CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| Credulity | [5] |
| Christian Science | [10] |
| Osteopathy | [29] |
| Phrenology | [42] |
| Physiognomy | [54] |
| Dreams | [61] |
| Superstitions | [71] |
| Stage Tricks and Occultism | [84] |
| Ghosts | [94] |
| Strikes, Profiteering and the High Cost of Living | [101] |
| The Public | [163] |
| Popularity | [167] |
| Greatness | [172] |
| The Martyrdom of Genius | [183] |
| Gentlemen, Be Seated | [189] |
| Beards | [202] |
| Gambling | [211] |
| Wedding Bells | [222] |
What's What In America
Credulity
The physical origin of mental delusion has many times been investigated and explained by various philosophers, but the different forms of credulity and superstition have never yet been satisfactorily treated with reference to the physiological and pathological principles upon which they depend.
From the beginning, man was and is, by nature, endowed with an eager propensity for novelty. This is particularly true of Americans. His passion for the novel, the singular and the unusual, has influenced his mind to attempt to discover the character of objects concealed in the remote recesses of infinite space, and to investigate the various invisible agencies that he has always found, and still finds, in perpetual operation around him. Curiosity has always been one of the great impelling forces of the scientific investigator. As Winwood Reade says in his masterly "Martyrdom of Man," "The Philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food."