The morbid condition of the brain is a conspicuous fact, which we must not ignore, and it is important to learn how to detect it in the appearance of the individual, or in his psychometric indications and Pathognomy, which is itself a profound science and important guide to character. (Pathognomy is the science of expression, and has an exact mathematical basis.)
We should bear in mind that it is just as possible to have impaired and unhealthy conditions in any part of the brain as to have them in the stomach, liver, lungs, or spinal cord. Physical diseases are contagious and so are moral. It is generally impossible to preserve the moral organs and faculties of a youth in healthy condition who is allowed to associate habitually with the depraved; and it is very difficult indeed for the mature adult to preserve his brain and mind in sound condition when compelled to associate with the depraved. To those who are very impressible, the contagion of vice, bad temper, profanity, turbulence, lying, obscenity, sullenness, melancholy, etc., is as inevitable as the contagion of small pox.
Our criminals are generally exposed to the contagion of crime in youth, and as they advance they are immersed in this contagion in prisons, which are the moral pest-houses in which law maintains the intense contagion of criminal depravity. Napoleon was an admirable subject for such contamination, and when we learn how he was reared amid the lawlessness and general scoundrelism of Corsica, we do not wonder that he became an imperial brigand. The low ethical standard of mankind, generally, and especially of historians, has heretofore prevented a just estimate of the character of Napoleon. Royal criminals have escaped condemnation; but the recent review of Napoleon’s career by Taine gives a just philosophic estimate of the man, which coincides with the impartial estimation of psychometry.
Footnotes
- The air is certainly yet to be navigated when a sufficient amount of power can be concentrated in the machine, but at present we can do little more than float with the wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a sail acting as a kite. [Return]
- A letter just received from Australia states that the writer had for many years been a student of phrenology, and had ascertained from examining hundreds of crania that phrenology “stood on a basis of fact, but was wrong as well as deficient in some of its details. But though I could point to several parts of the skull where the readings of professionals as well as myself were always unreliable, I could not discover the real function of the organs in these places.” [Return]
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT.
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 each steps have invariably been bold and able thinkers, who discern the abuse, denounce it, and point out the remedy.”