PART I.

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What's What

_in_

America

BY

Eugene V. Brewster

EDITOR OF

_Motion Picture Magazine, Motion Picture

Classic and Shadowland_

The Wm. G. Hewitt Press

61-67 Navy Street

Brooklyn, N. Y.

COPYRIGHT, 1919

BY

EUGENE V. BREWSTER

THE WILLIAM G. HEWITT PRESS, 61-67 NAVY STREET, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

_Preface_

America is a heterogeneous conglomeration of humans comprising a

homogeneity. They are all alike, yet they are unalike. All corners of

the earth have contributed in the making, yet the one hundred millions

have all been blended together into the huge melting pot and we call

them Americans. They were attracted to "the land of the free" and remain

here because no other country offers such prizes and such liberty. All

are engaged in a wild scramble for fame and fortune, yet they are sadly

disorganized. While they have their labor unions, churches, colleges,

societies, and cults galore, and while they have their governments

(city, county, state and national), and while the more successful ones

(capitalists) have their organizations (trusts, monopolies and banking

institutions), there is no organization of the whole. Nobody seems to

take into account the tremendously important fact that all men and all

industries are now interdependent, and that therefore they must all be

organized into one organization.

One of the most marvellous things in America is the fact that we are so

unorganized that at any moment the whole nation may be tied up and

bound hand and foot by strikes. Any morning we may wake up and find the

nation paralized. Labor is becoming so organized that all industries are

at its mercy. The cost of living continues to rise, and we are powerless

to prevent profiteers from monopolizing our products and making prices

to suit themselves. We have no way to make people work if they don't

want to, even if we starve. Under our present laws we cannot prevent

strikes and walk-outs, even if we perish. There is nothing to prevent a

few men from cornering the market on all commodities and paralizing the

nation's industries.

And yet there is a remedy, and a simple one.

Free thought reigns supreme in America, and the national mind and

character have been moulded in a remarkably liberal manner.

A nation that embraces a multitude of believers in such theories as

phrenology, Christian Science, osteopathy, astrology, spiritism, etc.,

and which adopts these and other fads as religions, must indeed be an

over-credulous if not a fanatical one. Some of these isms and ologies

have been dissected and analyzed in the following pages, and these

little essays have been inserted parenthetically, as it were. They tend

to prove that Barnum was right when he said, "The American public loves

to be humbugged."

Here in America, not so many years ago, we were burning people at the

stake and punishing innocent persons for witchcraft. Still later some of

our best people were holding converse with departed spirits who were

otherwise busying themselves with upsetting tables, painting portraits,

etc. And it is so even now. Thousands of intelligent Americans are now

being guided in all their affairs by mediums, astrologists, palmists,

clairvoyants, etc. Some years ago I had occasion to make a more or less

thorough investigation of some of these isms and ologies, and in the

following chapters I have given some of the results.

Our forefathers came here to escape religious persecutions at home, but

one of the first things they did on landing was to impose the penalty of

death on all those who should dissent from their own religious beliefs.

These and other similar Puritanic orders have done much to prevent the

growth and development of the arts in America. We have had liberty and

freedom to excess, in some respects, yet in other respects we have been

tied hand and foot. We are not yet a full-grown nation. America is still

in its infancy of development.

It is also interesting to note how Americans follow a chosen leader like

so many sheep, and how and why certain leaders become popular. Hence, a

few chapters have been added which treat of men, habits, popularity,

greatness, the public, etc.

The author makes no apology for the fact that these little articles were

not written with the intention of inserting them in this volume. It is

obvious that they were not. Nevertheless, they are given here for what

they are worth, because they may be helpful in showing What's What in

America.

THE AUTHOR.

December 15, 1919.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CREDULITY 5

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 10

OSTEOPATHY 29

PHRENOLOGY 42

PHYSIOGNOMY 54

DREAMS 61

SUPERSTITIONS 71

STAGE TRICKS AND OCCULTISM 84

GHOSTS 94

STRIKES, PROFITEERING AND THE

HIGH COST OF LIVING 101

THE PUBLIC 163

POPULARITY 167

GREATNESS 172

THE MARTYRDOM OF GENIUS 183

GENTLEMEN, BE SEATED 189

BEARDS 202

GAMBLING 211

WEDDING BELLS 222

What's What In America

_Credulity_

The physical origin of mental delusion has many times been investigated

and explained by various philosophers, but the different forms of

credulity and superstition have never yet been satisfactorily treated

with reference to the physiological and pathological principles upon

which they depend.

From the beginning, man was and is, by nature, endowed with an eager

propensity for novelty. This is particularly true of Americans. His

passion for the novel, the singular and the unusual, has influenced his

mind to attempt to discover the character of objects concealed in the

remote recesses of infinite space, and to investigate the various

invisible agencies that he has always found, and still finds, in

perpetual operation around him. Curiosity has always been one of the

great impelling forces of the scientific investigator. As Winwood Reade

says in his masterly "Martyrdom of Man," "The Philosophic spirit of

inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of

examining all things in search of food."

Man is by nature a credulous, and at the same time a superstitious,

being, and ever prone to allow an undue influence to the imagination and

passions. This is due to the original structure and specific elements of

the mind. It is a natural trait of the mind to contemplate with interest

whatever is presented to it as deviating from ordinary natural events,

whatever is novel or strange, and whatever affects the senses, through

an obscure medium so as to arouse the passions. Thus, when primeval man

first felt, saw or heard such natural phenomena as volcanic eruptions,

earthquakes, the aurora borealis, thunder, lightning, meteors, and

eclipses, it was quite natural for him to people the hidden recesses of

the earth and of space with demons, and to imagine that these strange

noises and sights were manifestations of some powerful enemy. In his

blind ignorance, he could ascribe no natural causes to the phenomena,

and he therefore attributed them to supernatural agencies. His feeling

of dependence, and of insecurity, in the face of these mighty unknown

forces, inclined him to seek a protector, and for this purpose he

created one or more gods. Idols of various kinds answered the purpose,

until his dawning intelligence taught him the futility of this sort of

worship, and then he worshipped the sun and other heavenly bodies. Then

a glimpse of astronomy further enlightened him, and, realizing the

absurdity of planet worship, he invented other gods of an invisible

nature to which he attributed the creation of all phenomena. The

propensity for the novel and marvelous always obscured his reason and

judgment. To the ignorant mind, everything marvelous is super-natural;

but the philosopher sees in all marvelous phenomena nothing but the

results of natural causes, even if those causes are not yet fully

understood. Science cannot yet fathom all of nature's mysteries, but

nearly every day brings forth new light.

In ancient times, the enlightened few took advantage of the ignorance of

the multitude, and, by stupefying their reason with a mixture of science

and magic, made them more submissive and obedient as slaves or subjects.

Science was used to inculcate gross superstitions in the minds of the

ignorant masses, for the purpose of enhancing the interests of the

deceivers. By means of concave and convex mirrors, of lenses, of

chemical and optical illusions, and even of ventriloquism, the pagans

fooled their devotees into all sorts of absurd beliefs. Demons and

angels were made to appear in frightfully distorted and hideous shapes,

the dead were evoked from their graves to hold converse with the living,

and every advantage was taken of natural phenomena such as the eclipse

and the mirage. Even drugs, like opium, were given and taken to throw

the operators into semi-conscious ravings and trances; and in

innumerable other ways the excited imaginations and the irresistible

propensity to believe in the miraculous, was taken advantage of by the

wise charlatans, seers, priests and soothsayers.

There are good reasons for believing that the dramatic exhibitions of

the Witch of Endor, by which Saul was made to believe in the

re-appearance of the deceased prophet, Samuel, to announce his

approaching fate at Gilboa, was but an imposition practiced upon the

senses of that superstitious monarch; and many of the ancient miracles,

which appear to be so corroborated, can be satisfactorily explained in a

similar manner. Ancient magic and natural science were synonymous, and

magic was made to become an assistant to government. Doubtless the

crimes committed by these unscrupulous charlatans, masquerading as

philosophers, suppressed for many centuries the smouldering light of

reason in the human race, and caused the world to be susceptible to the

terrific doctrine of witchcraft that held sway until the seventeenth

century, and which afflicted nearly every nation on the globe.

_Christian Science_

In order thoroughly to understand Christian Science, it is necessary to

understand Mary Baker Eddy. Hence, I have found it necessary,

reluctantly, to give a brief account of some of the important events of

her life. Should these events show her to be a mercenary, selfish woman,

it would tend to explain a great deal that she and her followers have

failed to explain.

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, was born the year

that Napoleon died, 1821. In her younger days, she lived in an

atmosphere of mysticism. Mesmerism was everywhere in evidence, and much

had been said about "Animal Magnetism," "Power of Mind over Matter,"

"the Shakers," "Faith Healing," etc., long before Mrs. Eddy had thought

or heard of these things. She married George W. Glover in 1842, who died

the following year, leaving Mrs. Eddy a widow at twenty-three. From that

time until about 1870, Mrs. Eddy lived a sad and sordid life of ill

health, poverty and unhappiness. In 1853, she had married Dr. Daniel

Patterson, a dentist, but this proved an unhappy union and they were

much separated, and finally divorced. During all this time she had

drifted from one place to another, wearing out her welcome at every

place she went, and usually leaving each place after having caused

family discord in the household. She was practically an invalid during

this period, which may account for her peevishness, ill-temper, domestic

selfishness, and want of consideration for those who had befriended her.

In 1862, being then forty-one years old and a nervous wreck, and

attracted by the stories of wonderful cures by Dr. Phineas Parkhurst

Quimby, Mrs. Eddy visited that famous occultrist at Portland, Maine. Dr.

Quimby had learned much of his philosophy, and all of his mesmeric

tricks, from Charles Poyen, whom he had followed about from place to

place. About three years before Mrs. Eddy called on him, Quimby had

perfected his system of mental healing and had reduced it to writing,

having discarded the mesmeric part of it. Various disinterested persons

are still living who have given reliable testimony to these facts, as

also to the following: (1) When Mrs. Eddy first visited Quimby she was a

physical wreck; (2) After three weeks' treatment from Quimby she was a

well woman; (3) She borrowed, and had in her possession for a long time,

a copy of Quimby's manuscripts; (4) She never gave Quimby credit for one

bit of her "Discovery"; and even went so far as to abuse him for the

rest of her life.

Please remember the dates: Mrs. Eddy first called on Quimby in 1862. In

February, 1866, she slipped on an icy sidewalk and sustained a severe

nervous shock. On the same day she called on Dr. A. M. Cushing for

medical treatment. Dr. Cushing says she continued to take his medicines

until she was cured. Mrs. Eddy denies that she took any of the medicines

after the first visit, and says that she cured herself in a miraculous

way and rose as one from the dead, and that she depended solely on God.

Yet, she called on this same Dr. Cushing the following August to be

treated for a cough!

During these days it is known that she spent much of her time writing,

and reading the _New York Ledger_, and, if we are to believe what she

wrote to a friend, she also read "_Irving's_ Pickwick Papers." She

apparently did not like Dickens.

In 1869 (please note the date) she taught Mrs. Wentworth the Quimby

theory for the sum of $300, to be taken out in board, and at that time

she made no pretense that it was her own theory. She even permitted Mrs.

Wentworth to copy from a manuscript which has been proven to be

identical with the original Quimby manuscript. Several witnesses testify

that she "talked Quimby till every one grew dead tired of hearing him,"

and she often remarked: "I learned this from Dr. Quimby, and he made me

promise to teach it to at least two persons before I die." It is also

known that Mrs. Eddy "shrank instinctively, like any other nervous

woman, from the sick-bed of others, and had shown such a morbid fear of

death that Mrs. Wentworth often wondered what there could be in her past

to make death seem so dreadful."

Mrs. Eddy did not practice healing. What she now wanted was to publish

and teach Quimbyism and to find some one to demonstrate the healing

theory. In 1870 she found just what she wanted in the person of Richard

Kennedy, with whom she went into partnership, and in six months they had

made $6,000. This was the sharp turning point of her life. She now

discarded Quimby forever, and her ambitions led her in time to discard

even Kennedy, her greatest benefactor. Everything was now Mrs. Eddy. She

next started a school or college where students paid her $100 each plus

a promise to pay her a life annuity of ten per cent. of all their future

earnings. She also made them give a bond for $3,000 which was to be

forfeited if they allowed any one to see or to copy the manuscripts that

she lent them. The college so prospered that she raised the price to

$300 for twelve lessons, induced, she says, "by a strange providence."

In 1877, at the age of fifty-six (although her age appears as forty in

the marriage license), she married Asa Gilbert Eddy, then forty years

old. He was "a man willing to be taught; he would even turn docility

into self-effacement." He died five years later. Even Mrs. Eddy could

not save him. Mrs. Eddy never had another husband, but "in Calvin A.

Frye, steward, bookkeeper, secretary, coachman, her 'man of all work,'"

as she herself called him, she has had the while one singularly devoted

to her and to her interests. To serve her he gave up all at the outset.

Family ties were relinquished. Friendships were allowed to languish. It

is said that never since the day he came, has he been beyond the reach

of her voice for a whole day! A few years ago Dr. E. J. Foster, whom she

adopted in 1882 as her son, was driven out of his home by Frye. Her own

son she seems to have forgotten entirely for long years at a time.

In 1875, Mrs. Eddy issued the first edition of "Science and Health with

Key to the Scriptures." Other editions came out in 1881, 1883, 1888,

1898, 1905, and 1906, and also other books and writings by the same

author, in all of which she claimed that her great discovery and

revelation came to her in 1866 (note the date). Meanwhile her college

was prospering and students flocked to it from all parts of the world,

each paying $300 for a three weeks' course, and in 1889 there were no

less than 300 on the waiting list. In 1894 she erected a building at a

cost of $221,000, which now stands as a frontispiece to the colossal

temple which was completed in 1906 at a cost of $2,000,000. The Mother

Church in Boston reported June 11, 1907, a membership of 43,876, and the

total membership of the 645 branch churches was 42,846.

On December 18, 1890, Mrs. Eddy said that _Science and Health_ was

"God's Book and He gave it at once to the people." Yet the book was

_sold_ by Mrs. Eddy for over $3 a copy, while a copy of the Bible may be

bought for a few cents, and if anybody cannot buy it, he can get a copy

presented to him free by any preacher or Sunday School teacher. Mrs.

Eddy also says that it pays to be a Christian Scientist and that the

professionals have made "their comfortable fortunes." When Mrs. Eddy

died, her private fortune was considerably in excess of a million

dollars, yet she persistently tried to evade paying her share of taxes.

This in brief is the life history of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. Her's was a

stormy career, filled with troubles, quarrels, lawsuits, internal

dissentions, fears, revenge, ill health, sorrows, unhappy marriages,

rivalries, disloyalties, and selfishness. She had many thousands to

admire and to worship her, but few to love her. Those who knew her best

loved her least. That she was one of the most remarkable women who ever

lived, few will doubt. Her career is almost as spectacular as that of

Joan of Arc, who, like Mrs. Eddy, rose from a poor girl to be a

world-famous leader of men. Neither had anything like an education, and

both had a poor start in life, but, out of sheer force of personality

and persistency, both accomplished wonders. Their lives read like

fiction. While history is full of examples where men have risen from

nowhere, and claimed that they were inspired, or Divine, or Sons of God,

or prophets, there is no parallel to the career of Mrs. Eddy, who has

won both the scholar and the ignoramus. No, not _ignoramus_, for the

ignoramus is not the kind to fall a victim to Mrs. Eddy's doctrine. It

requires a person of brains to "grasp" it. While it is true that people

unschooled in philosophy, science and theology are quickest to accept

_Science and Health_, and that those who read earnestly and think

loosely can get just enough glimpse of an imagined something that they

cannot quite grasp, yet which they feel is there somewhere, still, it

must be said that the average Christian Scientist is generally a person

of unusual intelligence. Were it not so, the doctrine would never have

become so popular. Was it not Lord Bacon who said something like

this?--"While a little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism,

depth in philosophy inclineth men's minds to religion." And so with

Christian Science. Given a good mind, and a good understanding, and an

investigating disposition, feed it _Science and Health_ and it will have

a tendency to accept it as truth, provided it is not allowed to hear the

other side, and provided it has not been previously trained to reason

correctly along scientific lines. There is just enough truth in it to

make it all sound plausible and there is just enough mysticism to make

the mind doubt its own acumen. Belief in Christian Science is a form of

intellectual hypnotism.

The hypothesis of Mrs. Eddy's doctrine is stated as follows: "The only

realities are the Divine Mind and its ideas. That erring mortal views,

misnamed _mind_, produce all the organic and animal action of the mortal

body * * * Rightly understood, instead of possessing sentient matter, we

have sensationless bodies * * * Whence came to me this conviction in

antagonism to the testimony of the human senses? From the self-evident

fact that matter has no sensation; from the common human experience of

the falsity of all material things; from the obvious fact that mortal

mind is what suffers, feels, sees; since matter cannot suffer."

Here are a few of Mrs. Eddy's favorite, oft-repeated assertions: "God is

supreme; is mind; is principle, not person; includes all and is

reflected by all that is real and eternal; is Spirit, and Spirit is

infinite; is the only substance; is the only life. Man was and is the

idea of God; therefore mind can never be in man. Divine Science shows

that matter and mortal body are the illusions of human belief, which

seem to appear and disappear to mortal sense alone. When this belief

changes, as in dreams, the material body changes with it, going wherever

we wish, and becoming whatsoever belief may decree. Human mortality

proves that error has been engrafted into both the dreams and

conclusions of material and mortal humanity. Besiege sickness and death

with these principles, and all will disappear."

This theory, that there is no reality except thought, is merely a

distinctive form of idealism that is as old as the hills, and Mrs.

Eddy's doctrine is the resultum of a confusion of isolated thoughts.

Read Plato, Hegel, Democritus, the Zend-Avesta, Spinoza, Kant, Bishop

Berkeley, Lotze, Hume, and various other works and you will find the

threads from which Mrs. Eddy's fabric is woven. But don't imagine that

the philosophers named ever believed any such things as Mrs. Eddy has

laid down in her books. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists

speak of the supremacy of mind over matter, and all modern physicians

recognize the power of the mind over the body; but none of these ever

maintained that the discovery of those facts was made by Divine

revelation by order of God, to be given to the people at a certain time,

at so much per lesson or book.

Mrs. Eddy says that the one reality is God, whose name is Mind or

Spirit; that God is All-in-all; that all is infinite Mind and its

infinite manifestations; that matter is unknown in the Universe of Mind.

Now, if we take all this as mere speculation, all is well. But when we

are asked to make these ideas our Bible, our code of human conduct, our

bread and butter, our Divine law, that is where we should stop. What

matter if all of that is true or false? The world will go around just

the same. If Mrs. Eddy had stopped right there, she would not have

invited such a storm of criticism as she had to face. But she did not.

The critics began their deadly work soon after the first edition of her

book came out, and she met it courageously, proceeding to amend her

theories to suit the occasion. Constant and frequent changes were made

in _Science and Health_ and in her teachings, which was all right except

that it disproves her contention that the whole plan came to her as a

revelation in 1866, and that it was "God's book and He gave it at once

to the people." It really makes but little difference to most of us

whether Mrs. Eddy is right in her theory that there is no such thing as

matter and that all is spirit, for we are all compelled to act every day

as if matter were matter, and, to all intents and purposes, it _is_. Of

course, we are glad to have the truth, but it would be idiotic for a

man, who had discovered that there is no such thing as sound, to try to

persuade the world that his discovery was so important that a new system

of religion must at once be founded on it to regulate the daily affairs

of the whole world. Some of the truths in Christian Science are

important, but it does not follow that we are to discard all our other

religions, beliefs, and modes of living; for Christian Science is only a

speculation, and it does not concern most of us. It rightly is no more a

religion than is the theory of evolution, which, by the way, Mrs. Eddy

did not seem to understand, for she said: "Theorizing about man's

development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys to men, amounts

to nothing in the right direction, and very much in the wrong."

Mrs. Eddy says that "God is not in the things He hath made"; and, in the

next breath she says that since things are matter, and that there is no

matter, then there can be no things. In her _final_ revelation of 1866,

expressed in 1875, she says that "God is Principle, not _person_"; yet

later, in a later _final_ revelation she says that "Life, Truth, and

Love constitute the _triune_ person called God." Again, she says, "Jesus

is the human man and Christ is the divine, hence the duality of Jesus,

the Christ." And, in 1894, and at other times, she has stated quite

plainly that she and Christ were one and the same.

Be all this as it may, Christian Science rests mainly on the hypothesis

that sin, sickness, disease and death are not real--that they exist only

in thought; that Christian Science can remedy these _seeming_ evils.

Had it not been for the curing and healing part of the doctrine,

Christian Science would never have become the fad that it has. All the

rest of the doctrine would have been looked on merely as an interesting

speculation, had not Mrs. Eddy injected the claim that Christian Science

cured everything--that it cured even sin as well as suffering. Here,

then, was something to interest everybody, and she made the invitation

all the more desirable when she added that doctors were "flooding the

world with diseases," that the fewer the doctors, the less disease the

world would suffer from, and that "as long as you read medical books you

will be sick." We all know of thousands of cases where doctors have been

of great assistance to humanity, and we know, too, of many serious

medical mistakes. We all know that medicine has been much overworked,

yet we must all admit that doctors and medicine have made this world

vastly better and more healthful. But what has Christian Science done?

Mrs. Eddy failed to give to the world the complete, authenticated record

of one single case of disease that she cured. True, she _said_ that she

had cured certain diseases, but we are left in the dark as to whether

they were diseases or what they were. She refused to have medical tests

made. She even announced that she had no time to give personal

treatments and consultations. At that time she was busy teaching, at

$300 a pupil. Besides, according to her theory, there was no such thing

as a body, or disease, or pain. She doubts even that Jesus suffered pain

on the cross, although the Bible says that He cried out in pain. Either

Jesus did suffer pain, or He falsely made those around Him _think_ that

He did, and we know that He was incapable of deception. Yet, Jesus

Christ and Mrs. Eddy are one and the same.

Christian Science seeks to eliminate pain, whereas most physicians

recognize pain as a blessing. It is a danger signal. It warns us of

decay, of disease, and of disorders. Were it not for pain, we would

allow our teeth to decay, our eyesight to be impaired, and various other

organs to degenerate. When we live wrongly, or eat too much, or overtax

our powers, Nature warns us to halt, but Christian Science says there is

no such thing as suffering, discomfort and pain, except in our

imagination.

And thus we could go on for hours pointing out the inconsistencies of

Mrs. Eddy's theories, but a short article like this will not permit.

Take for example her statement that "Science can heal the sick who are

absent from the healers, as well as those present, since space is no

obstacle to mind"; and the assertion that "Christian Science divests

material drugs of their imaginary power * * * When the sick recover by

the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in

individual faith that heals, and according to this faith will the effect

be"; and "The not uncommon notion that drugs possess absolute, inherent

curative virtues of their own involves an error. Arnica, quinine, opium,

could not produce the effects ascribed to them except by imputed virtue.

Men _think_ they will act thus on the physical system, consequently they

_do_." Does anybody doubt that if the writer of those words walked into

a drugstore blindfolded and, unseen by anybody, drank opium, not knowing

what it was, she would not immediately feel the effects of that drug?

And that if she took any other drug, the effects would not be about the

same as they are known to be in practically all cases? Yet who would

say, under those circumstances, that Mind has endowed those drugs with

the powers to act on the system as they do? If Mind can so act, medicine

is just what we want, for Mind can be made to make drugs do even greater

things than they have yet done, perhaps to raise the dead.

But why go to greater length to point out the fallacies of this fad

that is nothing more than a superstition founded on a truth. _Science

and Health_ is simply words, words, words. It is a tangled mass of

assembled philosophy from various sources that has but little practical

value. That mind, suggestions and imagination have great influence over

the body nobody will deny, but nobody but Mrs. Eddy ever attempted to

form a religion out of that old fact. _Science and Health_ is founded on

the Bible, and pretends to be a key to it. It is a "key," but it is one

that breaks and distorts rather than opens. It is an interpretation, and

it treats the Book as if it were a puzzle that God left unsolved until

He inspired Mrs. Eddy to reveal its secrets, after having kept it from

the world for nearly 2,000 years. From the standpoint of a promoter,

Mrs. Eddy was wise in calling her doctrine _Christian Science_ and in

founding it on the Bible. That many have been helped by Christian

Science nobody will deny, but the same can be said of a hundred other

theories and beliefs, some of which are admittedly absurd. Some people

can be cured with sugar pills and some by an Indian medicineman.

Christian Science contains much that is true and good, and much that is

false and bad, and perhaps the harm that it has done may not outweigh

the good. Nobody knows. Those who get pleasure and satisfaction and

peace out of it should not be disturbed, but they should be warned not

to let it run away with them.

The Epicureans handed down to us some questions which have never been

quite satisfactorily answered, except by the Christian Scientists--who

are quite satisfied with their answer. If God is able to prevent evil,

and is not willing, where is His benevolence? If God is willing, but not

able, where is His power? If God is both able and willing, whence then

is evil? The Scientists say there is no evil, and that settles the whole

question. The blind man sees nothing. The Occulist teaches us to see:

the Scientist teaches us not to see. Excellent thought! When the thief

comes, we close our eyes, and lo! we do not see him, for he is not

there--and when we open our eyes, nothing else is there.

Consider for a moment the folly of holding that sickness, pain and

disease are products of the mind, and that they have no real existence.

To say this is to declare that there are no germs and microbes; and to

declare that mind causes disease and death is to upset the whole

accepted theory of creation and of evolution. Are not animals affected

by disease as well as man? If so, who would say that their meager minds

could cause it? and if it be said that human minds caused it, how about

the millions of animals who suffered pain, disease and death thousands

of years before man ever appeared upon earth? Does the Scientist know

that there are hundreds of different kinds of microbes, fighting and

combatting one another, that the big fish are eating the little ones,

that if there were no microbes there could be no putrefaction and that

if there were no putrefaction there could be no breaking down of the

dead bodies of animals and plants, and that the earth would be

encumbered with the dead bodies of these animals and plants of past

generations, and that very soon all the organic elements--all the carbon

and nitrogen, if not all the hydrogen and oxygen--on the face of the

earth would be fixed in these corpses and that all life would perish for

want of sustenance? In short, germs and death are just as important, and

just as inevitable, as joy and life.

The Christian Scientists, New Thoughtists and other dreamy faddists, who

would eliminate all death, sorrow, pain and suffering, by bringing

heaven to earth all in a day, are respectfully introduced to a paragraph

from John Ploughman: "There is a sound reason why there are bones in

our meat and stones in our land. A world where everything was easy would

be a nursery for babies, but not at all a fit place for men. Celery is

not sweet till it has felt a frost, and men don't come to their

perfection till disappointment has dropped a half-hundred weight or two

on their toes. Who would know good horses if there were no heavy loads?"

_Osteopathy_

If we are to believe history every century produces one or more

wonderful healers, or persons with the "Healing Touch." It is said that

these mysterious persons have made the blind to see, the lame to walk,

the deaf to hear, and even the dead to rise, by means of laying on of

hands. Just how much of these records are facts or fiction no man may

say, but we may reasonably assume that a fair amount of facts are mixed

up with the fiction, even if we may not believe half of what we hear and

read.

Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, of Kirksville, Mo., is the founder of

Osteopathy, and in that place he has founded what he is pleased to call

a college, which is highly successful. After reading his history, he

will perhaps remind you somewhat of Mary Baker Eddy, Elbert Hubbard,

Tolstoy, and Jesus of Nazareth, although it cannot be said that he bears

much physical or mental resemblance to any of these. He dresses like a

farmer or backwoodsman, and is Simplicity personified. His followers

worship him very much as do those of Mrs. Eddy, and there is a vein of

mystery, not to say of superstitious faith, connected with both their

doctrines that seems to bind their followers together. While Dr. Still

claims no divine inspiration, as did Mrs. Eddy, still he and his

disciples are inclined to the mysterious and supernatural. For example,

in one of the Osteopath books I find this, by his son Dr. Charles E.

Still, D.O.: "When a boy, I was out with my father and an old physician

one day, when he stopped at a house where there was a boy almost totally

blind. My father stepped up to him and took hold of his neck; in a few

minutes he bade him look at the sun, and behold, the blindness had

disappeared." This reads very much like a Bible miracle. "Again, we met

an old colored man who was badly crippled. My father asked him his

trouble and had him stand up against a drygoods box. My father set down

a flour sack of bones we were carrying; he then took hold of his leg and

after apparently winding it around a few times, he told the man to walk,

which he did without as much as a limp, much to the amazement of the

bystanders. Time and again equally as wonderful cures were made by him

in my presence." Dr. Still, Jr., then goes on to say that in an

epidemic of diphtheria he treated about sixty-five cases and lost but

one; that he was called on to treat practically all the ailments that

flesh is heir to; that he treated epileptics by the score and

successfully in most cases; that he set a neck that was broken, and set

a case of dislocated astragalus and cured it in one day after a

physician had assigned the patient to straps in bed for six weeks, thus

saving five weeks and five days of the patient's time, patience and

money. Other miraculous cures are reported by the Messrs. Still and by

other learned Osteopaths, and there are many people around who are

willing to give reliable testimony to the effect that they have been

cured of serious ailments by Osteopaths when doctors have failed.

Osteopathy is really the old Swedish movement cure under a new name, but

considerably enlarged and improved.

Some people imagine that Osteopathy is a sort of massage, but, according

to Dr. Still, Sr., this is a mistake, for he says: "Osteopathy

absolutely differs from massage. The definition of 'massage' is masso,

to knead; shampooing of the body by special manipulation, such as

kneading, tapping, stroking, etc. The masseur rubs and kneads the

muscles to increase the circulation. The Osteopath never rubs. He takes

off any pressure on blood vessels or nerves by the adjustment of any

displacement of bone, cartilage, ligament, tendon or muscle." Thus, an

Osteopath might be called a bone manipulator, and that is what the words

implies, "osteon" meaning _bone_. As a matter of fact, Dr. Still and all

Osteopaths to the contrary notwithstanding, Osteopathy is not

"absolutely different from massage." Dr. Still says that Osteopaths

adjust displaced muscles, does he not? And how do they do it? By

manipulating the muscles. That is just what the masseur does. It is true

that the masseur rubs, with a view to increasing the circulation, but it

is also true that the Osteopath kneads, or presses, for the same

purpose. A good masseur handles the muscles very much as do the

Osteopaths. Circulation is the object in both cases: If you want to hurt

an Osteopath's feelings, just tell him that he is a fine masseur. For,

has he not spent three years at an Osteopathic College to learn his art,

whereas the masseur may have learned his the previous week from some

Turkish bath operator? Please remember that the Osteopath is a

physician, and that he knows as much about anatomy and therapeutics as

do other physicians. Please also remember that the Osteopath has had a

thorough course in physiology, biology, embryology, histology,

pathology, symptomatology, physical and laboratory diagnosis,

obstetrics, gynecology, dietetics, hygiene, bacteriology, toxicology,

urinalysis, surgery, pediatrics, dermatology, phchistry, and medical

jurisprudence. The only physicianly subject with which he is not

familiar is materia medica, and that is something that he thinks is

unnecessary.

The Osteopath does not believe in drugs. On that point he will have many

sympathizers, notably the Christian Scientists. In fact, many of our

best physicians have abandoned that old fashioned faith in drugs which

made people think that they could abuse Nature all they liked, and do as

they pleased, and that a few drops of medicine would cure them of the

ill-effects of their indiscretion. Dr. Osler, who was appointed Regius

Professor of Medicine at Oxford University a few years ago, gives a long

list of diseases, in his book "Textbook on the Theory and Practice of

Medicine," which cannot be cured by drugs, and he frequently states that

drugs are notoriously uncertain in their effects in many cases. Any

physician who is honest and wise will tell you that drugs are not being

used so much nowadays as formerly, and that medicine is still more or

less of an experiment in many cases, and often a dangerous and fatal

experiment. But, in spite of all this, it is certainly unwise to

denounce _all_ drugs simply because we do not know the certain effects

of _some_ drugs. Drugs have been in use since the beginning of history,

and we are still experimenting with them. While we do not yet know what

they will do and not do, we know that they will do _something_. In other

words, drugs have an effect on the body--that we know. We know that

certain drugs will put us to sleep, or cause us to vomit, or give us a

headache, or take away a headache, or benumb a pain, etc. Everybody

knows the effects of castor oil, pepsin, strychnine, salts, sugar of

lead, laudanum, paragoric, camphor, iodine, linament, calomel, and

certain other drugs in certain cases. Now, some of these drugs are

extremely useful and it would be a calamity if the human family were to

be deprived of their use. While, as we all know, many people are

extremely superstitious about medicines and are taking them all the time

to cure imaginary ills, and while it is true that many sick persons are

either killed or made worse every year by medicines administered by

physicians, still the sum-total of good that comes from the proper use

of drugs, and the immense possibilities of the future seem to reason

that we must not entirely discontinue the use of drugs. Nature is the

best doctor, and all that the physicians can do is to assist nature.

Osteopathy may assist nature, and so may massage, and so may water, and

exercise, and diet and drugs. Different cases require different

remedies. Drugs are a part of nature. Nature made all herbs, vegetables

and minerals. Some of our best medicines, even minerals, are found in

the food that we eat and in the water that we drink. Perhaps nature put

them there for a purpose. Perhaps she put in too much, perhaps she did

not put in enough. We are all different, no two alike. Our bodies are

made up of various chemicals, and many of our ailments are due to a

scanty supply of these chemicals. Hence, if we cannot get a sufficiency

of these chemicals from the foods, we may often require them from the

drug store. For example, phosphorus is necessary to the nerves and

brain. While it is found in various foods, it may be, as is often the

case, that we have to take phosphorus in some other form in order to

preserve our health or to restore our body to its normal state.

But the Osteopath does not reason this way. Dr. Still says: "God has

placed the remedy for every disease within the material house in which

the spirit of life dwells. I believe that the Maker of man has deposited

in some part or throughout the whole system of the human body drugs in

abundance to cure all infirmities; that all the remedies necessary to

health are compounded within the human body. They can be administered by

adjusting the body in such a manner that the remedies may naturally

associate themselves together. And I have never failed to find all these

remedies. Man should study and use only the drugs that are found in his

own drugstore--that is, in his own body." If this means anything, it

means that drugs are necessary, and that manipulating the bones of the

body results in a proper distribution of these drugs. The statement that

he has never failed to find these remedies, if it means anything, means

that Dr. Still has cured every case that has come to him, but he has

never said so in plain words; in fact, he admits elsewhere that he has

not been successful with all cases. And if he was not successful in

certain cases, the failure was due to not being able to adjust matters

so as properly to associate the drugs of the body with their remedies!

Farther on Dr. Still says that the still greater question to be solved

is, "How and when to apply the _touch_ which sets free the chemicals of

life as Nature designs." Does Dr. Still here mean that Osteopaths have a

certain magic touch which is so powerful and wonderful that it must be

used with great caution? That this touch lets loose certain drugs or

chemicals which the body needs to cure itself? It is possible that the

Doctor is speaking in figures and that he does not mean what his words

imply. It must be so. Otherwise, we must put him down as a charlatan. If

he speaks figuratively, he is indiscreet, because he plainly leads

people to think that the spinal column secrets certain drugs or

chemicals which are necessary to health and that these can be made to

flow to the necessary parts by means of certain manipulations.

Dr. Still would have us believe that Osteopathy is something of a

cure-all, and that its adoption makes the use of drugs unnecessary, but

all Osteopaths do not make this claim. Dr. George V. Webster, D.O.,

says: "Osteopathy is not a cure-all. There are disorders that are

incurable." This is encouraging, because we now know that if a disease

is incurable Osteopathy cannot cure it! Dr. Webster says that "there are

diseases needing surgical attention," that in some cases an anesthetic

is necessary, that a parasite requires an antiseptic, and that a poison

requires an antidote. Thus he has found that drugs have _some_ uses, at

least. In one place Dr. Webster says that Osteopathy is not a cure-all,

and in another we find him saying, "The application of osteopathic

principles to meet the problems of bodily disorder has demonstrated

their efficiency in _practically all diseases_"! Dr. Still himself says,

"You may say there are some failures. Yes, who would not expect it?

Perhaps the Osteopath is not able to apply the knowledge he should have

gained before being granted a diploma from his osteopathic school."

And thus, all through the Osteopath literature there is an inference

that bone manipulation cures everything, although it admits that it has

not always done so. This is the weak, fatally weak, spot in Osteopathy.

It is the old story of the over-enthusiastic specialist who thinks that

the sun rises and sets on his pet theory. Show a child a watch, and all

it sees and understands is that it is wound up and that the hands move

around. If the watch gets out of order the child tries to wind it up

again--that is all it knows. It does not know that inside the case are

hundreds of delicately arranged parts that are adjusted to a nicety. It

does not know that some of these parts may be worn out from over-use, or

are missing, or broken, or that they need cleaning. Likewise, when the

Osteopath sees a body suffering from some disorder, he usually sees only

the blood vessels and nerves, and he decides at once that one or more of

them is being squeezed by a misadjustment of some bone or muscle. He

looks on the spinal column as the backbone of the human structure, which

is of course true, and surmises that if anything is wrong it must have

originated in the spinal cord, which is not necessarily true. If it is

indigestion, or a disease of the kidney, or what not, he thinks that by

turning one of the keys on the spinal cord it will unlock the necessary

drug and let it flow to the disordered part. He wears a pair of glasses

on which is written the word "Osteopathy," and when he looks he sees

nothing but Osteopathy. Now, as a matter of fact, he is right in many

cases. He will cure when all the doctors in the world might not even

relieve. He has a great truth. He holds the key that unlocks the door to

many a mystery, and it is a key that should be in common use, by all

doctors. Where the regular physician would perhaps drug his patient to

death, the Osteopath might cure him with a few simple treatments. Take,

for example, a headache. Now, a headache is a symptom, not a disease. It

is a sign that something is going wrong. It is a sign that there is

either too much blood in the head, or not enough, usually the former. In

either case, it is probable that there is some abnormal pressure on some

blood-vessel or nerve, and that if that pressure could be released the

headache would disappear. Just examine a model of the spinal cord

sometime and see what a complicated structure it is, with all the little

nerves, blood vessels and muscles so intricately interwoven between its

many parts. We are all prone to get in certain habits. We learn to read

in a certain posture, and to write, and to lie down, and to walk, and to

sit, and in the course of years it would be strange if one or more of

our thousands of parts did not get into an abnormal position so as to

compress or squeeze some of the delicately arranged nerves or blood

channels, thus preventing freedom of passage. Such a condition might set

up congestion and inflammation, and it is likely to affect seriously

some distant organ. By readjusting the bones of the neck, shoulder, back

or spinal cord, we relieve that pressure and thereby cure the disorder.

There can be no doubt of all this, and every regular physician ought to

know it and to practice it, but they don't and won't. Furthermore, they

won't refer the patient to an Osteopath. Professional jealousy!

It is really a shame that there cannot be some kind of a union of the

various isms, ologies and athies. Certainly all Osteopaths should be

regularly admitted physicians and surgeons. If they could be broad

enough for that, they would soon put the old-school physicians out of

business.

In conclusion, Osteopathy is much overestimated by some, and much

underestimated by many. It will do good to most anybody, and harm to

nobody. It will cure thousands of cases that the regular physicians

cannot cure; but, on the other hand, there are thousands of cases that

Osteopathy should not attempt to cure without the aid of the modern

school of physicians and surgeons.

_Phrenology_

The word phrenology comes from the Greek word _phren_, meaning the mind,

and _logus_, meaning science--the science of the mind. The alleged

science rests upon these principles: (1) The brain is the organ of the

mind; (2) the mind may be divided into a certain number of faculties

independent of one another; (3) each faculty resides in a definite

region of the brain; (4) the size of each region is the true measure of

the intellectual power of the organ therein residing. The phrenologist

examines the outside of the skull, and, by measuring the various bumps

and indentations thereon, claims to be able to tell how much brains are

within and just what faculties are concealed under each and every

portion of the skull. They claim to take into consideration various

other things, such as the texture of the hair, the lung power, the

brilliancy of the eye, the color of the skin, the general poise and

shape of the head, and so on, but phrenology really means bumpology or

craniology.

The real fathers of the theory are Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, although we

find suggestions of it in the writings of some of the ancients, notably

those of Aristotle and Pythagoras, and even so far back as the ancient

Egyptians. Aristotle believed the brain to be a complex organ, but held

that the small head was the standard of perfection--"Little head, little

wit; big head not a bit." (For a lengthy treatise on phrenology and its

history, see Enc. Britannica.)

If phrenology is sound, the brain is divided into compartments, each

having a separate and distinct function to perform. But when the brain

is dissected, no such compartments or divisions are revealed, even under

the microscope. Neither the certical nor fibrous part of the brain

reveals any such dividing lines or difference in texture. And not only

this--the existence of the horizontal membrane separating the superior

from the interior part of the whole brain, and the arrangement of the

lateral ventricles, corpus callosum, the fornix and other parts, are of

themselves almost conclusive proof that there can be no compartments

such as phrenologists describe.

But even if the brain were divided into compartments, each resting

against the skull, it would next be necessary for the phrenologist to

prove that quantity means quality or that quantity means power.

Otherwise, a person might have a large quantity of, say, combativeness,

and a small quantity of, say, veneration, as donated by the size of the

bumps, at the places where those faculties are supposed to reside, but

the brain matter in the veneration compartment might be twice as dense,

compact, active, powerful or flexible as the brain matter in the

combativeness compartment, and hence the phrenologist would be deceived

by outward appearances. The phrenologist must depend upon size, and he

must assume that every part of the brain is of the same density, texture

and power. For example, when he sees a head that is large and full in

the upper forehead and small at the back, he at once declares that that

person's casuality, eventuality and comparison, are highly developed,

and that his amativeness and philoprogenitiveness are poorly developed.

Size is the measure, and he assumes that size means volume, and that

volume means power. Hence, a man with a large head must have more brains

than a man with a small head, and the more brains he has, the greater

his power, other things being equal. He forgets that many idiots have

enormous heads, and that the heads of many of the world's greatest

characters were very small. Several kinds of monkeys, the dolphin, the

canary and the sparrow, all have larger brains than man, in proportion

to the size of the body. The ground mole and field mouse have about the

same proportion as man. The whale, the rat, the porpoise and the goose

have more.

Again, the researches of physiologists of the highest authority seem to

have established the fact that the brain acquires its full size and

weight at the age of eight years! How can the phrenologist reconcile his

philosophy to this stubborn fact? The skull and head continue to grow

after the age of eight, but the brain remains the same in weight and

size. Everybody knows how the skulls of children change as they grow up,

and yet the brains never do. As the child acquires knowledge and

develops his mental faculties, the brain remains the same size and

weight. What then have bumps to do with his mind? We may polish our

brains, but we cannot add to them. And so, when the phrenologist says

that this pulpy matter called brains gradually grows larger and crowds

the skull bones out so as to make bumps, or that it shrinks, for want of

exercise, and makes the skull contract with it, causing indentations, he

is not talking from facts but from a premise founded on a delusion.

If the theory of phrenology is true, then, if a person should have an

accident or a disease, and lose a portion of his brain, he will lose

control of those faculties which are supposed to be located within the

lost part. Now, every physician knows of cases where patients have lost

portions of their brains, and you will probably not find a single case

where the patient lost control of the precise faculty said to be located

in that portion. The medical books are full of proof of this. Once in a

while a physician has to remove a portion of the brain where the faculty

of, say tune, is located, or it is destroyed by accident or disease, but

after the operation the patient has the same fondness and talent for

music that he formerly had. The brains of able men have been examined

after death, and certain portions have been found to be diseased; yet

the patients had shown no signs of having lost any of their faculties.

These examples show that the brain is not and cannot be composed of a

plurality of organs, each of which is the seat of a separate faculty, as

claimed by the phrenologists, because if such were the case the

destruction of one of these organs would result in the destruction of

the particular faculty connected with it.

Again, the phrenologist assumes that all skulls are of the same

thickness, and that every skull is of the same thickness at every point.

There are variations of this rule, as he will tell you, but in the main

the statement is true; for, if it were not so, bumps and indentations

would be almost meaningless. But the fact is that some skulls are only

one-eighth of an inch thick and some are a full inch in thickness. And

there is no certain way of telling just how thick a skull is, except by

an examination of its interior and not every subject is willing to

undergo this inconvenience. The phrenologist may thump it with his

knuckle and sound it, but he can never be certain how near he is to the

brain nor how much brains are within. And still again, nearly every

skull has thin parts and thick parts, and in some heads there are actual

cavities in places. So, even if the size of the brain is the sure test

of mentality, how is one to tell the size of a brain which is incased in

a skull of unknown and variable thickness?

And then, the mistaken notion that there are just and only thirty-five

or so faculties and that each acts independently of the others. As well

might one say that the retina of the eye is divided into compartments,

one to see flowers, one to see trees, one to see letters and figures,

and so on; or that the ear-drum is divided into sections--one section to

hear the voice, one to hear the violin and one to hear other sounds. If

there is a separate compartment for every faculty there should be nearer

thirty-five thousand compartments than thirty-five. But there are not

even thirty-five faculties, and there are certainly not more than two or

three compartments, if any. Aristotle divided the brain into only three

parts. Veneration is the result of fear, admiration, love, respect,

conscientiousness, and a dozen other things. Destructiveness and

combativeness, continuity, stubbornness and many other faculties produce

in greater or less degree, the same emotion and results. Form and size

are the same faculty, the knowledge of extension including both. To say

that each of these faculties has a separate plot or parcel of brains

staked out for its own private and exclusive use is about as sensible as

to say that there is a separate compartment of brains devoted to love of

children, another for the love of parents, another for brothers, another

for dogs, and so on. It requires no philosopher or psychologist to see

that every single faculty is a part of an inseparable indivisible whole.

Instead of endowing the mind with certain faculties and designating

these according to the nature of their function, the phrenologist

designates them according to the nature of object upon which they are

exercised. According to this, to be logical, he should have as many

faculties and compartments as there are things in the universe.

There are two ways of looking at phrenology. If there is a portion of

brains for each faculty, then we must determine how many faculties there

are, and we must assume that each portion or compartment performs only

its own function, for otherwise, if a certain compartment frequently

does the work of some other compartment, then the whole theory of

phrenology falls, because it matters not how much or how little brains a

person has in one compartment when other sections are to lend a hand in

helping its weak or deficient neighbors. The phrenologist must assume

that "comparison," for example, is the faculty that does all of the work

in that line, and that "color" does all of the work in its particular

line. Otherwise bumps would be meaningless. Fowler and Wells, the latest

authorities, give thirty-nine distinct and separate faculties, each with

its particular location. Now, many of these conflict, such as

comparison, form and size, combativeness and destructiveness, firmness

and continuity, cautiousness and secretiveness, veneration and

spirituality and conjugal love, friendship, amativeness, inhabitiveness

and philoprogenitiveness. True, these words of each group are not

synonyms, but they require the same mental process, produce like

emotions, or proceed from the same motives and sensations. If this be

true, part of the bottom of phrenology falls out. There is redundancy.

The faculty of cautiousness makes one cautious when one is exercising

one or more of the other faculties, and continuity is the faculty which

gives us the power of keeping one or more other faculties applied to the

task. Nearly every organ must be endowed with the power of imagination,

yet there is a faculty called ideality which is assumed to have a

monopoly of this power. Nearly every faculty is also endowed with

casuality, particularly calculation, constructiveness and comparison.

And if the phrenologist should say that there is no redundancy here,

that each of these things is a different and distinct faculty, surely if

there is not redundancy, there is at least deficiency (either of which

is fatal) in that according to his theory there should be separate

faculties for mechanical constructiveness and literary constructiveness,

separate faculties for love of children and love of cats, separate

faculties for the English language and the Chinese language, and every

language, and a separate faculty for every object of attention in the

universe.

Until the phrenologist can find some way of measuring the quantity of

neurine in the brain of his subject he cannot tell much about that

person's mentality; and when he does this he is no longer a

phrenologist.

Phrenology takes in a wide field which contains so many avenues of

escape, that it is quite impossible to attack it at one point without

letting it out at another, for its powers to evade the issue are almost

unlimited. When the skull of Voltaire was examined, it was found to have

the organ of Veneration developed to an extraordinary degree. The

phrenologist would promptly explain: "His veneration for the Deity was

so great and his sensibility upon the subject of devotion so exquisite

that he became shocked and disgusted with the irreverence of even the

most devout Christians, and that out of pure respect for the Deity he

attempted to exterminate the Christian religion from the earth."

If you have a large bump of destructiveness, the phrenologist might

declare you were like the early English who would often say: "It's a

fine day; let's go out and kill somebody." Yet you may be only inclined

to destroy delusions; or to destroy the rum demon; or to demolish

gambling; or to combat vice.

The novel "Mr. Midshipman Easy," by Capt. Maryatt, might be recommended

for the consideration of phrenologists. Prof. Easy built a great machine

with tubes and pistons; the subject would get into the machine and, by

suction, the professor would draw out the good organ indentations and by

pressure suppress the "bad organ" bumps. If the brain grows, as

phrenologists claim, this system ought to help the brain grow in the

right direction and create perfect men.

The irregular formation of the skull, features, fingers and of other

parts of the anatomy are mere accidents of nature, and are no more a

test of a person's character and capacity than a cask is of its

contents. The verdict of phrenology retards the moral and intellectual

advancement of the subject and lessens the influence of reason,

religion, environment and education.

After Professor Porson's death, his head was dissected, when, to the

confusion of craniologists and the consolation of blockheads, it was

discovered that he had a skull of extraordinary thickness. Professor

Gall, on being called upon to reconcile the intellectual powers and

tenacious memory of Porson with a skull that would have suited an

ignorant prizefighter, replied: "How the ideas got into such a skull is

their business, not mine; but, when they were once in, they certainly

could never get out again."

_Physiognomy_

Physiognomy is not entirely a delusion. There is no "science" of

Physiognomy, however, nor is it an exact art. The rules laid down by

Adamantius were quite different from those of Aristotle, just as those

of Baptist Porta and Robert Fludd were quite different from Levater's.

Physiognomy is the art of knowing the humor, temperament or disposition

of a person from observation of the lines of the face, and from the

character of its members or features. While there is as yet no code of

rules laid down by any author which constitutes a trustworthy guide,

there in an apparent analogy between the mind and the countenance, which

is discernible to keen observers. Probably every man and woman prides

him or herself on the ability of translating expression, because we all

imagine that we are good judges of human nature; yet, we have all erred

in this regard, and often they were costly errors. Our instincts and

intuitions, are perhaps the safest guides, after all, for there is but

little reliance to be placed on the text books; and the common beliefs

regarding the meaning of the features are anything but reliable. The

best that can be done, for the present, is to assemble the predominating

characteristics of the great men of history and compare these with their

portraits.

It is generally conceded that the greatest authority on Physiognomy is

Levater; yet, in my copy of his principal work, which, by the way, is

the voluminous 15th London edition, he says: "I understand but little of

physiognomy, and have been, and continue daily to be, mistaken in my

judgment." Since no greater physiognomist ever lived, it seems fair to

assume that there is no "science" of physiognomy, and no infallible

system with which we can read the character and capabilities of a person

by means of the features. Whether such a science will yet be discovered

or devised, remains to be seen. However, it is possible, and even

probable, that the features all have meanings, even if we do not know

those meanings, and that the code finally adopted by Levater is fairly

correct. This being true, the best we can say for Physiognomy is that it

_helps_ us to interpret character by showing us _tendencies_. That is,

given a face the chin of which denotes firmness, and the mouth

tenacity, we may be reasonably certain that the individual will have a

strong tendency to do thus and so under certain conditions, provided

those characteristics are not over-balanced and offset by other

characteristics. That the tendency is not conclusive, is apparent: for

the person may be born with a nose which, according to Physiognomy,

denotes criminal propensities; yet, he may have overcome his immoral

tendencies by means of education, religion or environment, while his

nose remains unchanged. Again, he may have certain features which are

said to denote generosity, for example, yet there may be various other

features which denote love of power, acquisitiveness, vanity, etc.,

which would make it quite impossible to say that generosity would

predominate, and to which tendency the subject would yield. Indeed, it

is a grave question if all the accumulated knowledge of the ages on

Physiognomy would not be misleading, even if every person knew the

precise meaning of every section of the face; for, however skilful we

might be, our judgment would constantly be taxed to the utmost to weigh

and balance, to compare and distinguish, one indication with another,

and then that other with still another, and with perhaps a whole group

of others,--a task for a mathematician, psychologist and philosopher

combined. Again, who may say that a large nose, which was esteemed so

highly by Napoleon, or a strong jaw, which is generally understood to

denote perseverance, may not be mere accidents of nature, for are not

some born tongue-tied, cross-eyed or flat-footed, without design,

meaning or tendency, so far as those physical conditions are concerned?

And do not all persons develop one or more faculties, and neglect

others, without causing any change in the bones of the face? One may

conquer and conquer, like Alexander, until there are no more worlds to

be conquered, and yet not acquire a conqueror's nose. If we treat

Physiognomy as the science of interpreting expression by means of the

muscular anatomy of the face, that is a different matter; but the real

Physiognomy deals with bones as well as with muscles. If there is doubt

as to whether the shape of the bones of the face are indicative of

character, there is no doubt that the flesh and muscles of the face form

what we call expression of the countenance, and that this can be

interpreted with some degree of accuracy.

Levater says that the forehead is the image or mirror of the

understanding; the nose and cheeks the image of moral and sensitive

life; and the mouth and chin the image of the animal life; while the

eye will be to the whole as the summary and center. I am prepared to

believe without hesitation that nothing passes in the soul which does

not produce some change in the body, and that even desire, and the act

of willing, create a corresponding motion in the body; but it requires

extraordinary credulity to believe that bones are enlarged or diminished

by this process, and, consequently, that part of Physiognomy I must

reject. But it is quite certain that, on the countenance discernibly

appear light and gloom, joy and anxiety, stupidity, ignorance, and vice,

and that, on this waxen tablet are deeply scribed every combination of

sense and soul. On the forehead, all the Graces revel, or all the

Cyclops thunder! Nature has left it bare, that, by it, the countenance

may be enlightened or darkened. At its lowest extremities, thought

appears to be changed into action. The mind here collects the powers of

resistance. Here resides the _cornua addita pauperi_. Here headlong

obstinacy and wise perseverance take up their fixed abode. Beneath the

forehead are its expressive confines, the eyebrows; a rainbow of

promise, when benignant; and the bent bow of discord, when enraged;

alike descriptive, in each case, of interior feeling. The nose imparts

solidity and unity to the whole countenance,--the mountain that

shelters the fair vales beneath. How descriptive of the mind and

character are its various parts; the insertion, the ridge, the

cartilege, and the nostrils, through which life is inhaled. The eyes,

considered only as tangible objects, are by their form, the windows of

the soul, the fountains of light and life. The eye-bone, whether

gradually sunken, or boldly prominent, is also worthy of attention; as

likewise are the temples, whether hollow or smooth. That region of the

face which includes the eyebrows, eye, and nose, also include the chief

signs of soul; that its of will, or mind, in action. The occult, the

noble, the sublime, sense of hearing, has nature placed sideways, and

half concealed. On the inferior part of the face, nature has bestowed a

mask for the male, and not without reason, for here are displayed those

marks of sensuality, which ought to be hidden. All know how much the

upper lip betokens the sensations of taste, desire, appetite, and the

enjoyments of love; how much it is curved by pride and anger, drawn thin

by cunning, smoothed by benevolence, made flaccid by effeminacy; how

love and desire, sighs and kisses, cling to it, by indescribable traits.

The under lip is little more than its supporter, the rosy cushion on

which the crown of majesty reposes. If the parts of any two bodies can

be pronounced to be exactly adapted to each other, such are the lips of

man, when the mouth is closed. Words are the pictures of the mind. We

judge of the host by the portal. He holds the flaggon of truth, of love

and endearing friendship. The chin is formed by the under lip, and the

termination of the jaw-bones, and it denotes sensuality in man,

according as it is more or less flexible, smooth, or clear: it discovers

what his rank is among his fellows. The chin forms the oval of the

countenance; and when, as in the antique statues of the Greeks, it is

neither pointed nor indented, but smooth, and gradually diminishes, it

is then the keystone of the superstructure. With apologies to Herder for

much of the foregoing, thus endeth this brief dissertation on

Physiognomy.

_Dreams_

It is quite clear that the phenomena of dreams could be perfectly

accounted for by natural laws and therefore they should not be

attributed to supernatural causes.

Ancient divines taught that dreams either proceeded from the Deity or

from the devil, but it is now quite certain that all dreams originate

only in the dreamers. Dreams come only from a state of imperfect sleep.

When sleep is perfect, all the faculties are at complete rest, and there

can be no dreams--and even if there were, memory being absent, the dream

could never be recalled. Bodily sensations are the most common cause of

dreams. A hot-water bottle at the feet might cause dreaming of a fire;

kicking the bed-clothes from the lower extremities might carry the

dreamer to scenes of snow and ice; getting one's head accidentally under

the pillow might involve the dreamer in a drowning episode or other

incident of strangulation. Physical ills also have their influence upon

the unsound sleeper, and the nature of the pain is usually similar to

the nature of the dream. The mind, during unsound sleep, is irrational,

and often groups incongruous things and scenes into meaningless and

impossible situations. Stored away in hidden recesses of the memory, are

innumerable items, and during imperfect sleep the mind seizes some of

these haphazard and forms some of the most fantastic and ludicrous

pictures.

The cause of the dream is sometimes the cause of its fulfilment. For

example, a person might think, in his waking moments, of writing a poem,

and if it is strongly on his mind he is likely to dream of it. The dream

may suggest some missing link or idea, and when he awakes he is better

prepared to complete it. Belief in the supernatural origin of dreams is

also the frequent cause of their fulfilment. If a person dreams of

approaching sickness, and is superstitious, his fears and imagination

are likely to hasten the calamity. There is recorded somewhere in

history the case of a general who dreamed of a defeat, and, being

superstitious, his courage deserted him, and the enemy conquered. There

is also recorded the case of a German student, who dreamed that he was

to die the next day at a certain hour. His friends found him next

morning making a will and other preparations, and as the time drew

near, he had every appearance of a person about to die. His friends used

every argument to shake his belief in dreams, but to no purpose, and

they were despairing of saving him, when the physician contrived to set

the clock forward, and thus prolonged matters until the student's life

was at last saved. There are several instances on record where death has

actually ensued in consequence of the belief in the supernatural origin

of dreams, and there is no doubt that believers in dreams often cause

fulfilment by mental influence. It is true that there are instances on

record where a person has dreamed of the death of a relative, and found

that that relative had died at about the time of the dream, but these

instances are rare and prove nothing. When it is considered that there

are doubtless millions of instances where persons have dreamed of the

death of relatives, when they have not died, the comparatively few cases

where the dreams came true must be taken as mere coincidence. It is not

a miracle for a dream of this kind to come true, but it would indeed be

a miracle if one or more of such dreams did not come true, like the one

that is recorded of a proud young divinity student who dreamed three

times in one night that he must turn to the seventh verse of the fifth

chapter of Ecclesiastes, where he would find important instructions. He

arose in the morning, and turning to the specified passage, found this:

"In the multitude of dreams there are divers vanities."

The mental process by which the human mind arrived at the conclusion

that dreams result from supernatural causes is due to the same

propensity of the mind for the marvelous, and to that excess credulity

which attributes all unusual or remarkable mental impressions to some

external agency. The average mind is prone to reason out the causes of

phenomena to the limit of its mental powers, and then, when it arrives

at the point when it can go no farther, and can give no rational

explanation, to attribute the phenomena to the supernatural.

All dreams originate from former sensations. These sensations were

introduced into the mind by the senses, at some previous time or times,

and the mind has stored them away where they have lain dormant and

forgotten. The dream-state is that condition of temporary

subconsciousness when the memory recalls the aforesaid sensations and

submits them to the scrutiny of the reasoning faculty, by which their

relations are determined, through the agency of association. During

perfect sleep there can be no dream, because the dream is caused by a

state of activity of certain faculties, which, in perfect sleep, are in

a state of torpor. There could be no dream if the mental faculties,

including memory, are at perfect rest. Only when part of the mental

faculties are sufficiently active to recall the sensations and

impressions that are stored away, and to institute association, can

there be dreams. Some of the faculties must be active, and some

inactive, to produce a dream, and only in imperfect sleep does this

condition obtain. Among the inactive faculties in the dream state is

judgment, which, were it active, would correct the mental process and

discover the fallacy. Imagination is often brought strongly into play by

the dreamer; and the combination of imagination, previous sensations and

associations often create fantastic objects and pictures wholly

different from those occurring in nature. The mind of the dreamer can

readily combine parts of the sensations previously derived from

beholding an elephant, a crow and a cow, and may see in his dream a crow

with a trunk, a cow with a bill, or an elephant with upright horns and a

black feathered tail. It can also readily associate with his own self

parts of various sensations derived from reading or hearing of certain

crimes or improprieties, and picture himself in the act of doing things

utterly at variance with his morals and inclinations when in a conscious

state.

It also may happen, in the various modes of combination, that objects or

events are portrayed in accordance with nature and facts, but, perhaps,

in exaggerated, diminished or distorted forms, in which case an

erroneous standard of judgment is formed that will throw all after

sensations out of perspective with truth.

The dreamer generally dreams of things which have lately been weighing

on his mind, but not necessarily so, nor does it follow that he will

dream what has been ardently expected or painfully dreaded. Association

of ideas may lead his unguided mind to a scene or object which, in his

wakeful moments, he cannot trace, for his memory usually preserves only

the final objects or scene, and not the various steps that led to it.

Thus, if moving be on his mind, he may, in his dream, see a moving van,

then a painting on the side of the van, then an artist, then a paint

shop, a model, another picture on an easel, and finally a very pleasant

or a very horrible scene in a studio. When the dreamer awakes he

remembers only the scene, and he is at a loss to know why he should have

dreamed of a scene so foreign to his previous thoughts.

There appears to be no truth whatever in the theory that dreams come as

omens or warnings, for they are purely accidental. Neither is there

apparently any truth in the belief that dreams come by opposites, that

they are the manifestation of some invisible agency, or that there is

anything supernatural, uncanny or mysterious about them.

To maintain that one can foretell future events, or read past events,

from dreams, is absurd. Nearly every person dreams each night, and

particularly during the moments when losing consciousness and the

moments when awakening, since imperfect sleep then obtains; and, it

would be strange indeed if, during one or more of these occasions, we

did not by chance dream of something which afterwards actually happens.

All bodily derangements that interrupt healthy sleep, such as irritation

of the digestive organs, and even over-exertion, worry, and undue

excitement, will produce dreams, and it is therefore fairly obvious

that, since we know the cause of dreams, their effects and results,

there is nothing marvellous, unnatural, wonderful, extraordinary or

supernatural in dreams.

Until the past few hundred years, the cause of dreams was not

understood. Aristotle believes the cause of dreams to be common sense,

but placed in the fancy. Avicen thought it to be an ultimate

intelligence moving the moon in the midst of that light with which the

fancies of men are illuminated while they sleep. Averroes, an Arabian

physician, ascribed it to the imagination. Democritus referred the cause

of them to little images, or representations, separated from the things

themselves. Plato placed it among the specific and concrete notions of

the soul. Albertus attributed dreams to superior influences, which

continually flow from the sky, through many specific channels.

In order to disdelusionize, it will be necessary to get a clear

understanding of the nature of the mind and of its workings. "When the

mind turns its view inward upon itself," says John Locke, "and

contemplates its own actions, _thinking_ is the first that occurs. In

it, the mind observes a great variety of modifications, and from them

receives distinct _ideas_. Thus the perception, which actually

accompanies, and is annexed to any impression on the body, made by an

external object, being distinct from all other modifications of

thinking, furnishes the mind with a distinct idea which we call

_sensation_; which is, as it were, the actual entrance of an idea into

the understanding by the senses.

"The same idea, when it occurs again without the operation of the like

object on the external sensory, is _remembrance_; if it be sought after

by the mind, and with pain and endeavor found, and brought again in

view, it is _recollection_; if it be held there long under

consideration, it is _contemplation_; when ideas float in our mind

without any recollection or regard of the understanding, it is that

which the French call _reverie_; our language has scarce a word for it.

When the ideas that offer themselves (for, as I have observed, while we

are awake, there will always be a train of ideas succeeding one another

in our minds) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registered in the

memory, it is _attention_; when the mind, with great earnestness, and of

choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will

not be called off by the ordinary solicitations of other ideas, it is

what we call intention or study. _Sleep_ without dreaming is rest from

all these; and dreaming itself, is the having of ideas (while the

outward senses are stopped, so that they receive not outward objects

with their usual quickness) in the mind, not suggested by any external

objects, or known occasion, nor under any choice or conduct of the

understanding at all, and whether that which we call _ecstasy_, be not

dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be examined."

We often converse with a dead or absent friend, in our dreams, without

remembering that the grave or the ocean is between us. We float, like a

feather, or fly like a bird, upon the wind, one moment in New York, and

the next in Melbourne, without reflecting that the laws of nature are

suspended, or inquiring how the scene could have been so suddenly

shifted. We accommodate ourselves to every event, however romantic,

impossible, unreasonable, extravagant and absurd.

We also dream awake, which dreams may be called _reveries_ or

_waking-dreams_, and they are sometimes as chimerical, and impossible to

be realized, as our sleep dreams. Many fabulous stories of apparitions,

magic, and apparent miracles, owe their origin to some form of dream.

_Superstitions_

_Superstition has done more harm than war, famine and pestilence._

It has been said that all men are tainted with superstition, in greater

or less degree, and that they are credulous from the cradle to the

grave. We may be particularly strong on Friday, on the thirteenth, on

walking under a ladder, and other foolish superstitions which have

thousands of times been exposed, yet we find ourselves weak on something

else equally absurd. We are credulous because we are naturally sincere,

which indicates that superstitious belief proceeds from honorable

principles. All men have a strong attraction to truth, and the man who

is the most deceitful is usually the most disposed to belief that other

men respect truth. And thus, before rejecting the statements of others,

we usually require to detect something in them which is not in accord

with our previous knowledge, unless, perchance, we have cause to suspect

a design to deceive us. Credulity is, therefore, natural, in part, and

it is also the result of the faulty education that we have received from

our distant ancestors.

Perhaps many of the superstitions owe their origin to religion. If

people had not been taught about devils, hells, miracles and other

mysteries, they would not be so susceptible to other beliefs equally

absurd.

It is commonly known that gamblers are very superstitious, but fashions

change with them as they do with everything else; for, where

unsuccessful gamblers used formerly to make a knot in their linen, to

change their luck, they now content themselves with changing their

chairs, and performing other silly things which some successful gamester

has lately done. And so with other superstitious persons. As a security

against cowardice, it was once only necessary to wear a pin plucked from

the winding sheet of a corpse; now, all one needs is to rub the back of

a hunchback. To insure a prosperous accouchement to your wife, you once

had to tie her girdle to a bell and ring it three times, while now all

that is necessary is to see the new moon over your right shoulder and

wish. To get rid of warts, you were to fold up in a rag as many peas as

you had warts, and throw them into the highroad, when the unlucky person

who picked them up became your substitute; but now, they may be cured

by finding a pin, head toward you. To cure a tooth-ache you had to

solicit alms in honor of St. Lawrence, but in these enlightened times it

can be done by staring at a horseshoe over the door. And so on, _ad

infinitum_ do we find the superstitions, like the fashions, ever

changing.

The birth of science was the death of superstition, said Huxley; but,

alas, it is a slow and painful death. But, science is only half born as

yet, and that is why superstition is only half dead.

P. T. Barnum was known as the prince of humbuggers, yet few men have

ever lived who had a keener insight into human nature. He knew the human

heart, he knew its weaknesses, and he knew how to profit by his

knowledge.

The gullibility of the public is shown in various ways: first, by the

prosperity of the palmists, astrologers and mediums; second, by the

success of all get-rich-quick enterprises; third, by the crowds who

patronize the street fakirs who sell articles which nobody can operate

but themselves; and fourth, by the apparent success of certain officials

who operate through their press agents.

Palmistry, graphology, physiognomy, phrenology, clairvoyancy,

chirognomancy, and the other "sciences," have not yet been accepted by

the powers that be, fortunately, as an infallible detector of crime.

Very few, indeed, of the believers in these isms and ologies would care

to have their fate in court determined by experts in one or more of

these theories. Only a few hundred years ago, persons were tried and

convicted of witchcraft by the same sort of "experts," and the result

was that the accused had a very slight chance of acquittal.

Most of our great men have had their illusions, delusions and

superstitions, but that is no excuse for people of our times. Genius is

always ill-balanced, in accordance with the law of compensation.

Napoleon believed in the exploded theory of astrology, and he once said

of a bright star, "It has never deserted me. I see it on every

occurrence urging me onward; it is an unfailing omen of success." Oliver

Cromwell says he saw the figure of a gigantic woman enter his chamber,

who told him that he would become the greatest man in England. Sir

Joshua Reynolds thought the lamps in his gardens were trees, and the

women bushes, agitated by the breeze. Descartes thought he was followed

by an invisible person, whose voice urged him to continue his

researches. Loyola, lying wounded after the siege of Pampeluna, imagined

he saw the Virgin, who encouraged him to prosecute his mission. Pope

thought he saw an army come through the walls of his home to inquire

after his welfare. Goethe says that he once saw his exact counterpart

coming towards him. Byron was also visited by ghosts, and Dr. Johnson

thought he heard his mother's voice, though she was in a distant city.

Swedenborg imagined that he could converse with departed spirits.

Cellini was deterred from suicide by the apparition of a beautiful

woman, and Nicolai was annoyed by various spirits, one of which had the

appearance of a dead body. And when we remember that some of the world's

greatest minds were deluded by the doctrines of witchcraft, alchemy,

astrology, spiritualism, and kindred superstitions, now known to be

false and silly, including the mighty search for the Philosopher's

Stone, we should hesitate long before accepting any strange theory just

because somebody else believed in it.

ABRACADABRA was one of the names given to the Persian sun-god Mithra.

This word was supposed to have magic powers to cure diseases, provided

it was written in the form of a magic triangle several times, as

follows, and worn on the bosom for nine days:

ABRACADABRA

BRACADABR

RACADAB

ACADA

CAD

A

Why is superstition so deep-rooted? Why do we cling to error so

tenaciously? Why does every new, occult fad soon attract a host of

followers? Let us see. First, there is a charm to everything that is

extraordinary--we love the unusual, the different, the marvelous, the

miraculous; second, we hate to see destroyed that which we love. Hence,

the tendency to exaggeration, which is a consequence of it; and hence

the regretful reluctance to have our dreams of wondrousness dispelled.

Is there anything quite so unpleasant, when we have told a friend of

some marvelous manifestation we had witnessed, as to have that friend

prove to us that the manifestation was but a trick? Not only is our

pride hurt, but our pet joy is spoiled; we had been hugging a sacred

mystery, only to find it a delusion.

That which we call mystery is unfinished knowledge--not complete

ignorance. That which we call the supernatural is but the natural not

yet understood, or only partly understood. We know a little of

everything, but not everything of everything, nor even everything of any

one thing. Science is only a mystery solved.

A prevalent and dangerous form of credulity or enthusiasm is that which

makes us extremists or faddists. A faddist is an extremist, and an

extremist is a faddist. It is one thing to be so stubborn and

old-fashioned that nothing new has any interest to us, and it is another

to be so credulous and catholic that we seize every new theory with a

mad enthusiasm. Every fad and delusion is founded on a truth, but the

extremist sees in them more than a truth; his brain becomes a

kaleidoscope, with numerous reflecting surfaces which reflect multifold

imaginary pictures. From two or three simple truths, sprang an immense

false system of astrology; from the simple truth that our temperaments

and characters are more or less expressed upon our bodies, sprang some

of the silly doctrines of palmistry and physiognomy; from the simple

truth that every person has an individuality which is expressed in his

apparel, his home and his manners, sprang the ridiculous theory of

psychometry; from the simple truth that souls live beyond the grave,

and that our imagination may picture those souls, sprang the untenable

belief in ghosts, spirits and mediums; and from the simple fact that our

pains and troubles are intensified by brooding over them, sprang the

fallacy of Christian Science. Who would say that the Boston tea party

_caused_ the Revolutionary war, or that the firing on Fort Sumpter

_caused_ the "late unpleasantness"? The quarrel between Queen Anne and

the Duchess of Marlborough over a pair of gloves did not cause the

change of ministry and the following peace with Louis XIV, nor did the

blood of Lucretia put an end to the kingly powers at Rome, as some say,

and neither did the sight of Virginia terminate the decemviral power,

nor did the view of Caesar's body and mantle enslave Rome. It seems to

be that love of the marvellous, of the curious, of the strange, and of

the impossible, that makes us ascribe great results to the most

insignificant and isolated causes.

There is a book entitled "Current Superstitions," which can be had in

any library, that should cure any reasonable mind of superstition. It

contains some thousands of superstitions common throughout the United

States, and if a person were to believe in them all, that person could

not live one day without violating a dozen or more that would involve

him into fatal consequences. Fortunately, the superstitious person

usually clings to only two or three, which are not bothersome, and he

does not see the folly of them. Some superstitions seem harmless enough,

such as, for example, the belief that holding an open umbrella over the

head in the house is productive of bad luck, for who wants to do such a

thing? or, that of walking under a ladder, for how many times in a

lifetime does a person have occasion to avoid doing so? But all

superstitions are harmful to the mind, and harmful in their influence

upon others--particularly upon children. A man cannot successfully

contend against an unknown enemy in the dark, and superstition

pre-supposes that there is some unknown, relentless, all-powerful force

at work, against God, Nature, common sense, and against the laws of the

universe.

There is an old story, but a well-authenticated one, which serves to

illustrate the dangers of superstition. In Hamburg, in 1784, a singular

accident occasioned the death of a young couple. The lady, going to the

church of the Augustin Friars, knelt down near a Mausoleum, ornamented

with divers figures in marble, among which was that of Death, armed with

a scythe, and a small piece of the scythe being loose, fell on the hood

of the lady's mantlet. On her return home, she mentioned the

circumstances as a matter of indifference to her husband, who, being a

credulous and superstitious man, cried out in a terrible panic, that it

was a presage of the death of his dear wife. The same day he was seized

with a violent fever, took to his bed and died. The disconsolate lady

was so affected at the loss that she was taken ill and soon followed

him. They were both interred in the same grave, and their inheritance,

which was very considerable, fell to some distant relatives.

Under the head of "Thirteen at Dinner," Edwards in "Words, Facts and

Phrases" says: "The common superstition which makes it unlucky to have

thirteen at dinner is no doubt a reference to the Last Supper of our

Lord and his disciples, where thirteen were present and Judas was among

them. He left first, and therefore the first of a party of thirteen to

leave the table is the unlucky one." Perhaps this is correctly stated,

but if so, how many persons now make the _dangerous_ mistake of at once

leaving a table as soon as they discover thirteen present! By leaving at

once they hope to avert the evil, whereas they are rushing into it. What

folly, either to leave the table or to remain at it, because of this

superstition!

The Thirteen Club of New York serves a useful mission. Composed of

several hundred prominent people, it meets, discusses the folly of

popular superstitions, exposes the fallacies of the supernatural, and

breeds a healthy condition of the mind. They meet on Fridays, usually on

the 13th of the month, they enter the clubrooms by passing under a

ladder, the dues are multiples of thirteen, umbrellas are hung over

every chair, salt is spilled on every table, and so on, in defiance of

the laws of superstition.

Those foolish persons who believe in the silly superstition "Thirteen at

table, one of them sure to die," should remember that if there are

fourteen at table, or more, the chances of one of them dying soon are

much greater than if there were only thirteen, so that it is far safer

to reduce the number to thirteen!

Wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance, it is said, but the

ignorant are not the only ones to wonder over novelty, and other things

than novelty cause wonder, such as want of familiarity with common

things met with every day. Knowledge is the cure of both ignorance and

superstition, but of the love to wonder there appears to be no cure.

The reason we are so quick to believe in the supernatural is that we are

prone to discern in it either good luck or bad luck--benefit or

punishment. We are all governed by our passions--principally Hope and

Fear, and nothing is more capable of creating those hopes and fears than

unrestrained credulity concerning the mysterious.

Everybody has doubtless seen those wonderful, supernatural mind-readers

at Coney Island, who profess to be able to tell you your name. I

listened to one of their dialogs recently, in which a young lady and her

companion were amazed at having the magician look in their eyes and read

there their true names, fully convinced of the supernatural powers of

the operators. Guessing at how it was done, my friend and I strolled

off, made a plan, returned, stopped in front of the camp, and began a

conversation in which I addressed my friend as "William"--which was not

his name at all--and he called me "Washington," to all of which the

several fakirs were intently listening, though pretending not to. Just

as they thought they had enough to work upon they approached us, and we

yielded to their entreaties. We were ushered into the mystic chamber,

there was some whispering among them, and then we were dramatically

ordered to think intensely of our names, the chief fakir all the while

glaring tragicly into my friend's eyes. "Ah, I has it," said he,

gesticulating wildly, "William!" he exclaimed, exultantly. "Wonderful!"

was our reply. Devoting his attention to me, he appeared puzzled, but

finally said: "You no think; I no get name, but I tell you something

wonderful--I tell you what on your mind." "Very well," said I, "that

will do." And then he put his greasy forefingers on my temples and

cried, "You think you have some _washing done_!"

If every spiritualist, astrologer, palmist, clairvoyant, mind reader and

fortune teller were compelled by law to hang out a sign, "I am a

professor of tricks, magic, sleight-of-hand, legerdemain, and

tomfoolery; come in and match your wits against mine!" they would still

have many customers; but, if everybody believed in signs, there would be

no harm done. But perhaps the people would rather have it the other way,

as it is, so that they can nurse the delusion that "Perhaps there may be

something in it, after all."

_Stage Tricks and Occultism_

Stage tricks are usually harmless, except when played by fakirs who

claim to be possessed of supernatural powers. There is a large variety

of these, such as spiritualists, slate-writers, clairvoyants,

telepathists and mind-readers, who perform ordinary stage tricks under

the guise of occultism, and they deserve something more than mere

exposure. Every operator has his or her own particular method of

performing certain tricks, and it would be impossible to explain in a

brief article how each is done; but it may be helpful to expose a few of

the more common ones. All of these tricks may be accounted for as

follows: Sleight-of-hand, confederacy, ingenious contrivance, or the

application of some natural law, and most of the best tricks are

performed with the aid of two or more of these. Had Hermann the Great,

or Keller, been dishonest, they could almost have had the world at their

feet, by maintaining that their tricks were done through spirit or

physic force; but they were honest enough to admit that all their feats

were done by means of one or more of the devices just mentioned. There

is no slate-writing trick, or materialization, or mind-reading

exhibition, that they could not have duplicated, or even excelled; in

fact, they did actually duplicate and expose most of them. Had they

claimed that spirits or devils, aided them, a majority of the people

would probably have believed it without question. Perhaps one reason why

more mediums, and such, are not exposed and arrested, is because there

is something grew-some and awe-inspiring in the thought that possibly

the on-looker is in the presence of the inhabitants of another world;

or, perhaps the feeling of sadness, or of the sacredness of the

occasion, shuts off all sentiments of revenge, however doubtful he may

be of the genuineness of the exhibition. The fact that one by one

practically all the great mediums have been exposed, seems to make no

difference, because in our anxiety to learn if there is not some

possible way to get news of the departed loved ones, we reason that

because one, or a dozen, imposters have been exposed, this particular

one may be genuine, and that there may possibly be something in it after

all.

Why is it that so many are willing to attribute occult powers to all

magicians who perform inexplicable tricks? There is scarcely a person

who cannot do one or more card tricks which will puzzle the most astute

observer, but we do not marvel because we know that they are merely

tricks; but let the trickster once announce that he is a mind-reader or

a hypnotist, and three out of every five will accept the statement as

truth and not seek further to disprove it. Thus, we are taught that

credulity is a disease with which most persons are afflicted, and that

it is very easy to fool the best of us. Those who are so weak as to

accept every mystery as a manifestation of supernatural power, should

obtain one of the many books which can be had at any library, and make a

study of the art of legerdemain. Then, when attending a spiritualistic

seance, or a slate-writing exposition, the student will be able readily

to detect the fraud and to duplicate it for the amusement of his own

friends.

If every investigator would, before going to a seance, buy one or more

of the books, which are on sale at every bookstore, showing how the

various stage tricks are done, there would not be many spiritualists in

the world. These books sharpen the wits, and while they may not give the

precise methods adopted by the medium to be visited, they will show how

easy it is to deceive the eye and to fool the best of us.

Much has been said of the wonderful tricks of the fakirs in India,

particularly of the Great Mango Trick, and all kinds of supernatural

powers have been ascribed to these clever people. In these exhibitions,

the fakirs take a seed and a pile of sand, and make a Mango tree grow,

in a few minutes, to the height of three or four feet. The secret lies

in the fact that the leaves and twigs of the Mango are such that they

can be folded into a very small compass and rolled up within the hollow

seed, so that when they are unrolled they do not show the slightest

crease. The fakir covers the whole with a cloth, and operates beneath

it, piling the dirt around it, and exhibiting the building tree

occasionally to his astonished audience. Baldwin, "The White Mahatma,"

has exposed this and many others of the Indian tricks, in his book, "The

Secrets of Mahatma Land Explained."

Slate-writing tricks are done in a hundred different ways. Some

operators carry a tiny point of pencil under their thumb nail, some have

chemical compounds which render writing invisible until heated, or

moistened, and some have duplicate slates. The messages they write are

obtained in various ways, often by means of accomplices, and still

oftener by guess-work.

Some mediums have a regular detective force who make it a business to

get acquainted with all susceptible persons, or prospective customers,

and after getting a history of these persons, they convey it to the

medium, who only has to await the coming of the victims to be able to

make startling revelations.

The mind readers also operate largely by means of confederates, and most

of the theatrical performers have clever trappings. One of these was

exposed recently in a Long Island village, when it was discovered that

the operator had several telephone wires running under the floor of the

theatre, from the rear of the stage. In another instance, it was found

that the sheets of cardboard, which were passed around for the audience

to rest their papers upon, were sensitized so that when they were

collected and subjected to chemical treatment they would make visible

the writing that had been done over them. The questions asked were

communicated to the operator by an accomplice in the wings. Another

method, adopted by those who claim to read the numbers in watch cases,

and to tell the numbers on banknotes, is that of a code of signals sent

to the operator by a confederate in the audience. These codes are

sometimes composed of words, and sometimes of gestures and signals.

One noted spiritualist claimed to be able to put the subject under a

spirit influence and give him superhuman strength. For instance, the

subject would support his feet on two little stools, and his hands upon

two others, each pair of stools being about five feet apart, and he

would then arch his body upward, in the form of a bridge. A heavy anvil

was then placed upon his abdomen, and the operator would take a huge

sledge hammer and beat a piece of red hot iron into a horseshoe. This

was only an experiment in inertia, and the heavy blows were hardly felt

by the man below, the effect of them being almost absorbed by the large

mass of iron. It was also noticed that when heavy weights were lifted at

arm's length, they were so arranged as to lie along the forearm, this

position being more graceful and about fifty per cent. easier. Leather

straps were broken around the chest, and this was done by means of a

sharp tongue to the buckle, filed to an edge, which cut the strap with

slight pressure. (The audience eagerly examined the strap in advance,

but never thought of examining the buckle.) Heavy Jack-chains were also

broken by the subject, but these chains all contained one weak link, of

unwelded soft iron, which would stretch out when pulled in a certain

direction. Pennies were broken with ease, but these were, of course,

prepared in advance, by placing them in a vice and working them back and

forth many times until they became soft in the middle.

Innumerable tricks are done by means of cans and other vessels

containing false bottoms, or several compartments, and every stage where

magicians perform contains various trap doors in the floor, mirrors, and

other illusions. A modern scheme is to have two rows of blinding lights,

before a black background, so that the audience cannot see the

machinery. By this contrivance, figures on the stage are made to float

in the air, and to do all kinds of apparently impossible things. One

familiar performance has a man at a piano rise in air and revolve

rapidly, all in full view--apparently--of the audience, and another

makes a lady dance in midair, and take gigantic strides at enormous

speed. These tricks are done by means of machinery, concealed from view

by optical illusions, the lady having an iron belt about her waist which

connects with the hidden machinery in the rear.

Another familiar trick is the appearance and disappearance of a person

into or from a box, basket, coffin, and so on, also in full view of the

audience. It will usually be observed that these are placed near to the

back curtain, where it is easy for a person to enter or exit through a

secret opening, but sometimes it is done through a trapdoor in the

floor. Once I had the pleasure of assisting Hermann the Great at

"Hermann's Theatre" on Broadway, since burned down. I went to his

dressing room before the performance, and he gave me a tiny rabbit which

I concealed in my ulster pocket, and at the same time several other

confederates were given "props," such as silk hats, in which omelets

were afterwards made, and handkerchiefs with red moons in the center,

and red handkerchiefs with white moons, which were afterwards used in

the performance by Hermann who cut a circle out of the middle of a white

handkerchief and one from a red handkerchief, and afterwards produced

out of the audience the handkerchiefs aforesaid, much to the wonderment

of the audience. The rabbit I held was the counterpart of another which

Hermann shot from a pistol on the stage, and which was afterwards found

in my pocket, much to my apparent chagrin.

The art of magic, while by no means a lost art, is not so popular now as

formerly, yet it still has a firm hold on human credulity. As Barnum

used to say, "The people love to be humbugged." Inborn in us is that

love of the marvelous which caused our ancestors to believe in

astrology, sorcery and witchcraft. The stage magician is well aware of

this, and as the old tricks become familiar to their audiences, they

soon discover new methods to satisfy this natural propensity to crave

mystery. Some good folks say that all magic is bad, in that it is deceit

and treachery; but this seems rather a lame argument when it is

remembered that the magician practically tells his audience that he is

going to fool them, and that he is merely matching his dexterity against

their quickness of perception. The real harm and danger comes of the

modern tricks of magic, in which the magician pretends that he is

possessed of some supernatural powers, such as spiritualistic

manifestations, clairvoyance, mind reading, slate-writing, etc. If the

real truth were known, these charlatans probably reason thus: "We are

magicians, the people love to be mystified, we can no longer entertain

them with the old tricks, they are ever ready to believe that which they

cannot understand, the supernatural is always entertaining; and since we

must make a living some how, we will perform our tricks and claim that

they are of supernatural origin." There is some logic in this view, from

their viewpoint, but from the standpoint of us who see the danger in,

and who are trying to destroy, superstition, it is a practice that

should be suppressed.

In the introduction to Barnum's "Humbugs of the World," the great

showman says, "I once travelled through the Southern States in company

with a magician. The first day in each town he astonished his auditors

with his deceptions. He then announced that on the following day he

would show how each trick was performed, and how every man might thus

become a magician. That expose spoiled the legerdemain market on that

particular route, for several years. So, if we could have a full

exposure of the tricks of trade of all sorts, of humbugs and deceivers

of past times--religious, political, financial, scientific, quackish and

so forth--we might perhaps look for a somewhat wiser generation to

follow us."

Thus, we could go on at great length to show how easy it is to deceive

people. It is one of the easiest things in the world to make up tricks

to fool the best of us, and all operators in occult or physic phenomena

know it. "Am I not to believe what I see with my own eyes, and hear with

my own ears?" they all say,--at least ALL who _want_ to be convinced.

The answer is, "No, you are not."

_Ghosts_

One by one the great superstitions of the world are slowly but surely

disappearing. It was not long ago when we, in this new country of

enlightenment, believed in _witchcraft_, and were burning witches at the

stake; but now it would take a long hunt to find a man, woman or child

who believed in that horrible and disastrous superstition. The same is

almost true of "_Ghosts_," for that word is now used more in jest than

in earnest; but to believe in "_apparitions_" is not altogether of past

centuries, for there are still many who cling to the delusion of

supernatural appearances. The modern way of putting it is "_Spirits_."

Authors, poets and dramatists of all ages, sacred and profane, have made

endless allusions to supernatural appearances, not only because _ghosts_

are convenient and entertaining characters to introduce, not only

because writers naturally tried to reflect the beliefs of the periods of

which they wrote, but because they could make a deeper impression on

the minds of a superstitious world. Shakespeare makes fine use of the

Ghost in Hamlet and in Macbeth, just as Goethe does of Mephistopheles in

Faust. Not only is fiction and the drama full of Ghosts, but there are

hundreds of volumes in the libraries giving serious, and apparently

"well-authenticated" cases of supernatural appearances. Mrs. Crowe's

"Nightside of Nature" is probably the classic of this line of

literature--at least, it appears to be quoted more than any other. The

author of Robinson Crusoe wrote "An Essay on the History and Reality of

Apparitions; being an account of what they are and what they are not,

when they come and when they come not; as also how we may distinguish

between apparitions of Good and Evil Spirits, and how we ought to behave

to them; with a variety of surprising and diverting examples never

published before."

I have frequently been asked by believing friends, "How do you account

for this?"--following with, perchance, an elaborate account of what the

aunt's mother's sister's nephew once saw. My answer has always been, and

still is, to those friends, to Mrs. Crowe, Daniel DeFoe and all others,

"I cannot account for what somebody else saw, says he saw, or thinks he

saw; but let me see it and I will guarantee to give you a reasonable

explanation." John Ruskin says somewhere that the greatest thing in this

world is to see something and to be able to tell simply and accurately

just what you saw, _and nothing else_. There is the secret! I remember

the first time I saw Hermann the Great, and how I went home and told

everybody about the wonderful trick he had performed. Of course, nobody

could tell me how it was done, for, from the way I described it, it was

an impossibility. Sometime later I had occasion to meet Mr. Hermann in

his dressing room, and I then learned how the trick was done. How

simple! I had been duped and deceived. My eyes had not seen aright. How

different was the story I had told, from the story Hermann told!

I have often thought, if Hermann had been in the _Ghost_ business, what

harm could he not have done!

We all know what becomes of the bodies and clothing of the dead. Of this

there can be no doubt. What becomes of the soul, the spirit, nobody

knows. Assuming that this does not die, which seems probable, we know

that it cannot again live within the same body and apparel, for that is

destroyed. To assume that the spirit procures a new and similar body and

clothing, is to assume the existence of material, physical matter in

the spiritual world. Does it not require quite a stretch of a

sacrilegious imagination to picture a clothing factory in the spiritual

world? And yet, we are told that ghosts appear "in the very clothes they

used to wear." Mrs. Bargrave "took hold of Mrs. Veal's gown several

times" and recognized the velvet. (Drelincourt on Death, 1700). We are

also told of "rustling of silk," "creaking of shoes" and "sounds of

footsteps" (Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, Owen).

Even the voice is recognized, although the various organs that produced

the original voice on earth have long since perished. We all seem to

have a notion that ghosts should be light, thin and airy, but, it seems,

there must be fat _ghosts_, too. I remember at least one fat ghost, for

I yanked it into my lap in the middle of a highly interesting seance at

Mrs. Calder's, a famous _Ghost_ producer who once thrived in New York.

The ghost was alleged to be a famous Plymouth church preacher whose name

is too revered to be mentioned in this connection.

Some Ghosts have even appeared in iron armour, and some with walking

sticks, swords or shovels. People have heard, seen and felt all

these--the word _felt_ might be used in a double sense here, because one

vicious _ghost_ is said to have delighted in thumping his hosts with a

cane--so it can be assumed that such material things as clothing, armour

and canes are to be had in the other world. And yet, _ghosts_ are

transparent! You can see right through them. They disappear through a

stone wall, through a carpeted, oaken floor, and through a locked and

bolted door. You can shoot at them, run them through with a sword, and

you touch nothing.

Again, the same _Ghost_ frequently appears in many places at one and the

same time. DeFoe tells of the burglars who found the same _ghost_ in a

chair in every room in the house at the same moment. Still again, we

have "well-authenticated" cases of beggar Ghosts in rags, of one-armed

Ghosts, beheaded Ghosts, blind Ghosts, hungry Ghosts, thirsty Ghosts,

worried, tormented and unhappy Ghosts, and wicked, revengeful Ghosts.

Is, then, the spirit world (heaven), no improvement on our own world?

Mr. Kardec once asserted that we are surrounded by "myriads of

spirits--good, bad and indifferent," which quite alarmed the author of

"Mary Jane," who feared accidents might happen among such a crowd of

_spirits_. Mr. Baker, it was, who set the author at ease, by explaining

that "the _spirits_ can walk through one another and not feel it."

It is a wonder that, in a world so full of humbuggers,

get-rich-quicksters, fakirs and delusionists, greater effort has been

made to profit by the greatest of all passions. For every human weakness

we have a gold seeker, be it a Barnum, Munyon, a Lydia Pinkham, a 520%

Miller, a Dowie, a Dis de Bar, or a Sister Fox. Some want to be tall,

some short, some fat, some thin, some rich, some healthy, some

beautiful, etc., etc., and there is always an army of fakirs, honest,

semi-honest and otherwise, ready to make them so for a monetary

consideration payable in advance. But, the greatest distress, the

greatest passion, the greatest longing and yearning, is for the dead.

What a tremendous army is the army of the mourners! What a gold mine to

the man who can bring the mourner and the departed together! _Ghost_

makers do not necessarily mean to defraud, nor do they always perform

for money. There are good and bad, as in all else, and they sometimes

fool themselves in their efforts to fool others. The _Imagination_ is a

wonderful organism. It is the greatest machine on earth, because it can

do the greatest things. But, beware of it--it is not to be trusted; it

will expand your credulity, undermine your reason, and give you a taste

of the delirium tremens--which makes you see things!

_Strikes, Profiteering and the High Cost of Living_

_Being an Argument in Favor of Industrialized Government_

PART I.

THE A. B. C. OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

(_Simplified for the Uninitiated._)

The one great desire uppermost in the minds of men is to get the

greatest good from the earth, the source of all wealth, with the least

possible labor and effort. In the so-doing, both experience and reason

teach that economy is the watchword. It is the life blood of

civilization--the essence of industrial prosperity. The basis of all

philosophy is "I want," and in the pursuit of happiness and contentment,

economy must be the watchword.

WASTE.

The destruction of the smallest useful atom is an injury to every living

person; and the more useful the atom, the greater the injury. A great

fire, a flood, a devastating cyclone, is not only a calamity to those

immediately affected, but it is a universal loss; for, the great human

family is just so much poorer, the world's progress has been retarded,

and our onward march toward the perfect civilization has been checked.

Likewise, every stroke of labor that does not go toward making the world

better or richer is wasted energy. The man who insists on making shoes,

or raising wheat, or digging coal, when he is mentally, physically and

by nature ill-adapted to that calling, is a drone and a burden upon

society. He is wasting energy and impeding the general progress, because

he is doing something which others could do better or quicker, and he is

therefore the cause of misplacing two persons in unproductive and

unnatural callings.

MACHINES.

The labor saving machine is the personification of economy. It, and all

great inventions, are welcomed by civilization as great economizers of

the world's work. It is wasted energy for man to do by hand that which

a machine can do as well and in less time. The machine economizes

production and therefore lightens and lessens the toil of the human

family. Ten men in a shop or industry, each assigned to that branch of

the business to which he is best adapted, form a combination for economy

identical with a machine. If a linotype machine, operated by one man,

can do the work of say five type-setters, the world is richer to the

extent of about what four men could create in other

vocations,--allowances being made for the labor required to make the

machine itself.

DEPENDENCE.

A person can no longer make his own hat, coat, shoes and house, and

raise his own vegetables, as Crusoe did. Ten thousand men are

co-operating to give him his shoes alone. There are the men who kill the

animal which provides the hide, the men who carry it to the jobber, the

men who strip it, the men who cure and tan it, the men who pack it, load

it on the trucks, put it on the cars, unload it, carry it to the leather

merchant, and the innumerable clerks, bookkeepers, advertisers and

stenographers who help sell it to the shoe manufacturer, the additional

transportation, the endless variety of hands it passes through in the

factory, and the countless hands that handle the finished shoe before it

reaches the consumer; and then,--the telegraph's part in the manufacture

or sale or transportation of that shoe, and the mails and the

advertising, each employing thousands. Even the linen thread used in the

shoe has a similar history; likewise the pegs, the needles, the

machines, the cloth lining and the metal eyelets. And the shoe is a

small part of a man's necessaries. What does all this show? The

inter-dependence of men, one upon the other.

CO-OPERATION.

We have come to that stage of human progress when we could not return to

the Crusoe method if we desired. We must depend upon our brothers in

distant parts. A vast industrial machine has been created, of which each

member of the human family forms a part. A must look to B for his shoes,

B must look to C for his meat, C must look to D for his coal, and all

must look to one another for every needed thing. Even the savages in

distant lands are at work procuring ivory and other commodities for us

while we are creating suitable articles for them, and thus the human

family are co-operating together for the common good.

If this system of co-operation or trade is not interfered with by

unnatural and artificial devices, every man will sooner or later find

his level and bend his energies in that calling to which he is best

fitted by nature, education, training, and environment. A natural law is

at work. To interfere with it is to divert commerce from its natural

channels and cause friction in the great industrial machine. The machine

needs no oiling or mending; it simply requires direction. It develops,

expands and lubricates as it runs. It is not revolution that wears out a

machine; it is friction.

COMBINATION.

Two or more persons can enjoy the heat of one stove, or the light of one

lamp, or the shelter of one roof, as well as one person, and without

depriving anyone of an equal quantity thereof. A printer can produce

1,000 circulars with but little more cost than 50. A truck or car can

carry tons with but little more expense than pounds. Two fish can be

fried in one pan as well as one. A professor can teach a class of 500 as

well as of five. Hence the advantages of combination and co-operation,

and hence the uneconomy of individual isolation. How much wiser for

Crusoe to take Friday in his household and divide their labors, each

doing that which best suits him, using,--so to speak--only one stove,

one lamp and one frying-pan.

Suppose at Christmas a man has 100 presents to distribute in various

localities. A messenger for each of the 100 presents would mean an

expense of say $50 and much wasted energy. A single messenger could so

systemize the work, by mapping out the shortest routes, that he could

accomplish the work in far less time, comparatively, than the 100

messengers, and his bill would be only about $5. Now, suppose the man

should ascertain that each of his 199 neighbors in the block also had

100 presents to deliver. That would make 20,000 presents in all. If each

man should employ a separate messenger it would cost about $1,000. One

messenger would go to First street and leave a package (little knowing

that another messenger was to deliver a package at perhaps the very next

door), thence to--say Nineteenth street, thence to a distant section of

the city, thence to still another district, and so on. Each of the 200

messengers would have the same long journey to make, wearing out his

shoe leather, making the cars do useless work, and wearing and wasting

his own energy. But suppose the 200 neighbors should combine and

co-operate. They would soon find that about five messengers could

deliver their 20,000 presents in about the same time that 200 could;

and, at $5 each, or $25 in all, with a saving of $975 to themselves.

Mapping out the city in five districts and assigning one messenger to

each, they would probably find that many presents were to be delivered

in adjoining houses, and some to different residents of the same house.

Witness the many steps that have been saved, and the time, and the labor

of 95 men who have thus been freed to work in some productive vocation.

Method and system are parents of economy. They allay waste, eliminate

useless labor, and lighten and lessen the toil of the human family.

ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION.

Some morning at break of dawn witness the confusion in the simple

industry of delivering milk. A wagon rattles up to your door and leaves

a bottle of milk. It clatters down the street and leaves a bottle to a

neighbor in the next block. Then it turns down the avenue and leaves a

bottle several blocks away, and thence perhaps to a distant section.

But watch, and you behold another wagon coming. It stops at the next

house to yours and deposits a bottle on the window-sill, then dashes

down the block and leaves a bottle at some distant house, then to a

house perhaps several blocks away, and so on until it has covered, in

spots, a large territory. Soon, a third wagon appears and leaves a

bottle at the second house from yours, and then dashes away to distant

parts to cover its route.

And so on until nearly 200 different wagons, or grocer clerks, have

visited the 200 houses in your block to deliver 200 separate bottle of

milk. In every block the same scene is being enacted. Remember that

every employer has horses, wagons, harness, drivers, a store, books, a

cashier, advertising, fuel, light, and a plant to maintain.

[1]Now compare the unsystemized milk delivery with the scientific,

methodical system of delivering the mail. The letter-carrier leaves a

letter or paper at your door, hurries on to the next house, then to the

next and the next; then, he does likewise on the other side of the

street until nearly every house in the block is visited; then he

proceeds to the next block and continues his systematic, economical

labors; and so on until he approaches the line where another carrier

has been doing likewise in the adjoining district.

Suppose mail should be delivered in the unorganized, unmethodic manner

that milk is delivered; it would require many times as many carriers to

do it, and this additional work would be just as useless and wasteful to

the world as if they were employed to dig holes in the earth only to

fill them up again. If the milk business were to be organized similar to

the letter-carrying business what an enormous amount of wasted energy

and labor would be saved. What an immense amount of useful and

wealth-creating work could those now useless extra milkmen perform in

other callings.

THE FUTURE.

The question is asked: Will all of the milk dealers one day combine and

form a Trust? And should they? My answer is, Yes. Competition will

perhaps drive them to it; but if it does not, some day they will see the

advantages and benefits of such a combination and they will wisely

follow the example of the oil and steel magnates. If they never see it,

then some of the larger and wiser milk dealers will, and they will

perhaps enlist sufficient capital to control the market by buying up the

milk supply at the farms, thus driving the smaller dealers out of the

business or into the Trust.

What is true in the milk business is also true of nearly every other

similar business, and that is the condition which this country has to

face in the near future.

PARTNERSHIP.

A is engaged in the manufacture of shoes. B is a rival. They sell a

certain shoe for $3. Each has a separate plant to maintain; a

bookkeeper; a delivery wagon; and fuel, light, rent and advertising

bills to pay. After a while A and B form a partnership under one roof,

with only one delivery wagon, one bookkeeper, etc. With this great

saving in expenses they find that they can produce as many shoes with

the one enlarged plant as the two old plants produced and at much less

cost. They can now pay a little higher wages, make a little more profit

and still reduce the price of their shoes to, say, $2.90. C now comes to

town and opens a rival establishment. He has difficulty in producing as

good a shoe for $2.90 as does the firm of A & B, but he competes for a

while until D comes to town and starts another shoe factory. Then C and

D join their plants into one and the two firms go on competing, each

spending large sums in advertising, etc. Finally they all get together

and combine the several plants into one. They build an extension on A

and B's building and move C and D's machinery therein. The new firm of

A, B, C & D now have a large plant. Where formerly the individual

manufacturers employed say six bookkeepers, they can now get along with

but two. Where they once had ten delivery wagons they now require but

two or three, because of the systemized routes mapped out. Instead of

each manufacturer spending $10,000 a year for advertising, or $40,000 in

all, the new firm now spends only say $15,000. The saving and economy is

so great in nearly everything, that they can now pay still higher wages,

make still greater profit and sell their shoes for perhaps $2.75--if

they want to. Thus everybody is benefited by the enlarged partnership

except those who have been thrown out of employment, and they shall

presently be taken care of as we proceed.

Now, if four men by combining and forming a partnership can reduce the

price of shoes from $3.00 to $2.75 and pay higher wages and make more

profit than if they were operating separate plants, how great must be

the advantages of 100 or 1,000 men and plants combining into a

partnership. This would be a Trust. If two men can use the light of one

lamp or the heat of one radiator without one depriving the other of any

light and heat, so can 100 men do likewise, provided there is enough

light and heat to go around, and on this simple principle is the great

Trust founded. It economizes; it eliminates useless energy; it allays

waste; it saves. Our letters are delivered by the Trust system; our milk

is delivered by the old system of individual enterprise and is

inconsistent with modern civilization.

ORGANIZATION.

If the industries were not organized, if Trusts and Combinations were

unknown, if there were no corporations and no partnerships and

everything was carried on by individual units, what would be our

industrial condition? What an enormous amount of waste would there be

and what a colossal volume of extra work would the human family have to

perform to produce what we now have!

Organization is the key-note of the century. "Individual Enterprise" is

a relic of past ages. A partnership of two or more is organization on a

small scale. A corporation is practically a combination of two or more

partnerships, or an enlarged legalized partnership. A Trust then is

simply an organization of several smaller organizations. The greater and

more perfect the organization, the greater the economy. The greater the

economy the lower will be the cost of production, and the smaller will

be the amount of work to be performed and, likewise, the cheaper will be

the article--if! (See later).

ADVERTISING.

Most advertising is wasted energy. One of its purposes is to take trade

from another and bring it to itself,--a snare set by A to attract B's

customers. It creates nothing, and is only useful as a means of

communication or notification, and it imposes an unnecessarily heavy

burden upon the human family. While it does give employment, it is not

much more useful employment than the hiring of men to shovel dirt into

the river and then hiring them to shovel it out again. If employment is

all we seek, why not tear down the public buildings and then hire men to

build them up again? (The question of employment for labor will be dealt

with elsewhere.)

This illustration is not intended to discourage advertising, for

advertising has its uses, and under present conditions is almost

synonymous with success. But suppose, for example, there were 100

telephone companies in New York instead of one. The competition would be

bitter. Prices would come down to the lowest competitive margin. But,

as prices and profits came down, so would wages. The rivalry would

encourage dishonesty, hatred and envy, and result in various

impositions, such as compelling every subscriber to have several

'phones.

Each company would have the expense of maintaining a separate plant,

with its small army of employees, and wires strung over the city like a

mosquito netting, and each would be spending large sums in advertising

which would finally be paid by the consumers.

Now, contrast this unorganized confusion with the present single system

with its one small advertising bill to pay, one system of wires, one set

of canvassers and other employees, one engine room, one president, etc.

Has not the burden of the world's work been lightened and lessened by

this combination and organization?

THE WORLD'S WORK.

Given a population of 80,000,000 of which say 20,000,000 are working

people, and given a certain amount of work required to provide the

80,000,000 people with food, clothes, shelter and the numerous minor

conveniences,--how many hours a day must these 20,000,000 working-people

labor to produce what we now produce, under the old unorganized system

of individual enterprise? If there were 100 telephone companies in New

York instead of one, here at once we require about ten times as many men

in this single industry as are now required, and these hundreds of

thousands of men required to operate the 100 telephone companies must be

taken away from other industries. And so on, throughout all the trades,

professions, factories and industries.

If the average day's work is now ten hours, and all those who want to

work are now employed, and only one-half of the industries are now

organized into Trusts, what would be the result if all the other

industries were organized into Trusts? First, there would not be so much

work to do, owing to the great saving and economy of combination as

before explained; and second, several hundred thousand workers who are

now employed would be thrown out of employment. Here we arrive at an

apparent obstacle. One of two things must be done; either the great

unemployed must leave the country, or be supported in idleness, or die

of starvation, or, _the hours of work must be reduced_! If 20,000,000

can do the required work, working ten hours a day, with half the

industries unorganized, and if organization (Trusts) would throw say

5,000,000 out of employment, then we must _reduce the hours of daily

work_ so as to give the 5,000,000 employment!

If the hours were reduced to say six, the remaining 15,000,000 could not

do all the work in that time, and the 5,000,000 unemployed must be

called in to help. A demand for the labor of the 5,000,000 would at once

be created. Everybody would then be employed. Every industry would be

organized. Useless work and wasted energy would be eliminated. Everybody

would have shorter hours of work. The uneducated would have more time to

study and develop. The arts would then be generously patronized. Paupers

would disappear. Wealth would multiply. Ignorance and drunkenness would

have received their death-blow, because their father--Poverty--would

have been destroyed. But hold,--other difficulties present themselves:

Who would compel the organized industries (Trusts) to reduce the hours

of work? What would prevent them charging exorbitant prices? Who or what

would prevent the captains of industry filling their own pockets and

keeping the great profits to themselves? Who or what would prevent the

rich from growing richer, and the poor poorer?

SYNOPSIS.

The informed reader might well have passed over the preceding pages, for

they are purely rudimentary; but if he has been kind and patient enough

to follow me thus far, so much the better, for he has refreshed his

memory and will be more ready to grasp that which is to follow.

Before proceeding let me recite in synopsis these important truths which

I have already illustrated:

1. ECONOMY.--We desire to get the greatest good from mother earth

with the least possible labor.

2. WASTE.--The destruction of }

every useful atom. }

}

Every useless stroke of work. } Is a loss to all the world

}

For 100 men to do what }

10 men could do. }

3. EMPLOYMENT.--We should not aim simply to give men employment. We

must aim to make them useful--not merely laborious. To dig holes

and then fill them up is employment, but it is not useful. So is

all that work useless and wasteful which fewer men could do better

or quicker under the Trust or Combination system.