our colleges do not
understand or practice the true art of reasoning, for if they did,
they would harmonize in opinion as mathematicians harmonize in
calculations, and would lead the onward march of mind continually,
making or accepting discoveries of the highest importance, instead of
standing, as they do, impregnable castles of ancient error in matters
of opinion, though moderately progressive in physical science.
It is for these reasons that popular opinions and opinions of
universities are of little value. Everything else but reason dominates
them. The gift of a founder, the decree of a king, parliament, or
pope, the decision of some ancient conclave of the superstitious and
ignorant, or the imperious will of some interested body of lords,
plutocrats, monks, or political usurpers, establishes the mould in
which opinions are cast; and the soft brains of inexperienced and
unreflective youth are easily compressed into the form of the
established mould, and from that deformed condition they seldom or
never entirely recover true symmetry. Never taught to reason deeply or
accurately, they yield to the sympathetic mesmeric control of social
opinions and impulses, without looking to their origin, Hence the
lamentable fact that in matters of opinion or philosophy, as in social
amusements and fashions, the animal instinct of gregariousness rules,
and men move in masses like herds of sheep or buffaloes.
These considerations prepare us to appreciate justly the value of
former and contemporary opinions in reference to the science of the
brain.
The mystery that surrounded its anatomy was dispelled by Dr. Gall, and
modern scientists have been building upon the foundation laid by him.
It is not necessary now to dwell upon his protracted and careful study
of the comparative development of the brain in men and animals.
Suffice it to say no naturalist was ever more diligent, fearless, and
successful, in the study of nature; and the conclusive evidence of his
success is the fact that no student of nature who travelled after his
footsteps has failed to see what he saw, and recognize Gall as a
grand, original teacher.
Why is it, then, that the reputation of Gall and his discoveries of
mental organs in the brain has been so fluctuating? Why have the
discoveries that came forward with so imposing a prestige at the
beginning of this century so entirely lost that prestige in the
colleges in sixty years, that the writings of Gall and his disciples
are generally neglected? Vague, unscientific speculations have taken
their place; the colleges and literati are groping in darkness, and,
like plants in a cellar which reach out to the dim windows, they look
anxiously for the information that may come from laboratories and
anatomical halls, where animals by thousands are tortured to find the
sources of _physical_ functions, forgetful of the fact that the human
brain is a _psychic_ organ, and that _a whole century of such
investigations_ would leave the grand problems of _conscious_ life and
character in primeval darkness!
Have they no respect for the labors and honorable observations of
clear-headed scientists fifty to eighty years ago? Were the anatomists
Reil and Loder deceived when they testified to Gall's wonderful
discoveries in anatomy? Were Andral, Broussais, Corvsart, and others,
who stood at the head of the medical profession in France, deceived
when they were followers of Gall? Was Dr. Vimont deceived when the
study of the animal kingdom converted him from an opponent to a
supporter of Gall? Were Elliotson and Solly of London, the Combes of
Scotland, Macartney of Ireland, and a full score of others in the
highest ranks of medical science deceived in giving their testimony
that the anatomy of the brain, its development in the healthy, its
amply recorded pathology, revealed in hospitals, and its phenomena in
the insane asylums and prisons, supported the doctrines of Gall?
They were not deceived, and they were not blind. _They were
observers._ Their successors, sinking into the agnosticism of
pseudoscience, have thus sunk because they have abandoned the methods
of science to adopt the methods of ignorant partisanship. They have
not studied the comparative development of the brain in connection
with character, and therefore they know little or nothing of it. They
are not competent as observers of development, because they have never
attempted to become acquainted with it. Even so eminent a writer as
the late Prof. W. B. Carpenter shows by his writings, which are a
monument of laborious erudition, that he did not understand so simple
a matter as the external form of the cranium belonging to the
development of the cerebellum.
Cranioscopy, the study of the brain and its proportional development
through the cranium, which is the method by which Gall made his
discoveries, is a _lost art_ in the medical profession, and I doubt if
there is a single professor in any American or European medical
college to-day, who has a competent knowledge of it. The art of
cranioscopy requires as its basis a correct knowledge of the anatomy
of the brain and skull, a correct knowledge of the localities of all
the cerebral organs, and a practical skill in determining their
development with accuracy. A variation of one eighth of an inch in
development will change the destiny of the individual, and incorrect
conceptions of the growth of the brain and the natural irregularities
of the cranium would vitiate the conclusions of the observers. A
somewhat famous but unscientific practitioner of phrenology gave a
good illustration of this by mistaking a rugged development of the
lambdoid suture for an enormous organ of combativeness, and ascribing
to the gentleman a terrific, pugnacious energy which was the very
opposite of his true character.
The sciolism of popular phrenology, scantily supplied with anatomical
knowledge, and but little better supplied with clear psychic
conceptions, is incapable of commending the science to the esteem of
critical observers, and of course incapable of sustaining its
reputation against the overwhelming opposition of medical colleges.
Thus rejected or at least neglected in the universities, which supply
its place with worthless metaphysics, and unsustained before the
public,--for the tone of literature is controlled by the
universities,--it is not strange that the grand discoveries of Gall
are neglected as they are to-day.
The objections to Gall's discoveries which have been considered
sufficient, have generally been the offspring of ignorance and
superficial thinking. Thousands of physicians have been misled by
professors of anatomy thoroughly ignorant of the subject, who have
shown to their own ignorant satisfaction how impossible it was to
judge of the development of the brain through the skull. The attacks
upon phrenology have been generally remarkable for their logical
feebleness. Any one well acquainted with the science and the phenomena
in nature, could have made a much more effective attack,--an attack
which would have _appeared_ entirely unanswerable; but no such attack
has been made.
There has been, however, one _valid_ objection to the discoveries of
Gall, which has done much to discredit the whole system. He ascribed
to the entire cerebellum the sexual function alone, in doing which he
disregarded the facts developed by vivisection. Ample observation has
shown his error. The cerebellum is the physiological as the cerebrum
is the psychic brain, and a defined central portion of the cerebellum
at the median line does exercise, in connection with the summit of the
spinal cord, the sexual functions. This has been fully established by
pathology, as well as by my own experiments. In this matter Gall is
certainly entitled to the credit of _approximating_ the truth, the
function being located within the territory assigned it.
The fundamental doctrine, however, which Gall has the immortal honor
of establishing, is that the cerebrum is not a homogeneous unitary
organ, but a mass of distinct organs, as distinct as the sensitive and
motor columns of the spinal cord, and exercising _different mental
functions_. Whatever errors of detail he may have fallen into cannot
obscure the glory of the pioneer in the anatomy and psychology of the
brain. His anatomical doctrines have stood the test of time; they are
established; and his psychic doctrines are as near an approach to
absolute truth as ever was made by a pioneer in a wilderness of
mystery. Gall himself, with the just self-respect which belongs to a
sincere and fearless seeker of scientific truth, expressed his
attitude as follows, at the close of the sixth volume of his works:--
"These views of the qualities and faculties of man are not the fruit
of subtile reasonings. They bear not the impress of the age in which
they originate, and will not wear out with it. They are the result of
numberless observations, and will be immutable and eternal like the
facts that have been observed, and the fundamental powers which those
facts force us to admit. They are not only founded on principles
deduced from individual facts, but are confirmed by each individual
fact in particular, and will forever come off triumphant from every
test to which they may be submitted, whether of analysis or synthesis.
If the reasonings of metaphysicians are ever discarded, this
philosophy of the human qualities and faculties will be the foundation
of all philosophy in time to come."
These are the words of a grand-souled philosopher, who _knew_ that he
was speaking the truth, and forcing, as if at the point of the
bayonet, a great, new truth upon the stolidity of the colleges. The
simple truth of fibrous structure in the brain, now known to every
tyro in anatomy, was contested in the days of Gall and Spurzheim, and
had to be enforced by public dissection in an Edinburgh amphitheatre.
With the same unreasoning stolidity the doctrine of the multiplicity
of organs in the brain was shunned, evaded, or denied, though it would
seem idiotic for any physiologist to assume such a position (by
suppressing his own common sense) when the aim of all modern
investigations of the brain is to discover different functions in
different parts.
The great doctrine of the multiplicity of cerebral organs, introduced
by Gall, could not be suppressed or ignored among those who
investigate the brain in any manner. All modern investigators tacitly
recognize it, for none could so stultify themselves as to assume the
brain to be a homogeneous unit in either structure or functions, while
seeking to discover the peculiar functions of each part. Thus his
fundamental ideas are adopted by his opponents, and step by step they
will be compelled to admit his general correctness, and his grand
services as the pioneer in the highest department of science, the most
prolific in important results to mankind. "Every honest and erudite
anatomist," says Sir Samuel Solly in his standard work on the anatomy
of the brain, "must acknowledge that we are indebted mainly to Gall
and Spurzheim for the improvements which have been made in our mode of
studying the brain. For my own part, I most cheerfully acknowledge
that the interest which I derived from the lectures of Dr. Spurzheim
at St. Thomas' Hospital about the years 1822 and 1823, has been the
inciting cause of all the labor which for above twenty years I have at
intervals devoted to this subject."
The organ of language, his first discovery, located at the junction of
the front and middle lobes, has been the first to receive the general
recognition of the medical profession, because it is easy to recognize
its failures in disease, and the morbid condition of its organ.
Its general recognition by physiologists now is not usually
accompanied by any reference to Gall as its discoverer. They are
probably not aware that he located it correctly, because he referred
so much to its external sign in the prominence of the eyes. This
prominence of the eyes indicates development of the brain at the back
of their sockets. The external marking of organs is to indicate where
they lie and in what direction their development produces exterior
projection. The junction of the front and middle lobes, including the
so-called "island of Reil" (who was a pupil of Gall, and spoke of him
as the most wonderful of anatomists), has its most direct external
indication at the outer angle of the eye. That is the location which
has been given the organ by my experiments, which were made without
reference to anatomy, without even a thought of it, for I consider
such experiments the supreme authority in physiology, and do not stop
to inquire whether any previous knowledge supports them or not.
Dr. Gall had the true idea, for although he spoke of the general
prominence of the eye as the indication, he also recognized the
development as extending in the direction in which I have located it.
He regarded the organ of language as a convolution lying on the
super-orbital plate, behind the position of the eyeball. This
convolution is comparatively defective in animals generally, but more
developed in birds of superior vocal powers. In addition to this, he
observed the growth extending into the temples, where the front and
middle lobes unite. "A great diameter in this direction," he says, "is
always a favorable augury for the memory of words. I have seen persons
who with an ordinary conformation of the eyes yet learned by heart
with great facility. But in these cases the diameter from one temple
to the other is ordinarily very considerable, and sometimes even the
inferior part of the temples is projecting, which attests a great
development of the adjacent cerebral parts."
Thus it is evident that he recognized the structure behind the
external angle of the eye as an important part of the organ of
language.
The interior portion of the convolution is the more intellectual
portion of the organ, while the exterior portion is that which holds
the closest relation to the fibres of the _corpora striata_ in the
middle lobe, and may therefore most properly be called the organ of
language or of speech, the impairment of which produces aphasia, or
loss of speech. This is the form which has chiefly attracted the
attention of the medical profession, as it very often accompanies
paralytic affections from disease of the _corpora striata_.
Evidently Gall arrived at the correct location, and he illustrates the
discovery by referring to a great number of authors and scientists
whose development he observed. His most decisive fact is the case of a
patient who lost the memory of names entirely, but not the power of
speech, by a thrust from a foil, which penetrated through the face,
the posterior inner part of the front lobe, at its junction with the
middle lobe, thus wounding the internal part of the organ of language,
but not reaching the outer posterior part, at the island of Reil, to
which pathologists have given their chief attention.
Evidently Gall had the correct idea, and should have been duly
credited by the pathologists who have verified his discovery.
In verifying this discovery by excitement of the organs, I find the
centre of language behind the external angle of the eye, on each side
of which, toward the nose and toward the temples, are analogous
functions which might, if we did not analyze closely, be included with
it, as portions of the organ of language.
The discoveries of Gall, though no longer sustained by colleges or
phrenological societies, have never lost their hold upon the students
who follow his teachings and study nature. A few phrenological writers
and lecturers maintain the interest among those they reach, but our
standard literature generally ignores the doctrines, and forgets the
name of Gall. Yet the eclipse is not total. It will pass away as this
century ends, and the fame of the great pioneer in science will be
immortal, for it rests not on any wave of eighteenth century opinion,
but is based on that which is "immutable and eternal."
Yet so thoroughly has the present generation of physicians been misled
by the colleges into ignorance of the labors of Gall, that although
they know the location of the faculty of language is now beyond doubt,
they do not think of the discoverer or understand his discoveries, but
vaguely suppose that Ferrier, Jackson, Fritsch, Hitzig, and others
have entirely superseded Gall by their inferences from experiments on
the brains of animals. In this how greatly are they deceived! All that
modern vivisectors have done has utterly failed to disturb the
cerebral science derived from cranial observation by Gall and myself,
and from direct experiment by myself. On the contrary, the immense
labor of their researches serves only to add new illustrations and
facts corroborating and co-operating with what was previously
ascertained, as will be fully shown when "Cerebral Psychology" shall
be published.
It was once supposed that the intellectual functions of the front lobe
were entirely refuted by discoveries which proved the front lobe the
source of muscular impulses. More thorough experimenting dissipated
this illusion. Ferrier reported that after a partial ablation of the
front lobes in intelligent monkeys, "instead of, as before, being
actively interested in their surroundings and curiously prying into
all that came within the field of their observation, they remained
apathetic or dull, or dozed off to sleep, responding only to the
sensations or impressions of the moment, or varying their listlessness
with restless and purposeless wanderings to and fro. They had lost to
all appearance the faculty of attentive and intelligent observation."
This is precisely what the true cerebral psychology indicates. The
imaginary muscular powers were not at all detected, for the section of
the front lobe had no influence on the muscular system.
The science of Gall was a science of facts relevant to great
principles. The science of his opponents was a science of irrelevant
facts, revealing no philosophy. Students of nature adhered to Gall;
students of books and adherents of authority neglected him. Of this
there is no better illustration than the great collection of De Ville
in London, of which the following account is given in the admirable
treatise on phrenology (of 637 pages) by Dr. James P. Browne of
Edinburgh.
"How wide and various are the channels through which the phrenologist
derives his facts. In society, whichever way he turns, they are
constantly being presented for his contemplation. Besides there is not
a city or town of any note that does not contain a collection of
authentic casts of well-known persons; and up to the year 1853, the
gallery of Mr. De Ville, in London, contained the largest and most
valuable phrenological collection in the world of casts and skulls of
men and women remarkable for the greatness of their talents, or the
peculiarities of their dispositions; including above three hundred
busts, both antique and modern, of the most renowned men the world has
ever seen. The whole number amounted at least to three thousand. About
two thousand skulls of animals of every denomination were also to be
found there. There could be seen the form of head which accompanied
the _poetical instincts_ and high moral aspirations of the poor
peasant boy, John Clare; and how strikingly dissimilar it was in its
most marked characteristics to the head of George Stevenson, one of
the most original of _mechanical_ geniuses. Both were self-taught, but
one was intensely _active_, the other _cogitative_. The mind of Clare
was constantly engaged in poetical musings upon the moral affections,
their pains and their pleasures; that of Stevenson was drawn by an
inherent impulse to physical objects, and perseveringly devoted to the
discovery of such mechanical combinations of them as might be of
lasting benefit to society. There might be pointed out the cause of
the difference of style which characterized the oratory of Mansfield
and Erskine, of Canning and of Brougham: and that which constituted
the elements of mind and their combinations, which raised Edmund
Burke, as a prescient statesman, to a height such as neither Pitt, nor
Fox, nor even Chatham was capable of reaching. There might be seen in
Banks's fine bust of him, the cause why Warren Hastings, though he was
endowed with many good qualities which endeared him to his friends,
was, nevertheless, covetous, self-willed, domineering, unjust, and, in
some instances, pitiless, as Governor-General of India. What a
contrast to this did the bust of the Marquis of Wellesley, by
Nollekens, present. Not only did it indicate that the disposition of
that distinguished statesman was unimbued with the slightest tincture
of hypocrisy, avarice, or the love of self-willed domination, but, on
the contrary, it was phrenologically symbolic of an instinctive
carelessness in regard to his own pecuniary interests, a disposition
which in his case, perhaps, amounted to a fault, and which his
intellect, capacious of great things, and comparatively heedless of
whatever is little, was ill-calculated to redress. There might be seen
in Behnes Burlowe's bust of Macintosh indications of the vastness of
his intellect, and the unobtrusive gentleness of his disposition;
whilst Chantrey's exquisite bust of Lord Castlereagh afforded marked
indications of his having been endowed with courage the most heroic,
unalloyed by the slightest tinge of complexional fear, and with an
intellect well balanced, devising, and industrious, but certainly
narrow in its range as compared with that of Sir. J. Macintosh. There,
too, might be seen the true physical indications of the imperturbable
coolness of Castlereagh, and of the sensitiveness and warm
susceptibility of Canning.
"Amongst the skulls of birds how readily could the practised observer
distinguish the skull of the tuneful, melodious canary from that of
the chirping, inharmonious sparrow. Nor could he fail to mark the
constant difference between the form of the head of a song thrush and
that of the jackdaw; or to discern how the cuckoo's head is hollow
where the organ of the love of offspring is located, whilst the same
part presents a striking protuberance in the partridge. In the
dolphin, the porpoise, the seal, and many other animals, the male
could there be distinguished from the female by the form of the back
part of the skull, where the same organ lies. Nor could any one fail
to mark the form of head that is the invariable, and evidently
indispensable, concomitant of the ferocious and sanguinary temper of
the tiger, as well as the strong contrast which it presents to the
skull of the wild but gentle gazelle. How superior also the elevated
brain of the poodle dog, when compared with that of the indocile,
snarling cur! Thus in animals of the same species the most marked
disparity of form is easily discernible, on comparing the skulls of
such as are docile and gentle, with those of the dull and intractable.
The elevation of the one and the depression of the other are obvious.
"In an ethnological point of view that collection was very valuable.
What a striking contrast was presented there by the rounded form of
the skull of the fierce, indomitable American Indian, who is so averse
to intercourse with strangers, and the rather narrow, elongated head
of the indolent negro, who is devoted to social enjoyments. How wide
was the difference between the head of the Sandwich Islander or of the
Tahitian and that of the Australian or the Tasmanian. How much
superior to either of them were the heads of the civilized Incas of
Peru, which had not been submitted to the distorting process of
artificial compression. Neither could the wide disparity between the
Maori and the Gentoo escape the notice of the most careless observer.
And how immeasurably inferior in form were they all to the noble head
which is the issue of the mingling of the Celtic, Saxon, and Norman
races (imbued with an infusion of old Roman, blood), such as it is
found to be in these islands, and in the United States.
"Perhaps it may not be considered out of place if I relate a
circumstance of considerable interest to those who make it a point to
make strict inquiry as to the amount of knowledge which certain races
are capable of imbibing.
"Some twenty years ago and more, when the great anatomist, Tiedemann,
was in London, he paid a visit to De Ville's Phrenological Museum. I
saw him as he entered the place. He was erect and tall, with an air
somewhat stately, yet perfectly unassuming. His head was not so
remarkable for great size as for its fine symmetry, and the organs of
the moral and intellectual portions of it were in a rare degree
harmoniously blended. It was the characteristic head of a curious,
indefatigable, conscientious inquirer into the _arcana_ of physical
things--one who was not given to indulge in unprofitable, visionary
speculations. His visit to De Ville being strictly private, there was
no opportunity afforded me of hearing his remarks. But, afterwards, it
was told me by De Ville himself, that Tiedemann supposed (and in this
he resembled all other opponents of phrenology) that because he had
tested the capacity of a great many negro and European skulls, by
filling them with millet seed, and found that, on an an average, those
of the Africans were scarcely inferior in size to the skulls of
Europeans--that from that fact he thought it probable that the negro,
if placed in advantageous circumstances, ought to be capable of
exhibiting powers of mind equal to the European.
"But when the humble, self-educated follower of Gall demonstrated to
this celebrated physiologist and anatomist that the _forehead_ of the
negro is _usually_ much smaller than that of the European, and that,
moreover, its form, with few exceptions, is irregular and
ill-balanced; and when he showed that the size of the negro skull in
the basilar portion, where the organs of the affections (which we
possess in common with the lower animals) lie, was, in proportion to
the upper and anterior parts, which are the seats of the moral and
intellectual faculties, larger in the negro than in the European--when
De Ville showed, by many instances, that this is always and infallibly
the case (with the exception of the heads of criminals), Tiedemann
raised his hands and said, 'The labor of years is now, I clearly see,
of no use to me; and I must destroy many valuable things bearing upon
this theme.' Thus, by following the _true_ mode of investigating this
department of natural history, was an uneducated man, of good talents,
enabled to correct a mistake in anatomy and physiology committed by
one of the ablest anatomists that Europe has given birth to.
"For the long term of twenty-two years the writer of this treatise
took every opportunity, afforded him by the kindness of its generous
owner, to study the contents of this rare collection; and, after
having studied it with assiduous care, he is bound to say that out of
the hundred thousand facts which it contained, not one could be
pointed out that did not testify to the never-failing agreement of
particular parts or organs of the brain, with certain independent,
elementary faculties, according to the laws discovered by Gall.
"It is with the view of demonstrating the stability and
unchangeableness of those laws that the composition of this treatise
has been undertaken; in order to excite in its regard such a degree of
attention as will tend to awaken it from the state of inauspicious
somnolency in which it has for some years lain prostrate. But,
strongly impressed with a conviction of the importance of the subject,
and fully alive to the difficulty of treating it, the writer cannot
help being crossed by fears for the success of this attempt. Relying,
however, upon the solidity of the foundation upon which his subject
rests, and surveying the vast store of accumulated materials which
have, for more than thirty years, been constantly passing through his
hands, and the facts which are now strewn before him in whatever
society he may be placed, he would fain hope that even his humble
abilities will enable him to make such a selection of incontrovertible
facts as will place beyond a doubt the possibility of determining the
innate talents and dispositions of any one by making a skilful survey
of the head; and, should he succeed in merely raising a more general
spirit of active inquiry in regard to the nature of the evidence
adduced, and the deductions drawn from it by phrenologists, than at
present exists, he will have reaped a fair reward for his efforts, for
he has long been thoroughly convinced that a strict and faithful
examination of the facts which bear upon the case is alone requisite
for converting the incredulous scoffer into the zealous advocate."
Having thus vindicated the claims of the great pioneer in philosophy,
our next issue will show the limitations of his discoveries, and give
an outline of the new and all-comprehensive Anthropology.
* * * * *
THERAPEUTIC SARCOGNOMY.--The publication of this work has
been laid aside to introduce the JOURNAL OF MAN. It will appear
during the present year, but not in a cheap abridged form as first
proposed. It will be an improved edition.
THE GREAT LAND QUESTION.
AGITATED BY HENRY GEORGE, MICHAEL DAVITT, PROF. WALLACE, DR. EADON AND
REFORMATORY SOCIETIES IN GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY.
They who in the fearless pursuit of truth attain ideas for which the
age is not prepared are recognized as Utopians. The dullards who have
not the desire, and _therefore_ have not the capacity to seek new
truth, languidly regard as dreamers the men who talk of things so
foreign to their own habits. The more dogmatic class, inspired by the
dogmatism of the colleges, array themselves in scorn to repel new
thought. But, fortunately, as men die they fail to transmit _all_ of
their bigotry to posterity, and new men come in with new ideas.
In that new world of thought to which anthropology belongs, the basis
of social order is understood, and I felt it my duty in 1847 to
present the law of justice in relation to "The Land and the People,"
with very little hope that the doctrine presented would ever become in
my own lifetime a basis of political action, since other ideas equally
true and equally demonstrable have to bide their time. But the toilers
who suffer from the lack of employment have furnished an eager
audience to the land reformers, and the great land question is
destined to agitate the nations for a century to come. The _Boston
Globe_ recently called attention to the original presentation of this
subject at Cincinnati, in the following editorial:--
"There seems to be a notion prevalent that the ideas advocated by Mr.
George are novel. But they are not. They once more illustrate the
familiar fact that there is nothing new under the sun. Much the same
doctrines were urged here in America at least forty years ago, and
were the subject of comment in the papers of the day.
"Dr. J. R. Buchanan, now of Boston, presented the case at Cincinnati
in 1847 much as it is now put by Mr. George and Mr. Davitt. The
Memphis _Appeal_ of September 23 of that year, gave an elaborate
review of Dr. Buchanan's essay, in which it said:
"'The Land and the People' is the title of a well-written
pamphlet from the pen of Dr. J. R. Buchanan of Cincinnati,
formerly known to our citizens as an able and accomplished
lecturer on the science of neurology. It is quite plain from
the production in question that the doctor has not confined
himself to the study of the physiological system, of which we
believe he is the author, but has evidently thought deeply
upon other subjects vitally concerning the well being and
progress of society. Whatever may be thought of the positions
of this pamphlet, we cannot deny to it the merit of great
beauty of style and force of logic. The whole argument is
based upon the proposition that the earth is the original gift
of God to man, and as such belongs of right to the human race
in general, and not to the individuals of the race separately.
The author insists that the land is not the product of man's
labor any more than air, sunshine, or water, and that
originally this gift of God ought to have been left as free as
those lighter, but indispensable elements must ever be, from
their very nature. The artificial and unnatural laws which
have sprung up and become fastened upon society have thrown
immense obstacles in the way of the bare perception of this
great truth, as the doctor deems it, besides at the same time
interposing barriers almost insurmountable to its reception
and adoption into the framework of government. It is insisted,
however, that these obstacles may be overcome, and the rights
of the people restored to them, without any injustice to the
present proprietors of land, and without any convulsions in
the great elements of society.
"Dr. Buchanan explained in his essay, as Mr. George does in his works
now, that he did not mean to annul the existing titles to land. 'Far
from it,' Dr. Buchanan said. 'Such a scheme would be a miserable
climax of folly and injustice, fit only to render the great principle
equally odious and ridiculous.' The doctor insisted that he proposed
to 'maintain in legislation the broad principle that the nation owns
the soil, and that this ownership is paramount to all individual
claims,' and from this fundamental proposition as a corner-stone the
superstructure was to be built up. The present proprietors of the soil
were not to be disturbed in their possession, and the government was
not to interfere in the details of agriculture, renting and leasing
estates, determining possession, etc. But the owners were to be
considered as the tenants of the nation, paying rent to it for the
benefit of the people at large. This rent was to be extremely small at
first, estimated upon the value of the soil alone, without the
improvements, that being the original gift of nature, free to all. It
was to be increased, however, in the course of two generations, until
a rent of about 5 per cent should have been exacted from all the
tenants of the nation--that is, from all who occupied any portion of
the soil. The rent thus raised--a vast revenue--was to be applied to
the establishment of free colleges, free schools, free libraries, and
other institutions calculated to improve and benefit the citizen.
"This is the doctrine, substantially, as put forth at the present time
by Mr. George, and by so many persons supposed to be entirely new.
Again we remark that 'there is nothing new under the sun.'"
This subject will be taken up hereafter in the JOURNAL OF MAN. Its
progress as a policy will be noted, its writers reviewed, and the
dictates of dispassionate science presented. It is too late to
intercept the folly and crime that have surrendered the rights of the
people in the American continent, but not too late to begin
reclamation of our lost sovereignty.
We shall have ample discussions of this subject. Mr. George has given
us "Progress and Poverty" (cloth, $1.00; paper, 20 cents); "Social
Problems," at the same price; "The Land Question" (paper, 10 cents);
"Property in Land" (paper, 15 cents); "Protection or Free Trade"
(cloth, $1.50). At Baltimore a volume has been issued as one of the
Johns Hopkins University studies in political and historical science,
written by Shosuke Sato, Ph. D., Special Commissioner of the Colonial
Department of Japan. N. Murray is the publishing agent, and the price
in paper is $1.00. This work is a "History of the Land Question in the
United States," and describes the formation of the public domain by
purchase and cession, and the entire administration of the land system
of the United States. The land laws of early times and of other
countries are stated in the introduction. Another very instructive
work recently issued is entitled, "Labor, Land, and Law; a Search for
the Missing Wealth of the Working Poor," by William A. Phillips;
published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Mr. Phillips has been
a member of Congress from Kansas, and his work is an extensive view of
the land question in other countries as well as the United States.
In the near future this must be the burning question of politics and
statesmanship, as it is at present in Great Britain. The agitations in
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have long been on the verge of bloody
conflict, and a Land League has been formed in Germany at Berlin, of
which Dr. A. Theodor Stamm is president, having for its object the
transfer of land ownership from individuals to the State. A newspaper
at Berlin is devoted to its objects.
A few facts show how inevitable the conflict that is coming, while the
agricultural classes of all Europe are being driven by American
competition deeper and deeper into poverty and inability to pay rent,
which can never be again what it has been. The New York _Evening Post_
very justly says: "The truth is, we are witnessing in Ireland the
gradual disappearance of rent. The land is no longer able to support
anybody but the actual cultivator. To make this process peaceful, and
as far as possible harmless to all parties, ought to be the chief
concern of the Government." Landlordism in Great Britain has small
claims upon our sympathy, for the great body of the land is held by
titles which have no other basis than the robbery of old by military
power. According to John Bright, in England and Wales one hundred
persons own 4,000,000 acres; in Scotland twelve persons own 4,346,000
acres, and seventy persons own the half of Scotland; nine tenths of
all the land in Scotland belongs to 1,700 persons, the rest of the
population having only one tenth. In Ireland less than 800 persons own
half of all the land, and 330 persons own two thirds of all the land
in Scotland; 402 members of the House of Lords hold 14,240,912 acres,
with a rental of $56,865,637.
It is no wonder that the tenants of the Duke of Argyle have risen
against the police that enforce the landlord's claims, and that the
Welsh resistance against tithes has impoverished the Welsh clergy.
The Irish agitation has a just basis, which was well stated by the
Boston _Herald_ as follows:--
"The assertion has been frequently made that rents have increased more
in England than in Ireland; but one of the ablest English
statisticians, a man who can hardly be accused of partiality toward
Ireland, has recently pointed out that while in the forty years from
1842 to 1882 the rents in England increased on an average 15
percent, the rents in Ireland in the same period increased on an
average 20 per cent, and this, too, in a country where farming has
been carried on on a low scale of culture, where the landlord has done
practically nothing for his tenant, and where the results of the
harvest are more uncertain than in England. It is the constant desire
that the Irish landlords have shown in the past to get the last pound
of flesh and the last drop of blood out of their tenants that is the
cause of the present detestation in which they are held by the
latter."
In the United States the public domain has been criminally surrendered
to monopoly. Commissioner Sparks speaks in his reports of the
"widespread, persistent land robbery." The fences of land robbers have
been removed from 2,700,000 acres, and over 5,000,000 will probably be
redeemed. In fifteen years, 179,000,000 of acres have been given by
Congress to various railroad corporations, a larger territory than the
empire of Germany. Before these wrongs were consummated, nearly forty
years ago, I called a public meeting in the Cincinnati court house,
which protested against this surrender of the people's domain. The
present agitation will probably bring it to an end. In the
Congressional debates last June Mr. Eustis said "the railroad men had
made fortunes as mushrooms grow in the night; a coterie of such men
had enriched themselves at the expense of the people of the United
States. They did not observe equity, honesty, or good faith, and only
came here to assert their legal rights and to defy the authority and
power of Congress and the people of the United States to deal with
them. The great question to-day was whether the government was
superior to the corporations, or the corporations superior to the
government. The corporations had exhibited shameless and unpardonable
oppression and extortion, as well as effrontery in their dealing with
the people and the Government of the United States." "Our people and
our country," said the speaker, "were only able to stand the drafts
thus made on their liberties because they were yet young and strong
and vigorous." Mr. Eustis advocated the forfeiture of every acre of
land that had not been earned according to the strict limitations and
conditions imposed in the grant.
In the house of Representatives, December 11, 1886, Mr. Payson of
Illinois, on behalf of the Committee on Public Lands, called up the
bill declaring a forfeiture of the Ontonagon and Brule River land
grant. In detailing the circumstances of the grant Mr. Payson declared
that from the organization of the Ontonagon and Brule River Company no
step had ever been taken by it which did not indicate that that
organization had been purely speculative and effected for the purpose
of getting land from the General Government. It had been an attempt at
bare-faced robbery from its inception down to the present time.
Referring to the statement made by persons interested in the road,
that it had been accepted by commissioners and reported upon as having
been built in first-class style, he asserted that miles of the road
had no other ballast than ice and snow, which, melting in spring, left
the rails held in suspension eight inches above the ground. In support
of his assertion, he produced photographs of various sections of the
road and commented upon them, much to the amusement of the House. A
bridge, as depicted by the photograph, he declared to be humped like a
camel and backed like a whale. A section of a mile in length showed
but one railroad tie; while a 250-foot cut was shown as being filled
with logs and brush. The bill was passed without division. It forfeits
384,600 acres.
The march of monopoly must be arrested in the United States and
Mexico. A New England company has obtained from Mexico eighteen
millions of acres in lower California. All over the world the curse of
land monopoly flourishes undisturbed. The natural result of
landlordism everywhere is already foreshadowed in this country by the
example of William Scully in Illinois. The Chicago _Tribune_ one year
ago devoted four columns to the career of Scully, a resident of
London, who owns large tracts of American land, and has introduced the
Irish landlord system in managing his American property. The _Tribune_
said:--
"Scully is one of the chief figures among the alien proprietors of
American soil, and has introduced the meanest features of the worst
forms of Irish landlordism on his estates in this country. He has
acquired in the neighborhood of 90,000 acres of land in Illinois
alone, at a merely nominal figure--50 cents to $1 per acre, as a rule.
His career as an Irish landlord was a history of oppression and
extortion, that was appropriately finished by a bloody encounter with
his tenants. He was tried and acquitted on the charge of double
murder, but became so unpopular that in 1850 he sold most of his Irish
property, and has since devoted himself to building up a landlord
system in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and other States. He made
entries of the public domain through the medium of the land warrants
issued to Mexican war soldiers, which he purchased at the rate of 50
cents per acre. In Logan County, Ill., alone, he has 40,000 to 45,000
acres. It is the almost universal testimony that Scully's rule in that
county has reduced 250 tenants and their families to a condition
approaching serfdom. Furthermore, Scully pays no taxes, the tenants
signing ironclad agreements to assume the same, but they are required
to pay to Scully's agents the tax money at the same time as the
rentals--the 1st of January of each year; whereas, the agent need not
turn over the taxes to the county treasurer until about June 10
following. It is suggested that Scully probably makes a handsome
percentage on the tax money remaining in his hands for five months. It
is also shown that a great deal of this alien's land entirely escapes
taxation, thus increasing the burden on other property holders; that
he takes the most extraordinary precautions to secure his rent,
executing a cast iron lease, with provisions that mortgage the
tenant's all, scarcely allowing his soul to escape, and making it
compulsory for small grain to be sold immediately after harvest, no
matter what may be the condition of the market; that grain dealers are
notified not to buy of the tenants until Scully's rent is paid; in
short, that Scully has founded a land system so exacting that it is
only paralleled in Ireland, and rules his tenantry so despotically
that few can be induced to tell the story of their wrongs, justly
feeling that it would involve ruin to them."
Much sympathy has been excited by the reports of cruel evictions in
Ireland, to gratify the merciless avarice of landlords, and for the
justice of these reports we need not depend on Irish testimony alone.
American travellers have told enough, and the London _Standard_ of
Jan. 18 says: "Some of this winter's evictions have been inhuman
spectacles, fit only for a barbarous country and a barbarous age."
There is nothing intrinsically wrong in the relation of landlord and
tenant, which should excite a prejudice against the landlord; on the
contrary, many landlords have been a blessing to the communities in
which they lived; but our land system is a conspicuous part of a
grandly false social system based on pure selfishness, which makes all
men jealous competitors, and destroys the spirit of fraternity.
Our social system tends ever to make the rich richer and the poor
poorer, and the struggle in Ireland is but the forerunner of a
movement that will extend around the globe. Is there no remedy for the
evils? Indeed there is! Sixty years of thought have made me familiar
with the evils and the remedies. Some of the remedies are coming to
the front at present. All will in time be presented in the JOURNAL OF
MAN.
Land reform is but one of the great measures that progress demands.
The first and greatest is a PERFECT EDUCATION for all, moral and
industrial. The second is SPIRITUAL RELIGION. The third is JUSTICE TO
WOMAN. The fourth, which is JUSTICE IN LEGISLATION, includes land
reform, financial reform, and many other reforms. The fifth is
INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION. The sixth is TEMPERANCE.
The first reform includes all the others. The second would ultimately
bring all things right, and so would the third in a longer lapse of
time.
ANTHROPOLOGY is the intellectual guidance into all reforms, and
therefore should precede all. Hence it is the leading theme of this
Journal.
THE SINALOA COLONY.
Mankind would be one family or group of families, if the principles of
Jesus could be imparted to the human race. But the robber races that
occupy this globe at present are intensely hostile in feeling to that
life of Christian love which is commanded in the books which they
honor with their lips.
The so-called civilized races of to-day are as intensely barbarian at
heart, notwithstanding the superficial varnish of literary
civilization, as the hordes of Attila and Genghis Khan. Witness the
attitude of Germany and France (the great exemplars of literary
civilization), each eagerly preparing for a deadly conflict.
Yet in all ages there have been those whom nature has qualified for a
better life, who wish to live in harmony, and turn with weariness and
disgust from the present forms of avaricious strife, rivalry, and
fraud. If the best of these could be gathered in one community, a
better state of society could be organized.
Horace Greeley sympathized with such movements, and about forty years
ago gave much space in the _Tribune_ to the illustration of this
subject. Although the co-operative principles of Fourier, then widely
discussed, have not resulted in any great success in community life in
the United States, it can also be said that experiments have not shown
the doctrines of Fourier to be impracticable. The best thinkers have
not lost their faith, and the example of M. Godin at Guise in France,
with a population of 1,800 in the Social Palace enjoying the very
Utopia of happy and prosperous co-operative life, is a splendid
demonstration of what is possible, and a standing rebuke to the
churches of civilized nations which have not even noticed this grand
demonstration of the possibilities of humanity.
The grandest and most hopeful co-operative scheme yet proposed is that
of Mr. Albert K. Owen, entitled the "Credit Foncier of Sinaloa," which
has been established at the harbor of Topolobampo, in the state of
Sinaloa, on the western coast of Mexico, where a large and liberal
grant has been obtained from the Mexican government for the Credit
Foncier Company, chartered by the state of Colorado, Mr. Owen being
chairman of the Board of Directors. Its headquarters were at rooms 7
and 8, 32 Nassau Street, New York, and the members of the community
are already gathered in considerable numbers at Topolobampo. The
Credit Foncier of Jan. 11 reports over 4,800 persons enlisted for the
colony, and over sixteen thousand shares of stock sold.
This is not a unitary community, in which the individuality of the
members is lost, but a co-operative corporation, owning its lands as a
society, and abolishing at once the primary evils of land monopoly and
a false financial system. As stated by Mr. E. Howland, "the community
is responsible for the health, usefulness, individuality, and security
of each member, and at the same time each will feel secure in his
social and individual rights in the existence of the collective
ownership and management for public utilities and conveniences,
instead of the disorganized chaos in which to-day we live."
A system of distribution will be adopted, doing away with the immense
cost of trade as at present conducted. The laborer will be protected
against misfortune by a system of insurance and a pension in old age.
Employment and opportunity will be provided for all, and education
provided for all children. It is upon this education that the
_ultimate_ success of the society must depend, for it is impossible to
organize a perfect society of those whose characters have been moulded
by the present antagonistic condition of society. All grand ideals
must look to the future for their realization. That such realization
may occur in the Sinaloa colony is indicated by the following
quotation from the exposition of the Credit Foncier by Mr. Howland.
"As we shall have to, at least during this generation depend upon the
colonization of persons who have been subject to the influences of
society as it is, we would only say, that the new truths concerning
moral education contained in 'The New Education' by Mr. J. R.
Buchanan, have been carefully examined by the writer of this, and its
most important lessons shall be applied in the organization of our
schools; for the power of love can be unquestionably applied, not only
as a cure for the evils produced inevitably by the system of
competition, but also as a miraculous agent in aiding the progress of
society to an inconceivably higher plane of human life."
The newspaper in exposition of the society entitled, "The Credit
Foncier of Sinaloa," published at $1 a year, at Hammonton, New Jersey,
will be issued hereafter at Topolobampo, Mexico. A report descriptive
of the site of the colony and the surrounding country (price six
cents) and a map of the colony's site (price ten cents) may be
obtained by addressing the editor, E. Howland, at Topolobampo, Mexico.
While the Journal is going through the press, the colonists are
gathering in large numbers, and by our next issue we may have some
account of the commencement of this noble enterprise.
Its founder, Mr. A. K. Owen, is a gentleman of great energy and
enterprise, guided by noble principles, a skilful surveyor and
engineer. About fourteen years ago he made extensive exploration in
Mexico, especially on its Pacific Coast, discovered and reported
Topolobampo Bay, and introduced the scheme of the Norfolk &
Topolobampo Railroad, which he urged upon the attention of Congress,
winning the approbation of committees, but finally defeated by the
great railroad corporations. He took an active part in Mexican
affairs, forming gigantic plans for the public welfare, by a syndicate
at the head of which was Gen. Torbert, which were defeated by a
shipwreck in which Gen. Torbert was lost, and himself narrowly escaped
death. He then organized with the co-operation of Gen. Grant, Gen.
Butler, and other distinguished men, the "Texas, Topolobampo & Pacific
Railroad and Telegraph Company," and obtained a concession of 2,000
miles of railroad and a subsidy of $16,000,000. Hon. Wm. Windom was
president, and Mr. Owen chief engineer. In 1873 he located a hundred
miles of the road from Topolobampo eastwardly, and two years ago the
construction commenced. Thus in the midst of a life of great activity
and experience in engineering, finance, politics, reform, and travel,
Mr. Owen, as a practical and skilful manager of great undertakings,
inspired by a strong democratic philanthropy, has laid the plan of a
co-operative colony on the basis of liberal concessions from the
Mexican government, and opened a field in which his democratic ideas
of human rights, of land, labor, finance, hygiene, freedom, and
general reform, can have full scope.
Mr. Owen's ideas and plans are stated in a book of two hundred pages,
published by Jno. W. Lovell, 14 Vesey Street, New York, and sent by
mail for thirty cents. It is not a systematic treatise, but a
miscellaneous collection of documents which give a good deal of
information.
The Topolobampo scheme is one requiring great skill and executive
ability in the directors, as well as a harmonious and energetic spirit
in the colonists. The climate, soil, and opportunities are no doubt
the best that have ever been accorded to a scheme of co-operation, and
when its success has been realized, it may be accounted the most
important social event of the century, for it will be the dawn of
peace to a warring world, the promise of harmony between all the
restless and convulsive elements of civilized society.
HEALTH AND LONGEVITY.
Upon these subjects the JOURNAL OF MAN has a new physiological
doctrine to present, which may be stated in the initial number, and
will be illustrated hereafter.
In the volume of "Therapeutic Sarcognomy," which was so speedily and
entirely sold upon its publication, it was clearly demonstrated that
the doctrine of vitality taught at this time in all medical colleges
is essentially erroneous, and that human life is not a mere aggregate
of the properties of the tissues of the human body, as a house is an
aggregate of the physical properties of bricks and wood, but is an
influx, of which the body is but the channel and recipient.
That demonstration need not be repeated just now, as my object is
merely to state the _position_ of the JOURNAL. Life is an influx from
the world of invisible power, aided by various forms of influx from
the material world, without which it would promptly cease. If this
naked statement should seem fanciful or erroneous to any reader, he
may be just to himself by suspending his opinions until he shall have
received the demonstration. We have all been educated into false
opinions on this subject, and it is almost as difficult for the
American scholar to release himself from the influence of education
and habit in such matters, as for the Arab to release his mind from
the influence of the Koran.
It has been only within the last ten years, and as the sequel of
investigations of the seat of life beginning in 1835, that I succeeded
in ascertaining the absolute falsity of the doctrines on this subject
maintained by all scientific biologists at the present time, and
demonstrating that the human body is only a tenement, of which life is
the builder, and which drops into decay when life deserts it to meet
its more congenial home in a nobler realm.
It is not therefore in the physical but in the spiritual constitution
that the real basis of his character, his health, and longevity is to
be found, for the primitive germ or protoplasm of man cannot be
distinguished from that of a quadruped or bird. It is the invisible
and incalculable life element that contains the potentiality or
possibility of existence as a quadruped or a man, as a virtuous or
vicious, and as a long lived or short lived, being. The life element
of the germ limits the destiny of the being. That life element is
invisible.
This truth, however, does not contradict the truth of development and
the capacity of science to estimate the probable health or longevity
of an individual from his organization, for the life force organizes a
body in accordance with its own character; and the development of the
entire person shows the character of the vital force as modified by
the environment of food, air, motives, and education. The brain, no
less than the body,--indeed, more fully than the body,--shows the
elements of the life and the tendency to health and longevity, or the
reverse, upon which an expert cranioscopist can give an opinion.
In accordance with the doctrine of influx and in accordance with the
functions of the brain we are compelled to recognize health and
longevity as more closely associated with the higher than the lower
faculties,--the moral rather than the animal nature. This is the
reason that woman, with a feebler body but a stronger moral nature,
ranks higher in health and longevity than man; and although from four
to sixteen per cent more males are born, women are generally in
predominance, often from two to six per cent. The researches of the
Bureau of Statistics of Vienna show that about one third more women
than men reach an advanced age. De Verga asserts that of sudden deaths
there are about 100 women to 780 men. The inevitable inference is that
the cultivation of virtue or religion is the surest road to longevity,
and the indulgence in vice and crime the most certain ruin to the body
and soul.
There is a curious illustration of these principles in the evidence of
life insurance companies in reference to spirit drinking and
abstinence. The oldest two life insurance companies of England, the
General Provident and the United Kingdom, have made records for
forty-five years which distinguish the total abstainers and the
moderate drinkers. Drunkards they do not insure at all. The care with
which lives are selected for insurance results in a smaller rate of
mortality among the insured than in the entire population. This gain
was but slight among those classed as moderate drinkers, for their
mortality was only three per cent less than the average mortality; but
among the total abstainers it was thirty-one per cent less. Thus the
proportion of deaths among moderate drinkers compared to that of total
abstainers is as 97 to 69.
The temperance advocate would assume that this was owing entirely to
the deleterious effects of alcohol, and that is partially true; but
there is a deeper reason in the difference of the two classes of men.
The man in whom the appetites are well controlled by the higher
energies of his nature, and who has therefore no inclination to
gluttony or drunkenness, has a better organization for health and
longevity than he in whom the appetites have greater relative power,
and who seeks the stimulus of alcohol to relieve his nervous
depression. The inability or unwillingness to live without stimulation
is a mark of weakness, which is an impairment of health; and this
weakness predisposes to excessive and irregular indulgence, though it
may not go so far as intoxication.
The effects of marriage furnish a parallel illustration. It is
well-known that bachelors are more short lived than married men, but
this is not owing _entirely_ to the hygienic influence of marriage. It
is partly owing to the inferiority of bachelors as a class. The men
who remain celibate are either too inferior personally to win the
regard of women, or are generally deficient in the strong affections
which seek a conjugal life, and the energies which make them fearless
of its responsibilities and burdens. Evidently they have not as a
class the robust energies of the marrying men, and the urgent motives
to compel them to regular industry and prudence. Everything which
stimulates men to exercise the nobler qualities of their nature is
promotive of health and longevity; and the _true_ religion which
anthropology commends will increase human longevity in proportion as
it prevails.
In future numbers the true basis and indications of longevity in man
will be fully illustrated.
The attainable limits of human longevity are generally underrated by
the medical profession and by popular opinion. Instead of the
Scriptural limit of threescore and ten I would estimate twice that
amount, or 140 years, as the ideal age of healthy longevity, when
mankind shall have been bred and trained with the same wise energy
that has been expended on horses and cattle. Of the present scrub
race, a very large number ought never to have been born, and ought not
to be allowed to transmit their physical and moral deficiencies to
posterity.
The estimate of 140 years as a practicable longevity for a nobler
generation is sustained by the number of that age (fourteen, if I
recollect rightly) found in Italy by a census under one of the later
Roman emperors. But for the race now on the globe a more applicable
estimate is that of the European scientist, that the normal longevity
of an animal is five times its period of growth,--a rule which gives
the camel forty years, the horse twenty-five, the lion twenty, the dog
ten, the rabbit five. By this calculation man's twenty years of growth
indicate 100. But growth is not limited to twenty, and if we extend
the period of maturing to twenty-eight, the same rule would give us
140 as an age for the best specimens of humanity, which has been
attained in rare cases, its general possibility in improved conditions
being thus demonstrated.
There are many fine examples of longevity at this time. The famous
French chemist Chevreul has just completed his hundredth year at
Paris, in the full vigor of his intellect.
The _Novosti_, a Russian journal, recently mentions the death in the
almshouse of St. Petersburg of a man aged 122 years, whose mental
faculties were preserved up to his death, and who had excellent health
to the age of 118.
We have similar examples in the United States. Mrs. Celia Monroe, a
colored woman, who died a few weeks ago at Kansas City was believed to
be 125. She was going about a few days before her death.
Farmer O'Leary of Elkton, Minnesota, is over 112. Noah Raby of
Plainfield, New Jersey, is in his 115th year. He supports himself by
his work in the summer, and looks like a man of 80.
Of very recent deaths we have: Amos Hunt of Barnesville, Georgia, who
died at 105, leaving twenty-three of his twenty-eight children. Mrs.
Raymond of Wilton, Connecticut, was still living recently in her 106th
year. Ben Evans, part Indian, part negro, a great hunter of Wilkes
County, Georgia, died at 107; baptized after he was 100. Mrs. Betsy L.
Moody died on the 4th of July in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, aged 104. Wm.
Henry Williams of Cincinnati, died a few months ago at 102. James
Fitzgerald of Prince Edwards Island, over a hundred years old, is
still able to work. Mrs. Lydia Van Ranst lately died on East 16th
Street, New York, aged 100 years and ten months; and Mrs. Johanna
O'Sullivan in Boston in her 103d year. Mrs. Betsy Perkins of Rome, N.
Y., was apparently in excellent health when she died suddenly at the
breakfast table in her 101st year. Rev. Hugh Call died in Wayne
County, Indiana, at 104. After his hundredth year he once fancied
death was near, and sent for his family to see him die; but when they
arrived in midwinter, they found the old man busy cutting wood to make
a fire for his visitors.
Many of these examples show that the faculties of both soul and body
ought to be maintained in good condition to the last, as fruit falls
from the trees ripe and perfect. When we leave our earthly tenement,
we ought to leave it in a respectable condition, and not carry any
infirmities from it to the better world.
REMARKABLE FASTING.
"Signor Merlatti, a young Italian, completed in December his fifty
days' fast, at the Grand Hotel, Paris, in time to enjoy the
festivities of the holidays. Unlike his rival, Succi, he partook of no
mysterious elixir, but existed on water alone. At the conclusion of
his feat, he was so nearly dead that the surgeons were anticipating by
way of dissection more light on the effects of privation from food. He
was barely able to move about without help. His stomach was unable to
hold any solids, and at the big banquet over which he presided he
could not have had a very convivial time, as he was unable to take a
mouthful of food. He has since gradually recovered. Succi, meanwhile,
is engaged in another fast. He fences and takes any amount of
exercise, to show that his mysterious liquid is what does it."
This is a little over the record of Dr. Tanner, but the result is very
different. Dr. Tanner came out in good condition, with a splendid and
healthy appetite. In the first twenty-four hours he ate something
every hour or two, indulging largely in watermelons, milk, apples,
beefsteak, potatoes, English ale, and Hungarian wine. He gained eight
and a half pounds weight in thirty hours. Everybody was astonished,
and the doctors were confounded; the crowd cheered, and the music
resounded as the fast was finished and the feasting began in Clarendon
Hall, the doctor being in as good health and spirits as when he began,
except as to physical strength.
Now it is proper to mention what I believe has not before been
published, having been carefully concealed by Dr. Tanner. As he was
encountering the whole force of a brutal prejudice in the medical
profession, and trickery and falsehood were used to defeat him by Dr.
Hammond and Dr. Landon C. Gray, (a shabby story indeed, if the whole
truth is ever told,) Dr. Tanner did not think it safe to elicit any
additional hostility by confessing his mediumship.
The whole performance was a _triumph of spiritual power_! Dr. Tanner
came to me in New York to aid him in giving a demonstration of his
fasting power, which had been denied in an insolent and scurrilous
manner by Dr. Hammond and others. Dr. Hammond, with a great deal of
duplicity and unfairness, evaded the test, and it was carried out with
the aid of other parties in a very satisfactory manner.
The organization of Dr. Tanner was not such as I would have selected
for a fasting performance, and he did not undertake it on his own
resources alone. He was thoroughly a medium, and, when in my parlor,
Indian spirits would take control of him, and carry him through a
lively performance, speaking through his lips, and promising to
sustain him through the fast; and they did. I have no doubt that with
a suitable organization, such as is more frequently found in India
than in America, a fast could be sustained by spirit power for six or
twelve months. Indeed, there are records of such fasts in the old
medical authors, which are omitted in all recent works. The spirit of
dogmatic scepticism had carried the medical profession generally into
such a depth of ignorance on these subjects that Dr. Landon C. Gray
declared that a forty days' fast had never occurred, and that if Dr.
Tanner attempted it, it must be assumed "that he will cheat at every
turn."
The kind of sentiment cultivated by colleges in the medical profession
was shown by the deportment of the medical visitors. The report of the
fast says:--
"The most curious episodes, probably, on the whole, were afforded by
the appearance of sceptics, and members of the medical profession from
the country. Many of the latter came long distances to satisfy their
respective curiosity, or vent their scepticism, as the case might be.
As a rule they were long-visaged, not a few were unkempt, and many
were downright seedy in wearing apparel. Almost invariably they
insisted upon boring the doctor with numberless questions, many of
which were idle. The majority displayed ignorance, and it might
truthfully be said, they were rude almost without exception. One man
insisted upon feeling Dr. Tanner's arms and legs; another wanted to
feel his pulse; a third demanded a view of his tongue; a fourth
declared food must be given to him surreptitiously, else he would be
dead; a fifth wanted to search his pockets; the sixth asserted his
professional reputation (_sic_) that there was fraud about the whole
business; the seventh had some patent surgical, or other appliance,
which he wished to test upon the patient; and yet another wanted to
analyze even the water he used, before the faster drank it.
"The effect of these boors in their constant inroads upon a fasting
man, whose surroundings and conditions were not of the best, to say
the least, may be easily imagined. When these fanatics were prevented
by the watchers from extracting what little of life was left in the
object of their devotions, their indignation took various forms of
expression. As a rule they denounced the whole thing as a humbug, and
every one participating as frauds. Now and then it became positively
necessary, in common decency and self-respect, to show these
charlatans the way to the door, notwithstanding their protests that
they had paid twenty-five cents for the purpose of ventilating their
empty heads. As a general thing, by Dr. Tanner's direction, the
admission fee was returned to these people. Even on the thirty-ninth
day, when the doctor desired all the quiet he could obtain, one of
these gentry, who said he was a physician from Long Island, talked so
loudly that he had to be called to order, and then nothing daunted, he
asked the faster to go in his enfeebled condition to the south
gallery, where his writing materials were, to prepare an autograph for
the applicant. The _Herald_ reporter on watch at the time, through
whom the request was made for the autograph, gave the fellow a settler
by remarking, that he, as a layman, thought the first rudiments taught
in the medical profession, were those of feelings of humanity.
"Then the wits had their time of it. They showered in caricatures and
doggerel by the barrel. None enjoyed these more than the doctor
himself. By his direction the funniest of the cartoons were pasted
against the wall of the gallery in which the doctor slept and the
watchers sat. Above the whole was the legend in German text, 'Tanner
Art Gallery,' and during the closing days and hours of the fast it was
a source of much attraction and a great deal of merriment to the
thousands of visitors who sought the place."
Before the fasting began I witnessed an amusing specimen of the
medical scepticism. One of the medical visitors inspected the hall
closely, and finding in the back part that a piece of nearly worn out
carpet remained on the floor, proceeded to rip it up and tear it away,
as if he suspected there might be a trap door concealed.
Medical education has been miserably cramped and benighted by the
total ignoring of the nobler element of the human constitution.
CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY.
The comprehensive system of science developed by experiment on the
brain, perfected by psychometric exploration, demonstrated by
pathognomy, corroborated by personal experiences and the sensations of
the head, enforced and illustrated by the study of comparative
development throughout the animal kingdom, based upon anatomy,
illustrated by pathology, and proven by every examination of a living
head, as well as every scientific experiment upon the brain in
sensitive and intelligent persons, has now been for forty years in the
hot crucible of experimental physiological investigation by
vivisection, ablation, autopsy, and electricity, and still remains as
the solid gold of eternal science.
The labors of Ferrier, Fritsch, Hitzig, Schiff, Bastian, Charcot, and
others, have added many valuable facts; but no new fact can contradict
a fact previously well observed, and nothing has occurred to dethrone
the founder of cerebral science, Dr. Gall, who ranks immeasurably
beyond all his contemporaries, and who prepared the way for the full
development of Cerebral Psychology, resulting from the discovery of
the _impressibility of the brain_, which has opened the entire realm
of _cerebral psychology_, and through that has given us access to
every realm of wisdom.
The long expected and long promised work upon this subject cannot be
published now, for it requires an amount of elaborate research and
criticism to bring the new discoveries _en rapport_ with the
investigations of more than a hundred physiologists and anatomists,
whose labors should not be overlooked in a complete or systematic work
uniting anatomy to psychology.
Under these circumstances it is necessary and practicable, since my
"System of Anthropology" has been entirely out of the market for
thirty years, to present a concise exposition of cerebral psychology
and physiology, to satisfy those who perceive the inadequacy of the
Gallian system, and who are aware that my discoveries have thoroughly
revolutionized as well as enlarged cerebral science, rendering the old
term phrenology inadequate to express its present status.
I propose therefore to publish in the successive numbers of this
Journal a concise "Synopsis of Cerebral Science," giving as concisely
as possible the outlines of that vast theme, in so clear and practical
a manner that each reader can test its truth in nature by examining
character, correcting the errors of phrenology, demonstrating the
science by his own experiments, and applying its principles in the
treatment of disease, in experimental investigation, in education,
self-culture, and elocution. This may satisfy the urgent present
demand, until time shall permit a satisfactory work, containing the
illustrations and proofs, the important modern discoveries in cerebral
anatomy and vivisecting experiments, as well as the vast and
interesting philosophy into which we are led by cerebral science. The
March number will contain the first instalment, and its publication
will be continued through the volume.
MUSIC.
The claims of music were never so thoroughly presented as in the "New
Education," in which it was shown that music was the most effective of
all agents for the cultivation of man's higher nature, and the
elevation of the world from its purgatory of selfishness, poverty, and
crime. This idea was most fully realized by MRS. ELIZABETH THOMPSON,
who has spent a considerable amount in promoting the currency and use
of music, especially of a religious character.
The idea that music should exercise a world redeeming power, and
promote all social advancement, must appear strange, when first
mentioned to those who are familiar only with fashionable operatic
performances and the heartless style of vocal and instrumental music
in vogue at the centres of musical education, which is robbed as
thoroughly as possible of all ethical life, all soul inspiring power.
There is music, however, which sways our noblest emotions, which can
bring smiles to the face or tears to the eyes, hope to the dejected or
courage to the timid,--which can rouse the strongest impulses of love
and duty. The musical reformer who shall change the tide of popular
music from its present low channels to that higher sphere of sweet and
noble sentiments, will be far more than a Wagner,--aye, more than a
Luther.
Dr. Talcott, Superintendent of the Middleton, N. Y., State Asylum of
the Insane, has introduced music into all of the wards of his
institution with excellent results, judging from his last annual
report, from which the following is extracted. "It is said, that
before Moses dwelt upon the banks of the Nile, the Egyptians erected
temples and altars for the treatment of the insane; and, among the
most notable measures for the accomplishment of the cure of lunatics,
music took an exalted rank. There can be no doubt that music exercises
a potent influence in producing calm and restfulness in minds which
are disturbed by cerebral diseases. Musical instruments have been
provided in nearly every ward, and the results have been most
favorable. Even turbulent patients will subside when the pleasures of
music are afforded to them. One of the most effective attendants we
ever had upon our disturbed wards was a good musician. After his work
was done, he would sit down among his patients, and play upon the
violin. Immediately the most excited persons in the ward would group
themselves about him, and listen with profound attention so long as he
continued to play for them. Where good music can be provided for the
turbulent insane, there exists but little necessity for restraint of a
physical nature."
INSANITY.
The tendency of modern civilization is toward insanity. It is
increasing throughout Christendom, and far more where the boasted
influences of modern education and the so-called progress are most
fully realized. The whole fabric of education and society is unsound,
and this is proved by the results.
A true civilization advancing in wisdom must develop the ability to
correct its own evils, but the civilization that we have is drifting
on, downward and helpless.
The philosophy of insanity and the philosophy of its remedial
treatment can be found only in the profound study of the brain, and
its relations to the soul and body. But there is not a glimmer of the
psychic science of the brain to-day in our colleges. In due time, this
theme shall be discussed in the Journal.
A proper understanding of this subject will show what method of life
and thought tends toward insanity, and by what methods we escape it.
It will show also the relation of disease to insanity, and the proper
methods of moral and physical treatment.
MISCELLANY.
OUR NARROW LIMITS AND FUTURE TASKS.--As the Journal goes to press I
realize vividly how utterly inadequate a dollar monthly is for the
expression of the new philosophy, even in the most condensed form, and
for the periscope of progress that it should contain. A large amount
of desirable matter is necessarily excluded. Nevertheless a modest
beginning is prudent; for the vitality of a young journal, whether
daily, weekly, or monthly, is as delicate as that of an infant. It is
to be hoped that the friends of progress will secure patronage enough
to the Journal this year to justify its enlargement in 1888. Meantime
the minister whose circuit embraces many stations cannot visit them
all each week. In like manner the JOURNAL OF MAN has too large a
circuit to approach each of its themes every month. The science of man
being the highest and most comprehensive of themes, occupies the chief
position in the first number. Hereafter we must consider in succession
such themes as
1. PSYCHOMETRY and its revelations; SPIRITUAL science and philosophy.
2. MEDICAL progress and reform; HYGIENE and temperance.
3. EDUCATIONAL principles and progress; PROGRESS in science and
invention.
4. The truth in RELIGION; the prevention of WAR.
5. LAND AND LABOR questions; the extinction of MONOPOLIES.
6. WOMAN'S rights and progress; the condition of the WORLD.
And a score of other important themes. It may be two years before they
can all be reached. Those who preserve their Journals will in time
have a small library, embodying the knowledge that progressive minds
would cherish.
PALMISTRY.--Mr. E. Heron-Allen, a very intelligent gentleman from
England, with a fashionable prestige, has been interesting the
fashionables of New York and Boston in palmistry, or, as he calls it,
cheirosophy, with considerable profit to himself. The human
constitution is so unitary in itself that every portion reveals much
of the whole. Physicians learn a great deal from the globules of the
blood, others draw many inferences from the excretions. The amount of
study given to the hand renders it probable that palmistry may have
considerable value as a physiognomic science. As it comes now in a
fashionable style it may flourish, but of course it was only a vulgar
imposture when practiced by gypsies. Circumstances alter cases.
SUICIDE.--Eight months of the present year show 150 suicides in the
German army. Suicides will be greatly diminished when nations disband
their armies.
THEOSOPHIST REVIEWS.--The _Theosophist_, published at Madras, India,
may be considered the leading organ of Oriental Theosophy; the _Path_,
published at New York, bids fair as the American representative of the
Theosophic School; and Lady Caithness, Duchesse de Pomar, has started
at Paris a review devoted to theosophy and occult science.
APPARITIONS OF THE DEAD.--Prof. Barrett of the English Psychical
Research Society, states that: "It has been demonstrated almost as
certainly as has been the law of gravitation, that scores of cases
have occurred where some persons in one town, have, at a certain hour
or minute, seen the figure of a friend flit across the room, and have
afterwards discovered that at that very hour and minute the friend
breathed his last in a distant town, or, may be, in a foreign country.
Now these cases are inexplicable by any formula of science, yet that
they have happened is scientifically proved."
Notwithstanding the good intentions of some of the members of that
society, its general conduct has been so unfair in its investigations
that Stainton Moses, the vice-president, has felt it to be his duty to
resign and withdraw. The truth is, the pioneers in philosophy can
expect no cordial co-operation and no real justice from their oldtime
opponents. The American Psychic Research Society is far behind the
English.
HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY.--A girl was taken before the Paris tribunal
charged with stealing a blanket. She pleaded that she was under the
influence of another person and could not help herself. In prison it
was found that she was in a hypnotized condition, and acted readily
under the commands of others, doing anything that was told her. She
was examined by a commission of Chacrot, Brouardel, and Mollett, who
reported that this condition came from the use of morphia, suffering,
and hunger; that these suggestions from others, acting on an unstable
nervous organism, greatly deranged by morphia and other causes,
rendered her irresponsible for her acts. She was acquitted.
HUMAN TAILS.--M. Eliseff presented to the French Anthropological
Society a woman with a caudal appendage covered with hair. This
anomaly was present in several of the maternal ancestors of the woman.
MEN WHO LIVE IN TREES.--Dr. Louis Wolf, who made the sensational
discovery a while ago that the Sankuru River afforded a more direct
and more easily navigated route to Central Africa than the Congo, made
another discovery in the course of the same journey which was quite as
remarkable if not so important. On the banks of the Lomami River, far
toward the centre of the continent, he says he found whole villages
that were built in the trees. The natives, partly to protect
themselves from the river when in flood, and partly to make it more
difficult for their enemies to surprise them, build their huts on the
limbs of the trees where the thick foliage almost completely hides the
structures from view. The inmates possess almost the agility of
monkeys, and they climb up or descend from their little houses with
astonishing ease. It is believed they are the only Africans yet known
who live in trees.
In Borneo some of the natives are said to live in trees, and Mr.
Chalmers, in his book on New Guinea, tells of a number of tree houses
that he visited on that island. These huts, which are built near the
tops of very high trees, are used for look-out purposes, or as a place
of refuge for women and children in case of attack. They are perfect
little huts with sloping roofs and platforms in front, to which
extends the long ladder, by means of which the natives reach the huts.
Mr. Gill describes one of these houses which was used as a residence.
He says it was well built, but that it rocked uncomfortably in the
wind.
PROTYLE. The address of Professor William Crookes before the British
Association, upon the "Genesis of the Elements," is one of the most
important contributions to chemical philosophy that has been published
for a long time. Reasoning from the recently discovered law of
periodicity among the elements, he discusses the possibility of their
being formed from the cooling of one primitive form of matter, which
he calls _protyle_. While he admits that we have no direct evidence
that the elements are different manifestations of the same form of
matter, yet he thinks that the observed phenomena of chemistry and
physics point very strongly to such a conclusion, and agrees with
Faraday, that, "to decompose the metals, then to reform them, to
change them from one to another, and to realize the once absurd notion
of transmutation, are the problems now given to the chemist for
solution." We consider Professor Crookes to be one of the most eminent
scientists now living, and any views he may advance are entitled to
serious consideration.--_Popular Science News._
THE KEELEY MOTOR, at Philadelphia, which has long been regarded as a
visionary or deceptive enterprise, is coming out now with the
endorsement of engineers who have witnessed its operation and say that
it develops a new power which cannot be accounted for by any of the
known laws of dynamics. It may, however, be a long time before the
proper machinery can be invented and constructed for bringing this
power into use.
HUMAN ANOMALIES, MOUNG PHOSET, MAHPHOON, AND THE GIANT WINKELMEIER.
[Illustration: MOUNG PHOSET.] [Illustration: MAHPHOON.]
Every departure from the stereotyped plan of humanity is an
interesting proof of the vast capacities of nature, and therefore a
prophecy of possible variation and grander development for the coming
generations; hence the hairy family--Moung Phoset, his mother,
Mahphoon, and the giant Winkelmeier--are deeply interesting to the
anthropologist.
WINKELMEIER, according to the _London Standard_, is now in London at
the Pavilion, standing _eight feet, nine inches high_, a foot higher
than Chang, the Chinese giant, and evidently the tallest man living.
He was born in 1865, in Upper Austria. Neither his four brothers,
parents, nor grandparents, are unusually tall. He is healthy, strong,
and intelligent, and is expected to continue growing.
MOUNG PHOSET, and his old mother, MAHPHOON, whose pictures are here
given, are now in London on exhibition. They were the hairy family of
King Theebaw of Burmah, and when Theebaw was captured by the British
army, they escaped to the jungle, where they were robbed by Dacoits,
but were recovered by Captain Piperno, and brought to England. Moung
Phoset, like his mother, has his face and entire body covered by long,
fine hair, from five to twelve inches long, which even fills the ears,
and on the forehead is so long that it has to be drawn back over the
ears to uncover the eyes. He is an intelligent and well-behaved man,
and has a fair Burmese education. His wife, however, is a common
Burmese woman. Moung Phoset, having no children, is the last of a
hairy species, which it is said, originated in his great grandfather,
who was caught wild in the forest between Upper Burmah and Siam.
Hairy irregularities, according to Darwin, are associated with
irregularities of the teeth. In Moung Phoset the molar teeth are
deficient.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT.
The BUSINESS DEPARTMENT of the Journal deserves the attention of all
its readers, as it will be devoted to matters of general interest and
real value. The treatment of the opium habit by Dr. Hoffman is
original and successful. Dr. Hoffman is one of the most gifted members
of the medical profession. The electric apparatus of D. H. Fitch is
that which I have found the most useful and satisfactory in my own
practice. Bovinine I regard as occupying the first rank among the food
remedies which are now so extensively used. The old drug house of B.
O. & G. C. Wilson needs no commendation; it is the house upon which I
chiefly rely for good medicines, and does a very large business with
skill and fidelity. The _American Spectator_, edited by Dr. B. O.
Flower, is conducted with ability and good taste, making an
interesting family paper, containing valuable hygienic and medical
instruction, at a remarkably low price. It is destined to have a very
extensive circulation. I have written several essays in commendation
of the treatment of disease by oxygen gas, and its three compounds,
nitrous oxide, per-oxide and ozone. What is needed for its general
introduction is a convenient portable apparatus. This is now furnished
by Dr. B. M. Lawrence, at Hartford, Connecticut. A line addressed to
him will procure the necessary information in his pamphlet on that
subject. He can be consulted free of charge.
The spiritual newspapers, The Banner, The Religio-Philosophical
Journal, Light for Thinkers, Golden Gate, Carrier Dove, and World's
Advance Thought, embody a large amount of the leading truths of the
age. He who does not read one of them robs himself of instruction and
pleasure. Facts is just what its name indicates, a concise collection
of interesting spiritual facts. Hall's Journal of Health has an
established reputation, and of late is better conducted than ever.
* * * * *
College of Therapeutics.
The large amount of scientific and therapeutic knowledge developed by
recent discoveries, but not yet admitted into the slow-moving medical
colleges, renders it important to all young men of liberal minds--to
all who aim at the highest rank in their profession--to all who are
strictly conscientious and faithful in the discharge of their duties
to patients under their care, to have an institution in which their
education can be completed by a preliminary or a post-graduate course
of instruction.
The amount of practically useful knowledge of the healing art which is
absolutely excluded from the curriculum of old style medical colleges
is greater than all they teach--not greater than the adjunct sciences
and learning of a medical course which burden the mind to the
exclusion of much useful therapeutic knowledge, but greater than all
the curative resources embodied in their instruction.
The most important of these therapeutic resources which have sometimes
been partially applied by untrained persons are now presented in the
College of Therapeutics, in which is taught not the knowledge which is
now represented by the degree of M. D., but a more profound knowledge
which gives its pupils immense advantages over the common graduate in
medicine.
Therapeutic Sarcognomy, a science often demonstrated and endorsed by
able physicians, gives the anatomy not of the physical structure, but
of the vital forces of the body and soul as located in every portion
of the constitution--a science vastly more important than physical
anatomy, as the anatomy of life is more important than the anatomy of
death. Sarcognomy is the true basis of medical practice, while anatomy
is the basis only of operative surgery and obstetrics.
Indeed, every magnetic or electric practitioner ought to attend such a
course of instruction to become entirely skilful in the correct
treatment of disease.
In addition to the above instruction, special attention will be given
to the science and art of Psychometry--the most important addition in
modern times to the practice of medicine, as it gives the physician
the most perfect diagnosis of disease that is attainable, and the
power of extending his practice successfully to patients at any
distance. The methods of treatment used by spiritual mediums and "mind
cure" practitioners will also be philosophically explained.
The course of instruction will begin on Monday, the 2d of May, and
continue six weeks. The fee for attendance on the course will be $25.
To students who have attended heretofore the fee will be $15. For
further information address the president,
JOSEPH RODES BUCHANAN, M. D.
6 JAMES ST., BOSTON.
The sentiments of those who have attended these courses of instruction
during the last eight years were concisely expressed in the following
statement, which was unanimously signed and presented to Dr. Buchanan
by those attending his last course in Boston.
"The undersigned, attendant, upon the seventh session of the College
of Therapeutics, have been delighted with the profound and wonderful
instructions received, and as it is the duty of all who become
acquainted with new truths of great importance to the world, to assist
in their diffusion, we offer our free and grateful testimony in the
following resolutions:
"_Resolved_, That the lectures and experiments of Prof. Buchanan have
not only clearly taught, but absolutely demonstrated, the science of
Sarcognomy, by experiments in which we were personally engaged, and in
which we cannot possibly have been mistaken.
"_Resolved_, That we regard Sarcognomy as the most important addition
ever made to physiological science by any individual, and as the basis
of the only possible scientific system of Electro-Therapeutics, the
system which we have seen demonstrated in all its details by Prof.
Buchanan, producing results which we could not have believed without
witnessing the demonstration.
"_Resolved_, That Therapeutic Sarcognomy is a system of science of the
highest importance, alike to the magnetic healer, to the
electro-therapeutist, and to the medical practitioner,--giving great
advantages to those who thoroughly understand it, and destined to
carry the fame of its discoverer to the remotest future ages."
* * * * *
The "Chlorine" Galvanic and Faradic Batteries.
APPARATUS AND MATERIALS.
Description, Prices, and Testimonials Mailed Free, on Application.
6 JAMES ST., BOSTON, MASS., February 8, 1886.
D. H. FITCH, Cazenovia, N. Y.:
DEAR SIR: Your last letter has a valuable suggestion. Your
Carbon Electrodes ARE the very best now in use, and Metallic
Electrodes are objectionable from the metallic influence they impart,
even if no metal can be chemically traced into the patient.
J. R. BUCHANAN, M. D.
AURORA, ILL., Dec. 24, 1886.
D. H. FITCH, Cazenovia, N. Y.:
I am very glad to inform you that the battery which I purchased from
you seven months ago is better than you represented it, and works as
well to-day as it did on the first day.
The cells have not been looked at since they were first placed in the
cabinet. The battery is always ready and has never disappointed me.
Resp'y yours,
H. G. GABEL, M. D.
WORCESTER, MASS., Aug. 10, 1886.
D. H. FITCH, Cazenovia, N. Y.:
DEAR SIR: Over a year ago, as you will remember, I bought of
you one of your "Chlorine Batteries" of twenty-five cells. This I
placed in the cellar and connected with my office table for use there.
It has been in almost daily use since without ever having to do the
first thing to it, not even refilling, and now, after a year's
service, I cannot see but that it runs just as well as it did the
first day I used it, and the battery is just as clean as when put in,
nor the least particle of corroding. This is a better record than any
other battery can furnish with which I am acquainted. I can only say I
am more than pleased with it, as every man must be who knows anything
about electricity and has occasion to use a battery for medicinal
purposes.
J. K. WARREN, M. D.
WHITESTOWN, N. Y., April 15, 1886.
D. H. FITCH, ESQ.:
DEAR SIR: The "Chlorine Battery" is simply admirable, complete, just
the thing.
SMITH BAKER, M. D.
President Oneida Co. Med. Society.
TYLER, TEX., Feb. 11, 1886.
D. H. FITCH, ESQ., Cazenovia, N. Y.:
I am so well pleased with your "Chlorine Faradic Machine" that I now
use it in preference to any other. The current is so smooth and
regular that patients like it and seem to derive more benefit from it
than from the same strength of current from any other battery that I
have used. I would not be without it for many times its cost.
S. F. STARLEY, M. D.
D. H. FITCH,
P.O. Box 75. Cazenovia, N. Y.
* * * * *
Religio-Philosophical Journal.
ESTABLISHED 1865.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT
92 La Salle Street, Chicago,
BY JOHN C. BUNDY,
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION IN ADVANCE:
One copy, one year $2.50
Single copies, 5 cents. Specimen copy free.
All letters and communications should be addressed, and all
remittances made payable to
JOHN C. BUNDY, Chicago, Ill.
A Paper for all who Sincerely and Intelligently Seek Truth without
regard to Sect or Party.
Press, Pulpit, and People Proclaim its Merits.
_Concurrent Commendations from Widely Opposite Sources._
Is the ablest Spiritualist paper in America.... Mr. Bundy has earned
the respect of all lovers of the truth, by his sincerity and
courage.--_Boston Evening Transcript._
I have a most thorough respect for the JOURNAL, and believe its editor
and proprietor is disposed to treat the whole subject of spiritualism
fairly.--_Rev. M. J. Savage (Unitarian) Boston._
I wish you the fullest success in your courageous course.--_R. Heber
Newton, D. D._
Your course has made spiritualism respected by the secular
press as it never has been before, and compelled an honorable
recognition.--_Hudson Tuttle, Author and Lecturer._
I read your paper every week with great interest.--_H. W. Thomas, D. D.,
Chicago._
I congratulate you on the management of the paper.... I indorse your
position as to the investigation of the phenomena.--_Samuel Watson, D. D.,
Memphis, Tenn._
* * * * *
THE
WORLD'S ADVANCE THOUGHT,
A SPIRITED MONTHLY NEWSPAPER,
(28 x 42 inches,)
DEVOTED TO
Advanced Spiritual Ideas,
Is published at Salem, Oregon, at One Dollar a year.
Remit by mail through a post-office order, or a draft on a bank or
banking house in Salem. Send bank notes in registered letters only.
Address
Progressive Publishing Company,
SALEM, OREGON.
* * * * *
LIGHT FOR THINKERS.
THE PIONEER SPIRITUAL JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH.
Issued Weekly at Chattanooga, Tenn.
A. C. LADD Publisher.
G. W. KATES Editor.
Assisted by a large corps of able writers.
Terms of Subscription:
One copy, one year $1.50
One copy, six months .75
One copy, three months .40
Five copies, one year, one address 6.00
Ten or more, one year, to one address, each 1.00
Single copy, 5 cents. Specimen copy free.
* * * * *
FACTS,
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE,
DEVOTED TO
Mental and Spiritual Phenomena,
INCLUDING
Dreams, Mesmerism, Psychometry, Clairvoyance,
Clairaudience, Inspiration, Trance, and Physical
Mediumship; Prayer, Mind, and Magnetic
Healing; and all classes of Psychical
Effects.
Single Copies, 10 Cents; $1.00 per year.
PUBLISHED BY
Facts Publishing Company,
(Drawer 5323,) BOSTON, MASS.
_L. L. WHITLOCK, Editor._
For Sale by COLBY & RICH, 9 Bosworth Street.
* * * * *
HALL'S JOURNAL OF HEALTH,
ESTABLISHED 1854.
_Published Monthly, 206 Broadway, N. Y._
At $1.00 Per Annum.
The next issue of this publication will complete its 33d volume. It is
the CHEAPEST Family Health Periodical ever published, and well merits
the liberal patronage it enjoys. To every present subscriber who will
send us an additional one for the next volume we will remit a handsome
premium.
CAUTION.
A paper called "Hall's Health Journal" is endeavoring to ride into
popularity on the strength of our good name. Let not our patrons be
deceived by it.
HALL'S JOURNAL OF HEALTH,
206 Broadway, New York City.
* * * * *
THE CARRIER DOVE,
An Illustrated Monthly Magazine, devoted to
Spritualism and Reform.
Mrs. J. SCHLESINGER EDITOR.
Terms, $2.50 Per Year, Single Copies, 25 Cents.
Each number will contain the portraits and biographical sketches of
prominent mediums and spiritual workers of the Pacific coast, and
elsewhere, and spirit pictures by our artist mediums; also lectures,
essays, poems, spirit messages, editorial, and miscellaneous items.
Address all communications to
THE CARRIER DOVE
8541/2 Oakland St., California.
* * * * *
BANNER OF LIGHT,
THE OLDEST JOURNAL IN THE WORLD
DEVOTED TO THE
SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.
ISSUED WEEKLY
At 9 Bosworth Street (formerly Montgomery Place),
corner Province Street, Boston, Mass.
COLBY & RICH,
Publishers and Proprietors.
ISAAC B. RICH BUSINESS MANAGER.
LUTHER COLBY EDITOR.
JOHN W. DAY ASSISTANT EDITOR.
_Aided by a large corps of able writers._
THE BANNER is a first-class Family Newspaper of EIGHT
PAGES--containing FORTY COLUMNS OF INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE
READING--embracing
A LITERARY DEPARTMENT.
REPORTS OF SPIRITUAL LECTURES.
ORIGINAL ESSAYS--Upon Spiritual, Philosophical and Scientific Subjects.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
SPIRIT-MESSAGE DEPARTMENT, and
CONTRIBUTIONS by the most talented writers in the world, etc., etc.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, IN ADVANCE:
Per Year $3.00
Six Months 1.50
Three Months .75
Postage Free.
In remitting by mail, a post-office money order on Boston, or a draft
on a bank or banking house in Boston or New York City, payable to the
order of COLBY & RICH, is preferable to bank notes. _Our patrons can
remit us the fractional part of a dollar in postage stamps--ones and
twos preferred._
ADVERTISEMENTS published at twenty cents per line for the first, and
fifteen cents per line for each subsequent insertion.
Subscriptions discontinued at the expiration of the time paid for.
[Hand Pointing Right] _Specimen copies sent free._
COLBY & RICH
Publish and keep for sale at Wholesale and Retail a complete
assortment of
Spiritual, Progressive, Reformatory,
and Miscellaneous Books.
Any book published in England or America, not out of print, will be
sent by mail or express.
[Hand Pointing Right] Catalogues of books published and for sale by
Colby & Rich, sent free.
* * * * *
OPIUM and MORPHINE
HABITS
EASILY CURED BY
A NEW METHOD.
DR. J. C. HOFFMAN,
_JEFFERSON ... WISCONSIN._
* * * * *
OXYGEN TREATMENT.
LOCAL AGENTS WANTED.
For terms, address
DR. B. M. LAWRENCE, Hartford, Conn.