BUCHANAN'S JOURNAL OF MAN.

VOL. I. MARCH, 1887. NO. 2.



CONTENTS OF JOURNAL OF MAN.

Archtypal Literature for the future. Chapter 1. General Plan of Brain, Synopsis of Cerebral Science Superficial Criticisms, a reply to Miss Phelps Spiritual Phenomenon, Abram James, Eglinton, Spirit writing Mind reading Amusement and Temperance MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE—Pigmies in Africa; A Human Phenomenon; Surviving Superstition; Spiritual test of Death; A Jewish Theological Seminary; National Death Rates; Religious Mediaevalism in America; Craniology and Crime; Morphiomania in France; Montana Bachelors; Relief for Children; The Land and the People; Christianity in Japan; The Hell Fire Business; Sam Jones and Boston Theology; Psychometry; The American Psychical Society; Progress of Spiritualism; The Folly of Competition; Insanities of War; The Sinaloa Colony; Medical Despotism; Mind in Nature Physiological Discoveries in the College of Therapeutics Business Department, College of Therapeutics



THE ARCHETYPAL LITERATURE FOR THE FUTURE.

If the science of man, the being in whom the spiritual and material worlds are fully represented, and in whom both can be studied in their relations, has been fully (though not completely or finally) developed by the revelation through experiments, of the functions of the brain, then from the establishment of anthropology there necessarily begins a literary revolution, which not only changes all philosophy, but extends through all the realms of literature. There is no realm which can escape the modifying influence of ideas which are at the basis of all conceptions of man, of society, of duty, of religion, of art, of social institutions, of the healing art, education, and government, and the new light which psychometric illumination throws upon all sciences.

The literature of the future will therefore differ widely from the literature of the past, and millions of volumes which still hold their places on the shelves of libraries will in the next century take their proper place in the mouldering mass which interests the antiquarian alone,—the mouldering mass which universities still cherish, and which helps to deaden the rising intelligence of the western world. Let us, as Tennyson says,

"Hope the best, but hold the Present Fatal daughter of the Past."

It is self-evident that the farther back we go for intelligence the deeper we plunge in the darkness of ignorance; and even though intuitional and moral truths may be found in the old writings, they belong to a literature imbedded in an ignorance which necessarily darkens all that comes down from such periods.

The benumbing influence of antiquity—or rather of that extended period which may be called the Aristotelian age, the age in which all philosophic thought was utterly benumbed by the Greek literature—has not yet passed away. American writers are just beginning to get rid of their absolute subserviency to foreign models in all things, and in this partial independence they are still subservient to the fundamental philosophic and ethical ideas of the past. The change that is taking place is only in minor matters.

Even so graceful and able a writer as Longfellow illustrates fully the truth of these suggestions. Mr. Charles F. Johnson, in a well-written essay on Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne, says:

"Most people feel that national temper is of slow evolution; that many heterogeneous elements must be fused and blended here; that we too must have a past, and that the spirit of our past must be taken up and transmitted before a new type is realized in a new art and a new literature. We can see that Longfellow was essentially a scholar—a receiver of impressions from books; that he was like an AEolian harp, blown upon by many winds, so that his music was in many regards necessarily a melodious echo of what was 'whispered by world-wandering winds.' And we can see, too, that he came into American literary life just as it was passing from the germ to the plant, and that every year he became more distinctive."

There is nothing profound in this view, but it expresses well the average thought of the period,—that Americanism in literature must be the very gradual growth of new circumstances, experience, and associations, which may superficially modify the unbroken mass of thought which has been transplanted from Europe, just as vines and flowers take on their modifications in a new soil and climate.

Far different from this is the view that anthropology gives us. The foreign plant, it is true, will gradually change, but a native plant will ultimately take its place by the law of the "survival of the fittest." The exotic must die out, for it was but a hothouse plant, reared in universities and cathedrals.

The thought, the science, the philosophy, and even the forms of literary expression, for this continent, will be those which spring from the bosom of nature, fresh and strong, imbued with the spiritual element of immortality, the element of luminous originality.

How and whence is this to come? It will come by the complete emancipation of the American mind from the thraldom of the false philosophies, the false theologies, and the debasingly narrow conceptions of science which have been transplanted into American colleges. When the strong American intellect shall realize that in the science of man and in the cultivation of psychometry there is more of enlightenment, of wisdom, and of actual knowledge than in all that colleges cherish to-day, we shall have such a flood of original thought and immensely valuable knowledge as would seem impossible to the literati who now have the public ear.

Even the narrowest dogmatists of science are beginning to have a glimpse of the nobler knowledge of the future. Prof. Huxley, the most dogmatic of British sceptics, has recently said:

"The growth of science, not merely of physical science, but of all science, means the demonstration of order and natural causation among phenomena which had not previously been brought under those conceptions. Nobody who is acquainted with the progress of scientific thinking in every department of human knowledge, in the course of the last two centuries, will be disposed to deny that immense provinces have been added to the realm of science, or to doubt that the next two centuries will be witnesses of a vastly greater annexation. More particularly in the region of the physiology of the nervous system is it justifiable to conclude from the progress that has been made in analyzing the relations between material and psychical phenomena that vast further advances will be made, and that sooner or later all the so-called spontaneous operations of the mind will have, not only their relations to one another, but their relations to physical phenomena, connected in natural series of causes and effects, strictly defined. In other words, while at present we know only the nearer moiety of the chain of causes and effects by which the phenomena we call material give rise to those which we call mental, hereafter we shall get to the further end of the series."

The "further end of the series," however, is vastly different from anything within the mental range of the distinguished professor, whose ultra materialism led him to revamp the old Cartesian doctrine that animals were only machines, like clocks or mills, running automatically, and destitute of sensation, and intelligence.

The science and philosophy of the future will be distinguished by their mastery of the realm of mind, and the closer approximation of the human to the Divine, not only in intelligence, but in ethics.

The JOURNAL OF MAN, as the first periodical organ of the new philosophy, will attempt gradually to initiate the archetypal forms of thought of the coming period, in which the disappearance of old philosophy and ethics shall leave room for growth.

Not that all ethics shall be changed among the civilized races, for there are simple primary and true conceptions which are universally recognized, and are embalmed in all religions. Yet these few universal ideas are but the rudiments of ethics, and no more constitute an ethical system worthy of the name, than the four primary processes of arithmetic constitute a system of mathematical science. The future is to evolve the true ethics, and therewith the educational system that will bring the true ethics into all spheres of human life.

In all past time there has been no ethical system competent to establish a perfectly harmonious social state, and no system of education competent to lift society to a higher life. Education as it has been brightens life with literature and art, but does not elevate it. The same old element of poverty, misery, disease, crime, and insanity marches on, hand in hand with the college and the church, as it formerly went hand in hand with the hunting and warring barbarians of the forest. And the dull, blunted conscience of the time, lulled by the softly solemn platitudes of the pulpit and the soulless system of education, rebels not against the old social order. In full view of the past twenty-five centuries, may we not exclaim with Shakespeare's Macbeth:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow Creeps on this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The dusty way to death."

But not to the end of time shall it be. The nineteenth century has seen the glimmering dawn of the true civilization. How it came, what it is, and what it is destined to realize, the JOURNAL OF MAN will attempt to show.



SYNOPSIS OF CEREBRAL SCIENCE.[1]

[1] Copyrighted, 1887, by Joseph Rodes Buchanan.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL PLAN OF THE BRAIN.

The brain the centre of life—Its organs not distinctly separated—Its double functions and degrees of energy—Difficulty of nomenclature, chiefly basilar—The pathognomic law—Its application to the brain—The four cardinal directions and four divisions, the coronal, basilar, anterior, and occipital—Their effects on the character and constitution—The method of locating organs—The four groups—The law of antagonism—Its certainty and necessity—Difficulty of expressing it—Correspondence of the English language and the brain—Its limits—Radiating groups of organs—Contrasts of development.

The details of cerebral science will be much more easily understood if we begin with a comprehensive view of the entire plan of the functions and structure.

The brain is distinguished from all other organs by being the source of commands which all other organs obey, and being the immediate seat of the soul, which has no knowledge of anything occurring in the body, until a message or impression has reached it through nervous channels. The compression of all the nerves before they enter the cranium and connect with the brain would deprive us of all knowledge of the body, and of all sensations or perceptions; and the compression of the brain itself would render us totally unconscious, as if dead,—incapable of either thought or action. Manifestly, therefore, all the powers of the soul are lodged in and exercised through the brain; and as all distinct nerve structures have essentially different functions, and every different function requires a different structure, it is obvious that the vast variety of our psychic faculties, intellectual, emotional, sensitive, passional, and physiological, requires a corresponding multiplicity in the nervous apparatus; and this incalculably great multiplicity we find in the brain.

The crude, mechanical idea that all the organs of the brain should be distinctly marked and separated by membranous walls or obvious changes of structure, is very unscientific; for even in the spinal cord, which is more easily studied, we do not find such separation between the widely distinct functions of sensibility and motility. Their nerve fibres run together undistinguished, and it is only by the study of pathological changes that we have been able to distinguish the course of the motor fibres, which to the most careful inspection are indistinguishable from the sensitive.

Moreover, the functions of the brain are not like those of the spinal cord, of a widely distinct and opposite character in adjacent fibres, but exhibit a gradual variation, like the blending colors of the rainbow. The sensitive or psychic individual who touches any part of the head and feels an impression of the emotional, intellectual, or impulsive function in the subjacent convolution of the brain, will find the impression gradually changing as he moves his finger along the surface, until, after passing half around the cerebrum, he will feel an influence exactly opposite to that with which he started.

As there are many millions of sensitive persons who are capable of receiving these impressions from the brain, we cannot but wonder at the unanimous indifference (which some may hereafter call stupidity) which hinders the medical profession and scientists generally from becoming acquainted with such facts, which I have proclaimed and demonstrated until I have grown weary of attempting to instruct wilful ignorance. Not only does the nervaura, direct from the brain convey such impressions of organic action, but almost any substance held for a few moments in contact with any part of the head will absorb enough of the local nervaura to convey a distinct impression to a sensitive, similar to that derived directly from the head.

Although the organs of the brain are thus distinct, they are not distinct like the spokes of a wheel, each totally independent of the other and fixed or invariable in its own simple character; for all organs have double functions, and a great variety in their degree of manifestation.

The double function is psychic and physiological, or physical. When the action of the brain is confined within the cranium, its action is purely psychic; but when its influence passes into the body, it produces physiological effects. As the brain is the seat of the soul, its action is essentially and primarily psychic; but as it is the commander of the body, and the source of its spiritual vitality, all its conditions or actions affect the body; and hence every organ has its dual action, psychic and physiological. Cerebral physiology and sarcognomy explain in detail how the brain and the mental conditions affect the body; cerebral psychology shows how the brain and soul are correlated. The purpose of this treatise is to show how the brain is correlated with both soul and body, giving the principal attention to the former.

If cerebral organs all have this double function, it is manifestly exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to find any words competent to express the double functions, and it will be necessary to adapt our nomenclature to expressing the psychic function, leaving the physiological to be expressed otherwise. As the basilar organs act more directly upon the body, their nomenclature will be more suggestive of physiological effects. The organ, for example, of alimentiveness or appetite will suggest by its name its relation to the stomach.

The difficulty of arranging a satisfactory nomenclature for a certain portion of the brain, in consequence of the varying energy of organic action, is very great, and must be met by using the word which will express in a general manner the organic tendency, leaving to the intelligence of the reader to imagine the variations of intensity. In the greatest energy of organic action the opposite faculty is entirely overcome, and the conduct becomes abnormal, for normal action implies the harmonious co-operation of all parts of the brain. Nevertheless, it is in this abnormal or excessive action that we get the true, isolated tendency or function in its naked expression.

For example, if we refer to that portion of the brain near the mastoid process, which in its excessive action produces murder, we perceive that as murder is an abnormal action, such a term is not a suitable name for an organ, as it would convey the impression that every human being has a constant murderous impulse, and that the faculty is kept inactive when murder is not committed; from which we might infer that the human constitution is badly planned.

Still, it is not to be concealed that murderous violence is the ultimate result of this organ when unrestrained,—that it is the most conspicuous faculty in carnivorous animals, and alas! that it has a terrible and at times predominant action in the masculine portion of the human race. Throughout the greater part of ancient history the murderous violence of this faculty has been as conspicuous in the human race as in the wild beasts. Even to-day, after centuries of so-called civilization and religion, no man's life would be safe if not protected by policemen; and the civilized nations, with a skilful ferocity, devote the major part of their governmental revenues to preparations for international homicide as a defence against the murderous impulse in their neighbors, and to watching or controlling the murderers within their own limits; whose homicidal propensities, however, are not restrained from mutual homicide, by agreement, in the warlike form of the duel, which is considered a proper institution to cultivate a martial spirit and promote the efficiency of the army,—ay, and even tolerated in the German system of education, provided that life is not actually sacrificed.

Murder is therefore not an improper term to express the consummate energy of this basilar organ, if we at the same time understand its gentler manifestations; and Dr. Gall was a faithful student of nature when he called this faculty the "carnivorous instinct, or disposition to murder," for that is the way that it exhibits in animals, and, unfortunately, in mankind also.

Yet as an element of character, and an organ in the brain, this faculty needs a more general and comprehensive term than murder to express its ordinary action. It operates as an impelling and modifying influence in our daily life, giving a certain kind of energy to physical and mental action, as our fruits have a certain degree of sweetness in their juices which is not due to crystals of sugar, though if the sweetening element were extracted it would appear in that solid form. Thus the violent impulsive energy which appears in our vigorous language, emphatic gestures, ultra sentiments, and threatening expressions, if it could be isolated from its psychic combination, would appear in its isolated purity as an impulse to the destruction of life and everything else that stands before us.

Hence the term Destructiveness has been very properly applied to this organ by Spurzheim. Yet even this term expresses too much for its average daily action, and Violence, Impulsiveness, or Vehemence would come nearer to expressing its ordinary manifestation.

The reader will now perceive that the psychic functions of certain organs can seldom be adequately expressed by one word, and that three words are required to express fully the moderate, the active, and the abnormal manifestations. Fortunately, however, this difficulty of nomenclature applies only to that portion of the brain which tends to the abnormal. Man's nobler faculties belonging to the upper region of the brain are essentially good and normal. The abnormal difficulty does not come into their description.



Its operation is limited to the region lying around the ears, the basilar region, the tendency of which is to exhaust the spiritual vitality of the brain in ministering to the body. This will be clearly understood when we understand the fundamental law of all cerebral action, the law of direction, or

PATHOGNOMIC LAW.

This law is the grandest generalization of science that was ever conceived. It is the fundamental law of the relations of the two worlds, the psychic and the physical. The spiritual and material worlds unite in man, in whom the eternal spirit is combined with a transitory material body, and the law of their interaction is the law of the universe.

In its application to man, the law is simply this, that all organs of the brain act in accordance with their position,—in accordance with their pathognomic line, or line of action, which is the line of their central fibres, the tendency of which is toward the surface of the brain, where they reach the interior of the cranium. It will be a sufficient approximation to the mathematical truth if for the present we say that the pathognomic line may be indicated by a perpendicular to the surface of the cranium where the organ is located.

When we establish the pathognomic line, we establish a perfect criterion of the organic action, for the action is always in accordance with the line; and this fundamental law gives a key to all psychology, and gives it a geometrical simplicity.

In accordance with this law, the frontal or intellectual organs act toward the front, and maintain our relations with that which is before us. Acting in that manner, they throw out or expend the vital forces, and exhaust the energies which belong to the posterior part of the brain and posterior part of the body. The posterior half of the brain acts in the opposite direction, and thus draws in, acquires, and energizes. The posterior action impels the body to advance, as the anterior portion checks our progress and causes us to yield. Hence if we erect a perpendicular from the ear, we shall find all the energetic impelling faculties behind it, and all that moderates, checks, and enlightens before it. Thus the occipital development makes a powerful, domineering, conquering character, as the frontal makes a passive, unselfish, yielding one.

Hence all organs in proportion to their energy are located nearer to the posterior region of the brain, and in proportion to their delicacy or weakness have a more anterior location.



There are four classes of pathognomic lines, as there are four aspects of the brain, which may be represented on a plane surface, and which are sufficient for this incomplete introductory statement—the anterior and posterior—the superior or upward, and the inferior or downward. The anterior and posterior tendencies may be separated by the vertical line through the ear. The superior and inferior, or upward and downward, may be separated by a nearly horizontal line from the forehead backward, which nearly coincides with the lateral ventricles that separate the superior and inferior convolutions. The lateral ventricles (cavities the walls of which are in contact,) are the central region of the brain around which the convolutions are formed. Dividing the brain thus into superior and inferior halves, we find that the major portion of the superior has an upward line which is fully expressed at the upper surface of the brain, while the lower half has downward lines which are most fully expressed on the basilar surface of the brain, which is covered by the face and neck.

Intermediate between these coronal and basilar surfaces are lateral organs which participate in the upward or downward tendency as they approach the highest and lowest surfaces.

The tendency of the coronal region is upward, that of the basilar downward. The latter operates downward upon the body, rousing the muscles and viscera to activity, but exhausting the brain and the spiritual life. Hence, while they vitalize the body, they are the source of all that is sensual, violent, beastly, and criminal,—all that degrades human nature,—when they become the controlling power, which is an abnormal condition.

The coronal organs tend upward; they withdraw excitement from the body, quiet the muscles, and diminish the energy of the appetites and passions, while they originate all noble and lofty impulses. Their tendency is toward heaven, toward the highest possible condition of humanity, the performance of every duty, the enjoyment of happiness and health, the perfection of love and fidelity. They make the life on earth resemble the life in heaven, and consequently bring us into sympathy with all holy influences. They make religion a reality, and produce a character which we cannot but admire and love. Their tendency is to draw life upward from the body to the head and the upper part of the chest, and thereby to energize the soul, which has its home in the brain, and which is the essential seat and source of life, and is in interior connection with the infinite source of life. Hence the coronal half of the brain is the home of spiritual life, the antagonist of disease, the promoter of longevity, by which the harmonious love of the upper world is realized on earth, and that divine quality of the soul which frees it from disease and death is to a limited extent imparted to the human body.

The excessive action of the basilar region exhausts the brain, degrades the soul, and thereby impairing the fountain of life and health, introduces disease and death. Gluttony, drunkenness, sensuality, passion, and violent exertion are the processes that exhaust the soul power. Excessive and prolonged muscular exertion without rest exhausts the brain. But the normal action of the basilar organs is essential to all the processes of life, and maintains the union of soul and body. Hence their good development is necessary to longevity.

On the other hand, excessive predominance of the coronal region, although it heightens the spiritual nature, withdraws life from the body, and culminates in trance, ending in death by the ascension of the soul from the body. But so long as the basilar organs have sufficient energy to maintain the connection of the soul with the body, the most powerful action of the coronal region increases the power of the brain, the brilliance of the mind, the perfection of the health, and the moral greatness and power of the person.

These statements are essentially different from the physiological and phrenological ideas heretofore current, but they are sustained by universal experience, which recognizes the power of heroism, hope, religion, and love to exalt our powers of endurance and achievement, whether intellectual or physical; and they are sustained by the records of pathology, which show that softening or ulceration of the superior regions of the brain impairs, paralyzes, or destroys all our powers. Moreover, all that I teach on these subjects is but an expression of the formulated results of many thousand experiments during the last forty-five years.

The simplicity and applicability of these pathognomic laws which pervade all psychic phenomena are such that they are easily mastered, and a single evening devoted to the subject enables my students to locate with approximate correctness nearly all the organs of the brain. The multiplicity of the cerebral organs is somewhat discouraging to a student at first, but all embarrassment is removed when the simplicity of the Divine plan is shown.

In illustrating these principles, we take up a number of faculties successively, and determine by their nature what should be their latitude and longitude upon the map. Thus, for example, if Modesty is mentioned, students would say it should be above the horizontal line, but not so high as the virtues, and that it should be not among the energies, but among the moderating faculties of the front half of the head. Hence they usually ascertain its true location. If Avarice or Acquisitiveness should be considered, they would recognize it as entitled to a place below the horizontal line, and also behind the vertical line, but neither the lowest nor the most posterior. If Firmness is mentioned, they recognize it as entitled to a high place, but behind the vertical line; and thus they seldom make any great error in determining the location of an organ.



If we thus go through the catalogue of psychic powers or qualities, we observe finally that the organs are grouped as follows; and this grouping should be impressed upon the memory, as it is easily learned, and serves as a basis for the further study of organology. The organs in this drawing are not arranged to show their antagonism, but antagonism is the most important fundamental principle of cerebral psychology.

THE LAW OF ANTAGONISM.

Antagonism or opposition is the universal condition of all that we know. Up suggests down; inward, outward; forward, backward; advance, recession; motion, rest; elevation, degradation; abundance, deficiency; heat, cold; light, darkness; strength, weakness. The same antagonism exists in the psychic nature, as in love, hate; hope, despair; courage, cowardice; pride, humility, etc.; and equally in the physiological, as we see in the action of flexor and extensor muscles, their antagonism being a necessity. If we had only flexor muscles, one motion would exhaust the muscular capacity; when the limb is flexed it can do nothing more; but when the extensor muscle moves it back, flexion can be again performed. Thus all vital voluntary action is a play of opposing forces,—the existence of one force rendering possible the existence of its opposite. The coronal organs, carrying the soul above the body, would bring the end of terrestrial life, and the basilar organs exhausting the brain would bring to a more disastrous end; but the joint action of the two, like that of flexor and extensor muscles, produces the infinite variety of life, which moves on like pendulums, in continual alternation.

Man would be utterly unfit for the sphere that he occupies, if he had not the opposite capacities required by innumerable opposite conditions. Physiologically, he requires calorific powers to fit him for cold climates, and cooling capacities to fit him for the torrid zone. Morally, he requires warlike powers to meet enemies and dangers, as well as affections for the sphere of domestic love. He requires the conscious intellect to call forth and guide his powers in exertion, and a faculty for repose and recuperation in sleep. He requires self respect to sustain him in elevated positions, and humility to fit him for humble duties and positions. We can conceive no faculty which has not its opposite,—no faculty which would not terminate its own operation, like a flexor muscle, if there were no antagonist. Benevolence would exhaust the purse and be unable to give, if Acquisitiveness did not replenish it; and Avarice unrestrained would lose all financial capacity in the sordid stupidity of the miser. Each faculty alone, without its antagonist, carries us to a helpless extreme.

The antagonism of faculties is so self evident a law of nature that if Dr. Gall had pre-arranged a psychic philosophy in his mind, instead of being a simple observer of facts, he might have given a very different aspect to the science. But he arranged no psychic philosophy, and he did not carry his observations far enough to lead him into the law of antagonism, and hence left a rude system, lacking in the symmetry and completeness necessary to give it the position of a complete philosophy.

But while the law of antagonism should control our psychic studies, it is not always convenient to express this antagonism in our nomenclature, or to group the functions of all regions of the brain in such a manner that each group or organ shall exactly correspond to an antagonism in another organ; for in expressing the functions of parts of the brain we are limited by the structure of the English language, and have to make such groups as will be conveniently expressed by familiar English words,—the words of a language that has grown up in a confused manner, and was not organized to express the faculties of sub-divisions of the brain. Hence, for want of a pre-arranged language, with words of accurate definition and exact antagonism, we can only approximate a perfect nomenclature, and must rely more upon description than upon classification and technical terms.

Technicality, however, is to be avoided as far as possible. Anthropology may need, like other new sciences, new terms for its new ideas, but the old words of plain English express all the very important elements of human nature. To the master of anthropology it is easy to take any word expressive of an element of human character or capacity and show from what convolution, what group of convolutions, or what part of a convolution the quality or faculty arises which that word expresses. An evening might be profitably spent with a class of students in tracing English words to their cerebral source.

In expressing the functions of the brain by nomenclature, we are entering upon an illimitable science, and must hold back to keep within the limits of the practicable and useful. The innumerable millions of fibres and ganglion globules in the brain are beyond calculation, and their varieties of function are beyond all descriptive power. Geography does not attempt to describe every square mile of the earth's surface, nor does astronomy presume to know all the stars. In reference to the brain, psychic students will hereafter send forth ponderous volumes of descriptive detail, for which there is no demand at present. I willingly resign that task to my successors. A description which portrays the general character of an inch of convolution, or of a half inch square of the finer intellectual organs, is sufficiently minute for the purposes of a student. Acting upon these views, the following catalogue of psychic functions has been prepared, which is offered now not for the reader's study, as the multiplicity of detail would be embarrassing, but merely to give a general conception of the scope of cerebral psychology, and to show how extensive and apparently intricate a system may, by proper explanation of its principles, be made intelligible to all.



Instead of attempting to master this catalogue and the psychic busts which are to be shown hereafter, the reader should approach the subject by familiarizing himself with the profile grouping here presented, leaving the catalogue and busts for future exposition.

If radiating lines are drawn outward from the ear, the general character of the groups thus formed is indicated in the drawing. The department marked Inspiration extends from the median line as shown to the interior of the hemispheres on the median line. The region of the appetites is marked as Sensual Selfishness, the tendency of which is antagonistic to that of the region marked Duty.

CATALOGUE OF CEREBRAL ORGANS.

1. INTELLECTUAL.

UNDERSTANDING.—Intuition, Consciousness, Foresight, Sagacity, Judgment, Wit, Reason, Ingenuity, Scheming, Imagination, Invention, Composition, Calculation, Somnolence.

RECOLLECTION.—Memory (recent and remote), Time, System.

PERCEPTION.—Clairvoyance, Phenomena, Form, Size, Distance, Weight, Color, Light, Shade, Order, Tune, Language, Sense of Force, Sensibility.

SEMI-INTELLECTUAL.—Liberality, Sympathy, Expression, Sincerity, Humor, Pliability, Imitation, Admiration, Spirituality, Marvelousness, Ideality.

2. ETHICAL OR MORAL ORGANS.

Benevolence, Devotion, Faith, Politeness, Friendship, Love, Hope, Kindness or Philanthropy, Religion, Patience or Serenity, Integrity or Conscientiousness, Patriotism or Love of Country, Cheerfulness, Energy, Fortitude, Heroism, Health, Sanity, Caution, Sublimity, Reverence, Modesty.

3. SOCIAL ENERGY.

Self-respect or Dignity, Self-confidence, Love of Power, Ostentation, Ambition, Business Energy, Adhesiveness, Self-sufficiency, Playfulness, Approbativeness, Oratory, Honor, Magnanimity, Repose, Chastity, Coolness.

4. SELFISH FORCES.

Arrogance, Familiarity, Fascination, Command, Dogmatism, Combativeness, Aggressiveness, Secretiveness, Avarice, Stolidity, Force, Rivalry, Profligacy, or Lawless Impulse, Irritability, Baseness, Destructiveness, Hatred, Disgust, Animalism, Turbulence, Virility.

5. SENSITIVE AND ENFEEBLING ELEMENTS.

Interior Sensibility or Disease, Appetite, Relaxation, Melancholy or Sullenness, Insanity, Idiocy, Rashness and Carelessness, Expression.

The reader should be careful not to attach too much importance to classification or nomenclature. The special descriptions of organs are necessary to a correct understanding.

CONTRASTS OF DEVELOPMENT

The contrast of intellectual development is seen in comparing the world-renowned philosopher Humboldt and the idiot figured by Spurzheim. The contrast of coronal and basilar development is seen in comparing the benevolent negro Eustace, who received the Monthyon prize for virtue in France with the skull of the cannibal Carib, as figured by Lawrence. As to the coronal or upward development of the brain, there is always a great contrast between untamable wild animals, such as the lion and the eagle, and those of gentle and lovely nature, such as the gazelle and the dove.



SUPERFICIAL CRITICISM.

A RESPONSE TO MISS ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

The publication in the Chicago Inter-Ocean of two columns of sharp criticism on the spiritual movement by Miss Phelps, which were widely republished, induced the editor to send the following reply to the Inter-Ocean, which was duly published.

BOSTON, MASS., Jan. 23.

The rhetorically eloquent essay of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps on spiritualism has been read by the undersigned with that peculiar pleasure with which we witness an intellectual or psychic tour de force which produces singular results. It is quite an able production, for the ability of an advocate is measured by his capacity to make that which is obviously absurd appear quite rational, and to give to that which is intrinsically small or mean an air of refined dignity. Divested of its dignified and delusive rhetoric, what does the lady say or mean in plain, homely English?

She says that "cultivated thought" has a "slippery surface" on which spiritualism has made "a clutch," and that it has lately made an "encroachment upon scientific attention," so that psychical societies of distinguished men are "busying themselves;" also that spiritualism must be "made subject to the laws of common sense" and controlled by "common integrity," and if this truth "is at last materializing before the consciousness of the believers in spiritualistic phenomena some good may come of it."

That a certain style of "cultivated thought" familiar in Boston has a "slippery surface" on which neither religion nor philosophy makes much impression, cannot be denied, and that it is only lately (as she says) that psychical societies of more or less distinguished men have allowed spiritual science to encroach on their attention, is very true. It has always been so. Societies of distinguished men have always been behind the progress of undistinguished men. Neither Harvey nor Galvani was honored by societies of distinguished men until the "slippery surface" of their "cultivated thought" was clutched and crushed by the power of a widely diffused truth. As a general rule, the last place in which to find the foremost thought of the age is in the societies of distinguished men, whether they be politicians, theologians, or scientists. Hence it is that phenomena as old as history itself and of late as thoroughly investigated as any branch of positive science have just begun to encroach upon the attention of the societies to which the lady desires us to surrender our judgment. No doubt they have resisted such encroachments as long as decency would permit, and some very able writers think a great deal longer.

As to the insinuation that "believers in spiritualistic phenomena have only of late begun to appreciate common sense and common honesty," when these believers count by millions, and include many more eminent men than her infallible psychic societies, the lady has permission to withdraw the charge, for it is obviously only the lapsus linguae of a too fluent tongue.

Again she says: "Which of us would not lay down life itself to know that he had spoken yesterday with the darling of our souls dead years ago?" Not one of you! The expression is rather hysterical in its intensity. The majority of your ultra-sceptical class would not even spend a day or an hour in the pursuit, for you have neglected the opportunities which have been open to all the world. You might have held a pair of slates in your own hands, secured in any manner, with no pencil between them; might have heard the writing in progress, then opened them and recognized the message of your own darling—perhaps the handwriting also. Thousands of modest, honest seekers of truth have done these things. But the Pharisees who talk of heaven and then fly from its approach have "religiously shunned" them; that is the way they express it, and you are their apologist. But what is your apology?

You give a graphic description of a cheap style of dishonest mediumship with vulgar surroundings, in which, nevertheless, there are wonderful revelations, "the golden thread of a truth that is worth having," and you suggest that the truth must now be "garnered" by a psychical research society, intimating that if they do not garner it, it will cease to be recognized as truth, and that the mediums must bring it all to them for sanction, or cease to be respected by honorable people. Was ever a more unfair and delusive statement made by a hired attorney? The grandeur of the theme has not inspired a spirit of fairness or justice. The question lies between the eternal and holy verities of spiritual science or religious science and the conscience of the inquirer. The poor, illiterate, and obscure people who exhibit for a living whatever capacity they may have, have nothing to do with it. Would our lady critic select a cheap sign painter to represent the beauty and glory of art, or the exhibitors of laughing gas to illustrate the science of Sir Humphrey Davy, or the performances of an illiterate quack to illustrate the dignity of the medical profession? Is our critic so profoundly ignorant of the progress of psychic science as to think such representations fair or allowable?

A science is represented by its leaders, its authors, its teachers, not its camp followers. Examine the writings of Alfred Russell Wallace, Professor Crookes of London, Epes Sargent, William Howitt, Professor Hare—of Swedenborg, Kerner, Ennemoser, Du Prel, Hellenbach, Fichte, Varley, Ashburner, Flammarion, Aksakoff, and a score of others of the highest rank, and criticize if you can the magnificent philosophy of these and of many an ancient writer. Consider the well attested facts and sublime religion that you will find in them, and observe that the facts are a hundred times better attested and a thousand times more critically observed than any of those upon which the world's great religions rest, before which our critic reverently bows.

[NOTE.—Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is reported to have said in 1860: "The physiology, the anthropology of the Bible, is highly odic, and must be studied as such. As such it will be found to harmonize with the general principles of human experience in such matters in all ages. If a theory be adopted everywhere else but in the Bible, excluding spiritual intervention in toto, and accounting for everything physically, then will the covers of the Bible prove but pasteboard barriers. Such a theory will sweep its way through the Bible and its authority, and its inspirations will be annihilated. On the other hand, if the theory of spiritual intervention be accepted in the Bible, it cannot be shut up there, but must sweep its way through the wide domain of 'popular superstitions,' as they are called, separating the element of truth on which they are based, and asserting its own authoritative supremacy."]

Then if you must for a partisan purpose ignore all this, and select obscure people to represent the other side of the question, it would be very easy to find mediumship of a pure and honorable character—mediums whom no one visits without carrying away a sweet, refining influence, a stronger faith, and a brighter realization of heavenly truths. And there are mediums, too, from whose lips distil a lofty eloquence and a remarkable wisdom upon any or all subjects proposed, with a flow of extemporaneous poetry or of heavenly music which has never been equaled under such circumstances by uninspired mortals.

But, forsooth, they must come to a psychic society that the world may learn from their papal infallibility if anything exists at all worthy of notice. This is indeed seriously proposed! Well, if a group of clergymen in synod assembled should summon all geologists and astronomers to come before them and show if there was anything in their scientific teachings, their heretical, astronomical, and geological doctrines, would any one have responded to the presumptuous demand? Would Airy, Lyell, Miller, Darwin, or the poorest country school master have taken any notice of such a demand?

The majority of the American Psychical Research Society know vastly less of psychic science than clergymen know of geology and astronomy. They have been not inquirers, but obstructionists, assailing those who dare to inquire, and the subject, as their friend says, has only lately encroached on their attention. The admirable scientific experiments of Professor Hare and Professor Crookes have long since settled the questions which they now propose to take up, and when, over forty years ago, I published in my JOURNAL OF MAN the incontestable facts then established, and gave their rationale, the psychic researchers of to-day were as ignorant as sucking babes of the whole subject. This ignorance is the very raison d'etre of the society. They don't know if there is anything to be discovered, and they propose to look out. Their failure so far is considered by Colonel Higginson a proof of their superior wisdom, which means that they are looking for a mare's nest, and have shown their wisdom by not finding it!

Let those who are seeking to enter the freshman class in psychic science assume a little appearance of modesty, and not attempt to set themselves above the old graduates and professors of the university, at which they have heretofore been throwing stones like an unrestrained mob. This is plain speech, but it is just. Let them begin their operations by an act of justice—by building a monument to Professor Hare, the noblest of American scientists, and the object of their persecution.

"The time has come," says our lady critic, "for mystery to work hand in hand with scientific study or to lay aside its claims to scientific respect." Very true, very true, indeed, except your chronology; the time has long since gone by. Science has grappled with mystery long since. I can point out, if you wish to see it, the very anatomical structures, the special fibres in connection with which the spiritual phenomena are developed. The modus operandi is understood, and the facts have been known some thirty, some a hundred, some several thousand years. Among advanced thinkers psychic science is no more a debatable question than the rotundity of the earth or the principles of astronomy.

Finally, dear, eloquent lady, your exhortations in behalf of honesty are very admirable, indeed, and would be much more admirable if the exhortation itself were more fair and honest—if you did not seem to sprinkle the reproach of dishonesty over multitudes of honest people more gifted than yourself, with the power to find and clasp the holiest truths. If the inferior and less honorable class of mediums are now before the public, why is it? It is due solely, dear lady, to such people as yourself and your psychic society men, and "fellows of a baser sort," who follow your lead—to those whose censorious and sometimes scurrilous hostility against spiritual phenomena has driven into retirement or kept in concealment the most beautiful and holy phenomena that were ever known on earth. Angels do not confront the hissing mob. But their visits to-day are neither few nor far between. In every bower of perfect spiritual purity they come. Let but this brutal opposition of men and fluent scorn of women cease, and the universal air will be fragrant as the spiritual beauty now hidden shall become a part of our social life, and even the fastidious Miss Phelps will be satisfied and delighted.

[NOTE.—Miss Phelps, if she had due respect for her grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Phelps of Stratford, Conn., ought to be an earnest champion of spiritualism, for it was at his house that the most wonderful phenomena were realized, when invisible spirits carried on their pranks with the furniture like human beings. Dr. Phelps was a thorough spiritualist, and introduced the spiritual doctrine into his sermons, though exercising the worldly wisdom of not using the word spiritualism.]



SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA.

ABRAM JAMES—MAN AND MEDIUM.

It was in the summer of 1863 that I first met this marvelous medium, one of the very best in the way of intellectual development that I ever saw. James was born in Pennsylvania, of Quaker parentage. He inherited the simplicity, candor, and truthfulness of the sect. He had absolutely no guile in his nature. He had had but six months' common school education, but, possessing considerable natural ability, he had to some degree remedied his deficiencies in this particular. He wrote a fair hand, spelled well and conversed with some facility on ordinary topics, but was absolutely ignorant of any language but his native English, and had no knowledge whatever of scientific subjects; this I know to be a fact. James was above the medium height, very thin and spare, blonde complexion, light hair and blue eyes—a natural negative organization. When I first made his acquaintance he was employed in the yards of one of the railroad companies in Chicago, making up trains, or some employment of that character.

Of James's original development as a medium I know nothing, as I first knew him in his abnormal character, in which he was truly marvelous, being perfectly familiar with all languages, living and dead, and with all subjects—religion, science, philosophy, and ethics.

I have heard this man speak and deliver long discourses in German, Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, Greek, and other tongues which I did not know. I have taken scholarly linguists in his presence and to them he demonstrated that he spoke in foreign tongues.

I have heard him deliver lectures on a great variety of scientific subjects,—on political economy, theology, and natural philosophy. His thought and method of treatment were of the very highest types of intellectual ability. Of course James did not profess to do this of himself; he was in fact, wholly unconscious of doing anything. When entranced, the controlling spirit would say, for example: "The Baron von Humboldt will address you this afternoon on the Cosmos." Then in a discourse or lecture of an hour's duration he would give a condensed history of the origin and development of the world. I remember on one occasion he took up the nebular or La Place theory, adopted it as the true one, and traced the rise and progress of the earth through the evolution of matter to its present condition, in a most comprehensive and masterly manner. At another time it was said: "John Quincy Adams will speak to you to-day on the political condition of your country," and with all the grace, dignity, and eloquence of the famous old Senator from Massachusetts when addressing the Senate of the United States, this medium delivered a speech of which Adams himself would not have been ashamed. It was in the war times, and fully embodied the sentiments which we know were predominant in Mr. Adams's mind—the permanency of the Union and liberty for the slave. It was before the emancipation proclamation, but the speaker assured his hearers that the day was close at hand when the oppressed and abused slave should walk out in freedom before all the world.

I remember one very remarkable occurrence. James was entranced by the spirit of Michael Angelo, and a lady medium present was controlled by Raphael, and these two, partly in Italian and partly in English, discoursed upon art, painting, architecture, and sculpture in a manner calculated to produce a lasting impression upon the minds of those who were so fortunate as to be witnesses of the scene. The spirits were evidently fearful of losing control of the medium, and in their hasty desire to speak constantly interrupted each other, but they referred to the great works in which they had been engaged while on the earth, and the monuments they had left behind them. I remember Raphael particularly speaking of his last great painting of the Transfiguration, which he declared he had left in an unfinished condition in Rome, and which he desired to complete if he only had the opportunity. I regret that I am not able at this distant time to give full details of these, their marvelous revelations. I had shorthand notes taken which were afterwards written out, but unfortunately they were all destroyed in the great Chicago fire, in 1871.

James was also a drawing medium, and as such he executed many fine pictures. His method of work in this direction was quite beyond the capacity of any human being. He operated with six pencils, three in each hand, each pencil doing a separate part of the work at the same time; the consequent rapidity of execution was something wonderful. James once drew a colossal picture of Lincoln, which measured seven and one half feet in length. The sheet of paper was laid upon the floor, and upon it, without any outline or measurements, he first made an eye, and then in its proper relative position a boot. When the outlines were completed, these came into their proper places. The picture was a fair likeness of Lincoln, and represented him in the act of reading the emancipation proclamation. The pictorial heading of your paper, with its name in the letters as they now stand, RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, all finished and complete as it is, was done by James in the manner above stated. The engraver who reproduced it has not altered one line or mark; yet this man in his natural condition could not draw the outline of a barn.

James located the first artesian well which was bored in Chicago. He declared by his clairvoyant sight that a stream of water could be found many hundreds of feet beneath the surface. The boring was done and the water found, and this well was the originator of the numerous other wells which now supply our parks and factories. James afterward went to the oil regions of Pennsylvania, where he was successful in locating productive oil wells. Since 1869, I have lost sight of him, but wherever he may be he is a marvelous, intellectual medium, and as honest and truthful as the sunlight.

GEO. A. SHUFELDT, Religio-Philosophical Journal.

MR. EGLINTON'S MEDIUMSHIP.—A correspondent of the London Medium describes an interview with Mr. Eglinton, in which the following occurred. They are not extraordinary to those familiar with spiritual facts. I have held a slate in my own hand in the presence of a medium, and received messages on the slate in which every letter was written in double marks, as if written with two different colored pencils, although no pencil was furnished or seen.

"Three small pieces of writing-pencil—green, red, and white—were put upon the perfectly clean school slate, and placed under the table as before, with this difference: that G.'s left hand held the slate with Mr. Eglinton, his left being above the table. The slate was now thoroughly rolled about so as to completely displace the pieces of pencil from their previous relations. G. asked aloud that 200 might be put down in red; I called for 69 in green; and Mr. Eglinton requested that they be added up in white. Upon examining the slate, this was found correctly executed. I then took a book at random from a case containing perhaps 300 or 400 volumes. G. wrote down upon the school slate the number of a page, a line, and of a word, which she desired to be transcribed. The slate was turned over, and I placed the book, which had not been opened, across it, resting upon the frame. Under the book I placed a morsel of pencil. The slate, with the book upon it, was then passed under and pressed against the table-top as before. No one but G. was cognizant of what she had written, and, of course, as the book was never out of my possession from the time I took it from its fellows in the case until it was placed with the slate under the table-top, there was no possibility of its pages being scanned. The sound of writing soon occurred, and upon its ceasing we examined the slate, when we found 'P. 7, L. 18, W. 6, Llanwrst.' The other side of the slate contained 'P. 7, L. 18, W. 6,' as written by G. I now and for the first time opened the book, which was 'The Irish Educational Guide and Scholastic Directory,' for 1883 and 1884, published by John Mara, 17 Crow Street, Dublin; and upon turning to page 7, line 18, and word 6, the word there printed was 'Llanwrst.'"

SPIRIT WRITING.—The world is full of spiritual phenomena which are suppressed or concealed in consequence of the prejudices instilled into all minds by education and perpetuated by the dogmatism of the college, the pulpit, the press, and the votaries of Mammon. The St. Louis Globe gives a recent example, as follows:

"I have known of a great many astonishing things that I can account for in no other way than by supposing that they were brought about by some influence outside of human agency [said a believer in Spiritualism the other day to a St. Louis Globe reporter]. I know a lady—a church member—who makes no pretensions as a fortune teller, clairvoyant, or medium, and who would indignantly resent being called a Spiritualist. This lady takes a pencil in her hand and writes rapidly and legibly, with her arm extended, without looking at the paper or pencil, and gazing in an opposite direction from the work. And this is done in a way that shows no control of her arms in the operation. She writes answers to questions she could not possibly have any knowledge of in a correct and thoroughly truthful way. Even when she is separated from the questioner by a closed door she readily writes out the correct answer to a mental question with no effort of her own. This woman could not be induced to do so for any compensation. I have seen all the performances of the mediums in the way of musical instruments floating around the room in the air, but these are open to doubt. In the case of the lady I speak of, all is done by daylight without any thought of compensation or notoriety. It is a natural endowment, a spiritual control, an unseen influence, and a power outside of our ability to account for."



MIND-READING AMUSEMENT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TRANSCRIPT:

This amusement may possibly help to attract the indifferent public toward the higher branches of science, which are so much neglected. Probably not one in a thousand of those who are attracted to this subject by curiosity has given any attention to that department of science to which mind-reading belongs.

Americans are not distinguished for reverence. They often rush into the consideration and discussion of subjects with which they have no familiarity, without pausing to learn whether any investigations have already been made. In matters of mechanical invention attempts are continually making to achieve what investigation has proved impossible, and a great deal of labor and money are wasted in finding by costly experience what is already known, and might have been learned by an hour's attention to recorded science.

The dabbler in science and invention often fancies himself a discoverer, asserts his claims, and receives recognition from those who are still more ignorant of the subject than himself. Under this head come the performances of Mr. Bishop and other sciolists who are exercising similar powers with similar success.

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," said Pope; for the sciolist is continually blundering in the false and superficial theories which belong to the first stage of investigation, through which the patient student of nature has made his way to a full understanding of the subject.

The sympathetic transference of thought from one mind to another, and the acquisition of knowledge of things either present or remote, without the aid of the external senses, are phenomena known as far back as history has any records. Such phenomena are wonderful and mysterious, but not more so than the generation of animal life or the appearance of a rainbow in the sky—subjects from which science has removed much of the mystery.

Trans-corporeal or non-sensual perception has also been investigated, its laws established, its anatomical and physiological foundation explained, its range of power determined, its vast powers and utilities illustrated, and its method of development and culture made known. But of all this the mind-reading sciolists know nothing and have not attempted to learn anything. They are attitudinizing on the outer steps of the temple of science, before the gazing multitude, instead of penetrating the interior of the temple, where the multitude do not follow.

The exhibiting mind-readers start with the assumption that matter does all, and that the ample literature in which the powers of the soul are recorded, demonstrated, and explained is unworthy of notice. Thus they place themselves in sympathy with the prevalent ignorance on such subjects, and the dogmatism of a certain class of scientists.

The dogmatism of this hypothesis cannot be maintained by any careful and conscientious inquirer, who knows how to conduct an investigation. When the psychic faculties are well developed, as they certainly are in Mr. Bishop, the inquirer cannot fail to realize that ideas are developed by transference in the mind without the slightest opportunity of being instructed by muscular movements. Hence Mr. Bishop finally admits the direct transference of thought from mind to mind; but instead of presenting it boldly as a positive and thousand times demonstrated act, he still leans upon the letter of Dr. Carpenter, which represents him as learning the thoughts of others, by "careful study of the indications unconsciously given by the subject."

He confesses that he once stood upon the strictly material hypothesis, from which he has advanced to the psychic doctrine he now maintains, and adds, "Where I am may be only a stopping, not an abiding, place." Very true; the remark is honorable to his candor. He should advance a great deal farther; but he would not have stopped at either position if he had taken pains to learn what was already known and published a quarter of a century, or even what was known several centuries, before he began.

If he would even now read Professor Gregory's "Letters on Animal Magnetism" and the "Manual of Psychometry," published in Boston, he might make a new departure, might understand the vast extent of his own powers, which he has not yet developed, and show to those whom he has already astonished that there is much more in the mysteries of earth and heaven than their mechanical philosophy has even suspected.

"Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring," was the suggestion of Pope; and if Mr. Bishop or any of those who have been sipping at this fountain of knowledge would call upon me (at 6 James Street, Franklin Square) I would take pleasure in showing them the unsuspected extent of their own powers, and showing how thoroughly the questions they are interested in were investigated over forty years ago, to scatter the mystery and bring the wonderful and almost incredible powers of the mind into correlation with biology and anatomy.

I might show them, too, that mind-readers are not such extraordinary persons as they are commonly supposed. There are many millions in the world who can exercise the class of faculties to which mind-reading belongs—a class of faculties long neglected by superficial scientists, from the cultivation of which more may be expected for the future intellectual progress of mankind than from anything else now known to the universities.

I mean no disrespect in styling Mr. Bishop a sciolist (or undeveloped scientist). That very sciolism brought him into sympathy with Dr. Carpenter and other distinguished gentlemen who would not have listened to him if he had come in any nobler manner, and enabled him to open their eyes. Perhaps if he will take another step in advance he can lead the majority of his pupils to a higher position, and thus render a signal service to society. I hope he will have the candor and courage to advance far beyond his present position.

JOS. RODES BUCHANAN.

Since Mr. Bishop's exhibitions have been so successful and profitable, several others have repeated his performances of telling the number of a bank note, finding hidden articles, and going through any performance that was enacted during his absence from the hall. Mr. Montague, an editor of the Globe, Mr. George, Mr. Wilder, and several others have shown the same powers. A dispatch from St. John, New Brunswick, to the Herald describes a remarkable performance at that place as follows:

"ST. JOHN, N. B., Jan. 17, 1887. In a 'mind reading' performance Saturday night, after several examples indoors, the 'reader,' a young man who belongs to this city, asked for an outdoor test. The party separated, one remaining with the reader, and hid a pin in the side of a little house used by the switchman of the New Brunswick railway at Mill Street. In their travels they went over the new railway trestle, a most difficult journey. The reader was blindfolded, and one took his wrist, but at the trestle hesitated, fearing to venture, and was told by the reader to let go his wrist and place his hand on his head. The subject did so, and the reader went upon the trestle. Some of the party suggested that the bandage should be removed, but he told them not to mind, and, the subject again taking his wrist, he went on over the icy and snow-covered sleepers. With a firm step he crossed to the long wharf, went over as far as the mill gates, then quickly turned, retraced his steps and went back to the corner of Mill Street. Here he rested a moment, then again took the subject's hand, and in less than five minutes afterward found the pin. At the conclusion of the test, the reader inquired what the matter had been when they first reached the trestle. It was easily explained. The storm had covered the sleepers with snow, and it was thought dangerous even for a man not blindfolded to cross them. The subject felt anxious for the reader's safety, and hesitated about going across. The tests were most satisfactory."

* * * * *

TEMPERANCE.—"There has not been a liquor saloon in Hancock County, W. Va., for forty years. This accounts for the fact that there is not a prisoner in the county jail, and the grand jury failed to find a single indictment."



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

PIGMIES.—A while ago, says the Sun, Mr. Grenfell of the Congo Mission encountered on the Bosari River, south of the Congo, the Batwa dwarfs whom Stanley mentions in "The Dark Continent," though Stanley did not see them. Grenfell says these little people exist over a large extent of country, their villages being scattered here and there among other tribes. Wissmann and Pogge also met them a few years ago in their journey to Nyangwe.

It was long supposed that the story of Herodotus about the pigmies of Africa was mythical, but within the past twenty years abundant evidence has accumulated of the existence of a number of tribes of curious little folks in equatorial Africa. The chief among these tribes are the Akka, whom Schweinfurth found northwest of Albert Nyassa; the Obongo, discovered by DuChaillu in west Africa, southwest of Gaboon; and the Batwa, south of Congo.

These little people range in height from 4 feet 2 inches to about 4 feet 8 inches. They are intellectually as well as physically inferior to the other tribes of Africa. They are perhaps nearer the brute kingdom than any other human beings. The Obongo, for instance, wear no semblance of clothing: make no huts except to bend over and fasten to the ground the tops of three or four young trees, which they cover with leaves; possess no arts except the making of bows and arrows, and do not till the soil. They live on the smaller game of the forest and on nuts and berries. They regard the leopard, which now and then makes a meal of one of them, as their deadliest enemy. They live only a few days or weeks in one place.

When Schweinfurth first met the Akka dwarfs he found himself surrounded by what he supposed was a crowd of impudent boys. There were several hundred of them, and he soon found that they were veritable dwarfs, and that their tribe probably numbered several thousand souls. One of these dwarfs was taken to Italy a few years ago, was taught to read, and excited much interest among scientific men. There are other tribes of dwarfs in Abyssinia and also in Somaliland.

It is believed that all these people, including the Bushmen of South Africa, are the remains of an aboriginal population that is now becoming extinct. In the migrations and subjugations that have been in progress for many centuries among powerful tribes, the dwarf tribe of Africa has been scattered, and its isolated fragments are still found in widely separated parts of the continent.

A HUMAN PHENOMENON.—M. de Quatrefages, the naturalist, has examined a real phenomenon, a Provencal of thirty, named Simeon Aiguier, who had been presented by Dr. Trenes. Aiguier, thanks to his peculiar system of muscles and nerves, can transform himself in most wondrous fashion. He has very properly dubbed himself "L'Homme-Protee." At one moment, assuming the rigidity of a statue, his body may be struck sharply, the blows falling as on a block of stone. At another he moves his intestines from above and below and right to left into the form of a large football, and projects it forward, which gives him the appearance of a colossally stout personage. He then withdraws it into the thorax opening like a cage, and the hollow look of his body immediately reminds one of a skeleton. Aiguier successfully imitates a man subjected to the tortures of the rack, as also a man hanging himself, and assumes a strikingly cadaveric look. What most astonished M. de Quatrefages was the stoppage of the circulation of the blood, now on the left and now on the right side, which was effected by muscular contraction.—Boston Transcript.

SURVIVING SUPERSTITIONS.—The once flourishing and wealthy colony of German Rappites, or Harmonists, who sold out New Harmony, Indiana, to old Robert Owen sixty years ago, (where Owen's grand fiasco occurred,) and removed to Economy, Pa., held their annual festival on the 15th of February in the usual solemn manner. Father Rapp is dead long ago, and of the thousand energetic religious and industrious enthusiasts who have been so prosperous in worldly matters, scarcely fifty remain as feeble old men, and their pastor, Father Henrici, is over 83 years old; but the honest and worthy old enthusiasts are still waiting for the personal coming of Christ, who, they believe, is to come before their society dies out, establish his kingdom with his throne on Mount Sinai, and judge and rule the world. They believe that their beloved Father Henrici will never die, but will lead them to the presence of their Divine Master on Mount Sinai; and he proposes to lead them to Palestine, when they have signs of the Lord's approach, that they may be ready to meet him.

There is a solemn beauty and grandeur in these weird old superstitions of good people; but, alas! the Rappites must soon pass away, as the Girlingites have expired in England, when Mother Girling could not be immortal.

A SPIRITUAL TEST OF DEATH.—John R. Fowler, an old steamboat man, who died at Louisville, in January, 1887, made his wife promise to keep his body three days to see if he would not recover consciousness. On the third day after his death, the doctor and coroner pronounced him dead, but his wife sent for a medium, and through her the deceased husband stated that he was dead, and the happiness of spirit life was so great that he had no desire to return, but would wait patiently until his wife joined him.

The most perfect test of death is by Faradic electricity. As a general rule, three hours after death, the muscles entirely fail to respond to the Faradic current. When the muscles cannot be affected, death is established.

A JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.—The community at large is interested in a new movement to establish in this city a Jewish theological seminary. The objects of investigation contemplated by the projected institution are the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, the part played by the Jews in ancient, mediaeval, and modern history, and the influence exerted upon thought and research by Jewish philosophers. The current knowledge of these subjects is almost wholly derived from the conclusions and opinions of non-Jewish inquirers, and may therefore be presumed to be more or less affected by prejudice. A role of such capital importance in civilization as that of the Hebrew people ought to be examined from all sides, and the friends of truth will welcome a systematic study of it from the Hebrew point of view.—N. Y. Sun.

NATIONAL DEATH RATES.—In France, 48 per cent of the deaths are of persons over fifty years of age; and what is more remarkable, 25 per cent are of persons over seventy years of age. The French present the best showing, except, perhaps, the Irish, of any nation as regards long life. Only about 26 per cent of their deaths are of children under five years. About 6 per cent only are of persons from five to twenty years.

No nation of Europe is supposed to be more oblivious of sanitary science than the Irish, and yet a far greater percentage of the people of Ireland than of any other people, except the French, live to and beyond the age of seventy years. Nearly five in 100 of the deaths are of persons over eighty-five years of age! Only about 35 per cent of the deaths are of persons under twenty years of age. About 42 per cent of the deaths are of persons over fifty-five years. One half almost of the deaths are of persons over forty-five years. In England and Wales only 33 per cent of the deaths are of persons over forty-five years, while in the United States only 30 per cent are of persons over forty years of age.—T. S. Sozinksey, M. D., in Scientific American.

RELIGIOUS MEDIAEVALISM IN AMERICA.—Twelve miles from Dubuque, Ia., there stands in grim isolation, upon a blackened and desolate prairie, a monastery of the fifteenth century pattern. Every morning at 2 o'clock the monks who occupy this lugubrious dwelling-place arise from the hard planks which serve them in lieu of beds, and pray in wooden stalls, so constructed as to compel them either to stand or kneel. Their devotions completed, the next duty is for each to go into the yard and dig a part of his own grave, and when they have it once completed, they fill it up again, and repeat the operation indefinitely throughout their lives. They are not permitted to speak to each other except by special dispensation, which is very rarely given except at the close of a meal, when each one says to the other "Memento mori"—remember that you are to die. The system resembles, in all essential respects, that of the Indian fakirs and other religious enthusiasts who believe that the only way to please God is to make one's self as miserable as possible.—Herald.

BUDDHISM IN AMERICA.—A high caste Brahmin, Mohini Mohun Chatterjee, has arrived in the United States at New York, who has been teaching in England and on the continent. He has the approval of the brotherhood in Thibet, and has a high intellectual reputation. The JOURNAL will endeavor to discuss this subject hereafter. Buddhism is much nearer than Christianity to modern agnosticism, but it embodies fine moral teaching, and is free from intolerance. Mohini represents, it is said, "that his visit to this country is simply in the capacity of an agent, sent by the divine Mahatmas to enlighten a materialistic barbarism with the spiritual wisdom—religion of the East. He represents a movement which has for its object the uniting of the East and West in the acceptance of a universal faith. An attempt was at first made to interest people in the subject by laying some stress upon the minor phenomena of occult science. Unfortunately, such wonders attracted disciples who cared more for thaumaturgy than for doctrine, and these fell away as soon as they discovered that the object in view was not the production of marvels. The new world has riches, and the old world has ideas. It would be to the advantage of both if an exchange could be effected. The Asiatic philosophers teach that all religions are the expressions of the Eternal Verity. Life is ephemeral, they say, its chief value consisting in the opportunities it affords of doing good and making others happy."

CRANIOLOGY AND CRIME.—The British Medical Journal presents at some length the results arrived at by Prof. Benedict, in his examination of the brains of criminals—some sixteen in all. Every one of these, in comparison with the healthy brain, proved to be abnormal. Not only, too, has he found that these brains deviate from the normal type, and approach that of lower animals, but he has been able to classify them, and with them the skulls in which they were contained, in three categories.

First, absence of symmetry between the two halves of the brain; Second, an obliquity of the interior part of the brain or skull—in fact, a continuation upward of what is usually termed a sloping forehead; third, a distinct lessening of the posterior cerebral lobes, so that, as in the lower animals, they are not large enough to hide the cerebellum. In all these peculiarities, the criminal's brain and skull are distinctly of a lower type than those of normal men.

That a diminution of the posterior lobes should be recognized as a mark of inferiority, does not harmonize with the old ideas of phrenology. Nevertheless, it is true that a good development of the posterior part of the brain is essential to the superiority of man over animals.

MORPHIOMANIA IN FRANCE.—In the course of the last few years the disease which the doctors call morphiomania has made formidable headway all over France. In the capital its victims almost rival those of alcoholism. At Bellevue a great hospital has been opened for the care, and, if possible, for the cure of these patients. The disease in its present form is necessarily but of recent origin. Morphia itself was only discovered in the year 1816. The cure of it is very rare. It is found that both the use and the deprivation of the drug lead the victims almost inevitably to suicide, and at Bellevue there are cushioned rooms for some of the patients and a constant watch kept on all. One is not surprised to hear that the chief sufferers are women. After women come doctors. Very many Parisian women carry about with them a small ivory syringe. In this delicate toy is contained morphia, and it may often be remarked how ladies at convenient opportunities take out this little trinket and give themselves a prick in the arm or wrist with it. But ere long these little pricks no longer suffice to stimulate the nerves of the votaries of the habit—the dose is too small. Then it is necessary to have recourse to recently established morphine institutes, where old women, under the name of "morphineuses," carry on their profession, and give the Parisian dames pricks in the arm and breast, according to all the rules of the art.

MONTANA BACHELORS.—There are no less than 30,000 bachelors in Montana, and every single one of them is in need of and anxious to get a wife, writes a correspondent of the New York Times. These entertaining young fellows and would-be benedicts have no time to go courting themselves, and so, much of that thing is done by proxy. They are entirely too busy amassing fortunes, either at sheep herding, cattle growing, or mining, in which at least fifty per cent of them are bound to become millionaires sooner or later. There is the greatest possible need in Montana for young girls and maidens, old women, and old maids, too, for that matter, each and every one of whom would fill a long-felt want. Domestics are in high demand. As servant girls they can command wages here that would give them comfortable competences in a short time, with very little offered in return. But the trouble with the girls who come out in this way looking for a job is that none of them remain in service for any length of time. They are soon gobbled up by young fellows in search of a wife.

RELIEF FOR CHILDREN.—A very beneficent action is now required by law in Germany and Switzerland, by which holidays are obligatory in all public and private schools when the temperature reaches a certain height. These heat-holidays are called hitzlenien, and are worthy of adoption in other schools. In Basle new regulations have just been issued concerning heat-holidays. When the temperature rises to seventy-seven degrees in the shade at ten o'clock in the morning, holiday is to be proclaimed to the scholars until the afternoon. Two such holidays were proclaimed during a recent hot week, to the no small delight of the boys and girls. It would be equally beneficent to dismiss the schools whenever, for any reason, the temperature of the schoolroom could not be kept up to sixty-five degrees.

"THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE."—The atrocities of landlordism in Ireland, evicting the poor in midwinter, tearing down their cabins, and burning their roofs to drive them out, have excited horror in England, and sympathy for the Irish.

CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.—The Rev. Mr. Harris has expressed the opinion that in ten or twenty years Christianity might become the national religion of Japan, as the heathen temples are going into decay. If it does, Christianity will be as much benefited by it as the Japanese. The cast iron theology of the Anglo-Saxon race will not suit the Japanese. The works of agnostic scientists and liberals have already a strong hold on the Japanese. The Christianity of the past will have to be reformed and ameliorated to suit Japan. They will never appreciate the theology of the Andover creed, which has been versified as follows by Puck:

"There is a place of endless terror Prepared for those who fall in error, Where fire and death and torture never Cease their work, but rule forever; To this dark cave, for Adam's sin, Must all his children enter in. But the all-merciful Creator Took pity on the fallen traitor, Prepared a narrow path of pardon That led to heaven's happy garden; And, lest mankind prefer to sin, Predestined some to walk therein. But millions still in error languish, Doomed to death and future anguish, Who ne'er had heard of Adam's sin, Nor of the peril they are in; Who know not of the way of pardon, Nor of the fall in Eden's garden.

"This, my friends, is the Andover creed; Put it aside for the time of need! In the hour of grief and sorrow From it consolation borrow; When your dearest friends are dying, Read it to the mourners crying; Teach it to the tender maiden, To the man with sorrow laden; Teach it to the timid child, Watch its look of horror wild, Note the half-defiant fear, Flushing cheek and pitying tear; Teach it to the broken hearted, From their loved ones newly parted; Show them that their pride and beauty— Type of love and filial duty— This, their darling, whom they cherished, Has in hell forever perished, All because of Adam's folly! 'Twill drive away your melancholy. A wonderful thing is the Andover creed, Put it aside for the hour of need!"

THE HELLFIRE BUSINESS.—This expression is homely English, and such language is best in describing horrible realities. The managers of the American Board (sturdy champions of hell) have been compelled by public opinion to let Mr. Hume go back to India as a missionary, though he will not agree to send all the heathen to hell. To keep up their dignity, however, they represented Mr. Hume as having backed down, and compelled him to show that he had not. Since passing Mr. Hume they have refused to allow Mr. Morse to go on the same terms, because he will not insist on the absolute certainty that the heathen are all in hell. The Boston Herald says the Board's moral obliquity is a puzzle to honest people.

REV. SAM JONES AND BOSTON THEOLOGY.—The Herald says: "Brother Sam Jones and Brother Sam Small do chiefly limit themselves to the simple things of the gospel, and have less theology to the square inch than the average of ministers, as Brother Sam Jones would express it. But they are hardly fitted for this field, we should say."

Perhaps the following extracts from Rev. Samuel's sermons explain his relations to Boston. Before an audience of 7,500 he said, "There are 100,000 people in twenty different states praying that I may succeed in arousing Boston to a sense of her moral and spiritual degradation.

"I love to live in the world, but not to be troubled with creeds. I know I am on dangerous ground here in Boston when I am on creeds, for a fellow could get up a fight here on that question quicker than he could on stealing."

"Whiskey is the worst enemy God or man ever had, and the best friend the devil ever had."

"We have got sentiment enough to put whiskey out of Boston."

"You have enough church members in Boston to vote the whiskey out of Boston any morning before breakfast."

"It is every preacher's duty to denounce the things of hell just as much as it is to preach the beauty of Christ."

"I know you denounce drunkenness, but how few pulpits pull out their dagger and stab it."

"God has not lost his power, but the pulpit has lost its voice."

"Boston had a fire once, but that does not hurt you half as much as the fire of damnation that is smouldering in the hearts of people of this town."

"I don't know what will become of my converts if I leave them in Boston."

The greatest religious work that has been done in Boston, is that of Jones and Small. Every hall they occupied was crowded, and at mid-day in the week they filled Fanueil Hall.

PSYCHOMETRY.—The entire pages of the JOURNAL OF MAN would be insufficient for the presentation which this subject demands, and for the present readers must be content with the "Manual of Psychometry." The article designed for this number must be postponed until April, after which it will receive more attention.

THE AMERICAN PSYCHICAL SOCIETY, poor thing, is in a bad way. It needs nourishment, warmth, and interested attention, to prevent it from dying of a compilation of infantile maladies which arise from bad nursing. The chief nurse, Professor Newcomb (president), gave the bantling an ice-bath in January (his presidential address), and this practically puts the thing in its coffin. We have never had high anticipations of the usefulness or continued existence of this organization. It is a queer proceeding to throw a new-born baby on a rubbish-heap, and leave it there, while its parents walk around on stilts to look at it. The British society is glowing with warmth compared with the state of its American cousin. It is clear that the psychical knowledge which the society desires to obtain will never come to it under its present management; indeed, we are inclined to think no society under any management can obtain satisfactory knowledge of the kind which is sought. It must be obtained in private, under conditions far different from any which can be secured in organizations, where men act together with diverse views and opinions.—Pop. Sci. News.

PROGRESS OF SPIRITUALISM.—In all European countries, Spiritualism is making rapid progress. In England, the eloquent and distinguished lecturer, Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, says in a recent letter to the London Medium that "Spiritualism in England is not only on the increase, but has already take too deep and earnest a hold of the public heart, up here in the north, to be uprooted by imbecile antagonism, or even marred by the petty shams of imposture. In places where I have been told it was recently difficult to collect together a score of people to listen to spiritual lectures, the largest halls are often found insufficient to accommodate my Sunday evening audiences, and the spoken blessings and thanks that follow me, as well as the floods of inquiring letters that besiege me, bear ample testimony to the fact, that the seed sown has not all fallen on stony places."

Its progress is rapid in Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, and Russia, and is steadily onward in France and Germany. On our Pacific Coast, the Golden Gate says, "it is advancing with grand strides." In the Eastern States it is obtaining a much needed purification by discussing the genuineness of the phenomena.

THE FOLLY OF COMPETITION.—We live under a ruinous system of competition instead of co-operation, in which the weakest sink into poverty, beggary, disease, crime, and suicide. Every day the horrors of our social system are recognized and commented on, but how little is done, and how little thought for its amendment. According to Bradstreet, during the first six weeks of this year the loss of wages by strikers has amounted to three millions of dollars. This damage falls on those who cannot afford it, the most of whom find themselves in a worse and more hopeless condition in consequence of the strike, if not entirely out of employment. It has been a matter of comparatively little importance to the parties against whom the strikes were made. The JOURNAL will pay some attention to the remedial measures which are being introduced.

INSANITIES OF WAR.—Senator Vest recently stated to the Senate that "there was not in the history of the civilized world a page of maladministration equal to that of the Navy Department of the United States since 1865.... There had been expended for naval purposes since the close of the war over $419,000,000." Query: How much over $5,000,000 would it all bring if sold out to-day? Would it bring that much?