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OF JOURNAL OF MAN.

BUCHANAN'S JOURNAL OF MAN.

SALUTATORY.

Kind reader! Let me presume that you are in search of truth, and that you have an intuition sufficient to tell you that this unending search is the inspiring energy of the JOURNAL OF MAN Let us realize the vastness of truth, the vastness of those realms of knowledge heretofore unexplored by man, in which the JOURNAL is to perform its work, and in realizing that, it will be very obvious that no single number of the JOURNAL can be an adequate specimen to give a just conception of what it is to be, how many hundred themes it will have to consider, how many errors to analyze, how many new suggestions to introduce, how many criticisms of the old, how many expositions of the new. The present number of the JOURNAL is little more than a promissory note for its future.

Even as a commentary on periodical literature, there will be a countless number of the superficial theories of ignorance and haste for it to examine, while there will be the more pleasing task of noting the introduction of sound philosophy, the progress of careful investigation, the uprising of common sense against hereditary falsehood, and the gradual enlightenment of the clerical, medical, and educational professions by the slow progress of new ideas, and the unembarrassed progress of the physical sciences and inventions which encounter no collegiate hindrance, excepting this, that the average liberal education, as it is called, gives so little knowledge of physical science, that the educated classes often fail to distinguish between the real inventor and the deluded, or delusive, impostor.

The inventor is the emancipator of mankind from the oppressive burden of toil, and hence the philanthropist should ever look with interest to the progress of invention, should ever be ready to cooperate with inventive genius. The JOURNAL should be the inventor's friend, and it hopes to see the time when the national institution that I have proposed shall be established, to bring blind, but all powerful, capital into co-operation with the wise, but often powerless, inventor.

Invention is the physical, as philosophy is the intellectual power, to complete the emancipation of mankind from slavery and suffering. "No," would the theologian say, "your false philosophy ends in nothing. The world has been full of philosophies from Democritus to Hegel, and they have never lifted a single straw's weight from the burden that oppresses all humanity. The real burden is sin, and religion alone can remove that, and bring in the kingdom of heaven on earth."

Most true, Oh theologian, it is, that the false philosophies, from Democritus to Hegel, have done nothing for mankind but to becloud, bewilder, and enfeeble their intelligence, for the philosophies were born of empty vanity, which essayed to conquer the universe by cogitation without science, and not from any loving impulse to make life wiser and better. But your theologies have been almost as false as the philosophies. You have inverted the simple and pure religion of Jesus. You have taught the world that its governing power was not an infinite love, but an infinite hate, and that the chief purpose of creation was to furnish an unlimited amount of human agony, in eternal progress, to gratify the infinite tyrant, and, at the same time, please a few humble vassals whom terror alone had driven into his service. You have taught mankind, all too successfully, to imitate this superhuman monster, by the banishment, imprisonment, murder, or torture, of all who did not accept your insane and heartless teachings; and the bloody drama, which has been in full progress for at least fifteen centuries without one interval of pity or remorse, is coming to its end now, Oh theologians, simply because your power has waned, and mankind have partially outgrown their superstitious ignorance. Tennyson in his last poem has expressed the truth:

"'Love your enemy, bless your haters,' said the Greatest of the great, Christian love among the churches looked the twin of heathen hate. From the golden alms of blessing, man had coined himself a curse; Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter,--which was crueler, which was worse?"

You are beginning, Oh theologians, to be ashamed of the history of your tribe, and to doubt in your own hearts the horrid creeds you are still teaching; and a few have even thrown them off entirely and joined in the movement of emancipation,--even Andover is uneasy beneath its old yoke. But the chief problem of progress is still to get rid of your creeds, and return to that simple, universal religion, of which Jesus was the most powerful teacher,--a religion that had no church, no creed, no intolerance, and which dealt only in that universal love to which all human souls respond when they receive it.

Yet never has this simple religion of Jesus appeared, nor any effort towards its imperfect realization, without provoking orthodox hostility; and never has science taken one bold step in advance to understand the Bible of creation, or the Divine wisdom embodied in the constitution of man, without finding all orthodox power arrayed against each step of progress, and your orthodox anathemas ready for each fearless seeker of the truth.

With a loathing and horror that words cannot express I turn from this scene--in which, though latent at this moment, there lie all the horrors of the Roman amphitheatre, and wars of the legions of Scipio, Marius, Tiberius, Caesar, Nero, Severus, Decius, Valerianus, of Alaric, Attila, and Genghis Khan--to the dawn of liberty, peace, and enlightenment on the American continent, where, though old forms and institutions may survive, their interior nature or life is changed,--where the apostate church is slowly relinquishing its apostacy and growing into harmony with modern liberty and progress.

The time is coming, I trust, when Christian churches in the United States shall return to follow the sublime examples of the founders of Christianity; shall practise and diffuse that spirit of love in which is all freedom, all toleration and co-operation; shall welcome science and philosophy, and become the centre of all cooperative efforts for human amelioration.

The ameliorations of the last hundred years are so great that we may well anticipate still greater changes in the coming century; for, as Whittier says:

"Still the new transcends the old, In signs and tokens manifold."

It is reasonable to anticipate this change, because the old battle between religion and science, which placed each in a false position, must come to an end. The battle is still in progress,--there is still an antagonism; and scientists will object to the JOURNAL OF MAN because its science is associated with religion; while theologians will object to its religion because based on science; but the contest now proceeds with diminishing rancor, and there have been minor reconciliations or truces between scientists and theologians. But finally the grand reconciliation must come from this, that when science advances into the psychic realm,--when it demonstrates the existence of the soul, and demonstrates that heaven is not a morbid dream but a splendid reality,--the religious sentiment will recognize such science as its friend; and when science goes farther, and interprets the Divine laws as written by omnipotent wisdom in the constitution of man, more plainly and far more fully than they have ever been expressed in religious writings, then will religion perceive that such science is the Divine messenger before whom it should bow in reverence, and whose every utterance should be held sacred.

It is thus the mission of anthropology to enlighten religion, to interpret the Divine law, and to reign in the kingdom of heaven, to which it is to lead us; and it is the mission of the JOURNAL OF MAN to present and keep before the enlightened few the guiding wisdom of anthropology.

THE PHRENOLOGICAL DOCTRINES OF DR. GALL.

THEIR PAST AND PRESENT STATUS.

Science ought to emancipate mankind from the control of the animal instincts, and in the purely physical and mathematical sciences it does. In mathematics, dynamics, optics, acoustics, astronomy, electricity, engineering, and mechanics, the dictates of pure intellect are seldom interfered with by any blind impulse, attraction, or prejudice. But it is very different in the realm of opinion--in matters in which reason should be supreme, with as absolute authority as number and form have in mathematics.

A thousand can measure and calculate, and can obey implicitly in thought the mathematical laws, for one that can reason and obey implicitly the dictates of pure reason. If an error is made in the construction of a bridge, erection of a house, or financial report of a bank, thousands may at once detect the error, and by clear exposition compel its recognition. But in matters of opinion controlled by reason, there is no such ready detection and recognition of error, even by the best educated classes. The realm of opinion is ever in chaos. Contradictory opinions are ever clashing; no supreme arbiter is known; no law of reason, like the laws of mathematics, comes in to dissipate error and delusion.

It is for these reasons that popular opinions and opinions of universities are of little value. Everything else but reason dominates them. The gift of a founder, the decree of a king, parliament, or pope, the decision of some ancient conclave of the superstitious and ignorant, or the imperious will of some interested body of lords, plutocrats, monks, or political usurpers, establishes the mould in which opinions are cast; and the soft brains of inexperienced and unreflective youth are easily compressed into the form of the established mould, and from that deformed condition they seldom or never entirely recover true symmetry. Never taught to reason deeply or accurately, they yield to the sympathetic mesmeric control of social opinions and impulses, without looking to their origin, Hence the lamentable fact that in matters of opinion or philosophy, as in social amusements and fashions, the animal instinct of gregariousness rules, and men move in masses like herds of sheep or buffaloes.

These considerations prepare us to appreciate justly the value of former and contemporary opinions in reference to the science of the brain.

The mystery that surrounded its anatomy was dispelled by Dr. Gall, and modern scientists have been building upon the foundation laid by him. It is not necessary now to dwell upon his protracted and careful study of the comparative development of the brain in men and animals. Suffice it to say no naturalist was ever more diligent, fearless, and successful, in the study of nature; and the conclusive evidence of his success is the fact that no student of nature who travelled after his footsteps has failed to see what he saw, and recognize Gall as a grand, original teacher.

Have they no respect for the labors and honorable observations of clear-headed scientists fifty to eighty years ago? Were the anatomists Reil and Loder deceived when they testified to Gall's wonderful discoveries in anatomy? Were Andral, Broussais, Corvsart, and others, who stood at the head of the medical profession in France, deceived when they were followers of Gall? Was Dr. Vimont deceived when the study of the animal kingdom converted him from an opponent to a supporter of Gall? Were Elliotson and Solly of London, the Combes of Scotland, Macartney of Ireland, and a full score of others in the highest ranks of medical science deceived in giving their testimony that the anatomy of the brain, its development in the healthy, its amply recorded pathology, revealed in hospitals, and its phenomena in the insane asylums and prisons, supported the doctrines of Gall?

The sciolism of popular phrenology, scantily supplied with anatomical knowledge, and but little better supplied with clear psychic conceptions, is incapable of commending the science to the esteem of critical observers, and of course incapable of sustaining its reputation against the overwhelming opposition of medical colleges. Thus rejected or at least neglected in the universities, which supply its place with worthless metaphysics, and unsustained before the public,--for the tone of literature is controlled by the universities,--it is not strange that the grand discoveries of Gall are neglected as they are to-day.

"These views of the qualities and faculties of man are not the fruit of subtile reasonings. They bear not the impress of the age in which they originate, and will not wear out with it. They are the result of numberless observations, and will be immutable and eternal like the facts that have been observed, and the fundamental powers which those facts force us to admit. They are not only founded on principles deduced from individual facts, but are confirmed by each individual fact in particular, and will forever come off triumphant from every test to which they may be submitted, whether of analysis or synthesis. If the reasonings of metaphysicians are ever discarded, this philosophy of the human qualities and faculties will be the foundation of all philosophy in time to come."

The great doctrine of the multiplicity of cerebral organs, introduced by Gall, could not be suppressed or ignored among those who investigate the brain in any manner. All modern investigators tacitly recognize it, for none could so stultify themselves as to assume the brain to be a homogeneous unit in either structure or functions, while seeking to discover the peculiar functions of each part. Thus his fundamental ideas are adopted by his opponents, and step by step they will be compelled to admit his general correctness, and his grand services as the pioneer in the highest department of science, the most prolific in important results to mankind. "Every honest and erudite anatomist," says Sir Samuel Solly in his standard work on the anatomy of the brain, "must acknowledge that we are indebted mainly to Gall and Spurzheim for the improvements which have been made in our mode of studying the brain. For my own part, I most cheerfully acknowledge that the interest which I derived from the lectures of Dr. Spurzheim at St. Thomas' Hospital about the years 1822 and 1823, has been the inciting cause of all the labor which for above twenty years I have at intervals devoted to this subject."

The organ of language, his first discovery, located at the junction of the front and middle lobes, has been the first to receive the general recognition of the medical profession, because it is easy to recognize its failures in disease, and the morbid condition of its organ.

Its general recognition by physiologists now is not usually accompanied by any reference to Gall as its discoverer. They are probably not aware that he located it correctly, because he referred so much to its external sign in the prominence of the eyes. This prominence of the eyes indicates development of the brain at the back of their sockets. The external marking of organs is to indicate where they lie and in what direction their development produces exterior projection. The junction of the front and middle lobes, including the so-called "island of Reil" , has its most direct external indication at the outer angle of the eye. That is the location which has been given the organ by my experiments, which were made without reference to anatomy, without even a thought of it, for I consider such experiments the supreme authority in physiology, and do not stop to inquire whether any previous knowledge supports them or not.

Dr. Gall had the true idea, for although he spoke of the general prominence of the eye as the indication, he also recognized the development as extending in the direction in which I have located it. He regarded the organ of language as a convolution lying on the super-orbital plate, behind the position of the eyeball. This convolution is comparatively defective in animals generally, but more developed in birds of superior vocal powers. In addition to this, he observed the growth extending into the temples, where the front and middle lobes unite. "A great diameter in this direction," he says, "is always a favorable augury for the memory of words. I have seen persons who with an ordinary conformation of the eyes yet learned by heart with great facility. But in these cases the diameter from one temple to the other is ordinarily very considerable, and sometimes even the inferior part of the temples is projecting, which attests a great development of the adjacent cerebral parts."

Thus it is evident that he recognized the structure behind the external angle of the eye as an important part of the organ of language.

Evidently Gall arrived at the correct location, and he illustrates the discovery by referring to a great number of authors and scientists whose development he observed. His most decisive fact is the case of a patient who lost the memory of names entirely, but not the power of speech, by a thrust from a foil, which penetrated through the face, the posterior inner part of the front lobe, at its junction with the middle lobe, thus wounding the internal part of the organ of language, but not reaching the outer posterior part, at the island of Reil, to which pathologists have given their chief attention.

Evidently Gall had the correct idea, and should have been duly credited by the pathologists who have verified his discovery.

In verifying this discovery by excitement of the organs, I find the centre of language behind the external angle of the eye, on each side of which, toward the nose and toward the temples, are analogous functions which might, if we did not analyze closely, be included with it, as portions of the organ of language.

The discoveries of Gall, though no longer sustained by colleges or phrenological societies, have never lost their hold upon the students who follow his teachings and study nature. A few phrenological writers and lecturers maintain the interest among those they reach, but our standard literature generally ignores the doctrines, and forgets the name of Gall. Yet the eclipse is not total. It will pass away as this century ends, and the fame of the great pioneer in science will be immortal, for it rests not on any wave of eighteenth century opinion, but is based on that which is "immutable and eternal."

It was once supposed that the intellectual functions of the front lobe were entirely refuted by discoveries which proved the front lobe the source of muscular impulses. More thorough experimenting dissipated this illusion. Ferrier reported that after a partial ablation of the front lobes in intelligent monkeys, "instead of, as before, being actively interested in their surroundings and curiously prying into all that came within the field of their observation, they remained apathetic or dull, or dozed off to sleep, responding only to the sensations or impressions of the moment, or varying their listlessness with restless and purposeless wanderings to and fro. They had lost to all appearance the faculty of attentive and intelligent observation." This is precisely what the true cerebral psychology indicates. The imaginary muscular powers were not at all detected, for the section of the front lobe had no influence on the muscular system.

The science of Gall was a science of facts relevant to great principles. The science of his opponents was a science of irrelevant facts, revealing no philosophy. Students of nature adhered to Gall; students of books and adherents of authority neglected him. Of this there is no better illustration than the great collection of De Ville in London, of which the following account is given in the admirable treatise on phrenology by Dr. James P. Browne of Edinburgh.

"Amongst the skulls of birds how readily could the practised observer distinguish the skull of the tuneful, melodious canary from that of the chirping, inharmonious sparrow. Nor could he fail to mark the constant difference between the form of the head of a song thrush and that of the jackdaw; or to discern how the cuckoo's head is hollow where the organ of the love of offspring is located, whilst the same part presents a striking protuberance in the partridge. In the dolphin, the porpoise, the seal, and many other animals, the male could there be distinguished from the female by the form of the back part of the skull, where the same organ lies. Nor could any one fail to mark the form of head that is the invariable, and evidently indispensable, concomitant of the ferocious and sanguinary temper of the tiger, as well as the strong contrast which it presents to the skull of the wild but gentle gazelle. How superior also the elevated brain of the poodle dog, when compared with that of the indocile, snarling cur! Thus in animals of the same species the most marked disparity of form is easily discernible, on comparing the skulls of such as are docile and gentle, with those of the dull and intractable. The elevation of the one and the depression of the other are obvious.

"In an ethnological point of view that collection was very valuable. What a striking contrast was presented there by the rounded form of the skull of the fierce, indomitable American Indian, who is so averse to intercourse with strangers, and the rather narrow, elongated head of the indolent negro, who is devoted to social enjoyments. How wide was the difference between the head of the Sandwich Islander or of the Tahitian and that of the Australian or the Tasmanian. How much superior to either of them were the heads of the civilized Incas of Peru, which had not been submitted to the distorting process of artificial compression. Neither could the wide disparity between the Maori and the Gentoo escape the notice of the most careless observer. And how immeasurably inferior in form were they all to the noble head which is the issue of the mingling of the Celtic, Saxon, and Norman races , such as it is found to be in these islands, and in the United States.

"Perhaps it may not be considered out of place if I relate a circumstance of considerable interest to those who make it a point to make strict inquiry as to the amount of knowledge which certain races are capable of imbibing.

"For the long term of twenty-two years the writer of this treatise took every opportunity, afforded him by the kindness of its generous owner, to study the contents of this rare collection; and, after having studied it with assiduous care, he is bound to say that out of the hundred thousand facts which it contained, not one could be pointed out that did not testify to the never-failing agreement of particular parts or organs of the brain, with certain independent, elementary faculties, according to the laws discovered by Gall.

"It is with the view of demonstrating the stability and unchangeableness of those laws that the composition of this treatise has been undertaken; in order to excite in its regard such a degree of attention as will tend to awaken it from the state of inauspicious somnolency in which it has for some years lain prostrate. But, strongly impressed with a conviction of the importance of the subject, and fully alive to the difficulty of treating it, the writer cannot help being crossed by fears for the success of this attempt. Relying, however, upon the solidity of the foundation upon which his subject rests, and surveying the vast store of accumulated materials which have, for more than thirty years, been constantly passing through his hands, and the facts which are now strewn before him in whatever society he may be placed, he would fain hope that even his humble abilities will enable him to make such a selection of incontrovertible facts as will place beyond a doubt the possibility of determining the innate talents and dispositions of any one by making a skilful survey of the head; and, should he succeed in merely raising a more general spirit of active inquiry in regard to the nature of the evidence adduced, and the deductions drawn from it by phrenologists, than at present exists, he will have reaped a fair reward for his efforts, for he has long been thoroughly convinced that a strict and faithful examination of the facts which bear upon the case is alone requisite for converting the incredulous scoffer into the zealous advocate."

Having thus vindicated the claims of the great pioneer in philosophy, our next issue will show the limitations of his discoveries, and give an outline of the new and all-comprehensive Anthropology.

THERAPEUTIC SARCOGNOMY.--The publication of this work has been laid aside to introduce the JOURNAL OF MAN. It will appear during the present year, but not in a cheap abridged form as first proposed. It will be an improved edition.

THE GREAT LAND QUESTION.

AGITATED BY HENRY GEORGE, MICHAEL DAVITT, PROF. WALLACE, DR. EADON AND REFORMATORY SOCIETIES IN GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY.

"There seems to be a notion prevalent that the ideas advocated by Mr. George are novel. But they are not. They once more illustrate the familiar fact that there is nothing new under the sun. Much the same doctrines were urged here in America at least forty years ago, and were the subject of comment in the papers of the day.

"'The Land and the People' is the title of a well-written pamphlet from the pen of Dr. J. R. Buchanan of Cincinnati, formerly known to our citizens as an able and accomplished lecturer on the science of neurology. It is quite plain from the production in question that the doctor has not confined himself to the study of the physiological system, of which we believe he is the author, but has evidently thought deeply upon other subjects vitally concerning the well being and progress of society. Whatever may be thought of the positions of this pamphlet, we cannot deny to it the merit of great beauty of style and force of logic. The whole argument is based upon the proposition that the earth is the original gift of God to man, and as such belongs of right to the human race in general, and not to the individuals of the race separately. The author insists that the land is not the product of man's labor any more than air, sunshine, or water, and that originally this gift of God ought to have been left as free as those lighter, but indispensable elements must ever be, from their very nature. The artificial and unnatural laws which have sprung up and become fastened upon society have thrown immense obstacles in the way of the bare perception of this great truth, as the doctor deems it, besides at the same time interposing barriers almost insurmountable to its reception and adoption into the framework of government. It is insisted, however, that these obstacles may be overcome, and the rights of the people restored to them, without any injustice to the present proprietors of land, and without any convulsions in the great elements of society.

"Dr. Buchanan explained in his essay, as Mr. George does in his works now, that he did not mean to annul the existing titles to land. 'Far from it,' Dr. Buchanan said. 'Such a scheme would be a miserable climax of folly and injustice, fit only to render the great principle equally odious and ridiculous.' The doctor insisted that he proposed to 'maintain in legislation the broad principle that the nation owns the soil, and that this ownership is paramount to all individual claims,' and from this fundamental proposition as a corner-stone the superstructure was to be built up. The present proprietors of the soil were not to be disturbed in their possession, and the government was not to interfere in the details of agriculture, renting and leasing estates, determining possession, etc. But the owners were to be considered as the tenants of the nation, paying rent to it for the benefit of the people at large. This rent was to be extremely small at first, estimated upon the value of the soil alone, without the improvements, that being the original gift of nature, free to all. It was to be increased, however, in the course of two generations, until a rent of about 5 per cent should have been exacted from all the tenants of the nation--that is, from all who occupied any portion of the soil. The rent thus raised--a vast revenue--was to be applied to the establishment of free colleges, free schools, free libraries, and other institutions calculated to improve and benefit the citizen.

"This is the doctrine, substantially, as put forth at the present time by Mr. George, and by so many persons supposed to be entirely new. Again we remark that 'there is nothing new under the sun.'"

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