Part 13

These somewhat numerous inquiries are answered, in effect, by an exposition of the faculties referred to, and of the powers by which these may be forced into increased activity. When these are understood so far as they can be explained here, then the answers to all the above queries will become apparent to those who apply the facts to their knowledge of history; and they will need no more detailed answer than that which I shall give.

Many have noted the fact that the foremost personages of history have been men of great will-power. They might be French, Greek, Jew, or Moslem; they might be of any occupation, rank, or color; but always they were men of great will-power. This has been the one peculiarity common to all. But why should will-power be a _sine qua non_ of greatness? The reasons will appear as we proceed.

In the year 1897 an attempt to explain mesmerism is not as necessary as it used to be. The amount of notice which the newspapers give to the subject suggests that an interest in it is very widespread in America. Even the most illiterate must now be aware that persons may be so influenced by the wills of others that they pass into a sleep, or a condition resembling sleep, during which they are to a large extent, and sometimes entirely, subject to the wills of the actuators. Professionals have also assisted in instructing the public as to the minor phenomena. One of them has lately been making money in New York by keeping his patient in the hypnotic trance for a week, during which ignorant medical students and doctors tried brutal methods of awakening the victim--the same methods which disgrace some of the hospitals when unfortunates pass into trances from unknown causes. In other cases, persons in the audience are requested to pencil secretly some lines on paper and hide the writings in their pockets. The patient on the stage then reads the writing, and this reading is subsequently compared with the hidden papers and found to be correct. The numbers engraved on people's watches are also read in the same way.

I have never attended such performances because they had nothing to teach me; and if confederates were used, all I can say is that the performances could be given much more easily without confederates. My reason for mentioning these people is that their work, if genuine, as I suppose, allows me a greater brevity in this paper; also because their large numbers prove the truth of what I published long ago, that anyone of fairly strong will-power can perform these seeming marvels if a suitable patient can be procured. It may, however, be accepted as absolutely correct that the vision of mesmerized patients is not impeded by materials. In my earliest experiments I tried all kinds of receptacles when secreting articles. But the changes made no difference. The patients can discern the interior of an iron box as easily as we in the ordinary state can see through a glass one. Of course this has nothing to do with ordinary vision, the eyelids being closed at the time. All such trials as this I ranked in the lowest grade, because the patients may have been reading what was within my own knowledge--a faculty that was partly exhibited to prominent men in chief cities by Mr. Stuart Cumberland and Mr. Irving Bishop.

This classifying of my experiments is only to bring on their mention in the order in which they seem to increase in importance. As a fact, the same faculties attend to them all. Still, the division is useful. Second, then, come those which dealt with long distances. To one of my first patients (a messenger in a law-office) I showed scenes in Syria, Egypt, Athens, and Rome, and after I had removed him from the mesmeric sleep I handed him a pile of photographs which I had brought from foreign countries. He turned them over rapidly and picked out the picture of the scene he had witnessed, and without hesitation. I ranked all this class next to lowest in importance because I had the scenes in my own mind at the time. Yet the patients saw more than I was thinking of. When I showed this messenger the obelisk in front of St. Peter's at Rome, he also described the great colonnade around the piazza, which I had at the moment forgotten. Subsequent experiments with others made me know that he was viewing the scene itself.

The class ranked third, or next higher, were those in which the patients were called from a distance. In the Arlington Heights Sanitarium some of the patients formerly received, and I suppose still receive, beneficial hypnotic treatment. One patient, Grace ----, could be called into the office at any time by the simple will of Dr. Ring, the proprietor. I received the account from a valued nurse who attended this patient in the hospital. I was able to do the same thing myself in one case, but only when the patient was at some occupation which did not require much concentration. I am not prepared to speak as to the spaces across which this influence may be exerted. With another patient, who was over two miles away, the experiment seemed fairly successful, but I am not sufficiently certain to claim a success.

In class four, the patients told facts which had not been previously within their knowledge or mine. For tests of this kind I would procure from friends some old coins wrapped up so that I could not know the dates on them. When the first patient with whom this was tried was told to pass into the sleep she called out the date of the coin almost instantaneously--"1793." I thought she was still awake and guessing. But in that instant she had passed into a deep sleep and had told the date correctly.

In the fifth class the reader's credence will be much tested. Many of the Scripture miracles were not a whit more difficult to believe. In fact, some were precisely the same. Professional frauds have created much hostility to the idea of anyone possessing clairvoyance. But the somewhat amusing fact is that every human being is a clairvoyant--which could be shown beyond disagreement if the doubter were placed in the mesmeric trance. An instructive experiment has lately been told me, in which the same patient, Grace ----, was used. A Mrs. Fuller, an invalid in the hospital, was anxious about her daughter, who had not lately written. Dr. Chapin, one of the house doctors, was the actuator. Under his will the faculties of Grace ---- were made to see the child, then about thirty miles off. She described Mrs. Fuller's home, its interior, the daughter coming from school with her books, whom she talked to, what she said, the precise time on a peculiar old clock in the room, and a call on a neighbor then made by the daughter--all of which was afterward proved to have been correctly reported. I mention Dr. Chapin's work because it relieves me of some of the seeming egotism which a recital of this kind enforces, and because my own experiments, which were, in effect, precisely the same, though different in detail, have been published elsewhere.[16]

[16] "The Ascent of Life," by Stinson Jarvis. Postal address, Branch "X," New York, N. Y. Price $1.50.

As if these facts were not astounding enough, we come finally to a sixth class, in which we find that these marvels can be produced by one's own will-power acting on one's own interior faculties--the proofs of which I have already published.

Now here, I submit, we get our right clew to the true position of man in history. We now see why great men had always to be possessed of peculiar will-power. They were great when the intensities of their ambitions, desires, or necessities forced from their soul-faculties some portions of knowledge which gave them a temporary ascendency, such, for instance, as would provide an advantage in strategy, statecraft, duplicity, treachery, or any other qualities which have assisted men who were leaders. There was no limit to this, for the experiments show that there is some quality in the soul of man that seems to be omniscient, or in direct correspondence with omniscience.

It was always through stress. None have become great in idleness or slackened energies. And as soon as the stress ceased, after the occasion for the intense strivings of years passed, when the fruits of victory were being enjoyed, when the aim of life was simply to hold and not to gain, then the man ceased to be markedly different from others. Then other men lead, because nature's leaderships are gained by that intensest concentration which forces the best methods from the soul-faculties. Apply this system of nature to any great event of history and you will invariably find it accomplishing the known results. There you will find a man making a name for himself, and, in a sense, making history. Always through stress, strain, and necessity, in the same ways that extraordinary ingenuity comes to men and animals to assist their escape from situations of dire peril. Lock up the human wild beasts who agonize for liberty, and you will find that few jails will hold them. And their escapes may well be called miraculous.

The question then comes back for answer: What about this "universal causation"?--Fate?--the will of God? Here it must be said, as before, that no event of history can be selected which cannot be honestly referred to the intelligence of man when this has been assisted by a partial use of his soul-faculties. When human projects ran foul of natural laws, disaster followed. For instance, the acquirement of a new territory may take a vast amount of energy and heroic fighting--and the will of one man may then be paramount in making a fact of history coupled with his name; but if the army of occupation dies in the swamps of the conquered country, shall the disaster be attributed to God? Shall we not rather say that if the events of history were in His intended control they would be less cruel, less human, less bestial? Can anyone trace a lasting benefit that arose from Napoleon's career? The meteor disappeared into impalpable dust. The conquered lands returned to their owners. Was any country improved by his coming? He left a bloody trail through Egypt, but not till the last decade has the Egyptian fellah known a whiff of liberty or justice for two thousand years. The only outcome that lasts to the present day is the assisted vanity of the French people, a vanity built on the abilities of one man, which were lost to the country when he died. Does anyone see a trace of the will of God in all this? I do not.

His Corsican mother bore him while she attended her husband in his battles. The offspring was marked for war in his mother's womb. He was preeminently a natural product; and in him we find indomitable will continually concentrated on faculties which yielded the discernments that made him master of men and master of war. No man came under his scrutiny without feeling that he was read to the core. The weaknesses, strengths, vanities, braveries, and ambitions of others were all read, used, and played upon for one man's ends. And from Bismarck back to Cyrus we find all the great ones ruling in the same way--through the discernments that are will-forced from the soul-faculties.

But among lesser men, and in everyday life? Here, the same, only in lesser degrees; not with a knowledge of the processes at work, and thus without the conscious direction of effort which would produce more satisfactory results; though often the world is astonished when the extraordinary introspection of some business men enables them to make money in all their dealings. This is not luck. Their amassed wealth is the proof of their life's strain--almost another name for it. And it should be remarked, in passing, that most of the great ones have been deeply religious in their own ways. Jay Gould was deeply religious in his own way, though I am told he wrecked many. So is Bismarck. So were Wellington and Von Moltke--men who guided frightful carnage. We may smile at the religion which wrecks and kills and prays, but we do not remove the combination; and it is probable that the great ones have been too closely conscious of their own sudden discernments to find a gross materialism possible. It was the same with the pagans. Even Bonaparte had an implicit belief in what he called his lucky star.

The followers of Buckle claim that man is personally hardly more than a cipher in history, that his name is hardly worth writing in the great scroll. But how is this when the fate of Europe rests, as it may rest at this moment, wholly and solely in the faculties of one man? The instinct of hero-worship is too deep-set to be valueless. And the experiments which do so much to explain the sources of increased human knowledge point to the fact that it is in the man of the hour that the history of the hour is written. One leads; the others follow. Gifted he may be, even before he is born; endowed he may be, by forefathers who were clean; but when the event approaches there is always one who more than others realizes the stress, strain, or peril, and in a mighty effort creates from his own faculties a scheme or plan which others are glad to follow.

That is greatness. That is history. That is creation. For creation is of spirit; and man, as these seemingly trivial experiments prove, is also, in part, of spirit. The disasters that may result through other causes from his action are only the proof of his humanness--proof that his strain for enlightenment was not continued. In these ways history is human, but always with a partly secreted and godlike faculty awaiting demand. "Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The greatest man that ever lived taught this. And whatever he was, or was not, he knew more than any other man.

This article is by no means intended to suggest that the will of God need not be considered in the study of history. When it is proved that human privacy is impossible, and that any ordinary person's soul may be made to see us at all times, then we may be quite sure that the Giver of these faculties to man possesses them himself and that we are watched both personally and nationally. But the article _is_ intended to suggest that man has progressed and has been great when the exercise of his will-power, or the concentrated desire of prayer, has forced his interior faculties, perhaps through their correspondences, to help him through enlightenment. We find ourselves placed on this planet in total ignorance as to why we came or where we go, but there seems to be one continuous purpose through all--that man shall improve. It may be that high intelligence, combined with experience in all grades of life, is required somewhere else. It may be that in order to gain such experience it must be lived through. There would certainly be no striving if everything came to us as an unearned gift. The disasters resulting from one man's action are a warning to the next venturer; and if experience is not, or cannot be, sent into a soul as an unearned gift, then the higher wisdom may be non-interference.

The estimate of man's personal agency in history is necessarily raised when the faculties he has utilized in gaining his ends are inquired into. Such a study seems to lead toward an alteration in the accepted idea of divine control in matters of history when it suggests this intention--that the divinity of a right control shall be shown through man. Such a study shows that he is sufficiently endowed with a spiritual nature, not only for this purpose, but for any other; and it suggests that, as his faculties bring him into direct connection with some All-knowledge from which every kind of intelligence may be drawn, he is expected to use his opportunities; also that the natural consequences of mistakes will not be rectified except through the intelligence supplied to further demand.

PLAZA OF THE POETS.

THE NEW WOMAN.[17]

BY MILES MENANDER DAWSON.

[17] From advance sheets of "Poems of the New Time," by Miles Menander Dawson, The Humboldt Library, Publishers: New York. Cloth, 12mo, $1.00.

She stands beside her mate, companion-wise, Erect, self-poised, with clear, straightforward eyes. For what she knows he is she holds him dear, And not for what she fancies him--with fear.

Brave spirit! Disillusionized, she lifts What blinder women bear as heaven's ill gifts. She asks but, ere she reproduce a man, He truly be one, so a woman can.

She gives not for the asking, nor as one Who does unpleasant things that must be done. Nay, he who half-unwilling love receives Knows not the full-orbed joy she freely gives.

Emancipated, on firm feet she stands, And all that man exacts of her demands; The new morality, the art of life, And not obedience, holds her as wife.

Hail, the new woman! By her choices she Determines wisely what mankind shall be. She will not with eyes open be beguiled To choose a tainted father for her child.

UNDER THE STARS.

BY COATES KINNEY.

It is a sad, sad sight.--_Carlyle._

O stars! as the flakes of a snowstorm How ye fly and fall and drift! Swift snowing of suns out of darkness, Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!

Fly! fall! but the wind the Almighty Still behind you always runs, Still pushes you onward together, Fixed each sun in drift of suns.

Fixed, ay, to the vision of mortal Never change hath shown in you; Lands, seas, and their kingdoms and races All have changed, but ye are true-- Still true to the old constellations, Such as when the forebrain first Uplifted itself to their glories With this human spirit's thirst.

Calm! still! though in every sparkle Motions like the thunderbolt, Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight, Planet's wheel and comet's volt, All hang, as it were, in a dewdrop Frozen to a steadfast gleam; Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter, Whimseys of an instant's dream.

Drift! drift! all the universe drifting Round some sun too vast for thought! On! on! awful maelstrom of matter Whirling in a gulf of naught! Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabird Flies across and dips and flees-- Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird's, Tossed and lost upon the seas!

THE CRY OF THE VALLEY.

BY CHARLES MELVIN WILKINSON.

Too long, too long on the mountain's brow You linger, O storm-cloud! Know you not I, the suffering lowland, need you now Where the scorching sun glares hot?

You deluge the barren cliffs of chalk While wither the grass and the fruitful grain, And the red rose, shrivelling, dies on its stalk With a smothered cry for rain.

You lavish your wealth on the lordly height That knows not a miser's need therefor,-- With a smile I must take what is mine by right As the gift true souls abhor.

But the rain that is mine by the love of God, By the grace of the mountain a gift to me, Of what avail to the parching sod, Since it runneth down to the sea?

O cloud, I charge you to right my wrongs! Be just with the bounty of God's own hand, And scatter the rain where the rain belongs, On the hot and thirsty land.

I charge you, cloud, by the love of God, That you pour His gift on the humble plain Till the myriad mouths of the parching sod Drink deep of the blessed rain.

A RADICAL.

BY ROBERT F. GIBSON.

I am a Radical, and this my faith: The aim and hope of all true citizens Are justice and real happiness for all. Some are content--I know not why--to sit Among the sleepy worshippers who fill The gilded temple of conservatism, And sitting, awestruck, there they think they serve. I am too busy for idolatry. I carry in my hand a naked sword, And pity, roused for one, stays not my hand When prompt, sure blows mean freedom for a score. That is my faith, and I am not afraid To face my Maker when my name is called.

THE EDITOR'S EVENING.

Our Totem.

Carlyle has remarked upon the significance of symbolism. All nations seek a sign. The sign becomes the visible expression of the highest thought. It is made into an emblem around which the given people march by day and encamp by night. Thus have come all the totems which mankind have lifted up, from the brazen snake in the desert to the Stars and Stripes on the mountain.

Symbolism has its beauty and also its ugliness. In some cases the symbol is happily conceived. It is benign; it expresses hope, truth, fidelity, aspiration, even immortality. Behold the egg of the Egyptians and their circle expressive of undying life and eternity. Note the owl of the Athenians. Note the sweet lily of ancient Provence, adopted by France as the emblem of purity and national peace. Note the Irish shamrock--that delicate green trifolium which has signified so much of union and hope to an enthusiastic and failing race. On the other hand, note the serpent of the Aztecs, the crawling reptiles of Malaysia and India, the savage beasts and carnivorous birds adopted as the symbols of race-life and purpose by the coarse barbarians of northern Europe, and preserved on the flags and banners of their descendants to the present day.

Russia is a bear. Germany is a black eagle. France also, in her Bonaparte mood, is an eagle. Imperial Rome _was_ an eagle from the days of the Caesars. Great Britain is a lion, and Prussia is a leopard, and Siam is an elephant, and Mexico is still a snake. As for Great Britain, not satisfied with one lion, she repeats him seven times, rampant or couchant, on the royal standard. She also preserves on her coat-of-arms and coins the unicorn, that fabulous, one-horned monster of a horrid dream.

The American Republic seems to have accepted the eagle for its totem. We might have taken a bear or a caribou, but the eagle has pleased our mythologists more--and so, instead of belonging to the tribe of the Turkey, the tribe of the Dog, or the tribe of the Calf, we belong to the tribe of the Eagle. But what does our totem signify?

The eagle in our symbolism and war-myth has come to us from the past. He was of old the totem of the Romans. From the Tiber he flew beyond the Alps, to perch on the standards of German chieftains and Gallic emperors. He has visited all lands that are affected with the civil and ethnic life of Rome. He has appeared here and there on the flags of the Latin races in the Old World and the New. He has made an eyrie in our mountains, and his scream has been heard in our wars. He has settled on our flagstaffs, and has been seen by certain and sundry poets who apostrophize him in verse. He has been admired by orators whose imaginations rise as high as battle and conquest, but not as high as the Stars and Stripes. He has been adored in academic essays. He has hovered over the pages of inchoate histories, until his claim to be regarded as the American bird is established. The eagle has become traditional as the totem of the United States.

In so far as the eagle is the symbol of the independence and freedom of men, let us accept him! In so far as he represents the idea and sublimity of height and flight, let him soar! The eagle as a sign of the free voyage of the human mind, triumphant over nature, visiting on strong wing the far and otherwise inaccessible heights of escape and glory, is the noblest of all the totems ever discovered by man; for flight is the noblest and most sublime of earthly actions. Height is the sublimest of all earthly stations. Height and flight are precisely the dream which we would select from the infinite visions of the soul and have engraved on our seal as a motto for eternity. Height and flight and freedom!