Chapter 4

The scientific periodical _Nature_ suggests very appropriately that, although the progress of the last half century has been due mainly to the labors of scientific men, the leaders in science have been unknown to the head of the government, and their labors prosecuted without aid or sympathy from the throne. "The brain of the nation has been divorced from the head."

But why not? Has it not always been so; did not the barons who once ruled boast of their illiteracy? Science and philanthropy produce wealth and elevate the people. The rulers consume that wealth and keep the people down. Of course two classes so opposite are not in sympathy. In the late jubilee, the titled, the wealthy, and the hangers-on of government were given the prominent positions, and the scientists ignored; as Nature said: "England is not represented, but only England's paid officials and nobodies."

But it is too soon for scientists to demand an honorable position. They should be content to escape the prison and the ostracism which was once the reward for nobly doing their duty.

CONCORD PHILOSOPHY.--The summer school of (so-called) philosophy still meets at Concord in July--the last survival of the speculative ignorance of the dark ages, and the worship of Greek literature. The copious ridicule of the press has no effect upon this serious gathering. Its verbose platitudes and pretentious inanities continue to be repeated, furnishing almost as good an antithesis to science and philosophy as Mrs. Eddy and her disciples. There is no lack of fluency and ingenuity in the use of language, and occasionally there are glimmering and flashes of common sense, but to wander through the first report of the present session, in pursuit of a correct philosophic idea, is as unprofitable as to wander all day through wintry snows to find a little game already dying of starvation. The first lecture on Aristotle is the most unmitigated rubbish that the year has produced. I regret that I have not space to criticise the proceedings into which, however, Dr. Montgomery of Texas has injected some bright thoughts, and the displays of learning relieve the general monotony, while considerable intellectual energy is displayed in the discussions; but to see a conclave of learned professors devoting their time to the examination and discussion of Aristotle's writings is about as edifying as to see a geographical society devoting its time to discussing the geography of Ptolemy.

THE ANDOVER WAR to enforce the damnation of the uninstructed heathen has been very unlucky. It has not disturbed the teachings of the professors, but it has shown the public very plainly that it was simply a _malicious_ attack on the president, Professor Smyth, the other professors, who teach exactly the same doctrines, being entirely undisturbed, although they presented themselves for trial. The time is coming when intelligent men will be ashamed to confess a belief in the devil, and the old-fashioned hell-fire,--indeed the time has already arrived among the most intelligent.

THE CATHOLIC REBELLION.--About five years ago it was predicted, through Mrs. Buchanan, that Catholicism in New York would undergo a change, as many spirits were actively at work to liberalize the minds of Catholics, especially at the time of Easter, and to wean them from their attitude of abject submission. There were no indications of such a tendency at that time, and the movement of the Catholic masses in sympathy with Dr. McGlynn, who tells the Pope that he shall not meddle with the politics of Americans or dictate their political action has come like a sudden storm from a clear sky. Liberalized Catholics may move in advance of Protestants for they have preserved a more vivid spiritualism and religious faith.

STUPIDITY OF COLLEGES.--Clairvoyance and spiritual phenomena have been in progress all over the world from periods beyond historic record, but colleges have not yet learned of their existence. They are now becoming familiar to millions, from the emperor to the beggar, and still the colleges plod on in sanctified ignorance where the priest rules, or in insolent dogmatism where the medical professor rules. Is there anything in the way of demonstration that can overcome this pachydermic stupidity?--doubtful! Clairvoyants have described diseases, described distant places, described things in public, while their eyes were bandaged--but the colleges learn nothing. Now there is another test of the collegiate amaurosis, or cataract, or whatever it may be, which has lasted 700 years, and has thus attained its incurable character. A blind man is clairvoyant and psychometric. He travels about almost as well as those who have eyes. His name is Henry Hendrickson. The _Chicago Herald_ gives an interesting description. He can find his way, can skate well, can read finger-language, and can describe objects with a cloth thrown over his head. But this is only another demonstration of second sight which has been demonstrated a thousand times. Why should colleges recognize such facts? have they not old Greek books for oracles which were written before the dawn of science! What are Gall and Spurzheim, Darwin and Wallace, Crookes and De Morgan, to professors who can fluently read Aristotle in Greek, and can tell how Plato proved that a table is not a table but only a mental phantasy!

CREMATION is making great progress in Europe. It is an old idea, not only among the ancients but in modern times. In the last century it was advocated in a very artistic way by Dr. Becker, a physician of Germany, and Guirand, an architect in France. These gentlemen proposed that the ashes of cremation should be fused into a glass and moulded into all sorts of ornamental designs, fit for trinkets, monuments, etc. This has a very fantastic appearance. What would we think of General Washington's remains preserved in the Capitol as a crystal globe of green glass? or how should we like to have our own remains preserved in that brilliant manner? A beautiful woman might thus be converted into some brilliant "thing of beauty--a joy forever."

COL. HENRY S. OLCOTT,--President and founder of the Theosophical Society, is travelling in India, lecturing before the branches scattered in every part of the country. He has been for months on this tour, and spent last winter in Ceylon, where he was royally welcomed and entertained by the Buddhists. Some years ago Col. Olcott joined the Buddhist sect, and has done it good service in publishing a Buddhist catechism, which has been widely circulated in the West. He was, at last accounts, at Allahabad, where the thermometer stood, day after day, at 105°, and at nearly that night after night. Despite the heat his lecture rooms are crowded with interested listeners, and his popularity was never so great as at present. He will return to Adyar, the headquarters of the society in southern India, in October. The report that he had returned to Europe this summer is incorrect, and arose from the fact that Mme. Blavatsky was on the Continent very ill, and her companions were several Theosophists who had been in India and had returned to Europe. She is at present in London.--_N. Y. Sun._

JESSE SHEPARD,--the musical genius has built himself a beautiful residence at San Diego, California. He has evoked unbounded admiration and astonishment by giving one of his inspired performances in the service of Father Ubach's Catholic church, at the morning mass.

PROHIBITION--has been very successful in Atlanta, Georgia in the past 18 months. It is well enforced. The wealth of the city has increased; property has advanced in value; the laboring classes are more prosperous; the schools are better attended; gambling has been checked; crime has been checked, and the criminal courts transact their business in one-seventh of the former time; there are about half as many arrests, and the streets on which it was unsafe for a lady to go alone, have become orderly. Local option has established temperance in Georgia. Out of 137 counties 115 are controlled by prohibition. In Iowa under prohibition, the Fort Madison Penitentiary is for the first time short of the supply of convicts sufficient to fulfil the usual contracts. England now has a national prohibition party, and Mr. Axel GUSTAFSON is its leader.

LONGEVITY.--A news item from Columbia, S. C., reports a case of great longevity as "attested by family records": that of Amy Avant, a colored woman on the plantation of Major James Reeves, in Marion County, who died May 24th, of measles, at the advanced age of 122 years. She was remarkably well preserved and retained all her faculties up to the time of her fatal illness, previous to which she claimed that she had never taken a dose of medicine. During the last cotton-picking season she took her place regularly in the cotton fields and always performed a good day's work.

ST. THOMAS, July 6.--Peter Barlow, who took part in the American Revolution under Washington, died recently in Demerara, aged 130 years.

ROCKLAND.--John J. Whipple of this place was 100 years old to-day, and as he is in excellent health, the old gentleman bids fair to live another decade at least. Mr. Whipple says he believes in the "good old way" of eating and drinking according to inclination, and though he has never indulged in intoxicants to excess he has never abstained entirely from either the use of tobacco or strong drink. Grandfather Whipple is one of the authorities in the place where he lives, and his memory is remarkable. His eye has a merry twinkle, and he can enjoy a joke and tell a good story with any of the boys.--_Globe Democrat._

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., July 23.--Henry Cleggy of Meigs County, Tennessee, is undoubtedly one of the oldest men in the State, having recently celebrated his 105th birthday. Mr. Meigs takes pleasure in walking about his farm, and has no idea of taking a trip from this world to the next for at least a decade. The old gentleman's memory is excellent and he remembers many incidents of long ago.--_Globe Dem._

INCREASE OF INSANITY.--Louisiana, like New York, Massachusetts, and all highly civilized countries, is realizing the increase of insanity. The State Asylum has recently been greatly enlarged but now there are hundreds that it cannot receive.

EXTRAORDINARY FASTING, Jackson, Tenn., June 15.--W. M. Murchinson, whose long fast has been mentioned before, died yesterday at Medon in this county; having lived ninety days without drink or food. His record is probably without parallel in the history of the medical world. He was a gallant soldier in the Fourteenth Tennessee Cavalry and followed the fortunes of that daring leader, Forrest, through the Civil war, and lost an eye. He was about 45 years of age at the time of his death. He had been in declining health for some months. His throat became paralyzed one night three months ago while he was asleep, and he could never swallow any nourishment after that time. He was an honest, brave man and an esteemed citizen. He never married. Several citizens from Jackson and surrounding country visited him during his fast, and all were astonished that he could live so long without food and drink.

SPIRITUAL PAPERS.--The Spiritual Offering, Light for Thinkers and Light in the West, have died and been succeeded by "The Better Way," at Cincinnati.

CRANIOSCOPY.

(_Continued from page 32._)

I would not say that Napoleon's brain was to any great degree abnormal, but I am satisfied that criminal's brains are generally abnormal, for there are many criminals whose heads do not, by their exterior form, indicate their depravity, but wherever I have examined the interior of the skull I have found the basilar organs active, growing and imprinted upon the interior table of the skull, while the superior region reveals the decline of the moral nature by the increased thickness of the bone which is growing inward and has not the digital impressions of the convolutions which are marked wherever the brain is in an active growing condition. The criminal's skull must be studied by post mortem examination, and the most effective method is by placing a taper through the foramen magnum at the bottom of the skull which will reveal the more active organs by the translucency and thinness of the bones, while the inactive organs are indicated by their opacity and thickness, as in the following convict skull.

The sketch here presented exhibits the degrees of translucency and opacity in a skull which I obtained at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about fifty years ago. It was the skull of a convict killed in the penitentiary while leading a rebellion in a desperate effort to escape.

The man was of a respectable family, son of the sheriff of Warren County, Ky. He fell into bad company and bad habits at New Orleans, drinking and gaming, until for an act of highway robbery he was sent to the penitentiary. The reader will observe the general activity of the intellect and the adjacent social sentiments indicated by the translucency, and the general torpor, indicated by the opacity in the regions of Religion, Hope, Reverence, Love, Conscientiousness, Industry, Cheerfulness, Love of Approbation, Sense of Honor, and Self-respect. Secretiveness shows opacity, while Combativeness shows intense activity which extends into Adhesiveness and cautiousness.

The translucency at Firmness, Irritability, and Combativeness, which were active to the last moments of his life, is quite characteristic. Upon the whole, the test by the inner light inserted at the foramen magnum in the base of the skull indicates a very low, lawless, desperate and unprincipled character, with enough of adhesiveness to give him comrades in crime, and enough of intelligence to give him some success.

The most extraordinary instance of this was in the skull of a negro woman which I examined in Alabama, which had only a slight translucency at Firmness, while the rest of the upper surface of the skull was so abnormally thick that in lifting it one was reminded of the weight of a block of wood. She had, in a fit of temper, murdered her own child in the field, chopping it down with an axe.

CHAPTER VII.--PRACTICAL UTILITY OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN ITS PSYCHIC DEPARTMENT.

All science should be useful--Anthropology has the supreme utility--Importance of self-knowledge and its rarity--Almost impossible without the aid of Anthropology--Its absence in the college--Immense waste of labor in abortive self-culture--Anthropology an exact guide--The selfish do not want it--Mistakes in education--Unbalanced characters described--Possibility of reform--Conjugal reform most important--The powerful agencies of Anthropology.

Before commencing the study of the organs of the brain and faculties of the soul, it is well to look to its results, its practical utilities; for the pursuit of science merely to gratify an intellectual curiosity is not the noblest employment of our time, although it has been a favorite indulgence of the literary class, and was regarded by the ancient philosopher, Empedocles, as the noblest occupation of man. From this opinion I decidedly dissent, regarding the lawless and excessive indulgence of the intellectual faculties as a species of erratic dissipation, injurious to the manhood of the individual, and pernicious to society by the misleading influence of a bad example.

Not only does this extreme intellectual indulgence, in a life the primary purpose of which is not meditation, but action, impair the individual as to his normal usefulness, and thus diffuse by example a deteriorating influence upon the young, and misleading influence upon all, but it actually leads to false views of life, and an unsound philosophy such as transcendental idealism, pessimism, indolence, and the pursuit of visionary falsehoods which a well-balanced mind would intuitively reject. These follies are cultivated by a pedantic system of education, and by the accumulated literature which such education in the past has developed, feeble and faulty in style, superficial in conception, and sadly misleading as to the principles and purposes of life.

Though tempted to such indulgence by the ceaseless activity of my own mind, I can say that I have never pursued any course of investigation, or study, without a positive certainty of its beneficence and value. No other course would be compatible with the demands of duty; but it is obvious on the face of a large portion of our literature that the ethical sentiments were dormant when it was written. Pre-eminent above all other studies in practical value is the science of ANTHROPOLOGY, so long neglected and unknown; a science which places biology on a new basis, rectifies therapeutics, reforms education, develops ethics or religion, and illuminates all spheres of knowledge by psychometry.

The psychic department of Anthropology in which we are now entering the study of the faculties of the soul, the organs of the brain, and the effects of their varying development upon the characters of men and animals, is rich in very practical instruction for the guidance of life, and the attainment not only of spiritual and physical health and success in this life, but of that nobler and greater success, which is chiefly realized in the coming centuries, in which a grander realm is opened for our expanded powers in the higher life.

One of the most essential things for success in life is a correct self-knowledge. A strong, well-balanced organization with a clear intuitive intellect, generally gives this knowledge, and leads to a correct course in life. But how few are really well developed and well balanced, with intuitive clearness of perception, and again how many are there who, in the unrestrained indulgence of all their passions and propensities, care not whether their lives are right or wrong, according to a correct standard. This class desire no admonition, no explanation of their peculiarities, and the causes of their failures or misfortunes.

Selfish and narrow-minded men charge all their failures and misfortunes either to inevitable destiny, or to the faults and misconduct of others. But the truth which science enforces is that we should charge all our failures to ourselves. Other men have succeeded splendidly in life, winning wealth, power, renown and friendship. If we have not, it must be because we have not exercised the same faculties which made them successful, and we should study most diligently to learn wherein, or how, we have failed.

Nearly all are disqualified for this task of self-inspection either by a selfish bias which is unwilling to recognize a fault, or by the fault itself which biases the judgment. The faculty, or passion, which misleads one becomes a part of his judging faculty, and cannot condemn itself. The miser cannot realize the baseness of his avarice, nor the mercenary soldier the enormity of war. Nor can a defective faculty assist in realizing the defect. The color-blind cannot appreciate painting, the thief cannot appreciate integrity, the brutal wife-beater cannot appreciate love, and a Napoleon cannot appreciate disinterested friendship.

Nor do they who fail to comprehend their own faults learn much from the admonition of friends, for _they_ are too desirous of maintaining a friendly relation to give entirely candid advice, and the criticisms of those who are not friends excite suspicion and anger. Fortunate is the man who can profit by the criticisms of his enemies.

How many are there who go through life with glaring defects of character, injurious to their welfare, who are never warned, either by kind friends or by conscience, and never realize the necessity of any higher wisdom than their own, or the necessity of self-culture.

Hence the imperative necessity of psychic science, not that barren abstraction called psychology in colleges, but a science which, like a faithful mirror, reveals to us that which we cannot see. As the gymnastic teacher reveals by a system of measurement (anthropometry) the defective muscles that need development, so should the psychologist discover in the conformation of the brain the special culture needed by defective faculties.

There is nothing of this kind in the universities at present. Glaring faults are seen everywhere, working out their disastrous results, with no preventive method. We have orthopedic and orthopraxic institutions, and gymnastic halls to correct the defects of the body, but no attempt to recognize or correct the far more important defects and deformities of the soul. The orthopneumatic institution for the soul has not yet been conceived. The school or college should be such an institution, and in THE NEW EDUCATION I have endeavored to show how it may perform this duty. The pulpit should be a similar institution; but, alas, the pulpit itself, has no adequate system of ethics--its theology has starved its ethics, and it lifts its followers, in the main, no higher than the level of exterior respectability. The task remains for some able critic to show how many of the important duties of life, though plainly implied by the fundamental law of Christianity, are ignored by the pulpit.

Anthropology alone reveals the ethical fulness and symmetry of character, which all should seek; and when science shall be advanced far beyond the barriers that circumscribe it at present, men and women will seek the profound and intuitive anthropologist for consultation, as they now seek the physician for the attainment of health.

It has been for the attainment of a possible superiority that millions have submitted to the discipline of collegiate education, while others with nobler aims have sought in meditation, in prayer, and in imitation of the illustrious, for the ennoblement of their own lives. No book has sold more largely than the Imitation of Christ. But was it not often a blind struggle in the dark, an attempt to reach a goal never clearly seen. Wandering in a labyrinth of fanaticism, agonizing in the effort to distort nature, the biographical record of religious aspiration serves to show how nearly multitudes may approach the boundary line of insanity in their protracted periods of causeless mental agony and in their fierce hostility to heresy and to science. Alike in Brahmin, Buddhist, Mohammedan, and Christian nations have we seen the vast expenditure of spiritual energy in the blind struggle of aspiring souls.

To all this, Anthropology will put an end, for it will give to each a definite conception of the full normal development of humanity, and of the organization or brain development by what it is sustained. To those who fall far short of that development, it gives the means of a definite measurement of the defect, and shows by cranioscopy and psychometry what is to be done in self-culture, as clearly as we learn in the gymnasium what muscles need greater development.

The desire for such improvement is often absent when it is most needed. A vast multitude of inferior people are perfectly content with themselves in a selfish life, wholly absorbed in providing for their own wants, or, if possessed of wealth, using it only in selfishness and ostentation,--content in believing themselves as good as their neighbors, doing nothing to benefit society, unless under the coercion of public opinion, leading such lives that the world is certainly no better, and perhaps a little worse, for their advent.