Enlargement of the Journal.
The requests of readers for the enlargement of the Journal are already coming in. It is a great disappointment to the editor to be compelled each month to exclude so much of interesting matter, important to human welfare, which would be gratifying to its readers. The second volume therefore will be enlarged to 64 pages at $2 per annum.
The establishment of a new Journal is a hazardous and expensive undertaking. Every reader of this volume receives what has cost more than he pays for it, and in addition receives the product of months of editorial, and many years of scientific, labor. May I not therefore ask his aid in relieving me of this burden by increasing the circulation of the Journal among his friends?
The establishment of the Journal was a duty. There was no other way effectively to reach the people with its new sphere of knowledge. Buckle has well said in his “History of Civilization,” that “No great political improvement, no great reform, either legislative or executive, has ever been originated in any country by its ruling class. The first suggestors of such steps have invariably been bold and able thinkers, who discern the abuse, denounce it, and point out the remedy.”
This is equally true in science, philanthropy, and religion. When the advance of knowledge and enlightenment of conscience render reform or revolution necessary, the ruling powers of college, church, government, capital, and the press, present a solid combined resistance which the teachers of novel truth cannot overcome without an appeal to the people. The grandly revolutionary science of Anthropology, which offers in one department (Psychometry) “the dawn of a new civilization,” and in other departments an entire revolution in social, ethical, educational, and medical philosophy, has experienced the same fate as all other great scientific and philanthropic innovations, in being compelled to sustain itself against the mountain mass of established error by the power of truth alone. The investigator whose life is devoted to the evolution of the truth cannot become its propagandist. A whole century would be necessary to the full development of these sciences to which I can give but a portion of one life. Upon those to whom these truths are given, who can intuitively perceive their value, rests the task of sustaining and diffusing the truth.
Mrs. Croly of New York remarked in her address to the Women’s Press Association of Boston. “The general public resents the advocacy of a cause and resists any attempt to commit it to special ideas. A paper that starts to represent a cause must be maintained by individual effort, and often at great sacrifice.”
The circulation of the Journal is necessarily limited to the sphere of liberal minds and advanced thinkers, but among these it has had a more warm and enthusiastic reception than was ever before given to any periodical. There must be in the United States twenty or thirty thousand of the class who would warmly appreciate the Journal, but they are scattered so widely it will be years before half of them can be reached without the active co-operation of my readers, which I most earnestly request.
Prospectuses and specimen numbers will be furnished to those who will use them, and those who have liberal friends not in their own vicinity may confer a favor by sending their names that a prospectus or specimen may be sent them. A liberal commission will be allowed to those who canvass for subscribers.