BUCHANAN’S
JOURNAL OF MAN.

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,

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 Æolian 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:

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.* * 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.

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 linguæ 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 .

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.

Physiological Discoveries in the College of Therapeutics.

The resolutions of my most recent class in Boston are the same in spirit as have been expressed during forty years, and will no doubt be expressed again by my students in May, 1887. They not only know the truth of the science but recognize sarcognomy as “the most important addition ever made to physiological science by any individual,” and their testimony was based on their own personal experience. To the students of sarcognomy this is a familiar idea, but to others some explanation may be necessary.

What are the greatest discoveries in physiology? Common opinion would mention as the foremost the action of the heart in circulating the blood,—a discovery not originated but consummated by Harvey; and yet the discovery is of so simple and obvious a nature that we wonder now, not so much at the ability manifested in the discovery, as at the stupidity which permitted it to remain so long unknown, and even to be denied and ridiculed when published. Harvey’s work on the generation of animals entitled him to a higher rank as a pioneer in science than his theory of the circulation.

A far greater discovery was that of Dr. Gall, which embraced not only the anatomy but the functions of the brain as a mental organ—a discovery twenty times as great, whether we consider the superior importance of the brain, or the greater investigating genius necessary to the discovery. It easily ranks at the head of the physiological discoveries of the past centuries.

Next comes the discovery of the motor and sensory roots of the spinal nerves by Majendie and Bell, which did not, as commonly supposed, include the motor and sensory of the spinal cord. This was a small discovery compared to Gall’s, but not inferior to Harvey’s discovery of the cardiac function.

A fourth discovery, perhaps of equal rank, was the discovery by Harvey’s contemporary, Aselli, of the lacteals that absorb the chyle.

A fifth discovery or discoveries of importance was that of the corpuscles of the blood, and the Malpighian bodies of the kidneys, by Malpighi.

A sixth discovery, considered more important and occupying a larger space in medical literature, is the cell doctrine of Schwann, a doctrine still under discussion and by no means a finality.

Anatomical science has few first class discoveries. Anatomy has been a growth of observation and description—not discovery. Vesalius and Eustachius may be considered the fathers of modern anatomy, and the name of the latter is immortalized by the Eustachian tube, which he first recognized and described. But the Fallopian tubes, named after Fallopius, were not his discovery. They had been described long before by Herophilus and others. Eustachius was nearly two centuries ahead of his age in anatomy, and should be gratefully remembered as a struggling scientist. His valuable anatomical works, which he was too poor to publish, were published one hundred and forty years after his death, by Lancisi.

From this brief glance at the discoveries of Eustachius, Harvey, Aselli, Malpighi, Gall, Majendie, and Schwann, it is apparent that but one physiological discovery on record is sufficiently important in its nature and scope to be compared with sarcognomy, which comprehends the relations of soul, brain, and body. What is their relative value? Gall’s discovery embraced about one half of the psychic functions of the brain, with nothing of its physiological functions. Sarcognomy, on the contrary, embraces the entire mass of cerebral functions to connect them with corresponding functions in the body. It presents in one complete view the psychic powers in the soul operating in the brain, and extending their influence into the body; and on the other hand, the physiological powers of the body, operating through the brain, and by definite, intelligible laws acting upon the soul—a vast system of science, based on anatomical facts, but evolved by experiment, to which no single volume could do justice. Its medical applications alone, concisely presented in thirty lectures, would make a volume of four hundred pages.

It is not, like the phrenological system of Gall, a mental doctrine only, but, combining psychology, physiology, and pathology, goes to the foundations of medical science, of health, disease, and cure, as well as the foundations of all spiritual science, and originates new systems of magnetic and electric practice. It is manifest, therefore, that no biological discovery now on record occupies more than a fraction of the vast area occupied by Sarcognomy, and being a demonstrated science, in the opinion of all who are acquainted with it, it needs only sufficient time to circulate the works upon the subject now in preparation (the first edition of “Therapeutic Sarcognomy” having been speedily exhausted), and sufficient time to overcome the mental inertia and moral torpor that hinder all progress, and even war against the million times repeated facts of spiritual science. The warfare against all new truth will be continued until the people demand that our colleges, the castles of antiquated error, shall conform to the spirit of progressive science.