The age in which we live is a fast one, and he who does not move with
equal celerity, and keep pace with those around him, is ruthlessly
thrust to the wall, and remains there unless he has strength and will
to regain the lost position. We call to our aid every force of
Nature and invoke the assistance of every appliance with which we are
cognizant. We call our fathers slow, and to us they were so; but there
was the same need of celerity in their every-day life as to-day there
is in ours.
While calling to our aid the elements of Nature and adapting thousands
of mechanical appliances to our wants, do we not often feel that there
is beyond all these a "something" that may be invoked and trained to
help us on in the race of life? Occasionally we find dim glimmerings
of this "something" that we believe will eventually grow to be one of
the prominent sciences. Physiologists tell us that the human brain is
double, that the right and left lobes act in a degree independent of
each other--the right lobe of the brain controlling the physiology of
the left side of the individual from head to heel, while the left lobe
exercises a like dominion on the opposite side. Grant this to be true,
then can be explained the idiosyncrasy that is occasionally seen in
individuals, of which we may instance that of writing at the same
time with both hands; and again we have heard of telegraph operators
sending and receiving two messages at the same time, operating with
both hands, and independent of each other. It is said that Nasmyth,
the inventor of the steam hammer, could actually produce two sketches
or drawings in this way and at the same time. It is also affirmed that
Sir Charles Fox, the architect of the Exhibition building of 1851,
could write upon two ideas at the same time and transfer these ideas
simultaneously to paper with right and left hand. The mechanic can
often be found who can operate upon one piece of mechanism, while at
the same time his brain is busy upon the study of some unborn idea,
foreign to that work upon which he is laboring. Writers can be found
who can write out one train of ideas, while ideas entirely different
are being cogitated upon somewhere in their craniums. We have even
heard it affirmed that an indistinct glimmering of a third idea would
occasionally peep around the corner of the caputs of these favored
ones.
Why not educate this? Why not form schools and institutions to bring
it out and lead the brain to perform this double function? It can
certainly be done. The world wants it, surely. The age demands it.
Individuals need it. If these individuals can succeed and become
experts in this method of double work, will not double compensation
and a greater remuneration be their reward? This, certainly, will be
an incentive to its acquirement. Go to the apprentice when first he
takes position beside the vise, with chipping chisel in one hand and
hammer in the other. The injunction he mentally receives as he raises
the hammer is, that to miss the chisel is to hit his knuckles. After
a few demonstrative blows he knows what it means, and therefore chisel
and hammer soon come by some strange process to harmonize in action,
so that in whatever position the head of the chisel may be, the blow
is sure to be properly received, and that, too, without any sensible
effort on his part. In this illustration both right and left hand are
taught to act, by brain dictation, in a certain concerted manner.
Again, we find that mutes have been learned to articulate words
and sentences by proper education, they being taught to imitate the
motions of the mouth and labial organs as by their tutors directed.
Education can do much, and these are some of its results. Can we not
by proper teaching produce all the results as shown in the case of
Nasmyth and Fox. The first lessons must necessarily be simple. For
instance, two things done at the same time with both hands, giving
expression at this time to ideas connected therewith, but distinct
from each other. From this simple lesson we progress, and, as the
ultimatum, we may arrive at greater achievements than Nasmyth or Fox
ever dreamed of. We may find that we can so divide our entity that we
can be conscious of a double-brain existence in a dual action.
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