BUCHANAN’S
JOURNAL OF MAN.

Salutatory.

Kind reader! Let me presume that you are in search of truth, and that you have an intuition sufficient to tell you that this unending search is the inspiring energy of the Journal of Man Let us realize the vastness of truth, the vastness of those realms of knowledge heretofore unexplored by man, in which the Journal is to perform its work, and in realizing that, it will be very obvious that no single number of the Journal can be an adequate specimen to give a just conception of what it is to be, how many hundred themes it will have to consider, how many errors to analyze, how many new suggestions to introduce, how many criticisms of the old, how many expositions of the new. The present number of the Journal is little more than a promissory note for its future.

Even as a commentary on periodical literature, there will be a countless number of the superficial theories of ignorance and haste for it to examine, while there will be the more pleasing task of noting the introduction of sound philosophy, the progress of careful investigation, the uprising of common sense against hereditary falsehood, and the gradual enlightenment of the clerical, medical, and educational professions by the slow progress of new ideas, and the unembarrassed progress of the physical sciences and inventions which encounter no collegiate hindrance, excepting this, that the average liberal education, as it is called, gives so little knowledge of physical science, that the educated classes often fail to distinguish between the real inventor and the deluded, or delusive, impostor.

The inventor is the emancipator of mankind from the oppressive burden of toil, and hence the philanthropist should ever look with interest to the progress of invention, should ever be ready to cooperate with inventive genius. The Journal should be the inventor’s friend, and it hopes to see the time when the national institution that I have proposed shall be established, to bring blind, but all powerful, capital into co-operation with the wise, but often powerless, inventor.

Invention is the physical, as philosophy is the intellectual power, to complete the emancipation of mankind from slavery and suffering. “No,” would the theologian say, “your false philosophy ends in nothing. The world has been full of philosophies from Democritus to Hegel, and they have never lifted a single straw’s weight from the burden that oppresses all humanity. The real burden is sin, and religion alone can remove that, and bring in the kingdom of heaven on earth.”

Most true, Oh theologian, it is, that the false philosophies, from Democritus to Hegel, have done nothing for mankind but to becloud, bewilder, and enfeeble their intelligence, for the philosophies were born of empty vanity, which essayed to conquer the universe by cogitation without science, and not from any loving impulse to make life wiser and better. But your theologies have been almost as false as the philosophies. You have inverted the simple and pure religion of Jesus. You have taught the world that its governing power was not an infinite love, but an infinite hate, and that the chief purpose of creation was to furnish an unlimited amount of human agony, in eternal progress, to gratify the infinite tyrant, and, at the same time, please a few humble vassals whom terror alone had driven into his service. You have taught mankind, all too successfully, to imitate this superhuman monster, by the banishment, imprisonment, murder, or torture, of all who did not accept your insane and heartless teachings; and the bloody drama, which has been in full progress for at least fifteen centuries without one interval of pity or remorse, is coming to its end now, Oh theologians, simply because your power has waned, and mankind have partially outgrown their superstitious ignorance. Tennyson in his last poem has expressed the truth:

You are beginning, Oh theologians, to be ashamed of the history of your tribe, and to doubt in your own hearts the horrid creeds you are still teaching; and a few have even thrown them off entirely and joined in the movement of emancipation,—even Andover is uneasy beneath its old yoke. But the chief problem of progress is still to get rid of your creeds, and return to that simple, universal religion, of which Jesus was the most powerful teacher,—a religion that had no church, no creed, no intolerance, and which dealt only in that universal love to which all human souls respond when they receive it.

Yet never has this simple religion of Jesus appeared, nor any effort towards its imperfect realization, without provoking orthodox hostility; and never has science taken one bold step in advance to understand the Bible of creation, or the Divine wisdom embodied in the constitution of man, without finding all orthodox power arrayed against each step of progress, and your orthodox anathemas ready for each fearless seeker of the truth.

Never had astronomy, never had geology, never had phrenology, never had anthropology, one smile from the organized theological guardians of the ancient falsehood called orthodoxy. Neither had political liberty any better treatment than mental liberty. Neither the white man, the red man, nor the black man found friendship or protection until very recently in any orthodox church, for the church was invariably the ally of the despot. Witness all European history, witness the history of Mexico and South America,—witness the history of the United States,—witness the present condition of Europe, groaning under the mountain load of taxation to pay war debts, to sustain the cannon foundries, forts, ships, barracks, and, in a word, the armament of hell , for it is but a grand, prearranged plan for further homicide and devastation; and all—all, alas! established and sustained by a government inspired by the church, which falsely claims to represent the principles of Christ in its terribly apostate career!

With a loathing and horror that words cannot express I turn from this scene—in which, though latent at this moment, there lie all the horrors of the Roman amphitheatre, and wars of the legions of Scipio, Marius, Tiberius, Cæsar, Nero, Severus, Decius, Valerianus, of Alaric, Attila, and Genghis Khan—to the dawn of liberty, peace, and enlightenment on the American continent, where, though old forms and institutions may survive, their interior nature or life is changed,—where the apostate church is slowly relinquishing its apostacy and growing into harmony with modern liberty and progress.

The time is coming, I trust, when Christian churches in the United States shall return to follow the sublime examples of the founders of Christianity; shall practise and diffuse that spirit of love in which is all freedom, all toleration and co-operation; shall welcome science and philosophy, and become the centre of all cooperative efforts for human amelioration.

The ameliorations of the last hundred years are so great that we may well anticipate still greater changes in the coming century; for, as Whittier says:

It is reasonable to anticipate this change, because the old battle between religion and science, which placed each in a false position, must come to an end. The battle is still in progress,—there is still an antagonism; and scientists will object to the Journal of Man because its science is associated with religion; while theologians will object to its religion because based on science; but the contest now proceeds with diminishing rancor, and there have been minor reconciliations or truces between scientists and theologians. But finally the grand reconciliation must come from this, that when science advances into the psychic realm,—when it demonstrates the existence of the soul, and demonstrates that heaven is not a morbid dream but a splendid reality,—the religious sentiment will recognize such science as its friend; and when science goes farther, and interprets the Divine laws as written by omnipotent wisdom in the constitution of man, more plainly and far more fully than they have ever been expressed in religious writings, then will religion perceive that such science is the Divine messenger before whom it should bow in reverence, and whose every utterance should be held sacred.

It is thus the mission of anthropology to enlighten religion, to interpret the Divine law, and to reign in the kingdom of heaven, to which it is to lead us; and it is the mission of the Journal of Man to present and keep before the enlightened few the guiding wisdom of anthropology.

The Phrenological Doctrines of Dr. Gall.

THEIR PAST AND PRESENT STATUS.

Science ought to emancipate mankind from the control of the animal instincts, and in the purely physical and mathematical sciences it does. In mathematics, dynamics, optics, acoustics, astronomy, electricity, engineering, and mechanics, the dictates of pure intellect are seldom interfered with by any blind impulse, attraction, or prejudice. But it is very different in the realm of opinion—in matters in which reason should be supreme, with as absolute authority as number and form have in mathematics.

A thousand can measure and calculate, and can obey implicitly in thought the mathematical laws, for one that can reason and obey implicitly the dictates of pure reason. If an error is made in the construction of a bridge, erection of a house, or financial report of a bank, thousands may at once detect the error, and by clear exposition compel its recognition. But in matters of opinion controlled by reason, there is no such ready detection and recognition of error, even by the best educated classes. The realm of opinion is ever in chaos. Contradictory opinions are ever clashing; no supreme arbiter is known; no law of reason, like the laws of mathematics, comes in to dissipate error and delusion.

Why is this? Anthropology replies that reason is as positive, clear, and imperative as mathematical principles, but that men have not been educated to exercise and to obey the faculty of reason, as they have been to measure and to count. In matters of opinion, feeling and impulse are allowed to dominate over reason, and to hug the delusions which reason would dispel. We have no educational system , no college, in which the art of reasoning is properly taught, although the shallow pedantry of Aristotelian logic has assumed to teach the art of reasoning. The faculties themselves of our colleges do not understand or practice the true art of reasoning, for if they did, they would harmonize in opinion as mathematicians harmonize in calculations, and would lead the onward march of mind continually, making or accepting discoveries of the highest importance, instead of standing, as they do, impregnable castles of ancient error in matters of opinion, though moderately progressive in physical science.

It is for these reasons that popular opinions and opinions of universities are of little value. Everything else but reason dominates them. The gift of a founder, the decree of a king, parliament, or pope, the decision of some ancient conclave of the superstitious and ignorant, or the imperious will of some interested body of lords, plutocrats, monks, or political usurpers, establishes the mould in which opinions are cast; and the soft brains of inexperienced and unreflective youth are easily compressed into the form of the established mould, and from that deformed condition they seldom or never entirely recover true symmetry. Never taught to reason deeply or accurately, they yield to the sympathetic mesmeric control of social opinions and impulses, without looking to their origin, Hence the lamentable fact that in matters of opinion or philosophy, as in social amusements and fashions, the animal instinct of gregariousness rules, and men move in masses like herds of sheep or buffaloes.

These considerations prepare us to appreciate justly the value of former and contemporary opinions in reference to the science of the brain.

The mystery that surrounded its anatomy was dispelled by Dr. Gall, and modern scientists have been building upon the foundation laid by him. It is not necessary now to dwell upon his protracted and careful study of the comparative development of the brain in men and animals. Suffice it to say no naturalist was ever more diligent, fearless, and successful, in the study of nature; and the conclusive evidence of his success is the fact that no student of nature who travelled after his footsteps has failed to see what he saw, and recognize Gall as a grand, original teacher.

Why is it, then, that the reputation of Gall and his discoveries of mental organs in the brain has been so fluctuating? Why have the discoveries that came forward with so imposing a prestige at the beginning of this century so entirely lost that prestige in the colleges in sixty years, that the writings of Gall and his disciples are generally neglected? Vague, unscientific speculations have taken their place; the colleges and literati are groping in darkness, and, like plants in a cellar which reach out to the dim windows, they look anxiously for the information that may come from laboratories and anatomical halls, where animals by thousands are tortured to find the sources of physical functions, forgetful of the fact that the human brain is a psychic organ, and that a whole century of such investigations would leave the grand problems of conscious life and character in primeval darkness!

Have they no respect for the labors and honorable observations of clear-headed scientists fifty to eighty years ago? Were the anatomists Reil and Loder deceived when they testified to Gall’s wonderful discoveries in anatomy? Were Andral, Broussais, Corvsart, and others, who stood at the head of the medical profession in France, deceived when they were followers of Gall? Was Dr. Vimont deceived when the study of the animal kingdom converted him from an opponent to a supporter of Gall? Were Elliotson and Solly of London, the Combes of Scotland, Macartney of Ireland, and a full score of others in the highest ranks of medical science deceived in giving their testimony that the anatomy of the brain, its development in the healthy, its amply recorded pathology, revealed in hospitals, and its phenomena in the insane asylums and prisons, supported the doctrines of Gall?

They were not deceived, and they were not blind. They were observers. Their successors, sinking into the agnosticism of pseudoscience, have thus sunk because they have abandoned the methods of science to adopt the methods of ignorant partisanship. They have not studied the comparative development of the brain in connection with character, and therefore they know little or nothing of it. They are not competent as observers of development, because they have never attempted to become acquainted with it. Even so eminent a writer as the late Prof. W. B. Carpenter shows by his writings, which are a monument of laborious erudition, that he did not understand so simple a matter as the external form of the cranium belonging to the development of the cerebellum.

Cranioscopy, the study of the brain and its proportional development through the cranium, which is the method by which Gall made his discoveries, is a lost art in the medical profession, and I doubt if there is a single professor in any American or European medical college to-day, who has a competent knowledge of it. The art of cranioscopy requires as its basis a correct knowledge of the anatomy of the brain and skull, a correct knowledge of the localities of all the cerebral organs, and a practical skill in determining their development with accuracy. A variation of one eighth of an inch in development will change the destiny of the individual, and incorrect conceptions of the growth of the brain and the natural irregularities of the cranium would vitiate the conclusions of the observers. A somewhat famous but unscientific practitioner of phrenology gave a good illustration of this by mistaking a rugged development of the lambdoid suture for an enormous organ of combativeness, and ascribing to the gentleman a terrific, pugnacious energy which was the very opposite of his true character.

The sciolism of popular phrenology, scantily supplied with anatomical knowledge, and but little better supplied with clear psychic conceptions, is incapable of commending the science to the esteem of critical observers, and of course incapable of sustaining its reputation against the overwhelming opposition of medical colleges. Thus rejected or at least neglected in the universities, which supply its place with worthless metaphysics, and unsustained before the public,—for the tone of literature is controlled by the universities,—it is not strange that the grand discoveries of Gall are neglected as they are to-day.

The objections to Gall’s discoveries which have been considered sufficient, have generally been the offspring of ignorance and superficial thinking. Thousands of physicians have been misled by professors of anatomy thoroughly ignorant of the subject, who have shown to their own ignorant satisfaction how impossible it was to judge of the development of the brain through the skull. The attacks upon phrenology have been generally remarkable for their logical feebleness. Any one well acquainted with the science and the phenomena in nature, could have made a much more effective attack,—an attack which would have appeared entirely unanswerable; but no such attack has been made.

There has been, however, one valid objection to the discoveries of Gall, which has done much to discredit the whole system. He ascribed to the entire cerebellum the sexual function alone, in doing which he disregarded the facts developed by vivisection. Ample observation has shown his error. The cerebellum is the physiological as the cerebrum is the psychic brain, and a defined central portion of the cerebellum at the median line does exercise, in connection with the summit of the spinal cord, the sexual functions. This has been fully established by pathology, as well as by my own experiments. In this matter Gall is certainly entitled to the credit of approximating the truth, the function being located within the territory assigned it.

The fundamental doctrine, however, which Gall has the immortal honor of establishing, is that the cerebrum is not a homogeneous unitary organ, but a mass of distinct organs, as distinct as the sensitive and motor columns of the spinal cord, and exercising different mental functions . Whatever errors of detail he may have fallen into cannot obscure the glory of the pioneer in the anatomy and psychology of the brain. His anatomical doctrines have stood the test of time; they are established; and his psychic doctrines are as near an approach to absolute truth as ever was made by a pioneer in a wilderness of mystery. Gall himself, with the just self-respect which belongs to a sincere and fearless seeker of scientific truth, expressed his attitude as follows, at the close of the sixth volume of his works:—

“These views of the qualities and faculties of man are not the fruit of subtile reasonings. They bear not the impress of the age in which they originate, and will not wear out with it. They are the result of numberless observations, and will be immutable and eternal like the facts that have been observed, and the fundamental powers which those facts force us to admit. They are not only founded on principles deduced from individual facts, but are confirmed by each individual fact in particular, and will forever come off triumphant from every test to which they may be submitted, whether of analysis or synthesis. If the reasonings of metaphysicians are ever discarded, this philosophy of the human qualities and faculties will be the foundation of all philosophy in time to come.”

These are the words of a grand-souled philosopher, who knew that he was speaking the truth, and forcing, as if at the point of the bayonet, a great, new truth upon the stolidity of the colleges. The simple truth of fibrous structure in the brain, now known to every tyro in anatomy, was contested in the days of Gall and Spurzheim, and had to be enforced by public dissection in an Edinburgh amphitheatre. With the same unreasoning stolidity the doctrine of the multiplicity of organs in the brain was shunned, evaded, or denied, though it would seem idiotic for any physiologist to assume such a position (by suppressing his own common sense) when the aim of all modern investigations of the brain is to discover different functions in different parts.

The great doctrine of the multiplicity of cerebral organs, introduced by Gall, could not be suppressed or ignored among those who investigate the brain in any manner. All modern investigators tacitly recognize it, for none could so stultify themselves as to assume the brain to be a homogeneous unit in either structure or functions, while seeking to discover the peculiar functions of each part. Thus his fundamental ideas are adopted by his opponents, and step by step they will be compelled to admit his general correctness, and his grand services as the pioneer in the highest department of science, the most prolific in important results to mankind. “Every honest and erudite anatomist,” says Sir Samuel Solly in his standard work on the anatomy of the brain, “must acknowledge that we are indebted mainly to Gall and Spurzheim for the improvements which have been made in our mode of studying the brain. For my own part, I most cheerfully acknowledge that the interest which I derived from the lectures of Dr. Spurzheim at St. Thomas’ Hospital about the years 1822 and 1823, has been the inciting cause of all the labor which for above twenty years I have at intervals devoted to this subject.”

The organ of language, his first discovery, located at the junction of the front and middle lobes, has been the first to receive the general recognition of the medical profession, because it is easy to recognize its failures in disease, and the morbid condition of its organ.

Its general recognition by physiologists now is not usually accompanied by any reference to Gall as its discoverer. They are probably not aware that he located it correctly, because he referred so much to its external sign in the prominence of the eyes. This prominence of the eyes indicates development of the brain at the back of their sockets. The external marking of organs is to indicate where they lie and in what direction their development produces exterior projection. The junction of the front and middle lobes, including the so-called “island of Reil” (who was a pupil of Gall, and spoke of him as the most wonderful of anatomists), has its most direct external indication at the outer angle of the eye. That is the location which has been given the organ by my experiments, which were made without reference to anatomy, without even a thought of it, for I consider such experiments the supreme authority in physiology, and do not stop to inquire whether any previous knowledge supports them or not.

Dr. Gall had the true idea, for although he spoke of the general prominence of the eye as the indication, he also recognized the development as extending in the direction in which I have located it. He regarded the organ of language as a convolution lying on the super-orbital plate, behind the position of the eyeball. This convolution is comparatively defective in animals generally, but more developed in birds of superior vocal powers. In addition to this, he observed the growth extending into the temples, where the front and middle lobes unite. “A great diameter in this direction,” he says, “is always a favorable augury for the memory of words. I have seen persons who with an ordinary conformation of the eyes yet learned by heart with great facility. But in these cases the diameter from one temple to the other is ordinarily very considerable, and sometimes even the inferior part of the temples is projecting, which attests a great development of the adjacent cerebral parts.”

Thus it is evident that he recognized the structure behind the external angle of the eye as an important part of the organ of language.

The interior portion of the convolution is the more intellectual portion of the organ, while the exterior portion is that which holds the closest relation to the fibres of the corpora striata in the middle lobe, and may therefore most properly be called the organ of language or of speech, the impairment of which produces aphasia, or loss of speech. This is the form which has chiefly attracted the attention of the medical profession, as it very often accompanies paralytic affections from disease of the corpora striata .

Evidently Gall arrived at the correct location, and he illustrates the discovery by referring to a great number of authors and scientists whose development he observed. His most decisive fact is the case of a patient who lost the memory of names entirely, but not the power of speech, by a thrust from a foil, which penetrated through the face, the posterior inner part of the front lobe, at its junction with the middle lobe, thus wounding the internal part of the organ of language, but not reaching the outer posterior part, at the island of Reil, to which pathologists have given their chief attention.

Evidently Gall had the correct idea, and should have been duly credited by the pathologists who have verified his discovery.

In verifying this discovery by excitement of the organs, I find the centre of language behind the external angle of the eye, on each side of which, toward the nose and toward the temples, are analogous functions which might, if we did not analyze closely, be included with it, as portions of the organ of language.

The discoveries of Gall, though no longer sustained by colleges or phrenological societies, have never lost their hold upon the students who follow his teachings and study nature. A few phrenological writers and lecturers maintain the interest among those they reach, but our standard literature generally ignores the doctrines, and forgets the name of Gall. Yet the eclipse is not total. It will pass away as this century ends, and the fame of the great pioneer in science will be immortal, for it rests not on any wave of eighteenth century opinion, but is based on that which is “immutable and eternal.”

Yet so thoroughly has the present generation of physicians been misled by the colleges into ignorance of the labors of Gall, that although they know the location of the faculty of language is now beyond doubt, they do not think of the discoverer or understand his discoveries, but vaguely suppose that Ferrier, Jackson, Fritsch, Hitzig, and others have entirely superseded Gall by their inferences from experiments on the brains of animals. In this how greatly are they deceived! All that modern vivisectors have done has utterly failed to disturb the cerebral science derived from cranial observation by Gall and myself, and from direct experiment by myself. On the contrary, the immense labor of their researches serves only to add new illustrations and facts corroborating and co-operating with what was previously ascertained, as will be fully shown when “Cerebral Psychology” shall be published.

It was once supposed that the intellectual functions of the front lobe were entirely refuted by discoveries which proved the front lobe the source of muscular impulses. More thorough experimenting dissipated this illusion. Ferrier reported that after a partial ablation of the front lobes in intelligent monkeys, “instead of, as before, being actively interested in their surroundings and curiously prying into all that came within the field of their observation, they remained apathetic or dull, or dozed off to sleep, responding only to the sensations or impressions of the moment, or varying their listlessness with restless and purposeless wanderings to and fro. They had lost to all appearance the faculty of attentive and intelligent observation.” This is precisely what the true cerebral psychology indicates. The imaginary muscular powers were not at all detected, for the section of the front lobe had no influence on the muscular system.

The science of Gall was a science of facts relevant to great principles. The science of his opponents was a science of irrelevant facts, revealing no philosophy. Students of nature adhered to Gall; students of books and adherents of authority neglected him. Of this there is no better illustration than the great collection of De Ville in London, of which the following account is given in the admirable treatise on phrenology (of 637 pages) by Dr. James P. Browne of Edinburgh.

“How wide and various are the channels through which the phrenologist derives his facts. In society, whichever way he turns, they are constantly being presented for his contemplation. Besides there is not a city or town of any note that does not contain a collection of authentic casts of well-known persons; and up to the year 1853, the gallery of Mr. De Ville, in London, contained the largest and most valuable phrenological collection in the world of casts and skulls of men and women remarkable for the greatness of their talents, or the peculiarities of their dispositions; including above three hundred busts, both antique and modern, of the most renowned men the world has ever seen. The whole number amounted at least to three thousand. About two thousand skulls of animals of every denomination were also to be found there. There could be seen the form of head which accompanied the poetical instincts and high moral aspirations of the poor peasant boy, John Clare; and how strikingly dissimilar it was in its most marked characteristics to the head of George Stevenson, one of the most original of mechanical geniuses. Both were self-taught, but one was intensely active , the other cogitative . The mind of Clare was constantly engaged in poetical musings upon the moral affections, their pains and their pleasures; that of Stevenson was drawn by an inherent impulse to physical objects, and perseveringly devoted to the discovery of such mechanical combinations of them as might be of lasting benefit to society. There might be pointed out the cause of the difference of style which characterized the oratory of Mansfield and Erskine, of Canning and of Brougham: and that which constituted the elements of mind and their combinations, which raised Edmund Burke, as a prescient statesman, to a height such as neither Pitt, nor Fox, nor even Chatham was capable of reaching. There might be seen in Banks’s fine bust of him, the cause why Warren Hastings, though he was endowed with many good qualities which endeared him to his friends, was, nevertheless, covetous, self-willed, domineering, unjust, and, in some instances, pitiless, as Governor-General of India. What a contrast to this did the bust of the Marquis of Wellesley, by Nollekens, present. Not only did it indicate that the disposition of that distinguished statesman was unimbued with the slightest tincture of hypocrisy, avarice, or the love of self-willed domination, but, on the contrary, it was phrenologically symbolic of an instinctive carelessness in regard to his own pecuniary interests, a disposition which in his case, perhaps, amounted to a fault, and which his intellect, capacious of great things, and comparatively heedless of whatever is little, was ill-calculated to redress. There might be seen in Behnes Burlowe’s bust of Macintosh indications of the vastness of his intellect, and the unobtrusive gentleness of his disposition; whilst Chantrey’s exquisite bust of Lord Castlereagh afforded marked indications of his having been endowed with courage the most heroic, unalloyed by the slightest tinge of complexional fear, and with an intellect well balanced, devising, and industrious, but certainly narrow in its range as compared with that of Sir. J. Macintosh. There, too, might be seen the true physical indications of the imperturbable coolness of Castlereagh, and of the sensitiveness and warm susceptibility of Canning.

“Amongst the skulls of birds how readily could the practised observer distinguish the skull of the tuneful, melodious canary from that of the chirping, inharmonious sparrow. Nor could he fail to mark the constant difference between the form of the head of a song thrush and that of the jackdaw; or to discern how the cuckoo’s head is hollow where the organ of the love of offspring is located, whilst the same part presents a striking protuberance in the partridge. In the dolphin, the porpoise, the seal, and many other animals, the male could there be distinguished from the female by the form of the back part of the skull, where the same organ lies. Nor could any one fail to mark the form of head that is the invariable, and evidently indispensable, concomitant of the ferocious and sanguinary temper of the tiger, as well as the strong contrast which it presents to the skull of the wild but gentle gazelle. How superior also the elevated brain of the poodle dog, when compared with that of the indocile, snarling cur! Thus in animals of the same species the most marked disparity of form is easily discernible, on comparing the skulls of such as are docile and gentle, with those of the dull and intractable. The elevation of the one and the depression of the other are obvious.

“In an ethnological point of view that collection was very valuable. What a striking contrast was presented there by the rounded form of the skull of the fierce, indomitable American Indian, who is so averse to intercourse with strangers, and the rather narrow, elongated head of the indolent negro, who is devoted to social enjoyments. How wide was the difference between the head of the Sandwich Islander or of the Tahitian and that of the Australian or the Tasmanian. How much superior to either of them were the heads of the civilized Incas of Peru, which had not been submitted to the distorting process of artificial compression. Neither could the wide disparity between the Maori and the Gentoo escape the notice of the most careless observer. And how immeasurably inferior in form were they all to the noble head which is the issue of the mingling of the Celtic, Saxon, and Norman races (imbued with an infusion of old Roman, blood), such as it is found to be in these islands, and in the United States.

“Perhaps it may not be considered out of place if I relate a circumstance of considerable interest to those who make it a point to make strict inquiry as to the amount of knowledge which certain races are capable of imbibing.

“Some twenty years ago and more, when the great anatomist, Tiedemann, was in London, he paid a visit to De Ville’s Phrenological Museum. I saw him as he entered the place. He was erect and tall, with an air somewhat stately, yet perfectly unassuming. His head was not so remarkable for great size as for its fine symmetry, and the organs of the moral and intellectual portions of it were in a rare degree harmoniously blended. It was the characteristic head of a curious, indefatigable, conscientious inquirer into the arcana of physical things—one who was not given to indulge in unprofitable, visionary speculations. His visit to De Ville being strictly private, there was no opportunity afforded me of hearing his remarks. But, afterwards, it was told me by De Ville himself, that Tiedemann supposed (and in this he resembled all other opponents of phrenology) that because he had tested the capacity of a great many negro and European skulls, by filling them with millet seed, and found that, on an an average, those of the Africans were scarcely inferior in size to the skulls of Europeans—that from that fact he thought it probable that the negro, if placed in advantageous circumstances, ought to be capable of exhibiting powers of mind equal to the European.

“But when the humble, self-educated follower of Gall demonstrated to this celebrated physiologist and anatomist that the forehead of the negro is usually much smaller than that of the European, and that, moreover, its form, with few exceptions, is irregular and ill-balanced; and when he showed that the size of the negro skull in the basilar portion, where the organs of the affections (which we possess in common with the lower animals) lie, was, in proportion to the upper and anterior parts, which are the seats of the moral and intellectual faculties, larger in the negro than in the European—when De Ville showed, by many instances, that this is always and infallibly the case (with the exception of the heads of criminals), Tiedemann raised his hands and said, ‘The labor of years is now, I clearly see, of no use to me; and I must destroy many valuable things bearing upon this theme.’ Thus, by following the true mode of investigating this department of natural history, was an uneducated man, of good talents, enabled to correct a mistake in anatomy and physiology committed by one of the ablest anatomists that Europe has given birth to.

“For the long term of twenty-two years the writer of this treatise took every opportunity, afforded him by the kindness of its generous owner, to study the contents of this rare collection; and, after having studied it with assiduous care, he is bound to say that out of the hundred thousand facts which it contained, not one could be pointed out that did not testify to the never-failing agreement of particular parts or organs of the brain, with certain independent, elementary faculties, according to the laws discovered by Gall.

“It is with the view of demonstrating the stability and unchangeableness of those laws that the composition of this treatise has been undertaken; in order to excite in its regard such a degree of attention as will tend to awaken it from the state of inauspicious somnolency in which it has for some years lain prostrate. But, strongly impressed with a conviction of the importance of the subject, and fully alive to the difficulty of treating it, the writer cannot help being crossed by fears for the success of this attempt. Relying, however, upon the solidity of the foundation upon which his subject rests, and surveying the vast store of accumulated materials which have, for more than thirty years, been constantly passing through his hands, and the facts which are now strewn before him in whatever society he may be placed, he would fain hope that even his humble abilities will enable him to make such a selection of incontrovertible facts as will place beyond a doubt the possibility of determining the innate talents and dispositions of any one by making a skilful survey of the head; and, should he succeed in merely raising a more general spirit of active inquiry in regard to the nature of the evidence adduced, and the deductions drawn from it by phrenologists, than at present exists, he will have reaped a fair reward for his efforts, for he has long been thoroughly convinced that a strict and faithful examination of the facts which bear upon the case is alone requisite for converting the incredulous scoffer into the zealous advocate.”

Having thus vindicated the claims of the great pioneer in philosophy, our next issue will show the limitations of his discoveries, and give an outline of the new and all-comprehensive Anthropology.

The Great Land Question.

AGITATED BY HENRY GEORGE, MICHAEL DAVITT, PROF. WALLACE, DR. EADON AND REFORMATORY SOCIETIES IN GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY.

They who in the fearless pursuit of truth attain ideas for which the age is not prepared are recognized as Utopians. The dullards who have not the desire, and therefore have not the capacity to seek new truth, languidly regard as dreamers the men who talk of things so foreign to their own habits. The more dogmatic class, inspired by the dogmatism of the colleges, array themselves in scorn to repel new thought. But, fortunately, as men die they fail to transmit all of their bigotry to posterity, and new men come in with new ideas.

In that new world of thought to which anthropology belongs, the basis of social order is understood, and I felt it my duty in 1847 to present the law of justice in relation to “The Land and the People,” with very little hope that the doctrine presented would ever become in my own lifetime a basis of political action, since other ideas equally true and equally demonstrable have to bide their time. But the toilers who suffer from the lack of employment have furnished an eager audience to the land reformers, and the great land question is destined to agitate the nations for a century to come. The Boston Globe recently called attention to the original presentation of this subject at Cincinnati, in the following editorial:—

“There seems to be a notion prevalent that the ideas advocated by Mr. George are novel. But they are not. They once more illustrate the familiar fact that there is nothing new under the sun. Much the same doctrines were urged here in America at least forty years ago, and were the subject of comment in the papers of the day.

“Dr. J. R. Buchanan, now of Boston, presented the case at Cincinnati in 1847 much as it is now put by Mr. George and Mr. Davitt. The Memphis Appeal of September 23 of that year, gave an elaborate review of Dr. Buchanan’s essay, in which it said:

“‘The Land and the People’ is the title of a well-written pamphlet from the pen of Dr. J. R. Buchanan of Cincinnati, formerly known to our citizens as an able and accomplished lecturer on the science of neurology. It is quite plain from the production in question that the doctor has not confined himself to the study of the physiological system, of which we believe he is the author, but has evidently thought deeply upon other subjects vitally concerning the well being and progress of society. Whatever may be thought of the positions of this pamphlet, we cannot deny to it the merit of great beauty of style and force of logic. The whole argument is based upon the proposition that the earth is the original gift of God to man, and as such belongs of right to the human race in general, and not to the individuals of the race separately. The author insists that the land is not the product of man’s labor any more than air, sunshine, or water, and that originally this gift of God ought to have been left as free as those lighter, but indispensable elements must ever be, from their very nature. The artificial and unnatural laws which have sprung up and become fastened upon society have thrown immense obstacles in the way of the bare perception of this great truth, as the doctor deems it, besides at the same time interposing barriers almost insurmountable to its reception and adoption into the framework of government. It is insisted, however, that these obstacles may be overcome, and the rights of the people restored to them, without any injustice to the present proprietors of land, and without any convulsions in the great elements of society.

“Dr. Buchanan explained in his essay, as Mr. George does in his works now, that he did not mean to annul the existing titles to land. ‘Far from it,’ Dr. Buchanan said. ‘Such a scheme would be a miserable climax of folly and injustice, fit only to render the great principle equally odious and ridiculous.’ The doctor insisted that he proposed to ‘maintain in legislation the broad principle that the nation owns the soil, and that this ownership is paramount to all individual claims,’ and from this fundamental proposition as a corner-stone the superstructure was to be built up. The present proprietors of the soil were not to be disturbed in their possession, and the government was not to interfere in the details of agriculture, renting and leasing estates, determining possession, etc. But the owners were to be considered as the tenants of the nation, paying rent to it for the benefit of the people at large. This rent was to be extremely small at first, estimated upon the value of the soil alone, without the improvements, that being the original gift of nature, free to all. It was to be increased, however, in the course of two generations, until a rent of about 5 per cent should have been exacted from all the tenants of the nation—that is, from all who occupied any portion of the soil. The rent thus raised—a vast revenue—was to be applied to the establishment of free colleges, free schools, free libraries, and other institutions calculated to improve and benefit the citizen.

“This is the doctrine, substantially, as put forth at the present time by Mr. George, and by so many persons supposed to be entirely new. Again we remark that ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’”

This subject will be taken up hereafter in the Journal of Man . Its progress as a policy will be noted, its writers reviewed, and the dictates of dispassionate science presented. It is too late to intercept the folly and crime that have surrendered the rights of the people in the American continent, but not too late to begin reclamation of our lost sovereignty.

We shall have ample discussions of this subject. Mr. George has given us “Progress and Poverty” (cloth, $1.00; paper, 20 cents); “Social Problems,” at the same price; “The Land Question” (paper, 10 cents); “Property in Land” (paper, 15 cents); “Protection or Free Trade” (cloth, $1.50). At Baltimore a volume has been issued as one of the Johns Hopkins University studies in political and historical science, written by Shosuke Sato, Ph. D., Special Commissioner of the Colonial Department of Japan. N. Murray is the publishing agent, and the price in paper is $1.00. This work is a “History of the Land Question in the United States,” and describes the formation of the public domain by purchase and cession, and the entire administration of the land system of the United States. The land laws of early times and of other countries are stated in the introduction. Another very instructive work recently issued is entitled, “Labor, Land, and Law; a Search for the Missing Wealth of the Working Poor,” by William A. Phillips; published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. Mr. Phillips has been a member of Congress from Kansas, and his work is an extensive view of the land question in other countries as well as the United States.

In the near future this must be the burning question of politics and statesmanship, as it is at present in Great Britain. The agitations in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have long been on the verge of bloody conflict, and a Land League has been formed in Germany at Berlin, of which Dr. A. Theodor Stamm is president, having for its object the transfer of land ownership from individuals to the State. A newspaper at Berlin is devoted to its objects.

A few facts show how inevitable the conflict that is coming, while the agricultural classes of all Europe are being driven by American competition deeper and deeper into poverty and inability to pay rent, which can never be again what it has been. The New York Evening Post very justly says: “The truth is, we are witnessing in Ireland the gradual disappearance of rent. The land is no longer able to support anybody but the actual cultivator. To make this process peaceful, and as far as possible harmless to all parties, ought to be the chief concern of the Government.” Landlordism in Great Britain has small claims upon our sympathy, for the great body of the land is held by titles which have no other basis than the robbery of old by military power. According to John Bright, in England and Wales one hundred persons own 4,000,000 acres; in Scotland twelve persons own 4,346,000 acres, and seventy persons own the half of Scotland; nine tenths of all the land in Scotland belongs to 1,700 persons, the rest of the population having only one tenth. In Ireland less than 800 persons own half of all the land, and 330 persons own two thirds of all the land in Scotland; 402 members of the House of Lords hold 14,240,912 acres, with a rental of $56,865,637.

It is no wonder that the tenants of the Duke of Argyle have risen against the police that enforce the landlord’s claims, and that the Welsh resistance against tithes has impoverished the Welsh clergy.

The Irish agitation has a just basis, which was well stated by the Boston Herald as follows:—

“The assertion has been frequently made that rents have increased more in England than in Ireland; but one of the ablest English statisticians, a man who can hardly be accused of partiality toward Ireland, has recently pointed out that while in the forty years from 1842 to 1882 the rents in England increased on an average 15 percent, the rents in Ireland in the same period increased on an average 20 per cent, and this, too, in a country where farming has been carried on on a low scale of culture, where the landlord has done practically nothing for his tenant, and where the results of the harvest are more uncertain than in England. It is the constant desire that the Irish landlords have shown in the past to get the last pound of flesh and the last drop of blood out of their tenants that is the cause of the present detestation in which they are held by the latter.”

In the United States the public domain has been criminally surrendered to monopoly. Commissioner Sparks speaks in his reports of the “widespread, persistent land robbery.” The fences of land robbers have been removed from 2,700,000 acres, and over 5,000,000 will probably be redeemed. In fifteen years, 179,000,000 of acres have been given by Congress to various railroad corporations, a larger territory than the empire of Germany. Before these wrongs were consummated, nearly forty years ago, I called a public meeting in the Cincinnati court house, which protested against this surrender of the people’s domain. The present agitation will probably bring it to an end. In the Congressional debates last June Mr. Eustis said “the railroad men had made fortunes as mushrooms grow in the night; a coterie of such men had enriched themselves at the expense of the people of the United States. They did not observe equity, honesty, or good faith, and only came here to assert their legal rights and to defy the authority and power of Congress and the people of the United States to deal with them. The great question to-day was whether the government was superior to the corporations, or the corporations superior to the government. The corporations had exhibited shameless and unpardonable oppression and extortion, as well as effrontery in their dealing with the people and the Government of the United States.” “Our people and our country,” said the speaker, “were only able to stand the drafts thus made on their liberties because they were yet young and strong and vigorous.” Mr. Eustis advocated the forfeiture of every acre of land that had not been earned according to the strict limitations and conditions imposed in the grant.

In the house of Representatives, December 11, 1886, Mr. Payson of Illinois, on behalf of the Committee on Public Lands, called up the bill declaring a forfeiture of the Ontonagon and Brule River land grant. In detailing the circumstances of the grant Mr. Payson declared that from the organization of the Ontonagon and Brule River Company no step had ever been taken by it which did not indicate that that organization had been purely speculative and effected for the purpose of getting land from the General Government. It had been an attempt at bare-faced robbery from its inception down to the present time. Referring to the statement made by persons interested in the road, that it had been accepted by commissioners and reported upon as having been built in first-class style, he asserted that miles of the road had no other ballast than ice and snow, which, melting in spring, left the rails held in suspension eight inches above the ground. In support of his assertion, he produced photographs of various sections of the road and commented upon them, much to the amusement of the House. A bridge, as depicted by the photograph, he declared to be humped like a camel and backed like a whale. A section of a mile in length showed but one railroad tie; while a 250-foot cut was shown as being filled with logs and brush. The bill was passed without division. It forfeits 384,600 acres.

The march of monopoly must be arrested in the United States and Mexico. A New England company has obtained from Mexico eighteen millions of acres in lower California. All over the world the curse of land monopoly flourishes undisturbed. The natural result of landlordism everywhere is already foreshadowed in this country by the example of William Scully in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune one year ago devoted four columns to the career of Scully, a resident of London, who owns large tracts of American land, and has introduced the Irish landlord system in managing his American property. The Tribune said:—

“Scully is one of the chief figures among the alien proprietors of American soil, and has introduced the meanest features of the worst forms of Irish landlordism on his estates in this country. He has acquired in the neighborhood of 90,000 acres of land in Illinois alone, at a merely nominal figure—50 cents to $1 per acre, as a rule. His career as an Irish landlord was a history of oppression and extortion, that was appropriately finished by a bloody encounter with his tenants. He was tried and acquitted on the charge of double murder, but became so unpopular that in 1850 he sold most of his Irish property, and has since devoted himself to building up a landlord system in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and other States. He made entries of the public domain through the medium of the land warrants issued to Mexican war soldiers, which he purchased at the rate of 50 cents per acre. In Logan County, Ill., alone, he has 40,000 to 45,000 acres. It is the almost universal testimony that Scully’s rule in that county has reduced 250 tenants and their families to a condition approaching serfdom. Furthermore, Scully pays no taxes, the tenants signing ironclad agreements to assume the same, but they are required to pay to Scully’s agents the tax money at the same time as the rentals—the 1st of January of each year; whereas, the agent need not turn over the taxes to the county treasurer until about June 10 following. It is suggested that Scully probably makes a handsome percentage on the tax money remaining in his hands for five months. It is also shown that a great deal of this alien’s land entirely escapes taxation, thus increasing the burden on other property holders; that he takes the most extraordinary precautions to secure his rent, executing a cast iron lease, with provisions that mortgage the tenant’s all, scarcely allowing his soul to escape, and making it compulsory for small grain to be sold immediately after harvest, no matter what may be the condition of the market; that grain dealers are notified not to buy of the tenants until Scully’s rent is paid; in short, that Scully has founded a land system so exacting that it is only paralleled in Ireland, and rules his tenantry so despotically that few can be induced to tell the story of their wrongs, justly feeling that it would involve ruin to them.”

Much sympathy has been excited by the reports of cruel evictions in Ireland, to gratify the merciless avarice of landlords, and for the justice of these reports we need not depend on Irish testimony alone. American travellers have told enough, and the London Standard of Jan. 18 says: “Some of this winter’s evictions have been inhuman spectacles, fit only for a barbarous country and a barbarous age.”

There is nothing intrinsically wrong in the relation of landlord and tenant, which should excite a prejudice against the landlord; on the contrary, many landlords have been a blessing to the communities in which they lived; but our land system is a conspicuous part of a grandly false social system based on pure selfishness, which makes all men jealous competitors, and destroys the spirit of fraternity.

Our social system tends ever to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and the struggle in Ireland is but the forerunner of a movement that will extend around the globe. Is there no remedy for the evils? Indeed there is! Sixty years of thought have made me familiar with the evils and the remedies. Some of the remedies are coming to the front at present. All will in time be presented in the Journal of Man .

Land reform is but one of the great measures that progress demands. The first and greatest is a PERFECT EDUCATION for all, moral and industrial. The second is SPIRITUAL RELIGION . The third is JUSTICE TO WOMAN . The fourth, which is JUSTICE IN LEGISLATION , includes land reform, financial reform, and many other reforms. The fifth is INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION . The sixth is TEMPERANCE .

The first reform includes all the others. The second would ultimately bring all things right, and so would the third in a longer lapse of time.

Anthropology is the intellectual guidance into all reforms, and therefore should precede all. Hence it is the leading theme of this Journal.

The Sinaloa Colony.

Mankind would be one family or group of families, if the principles of Jesus could be imparted to the human race. But the robber races that occupy this globe at present are intensely hostile in feeling to that life of Christian love which is commanded in the books which they honor with their lips.

The so-called civilized races of to-day are as intensely barbarian at heart, notwithstanding the superficial varnish of literary civilization, as the hordes of Attila and Genghis Khan. Witness the attitude of Germany and France (the great exemplars of literary civilization), each eagerly preparing for a deadly conflict.

Yet in all ages there have been those whom nature has qualified for a better life, who wish to live in harmony, and turn with weariness and disgust from the present forms of avaricious strife, rivalry, and fraud. If the best of these could be gathered in one community, a better state of society could be organized.

Horace Greeley sympathized with such movements, and about forty years ago gave much space in the Tribune to the illustration of this subject. Although the co-operative principles of Fourier, then widely discussed, have not resulted in any great success in community life in the United States, it can also be said that experiments have not shown the doctrines of Fourier to be impracticable. The best thinkers have not lost their faith, and the example of M. Godin at Guise in France, with a population of 1,800 in the Social Palace enjoying the very Utopia of happy and prosperous co-operative life, is a splendid demonstration of what is possible, and a standing rebuke to the churches of civilized nations which have not even noticed this grand demonstration of the possibilities of humanity.

The grandest and most hopeful co-operative scheme yet proposed is that of Mr. Albert K. Owen, entitled the “Credit Foncier of Sinaloa,” which has been established at the harbor of Topolobampo, in the state of Sinaloa, on the western coast of Mexico, where a large and liberal grant has been obtained from the Mexican government for the Credit Foncier Company, chartered by the state of Colorado, Mr. Owen being chairman of the Board of Directors. Its headquarters were at rooms 7 and 8, 32 Nassau Street, New York, and the members of the community are already gathered in considerable numbers at Topolobampo. The Credit Foncier of Jan. 11 reports over 4,800 persons enlisted for the colony, and over sixteen thousand shares of stock sold.

This is not a unitary community, in which the individuality of the members is lost, but a co-operative corporation, owning its lands as a society, and abolishing at once the primary evils of land monopoly and a false financial system. As stated by Mr. E. Howland, “the community is responsible for the health, usefulness, individuality, and security of each member, and at the same time each will feel secure in his social and individual rights in the existence of the collective ownership and management for public utilities and conveniences, instead of the disorganized chaos in which to-day we live.”

A system of distribution will be adopted, doing away with the immense cost of trade as at present conducted. The laborer will be protected against misfortune by a system of insurance and a pension in old age. Employment and opportunity will be provided for all, and education provided for all children. It is upon this education that the ultimate success of the society must depend, for it is impossible to organize a perfect society of those whose characters have been moulded by the present antagonistic condition of society. All grand ideals must look to the future for their realization. That such realization may occur in the Sinaloa colony is indicated by the following quotation from the exposition of the Credit Foncier by Mr. Howland.

“As we shall have to, at least during this generation depend upon the colonization of persons who have been subject to the influences of society as it is, we would only say, that the new truths concerning moral education contained in ‘The New Education’ by Mr. J. R. Buchanan, have been carefully examined by the writer of this, and its most important lessons shall be applied in the organization of our schools; for the power of love can be unquestionably applied, not only as a cure for the evils produced inevitably by the system of competition, but also as a miraculous agent in aiding the progress of society to an inconceivably higher plane of human life.”

The newspaper in exposition of the society entitled, “The Credit Foncier of Sinaloa,” published at $1 a year, at Hammonton, New Jersey, will be issued hereafter at Topolobampo, Mexico. A report descriptive of the site of the colony and the surrounding country (price six cents) and a map of the colony’s site (price ten cents) may be obtained by addressing the editor, E. Howland, at Topolobampo, Mexico.

While the Journal is going through the press, the colonists are gathering in large numbers, and by our next issue we may have some account of the commencement of this noble enterprise.

Its founder, Mr. A. K. Owen, is a gentleman of great energy and enterprise, guided by noble principles, a skilful surveyor and engineer. About fourteen years ago he made extensive exploration in Mexico, especially on its Pacific Coast, discovered and reported Topolobampo Bay, and introduced the scheme of the Norfolk & Topolobampo Railroad, which he urged upon the attention of Congress, winning the approbation of committees, but finally defeated by the great railroad corporations. He took an active part in Mexican affairs, forming gigantic plans for the public welfare, by a syndicate at the head of which was Gen. Torbert, which were defeated by a shipwreck in which Gen. Torbert was lost, and himself narrowly escaped death. He then organized with the co-operation of Gen. Grant, Gen. Butler, and other distinguished men, the “Texas, Topolobampo & Pacific Railroad and Telegraph Company,” and obtained a concession of 2,000 miles of railroad and a subsidy of $16,000,000. Hon. Wm. Windom was president, and Mr. Owen chief engineer. In 1873 he located a hundred miles of the road from Topolobampo eastwardly, and two years ago the construction commenced. Thus in the midst of a life of great activity and experience in engineering, finance, politics, reform, and travel, Mr. Owen, as a practical and skilful manager of great undertakings, inspired by a strong democratic philanthropy, has laid the plan of a co-operative colony on the basis of liberal concessions from the Mexican government, and opened a field in which his democratic ideas of human rights, of land, labor, finance, hygiene, freedom, and general reform, can have full scope.

Mr. Owen’s ideas and plans are stated in a book of two hundred pages, published by Jno. W. Lovell, 14 Vesey Street, New York, and sent by mail for thirty cents. It is not a systematic treatise, but a miscellaneous collection of documents which give a good deal of information.

The Topolobampo scheme is one requiring great skill and executive ability in the directors, as well as a harmonious and energetic spirit in the colonists. The climate, soil, and opportunities are no doubt the best that have ever been accorded to a scheme of co-operation, and when its success has been realized, it may be accounted the most important social event of the century, for it will be the dawn of peace to a warring world, the promise of harmony between all the restless and convulsive elements of civilized society.

Health and Longevity.

Upon these subjects the Journal of Man has a new physiological doctrine to present, which may be stated in the initial number, and will be illustrated hereafter.

In the volume of “Therapeutic Sarcognomy,” which was so speedily and entirely sold upon its publication, it was clearly demonstrated that the doctrine of vitality taught at this time in all medical colleges is essentially erroneous, and that human life is not a mere aggregate of the properties of the tissues of the human body, as a house is an aggregate of the physical properties of bricks and wood, but is an influx, of which the body is but the channel and recipient.

That demonstration need not be repeated just now, as my object is merely to state the position of the Journal . Life is an influx from the world of invisible power, aided by various forms of influx from the material world, without which it would promptly cease. If this naked statement should seem fanciful or erroneous to any reader, he may be just to himself by suspending his opinions until he shall have received the demonstration. We have all been educated into false opinions on this subject, and it is almost as difficult for the American scholar to release himself from the influence of education and habit in such matters, as for the Arab to release his mind from the influence of the Koran.

It has been only within the last ten years, and as the sequel of investigations of the seat of life beginning in 1835, that I succeeded in ascertaining the absolute falsity of the doctrines on this subject maintained by all scientific biologists at the present time, and demonstrating that the human body is only a tenement, of which life is the builder, and which drops into decay when life deserts it to meet its more congenial home in a nobler realm.

It is not therefore in the physical but in the spiritual constitution that the real basis of his character, his health, and longevity is to be found, for the primitive germ or protoplasm of man cannot be distinguished from that of a quadruped or bird. It is the invisible and incalculable life element that contains the potentiality or possibility of existence as a quadruped or a man, as a virtuous or vicious, and as a long lived or short lived, being. The life element of the germ limits the destiny of the being. That life element is invisible.

This truth, however, does not contradict the truth of development and the capacity of science to estimate the probable health or longevity of an individual from his organization, for the life force organizes a body in accordance with its own character; and the development of the entire person shows the character of the vital force as modified by the environment of food, air, motives, and education. The brain, no less than the body,—indeed, more fully than the body,—shows the elements of the life and the tendency to health and longevity, or the reverse, upon which an expert cranioscopist can give an opinion.

In accordance with the doctrine of influx and in accordance with the functions of the brain we are compelled to recognize health and longevity as more closely associated with the higher than the lower faculties,—the moral rather than the animal nature. This is the reason that woman, with a feebler body but a stronger moral nature, ranks higher in health and longevity than man; and although from four to sixteen per cent more males are born, women are generally in predominance, often from two to six per cent. The researches of the Bureau of Statistics of Vienna show that about one third more women than men reach an advanced age. De Verga asserts that of sudden deaths there are about 100 women to 780 men. The inevitable inference is that the cultivation of virtue or religion is the surest road to longevity, and the indulgence in vice and crime the most certain ruin to the body and soul.

There is a curious illustration of these principles in the evidence of life insurance companies in reference to spirit drinking and abstinence. The oldest two life insurance companies of England, the General Provident and the United Kingdom, have made records for forty-five years which distinguish the total abstainers and the moderate drinkers. Drunkards they do not insure at all. The care with which lives are selected for insurance results in a smaller rate of mortality among the insured than in the entire population. This gain was but slight among those classed as moderate drinkers, for their mortality was only three per cent less than the average mortality; but among the total abstainers it was thirty-one per cent less. Thus the proportion of deaths among moderate drinkers compared to that of total abstainers is as 97 to 69.

The temperance advocate would assume that this was owing entirely to the deleterious effects of alcohol, and that is partially true; but there is a deeper reason in the difference of the two classes of men. The man in whom the appetites are well controlled by the higher energies of his nature, and who has therefore no inclination to gluttony or drunkenness, has a better organization for health and longevity than he in whom the appetites have greater relative power, and who seeks the stimulus of alcohol to relieve his nervous depression. The inability or unwillingness to live without stimulation is a mark of weakness, which is an impairment of health; and this weakness predisposes to excessive and irregular indulgence, though it may not go so far as intoxication.

The effects of marriage furnish a parallel illustration. It is well-known that bachelors are more short lived than married men, but this is not owing entirely to the hygienic influence of marriage. It is partly owing to the inferiority of bachelors as a class. The men who remain celibate are either too inferior personally to win the regard of women, or are generally deficient in the strong affections which seek a conjugal life, and the energies which make them fearless of its responsibilities and burdens. Evidently they have not as a class the robust energies of the marrying men, and the urgent motives to compel them to regular industry and prudence. Everything which stimulates men to exercise the nobler qualities of their nature is promotive of health and longevity; and the true religion which anthropology commends will increase human longevity in proportion as it prevails.

In future numbers the true basis and indications of longevity in man will be fully illustrated.

The attainable limits of human longevity are generally underrated by the medical profession and by popular opinion. Instead of the Scriptural limit of threescore and ten I would estimate twice that amount, or 140 years, as the ideal age of healthy longevity, when mankind shall have been bred and trained with the same wise energy that has been expended on horses and cattle. Of the present scrub race, a very large number ought never to have been born, and ought not to be allowed to transmit their physical and moral deficiencies to posterity.

The estimate of 140 years as a practicable longevity for a nobler generation is sustained by the number of that age (fourteen, if I recollect rightly) found in Italy by a census under one of the later Roman emperors. But for the race now on the globe a more applicable estimate is that of the European scientist, that the normal longevity of an animal is five times its period of growth,—a rule which gives the camel forty years, the horse twenty-five, the lion twenty, the dog ten, the rabbit five. By this calculation man’s twenty years of growth indicate 100. But growth is not limited to twenty, and if we extend the period of maturing to twenty-eight, the same rule would give us 140 as an age for the best specimens of humanity, which has been attained in rare cases, its general possibility in improved conditions being thus demonstrated.

There are many fine examples of longevity at this time. The famous French chemist Chevreul has just completed his hundredth year at Paris, in the full vigor of his intellect.

The Novosti , a Russian journal, recently mentions the death in the almshouse of St. Petersburg of a man aged 122 years, whose mental faculties were preserved up to his death, and who had excellent health to the age of 118.

We have similar examples in the United States. Mrs. Celia Monroe, a colored woman, who died a few weeks ago at Kansas City was believed to be 125. She was going about a few days before her death.

Farmer O’Leary of Elkton, Minnesota, is over 112. Noah Raby of Plainfield, New Jersey, is in his 115th year. He supports himself by his work in the summer, and looks like a man of 80.

Of very recent deaths we have: Amos Hunt of Barnesville, Georgia, who died at 105, leaving twenty-three of his twenty-eight children. Mrs. Raymond of Wilton, Connecticut, was still living recently in her 106th year. Ben Evans, part Indian, part negro, a great hunter of Wilkes County, Georgia, died at 107; baptized after he was 100. Mrs. Betsy L. Moody died on the 4th of July in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, aged 104. Wm. Henry Williams of Cincinnati, died a few months ago at 102. James Fitzgerald of Prince Edwards Island, over a hundred years old, is still able to work. Mrs. Lydia Van Ranst lately died on East 16th Street, New York, aged 100 years and ten months; and Mrs. Johanna O’Sullivan in Boston in her 103d year. Mrs. Betsy Perkins of Rome, N. Y., was apparently in excellent health when she died suddenly at the breakfast table in her 101st year. Rev. Hugh Call died in Wayne County, Indiana, at 104. After his hundredth year he once fancied death was near, and sent for his family to see him die; but when they arrived in midwinter, they found the old man busy cutting wood to make a fire for his visitors.

Many of these examples show that the faculties of both soul and body ought to be maintained in good condition to the last, as fruit falls from the trees ripe and perfect. When we leave our earthly tenement, we ought to leave it in a respectable condition, and not carry any infirmities from it to the better world.

Remarkable Fasting.

“ Signor Merlatti, a young Italian, completed in December his fifty days’ fast, at the Grand Hotel, Paris, in time to enjoy the festivities of the holidays. Unlike his rival, Succi, he partook of no mysterious elixir, but existed on water alone. At the conclusion of his feat, he was so nearly dead that the surgeons were anticipating by way of dissection more light on the effects of privation from food. He was barely able to move about without help. His stomach was unable to hold any solids, and at the big banquet over which he presided he could not have had a very convivial time, as he was unable to take a mouthful of food. He has since gradually recovered. Succi, meanwhile, is engaged in another fast. He fences and takes any amount of exercise, to show that his mysterious liquid is what does it.”

This is a little over the record of Dr. Tanner, but the result is very different. Dr. Tanner came out in good condition, with a splendid and healthy appetite. In the first twenty-four hours he ate something every hour or two, indulging largely in watermelons, milk, apples, beefsteak, potatoes, English ale, and Hungarian wine. He gained eight and a half pounds weight in thirty hours. Everybody was astonished, and the doctors were confounded; the crowd cheered, and the music resounded as the fast was finished and the feasting began in Clarendon Hall, the doctor being in as good health and spirits as when he began, except as to physical strength.

Now it is proper to mention what I believe has not before been published, having been carefully concealed by Dr. Tanner. As he was encountering the whole force of a brutal prejudice in the medical profession, and trickery and falsehood were used to defeat him by Dr. Hammond and Dr. Landon C. Gray, (a shabby story indeed, if the whole truth is ever told,) Dr. Tanner did not think it safe to elicit any additional hostility by confessing his mediumship.

The whole performance was a triumph of spiritual power! Dr. Tanner came to me in New York to aid him in giving a demonstration of his fasting power, which had been denied in an insolent and scurrilous manner by Dr. Hammond and others. Dr. Hammond, with a great deal of duplicity and unfairness, evaded the test, and it was carried out with the aid of other parties in a very satisfactory manner.

The organization of Dr. Tanner was not such as I would have selected for a fasting performance, and he did not undertake it on his own resources alone. He was thoroughly a medium, and, when in my parlor, Indian spirits would take control of him, and carry him through a lively performance, speaking through his lips, and promising to sustain him through the fast; and they did. I have no doubt that with a suitable organization, such as is more frequently found in India than in America, a fast could be sustained by spirit power for six or twelve months. Indeed, there are records of such fasts in the old medical authors, which are omitted in all recent works. The spirit of dogmatic scepticism had carried the medical profession generally into such a depth of ignorance on these subjects that Dr. Landon C. Gray declared that a forty days’ fast had never occurred, and that if Dr. Tanner attempted it, it must be assumed “that he will cheat at every turn.”

The kind of sentiment cultivated by colleges in the medical profession was shown by the deportment of the medical visitors. The report of the fast says:—

“The most curious episodes, probably, on the whole, were afforded by the appearance of sceptics, and members of the medical profession from the country. Many of the latter came long distances to satisfy their respective curiosity, or vent their scepticism, as the case might be. As a rule they were long-visaged, not a few were unkempt, and many were downright seedy in wearing apparel. Almost invariably they insisted upon boring the doctor with numberless questions, many of which were idle. The majority displayed ignorance, and it might truthfully be said, they were rude almost without exception. One man insisted upon feeling Dr. Tanner’s arms and legs; another wanted to feel his pulse; a third demanded a view of his tongue; a fourth declared food must be given to him surreptitiously, else he would be dead; a fifth wanted to search his pockets; the sixth asserted his professional reputation ( sic ) that there was fraud about the whole business; the seventh had some patent surgical, or other appliance, which he wished to test upon the patient; and yet another wanted to analyze even the water he used, before the faster drank it.

“The effect of these boors in their constant inroads upon a fasting man, whose surroundings and conditions were not of the best, to say the least, may be easily imagined. When these fanatics were prevented by the watchers from extracting what little of life was left in the object of their devotions, their indignation took various forms of expression. As a rule they denounced the whole thing as a humbug, and every one participating as frauds. Now and then it became positively necessary, in common decency and self-respect, to show these charlatans the way to the door, notwithstanding their protests that they had paid twenty-five cents for the purpose of ventilating their empty heads. As a general thing, by Dr. Tanner’s direction, the admission fee was returned to these people. Even on the thirty-ninth day, when the doctor desired all the quiet he could obtain, one of these gentry, who said he was a physician from Long Island, talked so loudly that he had to be called to order, and then nothing daunted, he asked the faster to go in his enfeebled condition to the south gallery, where his writing materials were, to prepare an autograph for the applicant. The Herald reporter on watch at the time, through whom the request was made for the autograph, gave the fellow a settler by remarking, that he, as a layman, thought the first rudiments taught in the medical profession, were those of feelings of humanity.

“Then the wits had their time of it. They showered in caricatures and doggerel by the barrel. None enjoyed these more than the doctor himself. By his direction the funniest of the cartoons were pasted against the wall of the gallery in which the doctor slept and the watchers sat. Above the whole was the legend in German text, ‘Tanner Art Gallery,’ and during the closing days and hours of the fast it was a source of much attraction and a great deal of merriment to the thousands of visitors who sought the place.”

Before the fasting began I witnessed an amusing specimen of the medical scepticism. One of the medical visitors inspected the hall closely, and finding in the back part that a piece of nearly worn out carpet remained on the floor, proceeded to rip it up and tear it away, as if he suspected there might be a trap door concealed.

Medical education has been miserably cramped and benighted by the total ignoring of the nobler element of the human constitution.

Cerebral Psychology.

The comprehensive system of science developed by experiment on the brain, perfected by psychometric exploration, demonstrated by pathognomy, corroborated by personal experiences and the sensations of the head, enforced and illustrated by the study of comparative development throughout the animal kingdom, based upon anatomy, illustrated by pathology, and proven by every examination of a living head, as well as every scientific experiment upon the brain in sensitive and intelligent persons, has now been for forty years in the hot crucible of experimental physiological investigation by vivisection, ablation, autopsy, and electricity, and still remains as the solid gold of eternal science.

The labors of Ferrier, Fritsch, Hitzig, Schiff, Bastian, Charcot, and others, have added many valuable facts; but no new fact can contradict a fact previously well observed, and nothing has occurred to dethrone the founder of cerebral science, Dr. Gall, who ranks immeasurably beyond all his contemporaries, and who prepared the way for the full development of Cerebral Psychology, resulting from the discovery of the impressibility of the brain , which has opened the entire realm of cerebral psychology , and through that has given us access to every realm of wisdom.

The long expected and long promised work upon this subject cannot be published now, for it requires an amount of elaborate research and criticism to bring the new discoveries en rapport with the investigations of more than a hundred physiologists and anatomists, whose labors should not be overlooked in a complete or systematic work uniting anatomy to psychology.

Under these circumstances it is necessary and practicable, since my “System of Anthropology” has been entirely out of the market for thirty years, to present a concise exposition of cerebral psychology and physiology, to satisfy those who perceive the inadequacy of the Gallian system, and who are aware that my discoveries have thoroughly revolutionized as well as enlarged cerebral science, rendering the old term phrenology inadequate to express its present status.

I propose therefore to publish in the successive numbers of this Journal a concise “Synopsis of Cerebral Science,” giving as concisely as possible the outlines of that vast theme, in so clear and practical a manner that each reader can test its truth in nature by examining character, correcting the errors of phrenology, demonstrating the science by his own experiments, and applying its principles in the treatment of disease, in experimental investigation, in education, self-culture, and elocution. This may satisfy the urgent present demand, until time shall permit a satisfactory work, containing the illustrations and proofs, the important modern discoveries in cerebral anatomy and vivisecting experiments, as well as the vast and interesting philosophy into which we are led by cerebral science. The March number will contain the first instalment, and its publication will be continued through the volume.

Music.

The claims of music were never so thoroughly presented as in the “New Education,” in which it was shown that music was the most effective of all agents for the cultivation of man’s higher nature, and the elevation of the world from its purgatory of selfishness, poverty, and crime. This idea was most fully realized by Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson , who has spent a considerable amount in promoting the currency and use of music, especially of a religious character.

The idea that music should exercise a world redeeming power, and promote all social advancement, must appear strange, when first mentioned to those who are familiar only with fashionable operatic performances and the heartless style of vocal and instrumental music in vogue at the centres of musical education, which is robbed as thoroughly as possible of all ethical life, all soul inspiring power.

There is music, however, which sways our noblest emotions, which can bring smiles to the face or tears to the eyes, hope to the dejected or courage to the timid,—which can rouse the strongest impulses of love and duty. The musical reformer who shall change the tide of popular music from its present low channels to that higher sphere of sweet and noble sentiments, will be far more than a Wagner,—aye, more than a Luther.

Dr. Talcott, Superintendent of the Middleton, N. Y., State Asylum of the Insane, has introduced music into all of the wards of his institution with excellent results, judging from his last annual report, from which the following is extracted. “It is said, that before Moses dwelt upon the banks of the Nile, the Egyptians erected temples and altars for the treatment of the insane; and, among the most notable measures for the accomplishment of the cure of lunatics, music took an exalted rank. There can be no doubt that music exercises a potent influence in producing calm and restfulness in minds which are disturbed by cerebral diseases. Musical instruments have been provided in nearly every ward, and the results have been most favorable. Even turbulent patients will subside when the pleasures of music are afforded to them. One of the most effective attendants we ever had upon our disturbed wards was a good musician. After his work was done, he would sit down among his patients, and play upon the violin. Immediately the most excited persons in the ward would group themselves about him, and listen with profound attention so long as he continued to play for them. Where good music can be provided for the turbulent insane, there exists but little necessity for restraint of a physical nature.”

Insanity.

The tendency of modern civilization is toward insanity. It is increasing throughout Christendom, and far more where the boasted influences of modern education and the so-called progress are most fully realized. The whole fabric of education and society is unsound, and this is proved by the results.

A true civilization advancing in wisdom must develop the ability to correct its own evils, but the civilization that we have is drifting on, downward and helpless.

The philosophy of insanity and the philosophy of its remedial treatment can be found only in the profound study of the brain, and its relations to the soul and body. But there is not a glimmer of the psychic science of the brain to-day in our colleges. In due time, this theme shall be discussed in the Journal.

A proper understanding of this subject will show what method of life and thought tends toward insanity, and by what methods we escape it. It will show also the relation of disease to insanity, and the proper methods of moral and physical treatment.

Miscellany.

Human Anomalies, Moung Phoset, Mahphoon, and the Giant Winkelmeier.

Every departure from the stereotyped plan of humanity is an interesting proof of the vast capacities of nature, and therefore a prophecy of possible variation and grander development for the coming generations; hence the hairy family—Moung Phoset, his mother, Mahphoon, and the giant Winkelmeier—are deeply interesting to the anthropologist.

Winkelmeier , according to the London Standard , is now in London at the Pavilion, standing eight feet, nine inches high , a foot higher than Chang, the Chinese giant, and evidently the tallest man living. He was born in 1865, in Upper Austria. Neither his four brothers, parents, nor grandparents, are unusually tall. He is healthy, strong, and intelligent, and is expected to continue growing.

Moung Phoset , and his old mother, Mahphoon , whose pictures are here given, are now in London on exhibition. They were the hairy family of King Theebaw of Burmah, and when Theebaw was captured by the British army, they escaped to the jungle, where they were robbed by Dacoits, but were recovered by Captain Piperno, and brought to England. Moung Phoset, like his mother, has his face and entire body covered by long, fine hair, from five to twelve inches long, which even fills the ears, and on the forehead is so long that it has to be drawn back over the ears to uncover the eyes. He is an intelligent and well-behaved man, and has a fair Burmese education. His wife, however, is a common Burmese woman. Moung Phoset, having no children, is the last of a hairy species, which it is said, originated in his great grandfather, who was caught wild in the forest between Upper Burmah and Siam.

Hairy irregularities, according to Darwin, are associated with irregularities of the teeth. In Moung Phoset the molar teeth are deficient.